Comics Thread

[Disco King]

Franny and Zooey is the only book I haven't read yet, I think. But I heard that his estate is releasing some unpublished material soon.

[slunken]

I've read Building Stories. Kinda meh on chris ware but I'm supposed to like it I guess.

[Disco King]

I like him. Only thing that bothers me is his weird perspective and his insistence on isometric projection. I mean, I know that it's a stylistic choice, and not because he's some underskilled artist who hasn't mastered perspective or something, but I just disagree with his opinion that perspective conflicts with composition or "makes the page a mess," some of my favorite comics layouts are because of great use of perspective.

I've only read some of Acme Comics Library. My favorite feature so far has been "Rusty Brown". "Jimmy Corrigan" is okay, too. Not too big into "Quimby the Mouse," though.

[slunken]

Floating world comics is putting out a collection of Carlos gonzalez's "test tube" mini-series. I love his work.

[Disco King]

Never heard of him. Google results looked cool. I'll check him out. Thanks.

Anybody hear about the "DCYou" campaign? DC kind of diversified their line and added some interesting new books, but none of them are selling because all people want to read is a million Batman, Justice League, Harley Quinn, and special event books, so a lot are getting the can and they'll probably go back to the homogenous house style they've had since the 2011 relaunch.

The new version of Omega Men is pretty cool. Whereas the original version was unambiguous protagonists, the new interpretation is sort of like Space Hamas, fighting an oppressive power, but using questionable tactics themselves.

The updated Prez is another favorite. Relevant political satire, like Chaykin stuff without all the sex.

Martian Manhunter finally has his first ongoing in, like, over a decade. He's one of my favorites, so it's nice to see him actually being used.

Too bad THE RIDE IS OGRE.

[Elphenor]

Martian Manhunter so OP

every power you can think of depending on what's convenient for the situation

[Disco King]

It was even funnier back in the day. He would arbitrarily exhibit powers for the sake of plot that would never be referenced again.


I still have a soft spot for the guy, though. Superman is an alien, but he was raised on Earth, so though he feels alienation, he's essentially one of us. J'onzz, on the other hand, lived most of his life on Mars, had a wife and children, and then everything he'd ever known was ripped away from him.

Maybe because that central emotional core gives him so much character potential, yet he's sort of a blank slate because nobody ever does shit with him, he was always the character that I'd fantasize about getting the chance to write most (if I ever seriously considered being a comics-writer-for-hire getting shitty royalties, and if it were even possible in the first place because somehow I bypassed the cronyism of the cape comics industry).

Fan-fiction storytime: My main idea for a Martian Manhunter comic would be to take him back to his roots, when he worked as a police detective by day. It'd sort of be this noir-meets-sci-fi thing where he works as a detective by day, but when he encounters paranormal cases too big for the department, he secretly handles them as Martian Manhunter. Stuff like ghosts, aliens, psychics, conspiracies, whatever other sorts of things TheOmegaConcern thinks are real. His adventures would take place in a Colorado town surrounded by desert with a retro populuxe aesthetic.

As far as where I'd take the character, I always thought he'd be the perfect guy to explore PTSD with, seeing as his past is so traumatizing. Like, sometimes he has flashbacks to the death of his family and species and feels guilt for not being able to save them. He kind of hordes Martian relics, so his apartment is this cluttered approximation of his home on Mars.

It'd deal with how isolated a character like him would be. He is shy and doesn't speak much to his colleagues at the department, because he sort of fears rejection from humans a bit. And, being on Earth is just a lonely experience, because on Mars, everybody was connected to some sort of telepathic network where you could feel everyone's collective presence at once. Earth species aren't telepathic, so on Earth, he's cut off from "the voice," and it's sort of like feeling cold all the time. I'd kind of deal with the idea of epistemic closure; his brain evolved differently from ours, so there are concepts that are conceivable to his mind that aren't conceivable to ours. As a result, he has no way of relating or sharing some of his emotions and thoughts with anyone else. They don't have the biology to understand.

But, despite the fact that he's a stranger, he loves humans very much, but unlike, say, Superman, he protects them without making his presence known. He is very sensitive to seeing humanity repeat the mistakes of his species, such as xenophobia (I'd introduce the idea that, unlike in previous comics, the White Martians weren't really "warlike" and "evil," they were a race oppressed by the Greens, and labeled as "violent" the same way Europeans labeled the natives of the lands they conquered as "savages". So, J'onn kind of caries the fact that his group benefited from the suffering on another with him, and you can do all sorts of racism allegory stuff with a character from a literal alien race).

