I think I can honestly say the past week was one of the most stressful weeks of my life in recent memory. Today I have the day off, so with the exception of doing loads of laundry, I'm making it a "me" day and until the wife gets home from work tonight, I'm gonna be spending my time on the couch reading comics.
So Hubski, talk comics with me today. Mainstream, indie, web comics, newspaper strips, whatever you want. What have you read lately? What's on your radar? What have you been dying to talk to people about?
Here's my reading list for the next few hours . . .
Valiant Masters: Ninjak Volume 1 - It's a hardcover collection of Valiant's original run of Ninjak from the '90s. Ninjak is probably one of the Valiant heroes that I like better and it'll be fun going back and rereading his story from a couple of decades back. I'm not going to lie though. In comparison to today's comics, I know the story doesn't hold up as well. That's okay though, because I'm reading this one purely for the artwork which, from a first glance, looks mostly beautiful with rich shadows, dynamic angles and poses, and a great color pallete.
Planetoid Volume 1 - Was there ever a volume 2? I don't know. Either way, I remember liking this the first time I read it, so I figure a revisit is in order. It's a sci-fine story about a man who crashes on a planet made of metal and how he helps form a community of people to survive and be self sufficient.
Prophet Volume 1 - This is one of the first books to really get me into the idea of science fiction being more than just what I associate with Star Trek, my dad's old Asminov books, etc. It's well written and slowly paced, with artwork that is beyond gorgeous and everything from the creatures to the world's to the technology displayed is mind blowingly creative. If I have time, I'm going to read all four volumes that I have today. I just got Volume 4 this past week and haven't read it yet and since the fifth and final volume is coming out soon, I figure starting from the top sounds like a good idea.
Forty Wacks - It's another collection of EC Comics, this time centered around their crime comics. At first I was opposed to the idea of reading EC's crime comics, but I'm currently going through Aces High as well, which has a few crime comics mixed in with the war stories. I haven't actually found anything too objectionable among them (in fact, they're very tame by today's standards), so I figured I'd give Forty Wacks a shot. It's a decent sized book so I don't think I'll read the whole thing today, but for what I do read I'll post my thoughts on it here.
Comics never resonated with me, for some reason. So the huge resurgence in the comic book industry of the last 20 years has left me largely on the sideline, kinda watching curiously, like attending an Australian Rules Football game... I get what's going on, I see why the fans like it, but there's a lot of stuff happening that I don't get because I'm not "in" the culture. So it was really surprising to me when I moved back to the US after living in Budapest and working in the Balkans during the war in Kosovo, when I came across DMZ. Here I was, totally lonely in my home country, because I had all these experiences that nobody could relate to. I couldn't talk to anybody. And then I read DMZ, and I felt connected again. I could relate to it. I recognized the scenes and feelings and the environment depicted in these books. They provided a comfort, a grounding for me, when I couldn't find anything I could identify with outside my apartment. I only ever found the first four issues - and would eventually like to read the rest - but that was enough to give me some feeling of groundedness and connection. After that, I worked with a bunch of comics fiends, and they shared Sandman with me (amazing, obviously), and Fables, which I totally loved. I've also really enjoyed Ellen Forney's comix work, and the two Serenity (Firefly) stories I have read. So even me - a guy who doesn't find comics very compelling - can find something to love.
Since they just made a Suicide Squad movie, let me be a heretic and say that The Spectre was the better John Ostrander comic. You mentioned not having read Lucifer in a pervious thread. You and ThatFanficGuy should read Lucifer. The Mike Carey one, not the relaunch by some young adult novel writer that tries very hard. I reread Global Frequency again recently. It holds up better than I thought it would, but it's funny how Warren Ellis always looks overly optimistic in retrospect despite his reputation.
Is Mike Carey's one the original? Global Frequency! That's one I forgot. Amazing series. Well told, some interesting characters, the format of storytelling itself as well as what seems like stretches in which the plot turns compared to the mainstream media (like memetic lifeform or surgeons' cult of flesh).
One of my friends is heavily invested in comic books. Aside from any fees related to having the conditions rated and the cost of a direct deposit box for safe storage, do these things actually appreciate enough in value to justify him spending more than a few hours a week scoping deals on eBay? Rough guess, the guy has around $50k in comics, with some notables like the first X-Men signed by Stan Lee.
I agree with bfv, the chance of making money off comics these days is pretty rare. Your chance of picking up a first issue, first print comic and holding onto it to have it turn into something is pretty rare. I only have one instance myself, which happened a while back and then I got a reminder about it this past week. I was just at the comic shop on Friday, picking up some books that I ordered when I saw that they had sealed and graded issues of Saga 2 and 3 for $90 each. They told me a first printing for Saga issue 1 tends to go for more on e-bay. I tried Saga and hated it. I sold my first issues, read only once and bagged, for about $100 bucks store credit to a different comic shop a few years back. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have loved to hold onto them to make more money today. Except, 1) Saga is a rare instance and I never saw that coming. When I gave up my copies I just took advantage of someone willing to give me more for them than what I paid, letting him take the risk of them valuing or devaluing. 2) More often than not, speculation for comics doesn't really pan out, especially for Marvel and DC comics cause everyone buys those. 3) If I bought comics in hopes of making money, I think I'd lose out on what's important. Finding stories I love.
