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Author Topic: Ex Machina  (Read 7318 times)

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jay-ell

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Ex Machina
« on: January 09, 2008, 03:23:29 am »
So, I've been reading the first four books of Ex Machina, a graphic novel about a guy who can talk to machines like Dr. Dolittle can talk to animals.  It's very cool, very bloody, and very thought-provoking -- not necessarily in that order.  Anyone else into these? 

If you're not, but you'd like to be, book 1 is available for free download at the link above. 

If you are, what do you think?  I don't think it's the greatest writing I've seen in a graphic novel, and certainly not the best art, but despite the sometimes gratuitously violent gore scenes, it is a smart book.  I don't think it's as smart as it thinks it is -- it's no Uncle Sam -- but it's not the philosophical cotton candy that is the new Buffy comics, either. 

Thoughts? 
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smick

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2008, 05:37:14 am »
Oh Vaughn... How I love you.

This is the best comic ever.   In my mind when I read, Kremlin has the same voice as Vlad.   


I recently just started on Y: The last man.

JAM?
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lprkn

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2008, 05:49:52 am »
Great, another Thing to spend Money on. Comics are a weakness of mine, although I tend to stick to graphic novels and trades these days because I find them slightly more cost effective (sorry, traditioanl comics industry) and actually more enjoyable method of reading my comics.

A quick count reveals roughly forty volumes on my shelf. Yeesh.

*edited to correct for ineptitude at using italics*
« Last Edit: January 11, 2008, 03:36:33 am by lprkn »
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Doc

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2008, 09:01:08 am »
I'll look at Ex Machina in a bit, sounds cool, but first anyone else reading 100 bullets? I'm slowly working through the trades and they are hell of awesome so far. Also chomping at the bit for the next Queen and Country.
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lprkn

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2008, 03:44:47 am »
Never got around to 100 Bullets yet, but I should, considering how everyone loves it. I think I flipped through the first issue, and there were naked chicks fighting in a prison shower or something? I don't know, just didn't appeal to me based on that, mostly. That and the art in that issue. Probably should give it a second look.

The main one that I follow religiously is Fables, and I pick up other stuff randomly. Oh, and Hellboy. I'll have to check out Queen and Country.

Question: Did anybody else ever read Atomika? I have like the first 4 issues or something but I don't know if it continued on. My impression was that it was to be a miniseries of some sort. But, the subject matter was right up my alley, with old gods of the elements and the earth and such being challenged by a new god of atomic power. Set in Russia. And the art was very dynamic.

Screw it, I'm looking it up again.
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littlefallsmets

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2008, 03:55:52 am »
I am such an unhip comic reader.

I read almost no indie/realistic stuff.

I read... Thor and X-Men and Green Lantern and Booster Gold and JSA and stuff.

Something in me still needs the mainstream superhero stuff, just now that I'm older I only read the better written mainstream superhero stuff.
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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2008, 06:33:56 am »
Quote from: lprkn on January 11, 2008, 03:44:47 am
Never got around to 100 Bullets yet, but I should, considering how everyone loves it. I think I flipped through the first issue, and there were naked chicks fighting in a prison shower or something? I don't know, just didn't appeal to me based on that, mostly. That and the art in that issue. Probably should give it a second look.
The first one had a gang setting but it moves past that pretty quickly, I'm not a big fan of the art style but the story is interesting enough that I'm hanging on.
Also the chicks in the shower were only on one page and they didn't do any fighting, it was a fake out to make you think it was going that way.
Fables I've looked at a lot but never read.


LFM: At least tell me you reads you some Deadpool? I'm not a regular but damn it can be a funny book.
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Ben-San

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2008, 01:20:58 pm »
Ex Machina is pretty good stuff. I should catch up with it.

Smets, the problem with JSA is that it's Geoff Johns' personal playground for the most part, and the problem with Geoff Johns is that he's basically Eau de James Robinson: smells a little like him, desperately attempting to be or at least evoke him, nowhere near as good. He wants to be the next in line to build the DCU's history after Roy Thomas and James Robinson, but the problem is that he fixates so hard on retro continuity porn that, unlike Thomas and Robinson, he refuses to permit any new story with his toys. This makes it all the more frustrating when he stumbles on the seed of a good idea (most recently Cyclone) and then refuses to permit any kind of possibilities to sprout.

