What comic are you reading at the moment.

the Shades

Ah I can't find thumb's post about American Virgin but just read the first trade and gotta say there's a lot to love about that book. Another fine recommendation Ms. Ninja, thanking you

thumbninja

you're very welcome

ahh how I love lulling them into false sense of security..

I've got some good graphic novels at home. We should meet/swap. It's your round anyway

Fysh

bombidol wrote:

Is the second TPB for Global Freq out now yeah?

It was originally out at least a year and a half ago, I think, but for some reason it was quite hard to get hold of if you didn't get one of the original batches. Seems to be back in stores again now tho, so happy out. (Some good stories in it but it's not quite as strong as the first one, partly because Ellis once again gets bored with the idea before he's finished with it....) Still, a nice premise that gives us fresh characters and different artists for each story so worth checking out.

ztoical

the Shades wrote:

Ah I can't find thumb's post about American Virgin but just read the first trade and gotta say there's a lot to love about that book. Another fine recommendation Ms. Ninja, thanking you

hey i've been rec'ing american virgin on this forum for ages too! If your liking virgin you should also check out Becky's OEL manga East Coast rising or swing by her Deviantart page for some pencils from american virgin

the Shades

thumbninja wrote:

you're very welcome

ahh how I love lulling them into false sense of security..

I've got some good graphic novels at home. We should meet/swap. It's your round anyway

You're ideas intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your pamphlet. Give us a text or whatever and we'll sort it out. You still haven't told me if you wanna go to Shinys or not

the Shades

ztoical wrote:

hey i've been rec'ing american virgin on this forum for ages too! If your liking virgin you should also check out Becky's OEL manga East Coast rising or swing by her Deviantart page for some pencils from american virgin

I humbly apologise for my oversight. I will indeed check out the manga, been reading lots and seem to be in a very 'comic' mind set so I need new stuff to pounce on! The only person who could possibly complain is my bank manager hehe

Fysh

Recent buys :

Alan Moore's Writing For Comics

Not really a comic, but on the other hand neither is the Scott McCloud stuff I've read so what the hell. As you might expect, this is really bloody good. The man manages to make his approach to writing sound like nothing special and just common sense, but there's a lot of good stuff in here. Hard to say how interesting this would be to a layfan, but I can see it being thumbed through regularly by myself.

Street Angel : Princess Of Poverty

Don't let the pink cover put you off. This is sheer quality. It's like the demented energy of SharkKnife combined with Doctor McNinja, except it has its own flavour right from the beginning. Hell, it has a supervillainous geologist and yet gets away with it! How can that be a bad sign?

thumbninja

todays buys..

y:the last man

girls :collected volume two.
I like girls (oo err missus) - mostly because just when you think its blantanly obvious whats going on: it's not. Plus it has the whole small town small minds in crisis situation where people do dumb things out of fear and good things they didn't know they could. Course I've not read volume two yet - so please let it not let me down.

(shades - oh yes the shineys. doh. sorry. cool. text me times and place. got plans on the 14th but 13th should be free :cool: )

constitutionus

yay, got three trades ive been waiting for today. havent read them yet so will be back on with a review later but wanted to list em now and put forward reasons for buying em on a hunch.

new mutants volume 1

collects the first appearance of the first true spin off of xmen. i read alot of the early issues of new mutants but never read the first few issues so i wanted to get this. ive a soft spot for cannonball and co and loved x force when it started off before it went up its own arse. i still think the group should be relaunched cause theres pleanty of potential in the characters so i got a bit nostalgic here and fancied a looksee at the early days again.


xmen deadly genesis

im waiting for brubakers work on uncanny xmen to be collected as a trade casue im intrigued by what he's doing on the book so i decided to get the book that details the origin of his villain in the book, vulcan, which is relayed here. the art looks nice and if ed's writing is up to scratch it'll be the start of a TPB collecting of his work for me. im not compleatlly sold on his line up in uncanny but its the regular team in this so it should be good.


x force : shatterstar

was re reading the recent xforce mini by liefield and blame that on getting this. i know im compleatly losing crediblity by buying this but i cant help it. liefields like porn, you know its crap but you cant help looking at it anyway so im intrigued by this book. i know liefelds not doing the art, as he's only plotting the book, but ive always liked shatterstar in a "how the hell can you make this guy work" sort of way. cannonball to me make sense to me, as does sunspot warpaths and co. but for the life of me i cant figure out where shatterstar fits in the marvel universe beyond cannonfodder so im hoping this will give me a view into a potential future of the character. i do like the way he seems isolated and recognaises the fact he doesnt fit in or have a purpose and indeed was called "anti life" in the other mini . so maybe this could be good.