Thanks for the info, dude. That's a pretty cool hobby. My inability to suspend disbelief and generally unleash my imagination may be to blame for my current lack of interest in comic books. But that doesn't prevent me from apologizing on behalf of Hollywood for shitting all over a good thing.
It gets to be a lot of fun. The comics industry is full of creative people with a lot of stories to tell. The only major drawback is that there's never enough time or money to read everything you want. :P As for Hollywood? It's a mixed bag. I think for the most part, Marvel/Disney are sticking true to the spirit of the source material, if not the letter. DC/Warner Brothers on the other hand? I have no idea what black they're doing, but I don't think it's working.
I hope you'll forgive my fading memory of the books I've read. I don't remember all the books I've read whether they were good, so I may not be able to remember all of them. Hundred Bullets was amazing. Grim and not pretty, but amazing. It was as if centered on the bad and grim and dirty and bloody. Maybe it was the point, but it didn't hit my cup with that. The Sandman and all of its accompanying pieces. Never read Lucifer, but it was probably good. Ex Machina was odd by the end but interesting all the way. Really made the character shine by highlighting some of the caveats of actually becoming a superhero, then turning NYC mayor, then growing way beyond that in unexpected ways. Irredeemable/Incorruptable were both fantastic. They are a story of what would happen had Superman had ego issues and of a criminal whose moral compass suddenly turned half-circle. Most main characters have superpowers or are otherwise superhuman, but it's not a typical "superhero story". Think of it as the superhero world's Breaking Bad, with Walter/Plutonian starting off from season five on. I almost made a fanart for one of iconic scenes of Irredeemable; couldn't find the right combination for typography. The .PSD must be there somewhere, still. Time for a personal story: A friend once bought me a comic book of Iron Man - one that she saw in the kiosk, knowing barely anything of the guy - thinking that I might enjoy it. One morning, not to wake her up, I started reading the book. It was a very intimate story - considering how intimate those stories usually get - about Tony Stark talking to a supervillian. Said supervillian, prior to finding himself in custody of Mr. Stark, turned all of the living Paris into stone. There were people on the streets, running in fear and frozen as they were, much like people of Pompeii after Vesuvius erupted. It was unexpectedly deep and personal a story about Tony and his bouts with the desire to just murder the guy, right there, in his cell, with a single hit from the repulsor. There they are, battling cosmic threats on a seemingly weekly basis, subduing forces even the strongest of the Universe have barely strength to repel - and I'm hit with the very grounded perspective on what those almost clownishly-cliched threats actually cause to those who witnessed them. Terror, and disgust, and awe, and fury... Read through the book, imbibing it like nectar. For the life of me I can't remember the number of the issue. It may have been somewhere in the six hundreds of the Iron Man series that was ongoing three or four years ago (maybe more, considering that I read a translated book which are always behind the English originals).
Were all of these books that you read translated into Russian? If so, that's amazing. One of my friends is a huge fan of 100 Bullets. He loaned me the first two volumes and I don't remember much about them, but I do remember they were more than decent. I have all three volumes of Azzarello's Loveless and while it's been a few years since I've read that, it's also rather good. If I remember right, there were actually some relatively deep themes to both. I'll have to re-read Loveless and maybe consider giving 100 Bullets another shot. The Sandman is a classic, though I haven't read the whole series myself. Whenever someone brings it up, I always feel compelled to suggest The Unwritten. It's probably not as deep, but it is still compelling and very enjoyable. I can't say I know what issue of Iron Man you're talking about, let alone have read it, but the story sounds compelling. While I don't read a lot of mainstream Marvel and DC, I do like the themes writers explore with super heroes, especially when it paints their desires, actions, or the consequences of their behavior in a gray light. When explored by really good writers, you really stop and think about things. That might be part of the reason you like Irredeemable, because it explores some of those ideas.
No, I read all but the Iron Man issue in English. No access to them where I live. They sell translated Sandman in Tomsk, but that's incomparable. Loveless sounds interesting. Can you tell me more about The Unwritten? The Wiki page's plot didn't hook me to the book. Funny thing: I was gifted two comic books that day. One of them was the aforementioned fantastic short story. Another was Avengers, and it was as goofy as you'd expect from a children's cartoon. Blunt, obvious, even superficial. Experience tells me that most mainstream comics are closer to the goofy one than to the deep one, which is why I don't read mainstream.Were all of these books that you read translated into Russian?
I do like the themes writers explore with super heroes, especially when it paints their desires, actions, or the consequences of their behavior in a gray light.
