Comic books and Manga Thread

[ohtani's jacket]

Gotham Central = great series. Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker reimagine the Gotham Central Police Department as The Wire, or more accurately, Homicide: Life on the Streets. Spectacular ending too. Best Bat-book I've read in a long time.  

[Shrike02]

Rucka's Queen and Country deservedly won Eisner awards in 2002 and 2003.

Rucka was really firing on all cylinders around this time.

Maybe I should go back and re-read Gotham Central.

[ohtani's jacket]

I was a bit disappointed with Dan Clowe's Lloyd Llewellyn series, though suitably impressed that he went from that series to the mind-bending brilliance of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron and the rest of Eightball. 

Even more disappointing was Six from Sirius, which I'd have to classify as a dud. It's one of those sci-fi comics where the author tries to explain everything through expository dialogue instead of captions, which made it confusing and difficult to follow. There also wasn't a ton of story to fill a four issue limited series. Gulacy's art felt a bit static to me and didn't have the level of composition I've come to expect from him. I'd be interested in hearing from a fan of this series. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I quite liked the early issues of Jemm, Son of Saturn, where Jemm first arrives on Earth, and Colan is being inked by Klaus Janson, but the story lost its way when it became a space epic, and I didn't think there was enough story to justify a 12 issue maxi-series. I mostly read it because I'm interested in Colan's 80s output. There seemed to be a huge difference between street level Colan and outer space Colan. I can't really claim that the Jemm character is all that interesting, either. He seems kind of redundant in a world where there's already a Martian Manhunter. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Thoughts on Tom King as a writer? He's one of the more acclaimed comic guys going. I've read two of his works and just started a third. Loved Vision from 2015, one of the best modern superhero comics I've read in the last few years. Followed that with Mister Miracle from 2017. I liked a lot of it but in the end felt the balance between personal metaphor and the character and his universe was too slanted towards the former for my liking, but maybe that's just me. Started Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow the other day and really like it so far. The art by Bilquis Evely is fantastic. Not sure when Supergirl started swearing so much but whatever. Anyway, just wanted to see what others think about King since he seems to be kinda divisive 

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished Scalped yesterday. I wasn't as thrilled with the final arc as some people seem to be, but overall I thought it was one of the best series I've read from the modern era, which, for my purposes, encompasses 2000-2023. What I liked about it most was that it dealt with a subject matter that, to the best of my knowledge, hadn't been addressed before in comics, at least not in a full blown series. That's a goal I wish more creators who strive toward instead of giving us their latest take on fascist superheroes. It's a shame that the TV series wasn't picked up, as it probably would have made an even more powerful TV show than a comic, especially if led by a full indigenous cast. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I finally read Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Night Force. It's not bad, but it's not surprising that it struggled to find an audience. It probably would have done better a few years later when the direct-sales market was more established and there was a larger audience for mature readers books, however the biggest problem was that the cast of characters simply wasn't as interesting as the Tomb of Dracula cast, especially the Baron. If Wolfman's intention was to have the Night Force itself be a rotating cast of characters, then the Baron needed to be as charismatic and interesting as Dracula, but he didn't hold anywhere near as much appeal.

The art was somewhat inconsistent. Lately, I have a hard time unseeing some of the criticisms that the likes of John Byrne made about Colan's artwork in the 80s, even if those comments stemmed from a ridiculous "us vs. them" mentality that Byrne seemed to have at the time, and later forgot about when it became one of "them." There are a lot of wonky elements to Colan's artwork at times. Some of it is no doubt intentional as Colan was always a fan of using interesting camera angles or perspectives, but sometimes there are some odd looking panels that aren't touched up or fixed by the inker.

I can't say I really missed the series once it came to an end, and I don't have much desire to read the two volumes that followed, however I will praise it as a valiant effort to try something new.

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished Chester Brown's Yummy Fur series. Personally, I preferred the Ed the Happy Clown era to his autobiographical stories, but Brown was making up the Ed story as he went along and for some reason he grew frustrated with it. You get the sense that Chester was always a bit restless as a cartoonist, as he began experimenting heavily with panel layout as the series progressed (to the chagrin of some readers who didn't appreciate the small number of panels per page.) I enjoyed some of the autobiographical stories from his childhood. I'm sure a lot of fans our age can identify with trying to get their hands on a copy of Playboy each month and then figuring out where in the hell they're gonna hide it. I also liked his adolescent tales of dealing with coming of age and interacting with girls. The Drawn and Quarterly publisher, Chris Oliveros, convinced Chester to end Yummy Fur, which led to the ill-received Underwater series. Yummy Fur was one of the first alternative comics I was drawn to as a teenager, discovering it through the back issue boxes at my local comic shop. I was especially drawn to the Gospel adaptations where a grumpy and cantankerous Jesus spits fire at everyone. Looking back on it now, it was quite a bold choice for an alternative cartoonist to adapt the New Testament, but a natural thing to do for Brown to pursue as he was interested in alternative Gospel sources. From a comics standpoint, the Gospel adaptations represent his best cartooning work from the period, IMO, especially his Matthew. 