TL;DR: X-Files with a sad lonely green guy and heavy-handed metaphors

[Elphenor]

I'd read that

[run2pee]

So Slunken how about that Moore swamp thing huh?? I loved that shit.

And speaking of vertigo, anyone read The Preacher? It's incredible also (although a bit gratuitous with the violence/sex).

[The exploding boy]

Preacher was brought up recently on the political forum of all places.

It was in fact to make the observation that while i do like preacher at its core, it suffered from 90s syndrome of being shocking/gross just for the sake of being shocking/gross. Like, let's see how far we can take it.I mean...i'm not shocked PERSONALLY but you know, when i see full page spread of whats his name (its been a while since i read it) fuck a woman made out of raw chickens, i'm rolling my eyes and little and thinking, "now was that really necessary?".I'd assume Garth Ennis had a very religious upbringing and had some shit he needed to exorcize. Being that he IS irish, i'd say in fact that i'ts extremely likely.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

So Slunken how about that Moore swamp thing huh?? I loved that shit.

it's been several years since i read it and have been meaning to go back. i have it loaded and ready to go.

pretty amazing though, if you're into text-heavy psychological introspection.

haven't read Preacher in about a decade. it was actually Ennis' work in Preacher that got me into reading his run of Punisher MAX (so mindblowingly amazing) which in turn got me into reading other older Marvel things.

[run2pee]

Yeah I need to reread that Moore swamp thing too, it's been awhile. My favorite was when he went "into the green" and the art got crazy psychedelic. Also when he and his lady friend did it, man that art was so kickas.

Got me interested briefly in Constantine but i couldn't keep it up, too much of a smartass.

Did you ever get around to sandman? That's possibly my favorite thing I've read of all media...

[run2pee]

Originally Posted by The exploding boy

Preacher was brought up recently on the political forum of all places.

It was in fact to make the observation that while i do like preacher at its core, it suffered from 90s syndrome of being shocking/gross just for the sake of being shocking/gross. Like, let's see how far we can take it.I mean...i'm not shocked PERSONALLY but you know, when i see full page spread of whats his name (its been a while since i read it) fuck a woman made out of raw chickens, i'm rolling my eyes and little and thinking, "now was that really necessary?".I'd assume Garth Ennis had a very religious upbringing and had some shit he needed to exorcize. Being that he IS irish, i'd say in fact that i'ts extremely likely.

Big time, I agree. And the titular hotheaded jingo wasn't very sympathetic. It was the humor probably that kept me going with preacher. I especially loved how the primary villain's head came to resemble a penis.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

Did you ever get around to sandman? That's possibly my favorite thing I've read of all media...

yes but i don't think i read all of it. can't remember where i left off and don't have much desire to revisit anytime soon.

still slowly going through the 90s ghost rider run.

[Disco King]

So, Darwyn Cooke passed away today. This hits me kinda hard. He is one of my favourite artists.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...uary-1.3582705

[Elphenor]

I remember you told me to read All Star Superman awhile back and I did and it was excellent

I really like these stand alone "well what if this happened" alternate reality type stories

rather than the episodic "canon" stuff that I just can't keep up with

[Disco King]

Yeah, those stand-alone miniseries and graphic novels are great for people who can't really keep up with the monthly stuff. Even I am way behind on all the titles I collect, and instead of catching up on all of them, I think I'll just choose a few I really liked and otherwise just start fresh with the new titles DC is putting out for Rebirth. In fact, I've been thinking about reducing the amount of monthlies I get so that I can get back to buying more trades, because I kind of miss when I'd be reading a bunch of comics from all eras instead of just whatever is coming out now.

Have you read Superman: Red Son? It's another self-contained one. It's essentially, "what would happen is Kal-El's rocket landed in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas?" It's been forever since I've read it, but I remember that it wasn't just the "well Superman would be a bad guy if he was raised by the evil empire not good like when he's American duh" bullshit, and was a pretty interesting variation on both Superman and Luthor.

Superman for All Seasons is another all-time favourite of mine.

[slunken]

has preacher been turned into a tv show?

[Disco King]

Didn't I hear something about Seth Rogen doing that?

I dunno, I've never read Preacher. Hear that it's good, but doesn't really look up my alley. Might give it a try, though.

I think I recently picked up a trade that collects some of the early 2000 A.D. comics that UK creators who would later become big in American comics (like Alan Grant and Grant Morrison, etc) worked on. I gotta check if Garth Ennis is in there.