I've found his Green Lantern work extraordinarily loathsome in particular, actively undoing and retconning pretty much every story since the 1970s that made Hal Jordan even vaguely interesting. His slogan is Hal Jordan Can Do No Wrong And If It Looks Like He Did Wrong It's Your Fault For Not Seeing Why He's Right. I used to be one of the few Hal Jordan fans remaining in comics fandom and now Johns has successfully made me entirely unable to palate the character. God damn it, Geoff Johns.

I hear good things about Booster Gold but I am hard pressed to motivate myself to try to find and read it knowing what Johns managed to do to other characters and teams I loved. I was an enormous fan of the Giffen/DeMatteis JL run, which is pretty much the defining Booster Gold material, and.. eugh. I really just don't want to see it flushed down the Johns.
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jay-ell

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2008, 03:09:14 pm »
See, I'm the opposite of LFM.  I'm unhip in that I don't read the mainstream stuff at all.  I had to have Pedro explain some of the lesser characters in the X-Men movie, for pete's sake.  I basically only read the stuff Pedro puts in my hand, which tends to be politically or historically based stuff.  Or, you know, Buffy Season 8. 

When I was a kid, as I recently noted elsewhere, I absconded with my brother's discarded Spider-man comics, including a reprint (I hope it was a reprint, because it's long gone now) of The Amazing Spider-man #5, the first appearance of The Lizard.  He also had a bunch of Archies, although those might have belonged to my Dad's much-younger brother (who was 12 when my brother was born).  I never really liked them, but I read them at least once.  I was Not Supposed to read comic books -- they were for boys, you see -- but I never got in trouble for it, per se.  Mom never would buy me new books, though -- I asked just about ever time I went to the grocery store with her and she always said no. 

I wish I were better versed in the standard comics mythology, because I really enjoy comics but I feel stupid talking to real comic book geeks about them because I missed so much of the classic stuff by not having access when I was a kid. 
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wombat

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2008, 03:22:13 pm »
I don't read any comics that are printed on pieces of paper that are bound together. And I live about five blocks from a comics store, so it's not lack of accessibility.  I just never have and wouldn't know where to start.
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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2008, 03:41:01 pm »
I'm like JL as far as classic comics go, I like stories that I know have a purpose and are going to end, eventually anyway.

Although I'm taking this as an opportunity to re-iterate that anyone who can get their hands on a trade of old Spirit comics should pay any money and enjoy the awesomeness. Freaking art people. Apart from Ebony White, but they tend not to reprint the stories that he featured heavily in.
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jay-ell

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2008, 03:57:47 pm »
Quote from: wombat on January 11, 2008, 03:22:13 pm
I just never have and wouldn't know where to start.

Is that a cry for help?  Because...I probably can't help you much, but some of these guys can, I'm sure of it. 
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lprkn

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2008, 04:07:51 pm »
Quote from: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2008, 03:55:52 am
I read... Thor and X-Men and Green Lantern and Booster Gold and JSA and stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I totally groove on the superheroes as well. Thor and Captain America are my two faves. I just don't have the funds to follow all the titles that I would like to. I actually have a subscription to the Ultimates, left over from the last run. The current one looks like crap, though.
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jay-ell

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2008, 04:50:51 pm »
Apropos nothing whatsoever, I really liked the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  I saw the movie first, and enjoyed the book much, much more. 

And I liked the movie a lot. 
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smick

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Re: Ex Machina
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2008, 06:02:33 pm »
I read Cap-A, Iron Man, and Spider Man.    (Though I need to go to my box at TFAW.  It's been neglected for 2 months).

I also read Runaways, which is what made me love Brian K. Vaughn, which is what brought me to my only non-mainstream title of Ex-Machina and well, I guess Y: The Last Man.

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