[Ricky Jackson]

I love Brown's Louis Riel graphic novel. A big reason is the circa-1930s newspaper strip art style he uses that is so right up my alley, and also the whole Canadian history aspect, but overall it's just an extremely well told story. I have a few other Brown books and remember liking most of his output. I was a big fan of the D & Q crew back in the day. I'm actually planning on reading Brown's last (I believe) work, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, very soon

[Shrike02]

18 hours ago, Ricky Jackson said:

I love Brown's Louis Riel graphic novel. A big reason is the circa-1930s newspaper strip art style he uses that is so right up my alley, and also the whole Canadian history aspect, but overall it's just an extremely well told story. I have a few other Brown books and remember liking most of his output. I was a big fan of the D & Q crew back in the day. I'm actually planning on reading Brown's last (I believe) work, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, very soon

The format enhances the story's impact. Excellent work with just a few lulls of pace. I really liked it.

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished up Julie Doucet's Dirty Plotte. Wonderful stuff. Honest, surreal, funny. I wish she'd stayed in comics longer, but what a brilliant legacy to leave behind. Of all the great early 90s alternative comics, Dirty Plotte was the most fun to read. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished Sex Criminals. In the end, it went in a direction that I didn't particularly care for, and I could have absolutely done without the coda which did nothing for me. It was a fun ride, even if it did feel like they were changing things as they went along, but fell short of being one of the best series of the Eisners era. Some nice character moments, but I gotta have that tightly woven plot. 

[Graham Crackers]

On 3/14/2023 at 6:08 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

I finished up Julie Doucet's Dirty Plotte. Wonderful stuff. Honest, surreal, funny. I wish she'd stayed in comics longer, but what a brilliant legacy to leave behind. Of all the great early 90s alternative comics, Dirty Plotte was the most fun to read. 

She released a new graphic novel last year, Time Zone J.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'll have to check that out. Thanks!

I made it to issue #34 of Age of Bronze. I don't know if Shanower will finish the series, but even if he doesn't, it stands as a monumental work. One of the best series I've read since I returned to comics. It's a cliche, but every panel is a work of art. I wish there was more of an audience for these types of comics, however putting them out so irregularly doesn't help with sales. Still, what an incredible labour of love. Hats off to you, Eric Shanower. 

[TheDuke]

I had to Google Age of Bronze because I had not heard of it. I was hoping it was a comic tribute to the superhero comics of the 1970s as that is my favorite era of comics

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. It wasn't really a series I loved as I was reading it issue by issue, but it all came together in the end, and I thought the ending was cool. I can understand why it was well-received as the storytelling is completely different from a typical Marvel book, and Aja's art is stylish and chic. I really liked the character of Kate Bishop. I'm not sure if other writers can write her the way Fraction does, but she was the most memorable thing about the series, to me, and had the best lines. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise (and amazingly managed to do spoiler free.) Despite the fact that I hated a lot of the prose text and song lyrics, completely skipped the Molly and Poo stuff, disliked many of the plot turns, and even some of the characters, and wasn't 100% satisfied with the final issue, it was still a hell of a journey with two incredible central characters. There was one issue during the final stretch that was so amazingly well told that it had me in tears. Moore poured 14 years of his life into SIP, which is impressive given how so many creator owned series wind up abandoned and left to collect dust. Thanks for the ride, Terry!

[Ricky Jackson]

I read a lot of Strangers in Paradise 20+ years ago. Doing a quick Wikipedia search I see it continued on for quite a while after I stopped. Considering I've gone back and finished or resumed other stuff from back in the day there is a chance I'll eventually pick it back up.

As for what I'm currently going through...

-Mod-era Wonder Woman from the late-60s/early-70s: I'd always been intrigued by this drastic change in the character that has usually been written off as a poorly conceived mess, but I'm a sucker for comics that tried to capture the mood of the hippie era, so I finally decided to give it a whirl. And, yeah, it's a poorly conceived mess, but it's also mostly just a dull rip off of the 60s Avengers TV series. I'm going to see it through to the end but I'm mostly just skimming now

-Popeye by E.C. Segar vol 1: Great stuff from a master of cartooning

-Legion of Superheroes from the beginning: I'm slowly going through the first Showcase volume. Love the art, but the stories are very basic

-70s Incredible Hulk: Just finishing up the Herb Trimpe years that I paused a while back. Nothing special, even the villains are pretty dull now

-Thor by Jason Aaron: I'm up to 2016 now. Not as fun as the earlier stuff. Not sure how much longer I'll go with it

-Miscellaneous: I've been reading a lot of mini series/graphic novels, which are the comics I've enjoyed the most in the last while. Basically anything by Tom Scioli, Kate Beaton, or Peter Bagge I've loved. Finally read All Star Superman and enjoyed it. Various Marvel mini series' from the last 15-20 years have been hit or miss. I'm reading Bill Schelly's bio of James Warren and it's really good

[Shrike02]

I've been collecting and reading the Fantagraphics deluxe reprints of Prince Valiant (the first seven volumes so far) and Hal Foster continues to impress. His influence on American comics cannot be overstated. His artwork is really really good and his writing isn't that far behind. Well worth seeking out.

[ohtani's jacket]

I finished reading Naoki Urasawa's Monster, which is hands down one of the best written manga series you'll ever read. Superbly well-crafted, and one of the best comics of the 90s for my money. I'm contemplating watching the anime, but I might jump into another Urasawa series instead.