There's a lot of different themes in The Unwritten, most of which probably go over my head. I think the biggest concept that appeals to me though, is how people as a collective whole can give power to something by believing in it. In general, it's a pretty decent modern fantasy story that's briskly paced. If you're a fan of classic literature, you might even get a bit more out of it, as characters such as Frankenstein's monster make appearances. Superhero stories, like any other form of story telling, runs the whole gamut from a mindless fun story with the villain of the month to a deep look into subjects such as duty, societal obligations, or what have you. What you get depends greatly on the writer and the story they want to tell as well as their ability to tell it well. So that fact that you got two different experiences from two different issues doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Personally, I can go for both kinds of stories, but sometimes the seemingly mindless ones have a bit more appeal to me.
Thanks. I'll survive. :) Archie and company actually have an impressive amount of staying power. For a comic that a lot of people would write off as dated, it still has a strong following. I'm curious as to how you came by reading it, as people usually pick something like Batman as their first attempt to read comics.
So to recap what I've read today . . . Ninjak - The writing actually turned out to be better than I expected, which is great. Unfortunately, it appears that the entire book is made not from the original art, but from scans of published comics. As a result, some of the colors are muted and imperfections in the printing process from when the comics were first published carried over. That's honestly a bit disappointing because the artwork is so gorgeous, it would have been nice to have a better printing process. Still I had fun reading it and while the differences between classic Ninjak and modern Ninjak are subtle, it's nice to see what the classic one was about. Planetoid - I looked. There is no volume 2, which is a shame. This book, while not great, is better than I remember. It's a fun, quick read and while I can't say it's a "must read" for anyone, it's fun enough that I can honestly say that if never tell anyone not to read it. It's a good way to kill 40 minutes. Prophet - I just read volume 1 today, but it's better than I remember, artwork, story, and all. Super creative. Super fun. Sometimes weird. Forty Whacks - For crime comics that were supposed to corrupt the youth of yesteryear, these stories are pretty tame. I'm not super far into it, but a common theme seems to be people are corrupted easily by greed, passion, and fear. The criminals always seem to get their punishment though, sometimes in entertaining ways. Just like Spawn of Mars, the artwork is beautiful in this book.
Hope this week treats ya better! I've been surprisingly less into the manga scene (the closest I can get to comic books) this summer, but my roommate had just reminded me of the Avatar: the Last Airbender (AtLA) comics are still in production. Now that I look it up, all installments of Smoke and Shadow have already come out. :O Guess I know what I'll be reading tonight. For anyone who's watched AtLA and/or the Legend of Korra (LoK), Dark Horse comics published a series of stories in collaboration with Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (the co-creators of the universe) after the events immediately following AtLA's series finale. For example, [quasi-Spoiler Alert]What happens(ed) to Zuko's mother. Other arcs deal with the making of Republic City and how it came to be via Fire Nation colonies mixing with Earth Kingdom settlements, which is alluded to a little bit in LoK.
Manga totally counts. What have you read that sticks out to you? As for Dark Horse and their Avatar comics, I didn't know that was a thing. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest though. For a smaller publisher, they do a really good job at securing rights for properties with a built in fan base. Aliens, Buffy, Firefly, and probably more than slip my mind. I've never watched Avatar or Korra myself, let alone read the comics. I'd love to hear how well you think Dark Horse's continuation of the stories stack up.
Just got back from a long roommate detour. Apologies for the late response. My all-time favorite manga is Gantz. Others in my top list are I Am a Hero (unfinished) and Noragami (also unfinished, but its got a great anime adaptation). I'm sure there are more, but off the top of my head, those are the good 'uns . Oh baby, as for Avatar and Korra, they're on a pedestal for me. In a way, I see them as my generation's growing up on the coattails/influences of Miyizaki seeing as he was a huge inspiration for the co-creators. Needless to say, if Gantz takes the cake for manga, AtLA and LoK take the cake for their class - since they aren't quite anime, but you catch my drift. As for how the continuation stacks up, I couldn't be more pleased. The author, Gene Yang, from what I've read, was a big fan of the original series. He was fortunate enough to collaborate with Bryke (the co-creator's joint, fan-made name - Bryan/Mike) throughout the processes to keep the feel of the stories integrous.
It's good to hear you think The Avatar comics are doing the source material justice. From what I've heard people say, the cartoon series is very highly regarded and after the painful sting of the live action film, I don't think a second disappointment would be bearable. I just checked out I am a Hero on Wikipedia and it sounds like an interesting take on the zombie genre, Japanese weirdness and all. It sounds like the main character might have a lot of room for growth.
Couldn't agree with you more. I remember exactly where I was and what was doing when I watched the opening scene of the pilot; the live action: never have, never will. I've read elsewhere others found I am a Hero is refreshing as well. In my opinion, it's take on the apocalyptic end is special in the creator's level of detail (social dynamics, introduction of new elements, and art) paired with great use of suspense. Nailed it on the main character's room for growth. Thankfully, I fell off the wagon right as the latest installment came out, so I'll have a fully translated volume to zoom through when I swing back into it. :D