Hopefully it also has Frazer Irving's Simping Detective, but I doubt it, because he's relatively new to the scene and not as big as, like, Gaiman and Milligan and Moore and stuff.

[slunken]

Preacher is good if you like finite epics or garth ennis' dark humor.

[TuralyonW3]

rip darwyn cooke

preacher show can't succeed, the comic gets like x-rated

this was fun:

[slunken]

Dude, have you read Zero?



Had a lot of fun reading things like Palookaville, Angry Youth Comix, Asterios Polyp, Charles Burn stuff, Michael DeForge, Mickey Z. As you can see I have no sense of history with comics.

I finally found a digital copy of Marra's OMWOT, but in the meantime I had purchased all of Blades and Lasers, and Night Business. Great stuff.

What's good for you with comics lately?

[TuralyonW3]

I love angry youth (and all Johnny Ryan... You've read prison pit right?), asterios polyp, deforge, and Marra... I'll add ZERO to my list, haven't heard of it

I've actually been reading Jonathan Hickman's Avengers run. Superhero comics cranked to 11, pretty heady stuff actually

[Disco King]

I've been meaning to read Asterios Polyp, but I'm waiting for a softcover edition. Hardcovers are expensive.

Haven't read Palookaville myself. In my stack of unread shit is one of Seth's other works, something about brothers who own an auto shoppe or something, I can't remember.

I've been on a Green Arrow kick recently, because Ben Percy's current series is not bad and is washing away the stain of the horseshit that was post-reboot Green Arrow. I went back to re-read some Mike Grell stuff, I read that Mike W. Barr mini that I had never actually heard of until I stumbled across it at a comic convention, and I'm finally getting around to checking out the rest of Kevin Smith's run on the character (I had only read the first trade).

[TuralyonW3]

Polyp is at like any library

[Disco King]

Is anybody reading current Marvel? I'm not following any titles, but I recently picked up all the issues for the current Black Panther and Black Widow books, because they have Ta-Nehisi Coates writing the former, and Mark Waid/Chris Samnee on the latter (their Daredevil was amazing). Also picked up the first trade of the Vision series because Tom King's Omega Men was one of my favourite comics in recent years. But other than that, I have no idea what the fuck is happening over there. Like, they did some "Secret Wars" retread that apparently had Crisis-like multiverse shit going on with the regular and Ultimate universes and time fuckery and all that stuff one usually associates with DC. And I'm like, is this a reboot? And now they are doing "Civil War II" because obviously the first one was just great. And Miles Morales in in the regular Marvel Universe now...? I don't get how it's possible for him to coexist with a Peter Parker if his whole backstory is becoming Spidey because the Peter Parker of his universe died...

I think I'm starting to understand how DC-virgins feel when they try to understand the DC Universe.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

Polyp is at like any library

I forgot that liberries are things.

Now that you remind me, I was planning to make use of the library for pretty much any large volumes of comics that I don't think I want to spend money on (like, the ten billion big-ass volumes collecting the Knightfall or No Man's Land Batman storylines). I'll just add Polyp to that list. Though if I like it, I'll probably end up buying it anyway.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by TuralyonW3

I've actually been reading Jonathan Hickman's Avengers run. Superhero comics cranked to 11, pretty heady stuff actually

I keep hearing good things about this but I think I'm either scared of superhero comics or I'm afraid to plunge in, thinking there will be too much stuff that I'm missing. I think the Marvel universe is just too complicated for me.

[Disco King]

I have the first trade of Hickman's Fantastic Four run, but haven't read it yet.

There are a lot of good superhero comics that don't require a lot of background knowledge to enjoy. Like, having references to other comics is always fun for us geeks, but a lot of superhero comics have like absolutely no narrative merit and are just about masturbating to their own mythology. I think Alan Moore was on to something when he noted that a lot of current superhero comics writers were weaned on a diet of nothing but other superhero comics, and so instead of bringing in new ideas, there's a lot of creative inbreeding, leading to cycling through the same bullshit.

Sturgeon's Law applies and 90% of the stuff is crud, but there's enough awesome superhero stuff to keep me a fan.

[TuralyonW3]

Originally Posted by slunken

I keep hearing good things about this but I think I'm either scared of superhero comics or I'm afraid to plunge in, thinking there will be too much stuff that I'm missing. I think the Marvel universe is just too complicated for me.

it's hard to say. background info definitely enhances. how is your knowledge of marvel characters in general?