will be back later to give the dirt on em

ztoical

constitutionus wrote:

x force : shatterstar

was re reading the recent xforce mini by liefield and blame that on getting this. i know im compleatly losing crediblity by buying this but i cant help it. liefields like porn, you know its crap but you cant help looking at it anyway so im intrigued by this book. i know liefelds not doing the art, as he's only plotting the book, but ive always liked shatterstar in a "how the hell can you make this guy work" sort of way. cannonball to me make sense to me, as does sunspot warpaths and co. but for the life of me i cant figure out where shatterstar fits in the marvel universe beyond cannonfodder so im hoping this will give me a view into a potential future of the character. i do like the way he seems isolated and recognaises the fact he doesnt fit in or have a purpose and indeed was called "anti life" in the other mini . so maybe this could be good.

I've always been a big supporter of shatterstar even thou he really hasn't fit in anywhere in the whole marvel universe thing and was a bit of a youngblood rip at times..

Actually thats not true I've mainly been a big supporter of the whole shatterstar/rictor angle that was coming together waaaaaaaaaaay back in X-force and actually thought marvel might be able to write a decent gay [non-bloody-lesbian] couple but no, AOA happened, all the books stopped for a 4 months and when we came back we had a new writer and artist on x-force and the whole angle was very quickly dropped [thankfully Mr Ellis brought us the midnighter and Apollo not long after showing it could be done without alienating all the straight little fan boys] What is it with Marvel and lesbians??


And thank you Mr. Peter David for making it canon all be it in a round about, not sure if was serious but damn it was funny, kind of way in the recent issue of X-factor.

the Shades

Oh Marvel can do a decent gay male relationship, look to Young Avengers and Billy and Teddy for some hot teen boy loving action

Fysh

I was gonna say it's more a Big Two thing, both companies seem to think that including gay characters means playing another game of "eeny meeny miny moe, which female character gets to be this weeks lipstick lesbo?", at least in my experience. (There again, I'm by no means an authority on this, so I should probably stay quiet here...)

bombidol

The only 2 gay relationships in "superhero" comics I can think of that I remember working were Apollo and Midnighter and the two from Young Avengers.

ztoical

so ztoical finally cleared her credit card and then went on a mad shopping spree at amazon.fr Picked up Blacksad volumes 2 and 3 and o my god!!! so so amazing. I'd seen Blacksad 2 artic nation on a friends bookshelf couple of months ago and just loved it. The art is amazing and even thou it could be classed as fury art I am chosing to ignore that and just marvel at the facial expressions and body language that Guarnido manages to capture in his drawings, everything is so animated and full of life. I skipped volume 1 as i heard the was a huge jump in the art from 1 to 2 but i'll prob go back and pick up 1 at some point. 1 and 2 are out in english translations but there's been a delay with 3 so I just said screw and picked up the french verision of red heart [no3] honestly the story could be told silent the art is that strong.

And of course I just order more stuff , someone needs to invent a transporter now so I don't have to wait for an post to bring me my comics!

Jack B. Badd

Just finished Arkham Asylum and while I wouldn't rave about it, I have to say I found it a sight more palatable than Morrison's usual offerings. Haven't read anything else involving the Batman (although Batman Year One is sitting in front of me now that I've finally gotten around to reading stuff by Frank Miller) so I can't really compare it to the comic Batman but Arkham is a nice twist on what I know of Batman from the film adaptations. A much darker Batman story than I'm used to

Undergod

Read Sin City: The Long Goodbye. Not altogether bad, but it's loaded with cliches.

Jack B. Badd

I liked The Long Goodbye. The art style especially drew me in despite (possibly because of) it's simplicity.
Batman Year One was a wee bit of a disappointment. A good (Commishioner) Gordan story but not really all that interesting from the point of view of Batman imo. I'm somewhat confused as to why it's held up as one of the better Batman stories.

spooydermot

Jack B. Badd wrote:

I liked The Long Goodbye. The art style especially drew me in despite (possibly because of) it's simplicity.
Batman Year One was a wee bit of a disappointment. A good (Commishioner) Gordan story but not really all that interesting from the point of view of Batman imo. I'm somewhat confused as to why it's held up as one of the better Batman stories.

are there several "Year One" stories? I've seen one around called Year one:Raz As Gul

Jack B. Badd

spooydermot wrote:

are there several "Year One" stories? I've seen one around called Year one:Raz As Gul

This is the one I read anyways. Maybe there are others with similar titles alright.

the Shades

The original was Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and Dave Mazallucci (think that's his name) Since then DC have taken the idea and used it to tell the story of the first year of several characters including, Robin (Dick Grayson), Batgirl and Ra's Al Ghul.

spooydermot

the Shades wrote:

The original was Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and Dave Mazallucci (think that's his name) Since then DC have taken the idea and used it to tell the story of the first year of several characters including, Robin (Dick Grayson), Batgirl and Ra's Al Ghul.

