The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: Bozack on March 12, 2004, 05:56:00 am
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What comics is everyone reading?
Also, I love the words "double deuce."
I'm reading:
Venom
Optic Nerve
Marvel Knights: Daredevil
MK: Captain America (the latest issue has FIDEL CASTRO in it, MAN)
MK: Fantastic Four
Ultimate Fantastic Four
Eightball
Midnight Mass
Criminal Macabre/Any of the Niles/Templesmith stuff
B.P.R.D.
Hellboy: Weird Tales
X-Static
1602
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Savage Dragon
Invincible
Oh, and online, check out Platinum Grit (http://www.platinumgrit.com).
I'm sure I forgot some stuff. Oh, the Batman "Arkham Asylum" trade is delicious.
WHAT REALLY GOOD STUFF AM I MISSING?
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Mr. Natural.
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Comics have gotten entirely too expensive and inconvenient to follow these days (I remember when subscriptions to Captain America and Solo Avengers were enough to keep me feeling abreast and Hot Stuff and satisfied), but I thought I'd Use This Space to recommend the Acme Novelty Library to the like two people who read this board that haven't heard of it. It is one of those rare comics that is Actually worth the Price printed on the Cover.
Oh, also, just satisfying the Obscuro Hour Requirement: the Grant Morrison run on Animal Man. And any Judge Dredd weekly strips published between like 1989 and 1995. FYI.
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I feel the need to expand the recommendation of the Grant Morrison Animal Man run to the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol run as well. And I don't really recommend either for people who take poorly to seeing fits of authorial lunacy occasionally overtake and overwhelm the storytelling.
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I need to read more comics; it's mostly been American Splendor lately.
Grant Morrison has enough recommendations that I feel safe in searching some stuff out, but I'm still wavering on Cerebus. I keep hearing the same thing about it -- "very very good unless you consider that the writer has been going explosively insane for about the last half of its run" -- which makes me intrigued but ambivalent. (Intrigued in that "so, wait, if it's good enough to cancel that explosive insanity?" way and ambivalent in a "I'm not sure giving Dave Sim money is a good idea" way.)
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I gave up during the whole Collector's Bubble phase and "Maximum Carnage" et al.
The only ones I've bought recently are Liberty Meadows, The Tick, and Ghost in the Shell 2.
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Oh....so....so it's just me....
*weeps*
Yeah, I really don't know how I feel about Cerebus. However, every time I go to the store and see like 15 900-page Cerebus trade paperbacks lined up, the part of me that wants to read it dies a little. THE DUDE HAS NO MERCY. I've already got to read the other 9 or so Savage Dragon trades, just to catch up.
I can't believe I forgot about Acme Novelty Library. Also, Dre.
It's really sad, actually; at this point, I'm filled with apathy towards actual, you know, literature. I was just at a book store and had no idea what I wanted to read, which, for me, is a really bizarre feeling. However, right now I am all about the comic books. I am a sick, sick man.
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Yeah, I really don't know how I feel about Cerebus. However, every time I go to the store and see like 15 900-page Cerebus trade paperbacks lined up, the part of me that wants to read it dies a little. THE DUDE HAS NO MERCY.
Daaaaamn. This may be a little expensive.
Is Cerebus still a pure indie book? (Oddly, this will probably influence my decision -- I find myself more likely to buy it if it's not, strangely enough. I definitely don't want the percentage of my purchasing cost that goes to Sim to be greater than the percentage of the comic which is entertaining and not Dave Sim ranting about how I am both an evil world-conquering conspirator and also clearly an inferior, irrational being.)
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::stands::
Hi, my name is CortJstr and I've never read Hellboy.
::sits, hiding face::
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Hi, my name is CortJstr and I've never read Hellboy.
WELL YOU BETTER GET STARTED IS ALL I CAN SAY.
Seriously, I think that you probably won't be allowed in comic book stores come April if you haven't seen the movie. Which looks alternatively awesome and godawful, depending on how I feel when I watch the trailer. I mean, Ron Pearlman, yes, David Hyde Pierce, yes (he was in Wet Hot, man!), Hellboy, yes, Del Toro....ehhhh. The only thing I saw by him was Blade 2, and , although I hear his indie stuff is amazing, Blade 2 was like Blade 1 with extra Kristofferson and less Dorff, which I was not a fan of.
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I just reread Maus 1, but other than that, most of my comic-related energy goes into feeding my Dan Clowes obcession.
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Hi, my name is CortJstr and I've never read Hellboy.
Okay, the most awesome thing about Hellboy (old school fan, owns the t-shirt regrettably worn by pestilent-rollerblade hellspawn in the underrated Dogma) is that Mike Mignola does his damn research. Just about every Hellboy story I've read ties into some myth, fairytale, urban legend, or what-have-you. And it's not this sort of ostentatious "look at me, I'm well read" sort of reference, either; it's just sort of there, and the stories are good and solid Weird Mystery on their own, and the (ahem) Real World relation is just icing.
That and the damn shadows. What style.
Which looks alternatively awesome and godawful, depending on how I feel when I watch the trailer.
The trailers actually reassured me. Perlman as Hellboy looks and sounds really good, just for a start. Hopefully the people behind the movie realize that Hellboy needs to be both urbane and totally fuck*ng rocking. Don't listen to me, though; I allowed myself to thoroughly enjoy LXG and Hulk in spite of their source material.
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Best Buy is offering a free dvd with some Hellboy behind the scenes stuff on it.
I pick up a couple of them every time I'm in BB just for the free keepcase.
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WHAT REALLY GOOD STUFF AM I MISSING?
sex?
ok thats a joke, i'm into Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine and that kind of stuff, what else in that vein is out there?
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I really wish I could participate meaningfully in this thread. Me and comics are a lot like me and music -- I haven't followed the scene closely since the late 80's/early 90's.
But I was a fan back in the day. Had a roommate who was (and is, for that matter) a BIG fan of the DC universe. He also had a huge thing for Olivia Newton-John (which is neither here nor there, but odd nonetheless).
I was surprised to see that Cerebrus is still around. Never did read much of it -- probably only two or three issues. Interesting. Independant comics were just taking off around then. Two of my favorites were The Badger (Norbert) and especially Grimjack. Grimjack absolutely rocked.
I also think I have every issue of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
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This thread has made me remember that I should really, really catch up with Groo. I haven't read it in... oh, ten years, now? Shameful, really.
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I thought Sergio Argones had died. Is this not correct?
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I thought Sergio Argones had died. Is this not correct?
Please don't let this be correct.
~Paul
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Update. Thankfully Sergio Aragones is alive and well according to his website (http://www.sergioaragones.com/) he is scheduled to appear at the Charles Shultz museum on March 20.
Also, August you're a bastard.
~Paul
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Well sheesh, I'm glad I'm wrong too.
MAD artists have been dropping dead like, well, mad lately. Both Don Martin and Dave Berg have left us recently and I think Jack Davis, too. I wonder if Al Jaffee is still around?
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However, every time I go to the store and see like 15 900-page Cerebus trade paperbacks lined up, the part of me that wants to read it dies a little...
The Skinny On Cerebus, From Someone Who Owns 1000+ Pages Of It:
The first eponymous "phone book" is pretty much comic-book parody. It's hit-or-miss but the hits far outshine and outweigh the misses. Sim basically took the whole "wandering invincible barbarian" schtick and made it fresh by (a) okay the barbarian and bad-ass is an aardvark and (b) he basically does this whole meta-comics thing wherein he meets lots of thinly-veiled stand-ins for comic book icons (e.g. Professor X, Man-Thing, Captain America, Red Sonja, etc) and reacts to them through his main character. This is Funny and It Works.
Then suddenly Sim got all Serious in High Society. That Worked, too. It Worked really fuck*ng well in fact and is a hilarious skewering of the democratic process and an excellent goddamn read besides. He also really found his artistic footing here, over time, and the book is really a visual feast. The man loves the comic art form and does it justice.
He continued to be serious and Complex in Church & State. It seems as though he was No Longer fuck*ng Around; all these characters that had been borne of slapstick and parody suddenly had depth and motivation and genuine creepy life to them. This is not to say the humor had gone; far from it. C&S basically ends with Cerebus being (justly) indicted for the self-centered cunt that he is. I only mention this because Sim would later go completely insane; we're talking a one hundred and eighty degree spinout here, folks.
Jaka's Story was sensitive and excellent. It could stand alone as a great read. Here's the problem; Dave Sim could write and has written deep, complex, dynamic, and realistic female characters. Jaka's Story is proof of that. Because with Mothers & Daughters (a storyline spanning several volumes) he turned into a epileptic misogynist.
I missed Melmoth (which from what I read was almost entirely Cerebus-free and a striking portrait of Oscar Wilde's declining years) but I got right back into Mothers & Daughters. The satire and weirdness and complexity were all there. Great. I was really getting into it, i.e. I could hardly wait to get my mitts on the next issue. This was good and I was reading it in real-time as opposed to all at once in a collection.
Then came the chapter of M&D called Reads, in which Sim pretty much capsized everything by devoting at least half a goddamned issue, every month to plain text. This plain text did not further the story; it was some goofy allegory about the comics business with a transparent Dave Sim stand-in as its almost Randian defiant protagonist. Which is to say yawwwwwn. The text bits plus the increasingly symbolic storyline plus his whacked editorial column in each issue was all basically women fucked everything up by ever having existed and I was torn. I liked Cerebus and his story, a lot, but I was sick and tired of the way it was going and of having to defend myself to people who were rightfully offended by Sim's screeds. That's where I just stopped reading.
I wish Sim hadn't gone nuts because I really want to know how everything turned out.
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WHAT REALLY GOOD STUFF AM I MISSING?
sex?
Ha, yes, sadly, but since I'm posting on an online forum about what comic books I like best, that bird has already flown, man.
Thanks, Saint, now I'm going to have to read it. But you know what would be the best? Walking into a comic book store, picking up the first one, opening to the first page and starting to read. See how far you can get until they realize what's up.
Also, I forgot "The Goon", "Smax"(which is like a continuation of Alan Moore's Top Ten stuff) and "Fused."
Speaking of which, who else is pissed off Alan Moore's not going to write anymore comics? Also, who always wants to sing, "Alan Moore, Alan Moore, riding through the glen! Alan Moore, Alan Moore, with his band of men!"
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Also, who always wants to sing, "Alan Moore, Alan Moore, riding through the glen! Alan Moore, Alan Moore, with his band of men!"
Well, I didn't before, but I sure as hell want to now.
Anwyay, Alan Moore's sacking it in? I suppose that's fair enough. It's a sad day, but it isn't really as if the guy hasn't created the entertainment worth of ten mortals already.
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Well. I guess it would surprise no one anymore to discover that I tend to end up reading the manga stuff as opposed to comics.
My best mate is pretty much Brodie from Mall Rats. I pop over to his and see his latest comic purchases and wish I could get involved, but I honestly am scared of how much money I'd have to/end up spending.
While I do love some of the (the other problem here - my lack of memory for names) Frank Moore stuff (he did the dark return of Batman not long back) and some of the McFarlane stuff is stunning too, there are things like Usagi Yojimbo and the Bebop Mangas that cost less to read and come in more forgivable formats.
I also go for some of the graphic novel stuff more.
At the end of the day, there are lots of comics I dig, but I never get to read them all, and I hate that. But it would take too much damn money to do so, and it's not easy to do over here anyway. fuck*ng Forbidden Planet.
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::stands::
Hi, my name is CortJstr and I've never read Hellboy.
::sits, hiding face::
It's okay CortJstr. We all have our secret shames.
I... I...- I THINK THE INVISIBLES IS REALLY REALLY BORING!
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The Invisibles mostly shares my previous Morrison caveat, with the difference that as far as I know it was Morrison's baby from the beginning. This means that instead of "authorial lunacy overtaking linear storytelling" it's more about "authorial lunacy overtaking other, different authorial lunacy" so it's mostly worth reading if you really just want to watch Morrison be totally crazy and occasionally digress into a storyline based on his morphine hallucinations during surgery.
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Just finished the long-delayed Marvel Ultimates #13, which ended the series...almost exactly the way I thought it would.
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Today, I picked up the paperback of the Hellboy/Savage Dragon crossover. Imagine some sort of geek peanut butter, and geek chocolate. Now, imagine, IF YOU WILL, if one were to get the PEANUT BUTTER in the CHOCOLATE, or, if you were, the CHOCOLATE in the PEANUT BUTTER. One or both parties might be angry at first, but THEN...when they TASTE the delicious concoction created....
Also, has anyone else seen the Hellboy movie?