...thiught so..I never seem to see the Frank Miller one around..must chase it down at some point...thanks for the info

constitutionus

ztoical wrote:

I've always been a big supporter of shatterstar even thou he really hasn't fit in anywhere in the whole marvel universe thing and was a bit of a youngblood rip at times..

Actually thats not true I've mainly been a big supporter of the whole shatterstar/rictor angle that was coming together waaaaaaaaaaay back in X-force and actually thought marvel might be able to write a decent gay [non-bloody-lesbian] couple but no, AOA happened, all the books stopped for a 4 months and when we came back we had a new writer and artist on x-force and the whole angle was very quickly dropped [thankfully Mr Ellis brought us the midnighter and Apollo not long after showing it could be done without alienating all the straight little fan boys] What is it with Marvel and lesbians??


And thank you Mr. Peter David for making it canon all be it in a round about, not sure if was serious but damn it was funny, kind of way in the recent issue of X-factor.

you know im glad they didnt go down that route cause turning your characters gay was almost a fecking cliche at that stage in the industry and the way shatterstar was going then i thought they'd be better off making him not have a sexuality at all meaning warfare would be his sole source of pleasure and further alienating him from the rest of humanity. besides the whole gay relationship thing was done way better in the authoritys so why try to top it with a half arsed one.

ive read two of the three trades so i guess its time to profer an opinon on em


new mutants classic vol 1

really enjoyed this:D its so refreshing to see characters that actually look human and macleods art and storytelling hark back to an age when sod all actually happened in a book yet was engrossing because of it. i cant remember the last time characters just went shopping and talked to people in a mall yet here it is. as you'd expect it chronicles the first appearance of the group and their first adventures but i'd forgotton just how dark it could be at times. while not depicted graphically or written explicitly its is heavily hinted that xian was gang raped after her mother while escaping from viet nam and the whole scene plays out really well in terms of emotional impact (dani ripped it from her head with her powers accidently)
what i like is how distinct the characters feel , sunspots a prick, cannonball cant control his powers and feel down half the time, rahne is shy and innocent, danni's a bitch with an attitude problem and xian whos the eldest and pegged as the leader at this stage is the most focused and responsible. oh and this is from the era when charlie xaviers an unrelenting asshole. i'd forgotten how bullying he was in the old days

basically i cant recommend this enough if your an old X force/ new mutants fan. fills in some blanks and has a lovely retro feel. none of your porn star figures, these characters look and act like people


X force : Shatterstar

surprisingly good read. seems theyve bought into the whole weapon of mass destruction i was on about earlier cause shatterstar's seems to have spent his time since the end of x force in madripoor in "fight club" underneath a bar in a pocket dimension beating the hell out of people for money. what bugged me about this book is at no stage do they let you in on the fact its set before the x force mini that preceded it (unless there was an error in my trade ) so untill you cop on you do wonder why he doesnt seem to know what the hell the five fingers of annihilation is (which by the way looks nothing like what liefeld designed in the other mini:rolleyes: )

ok i will admit its basically one big fight with sod all plot generally involving spiral using the blade to become a parralells earths version of apocalypse (though not in appearance ,just name) and its up to shatterstar and the parralell earths version of xforce to save the day. its fun in a mindless way and lovely to look at plus as a bonus its got the last two issues of new mutants tacked on the end detailing how X force came to be and shatterstars first appearance (ironically if memory serves x force never did actually go to mojo world to free his people, it was touched upon in an x force annual but it read like an alternate reality story cause half the team was different)

overall its an ok book but if your not into x force i wouldnt get it, that said it does have some nice insights into shatterstars combat techniques and mindset in a fight

Tree

finished arkham asylum last night, rather liked it a lot. like the art style and mr. morrisson just rules anyways.

first few volumes of seven soldiers are still staring at me from beside my bed, must start em soonly

Draco

Finally got The Boys #6. A little disappointing considering I had gotten it into my head that it was just a 6 issue mini but satisfying in a setup kind of way. Although you can beat lines like 'I had to beat it to death with the lampstand'.

constitutionus

bought


Ghost Rider : Finale!

in what must be the one book to put even whicle portacios wetworks to shame in the late shipping dept. this book wraps up the 1990's series which if memory servers ended in 97 making this book nearly 10 years late

in fairnes theres an explanation by former ghost rider editor which helps fill in the blanks. i got this mainly cause i was a big fan of this incarnation of GR interms of style. its still the best looking bike he's ever drove and the suit has practically been lifted for the new movie along with his penance stare power (which apparently the original never had) and even though the quality had gone down hill over the years the reintroduction of texiera and saltarers brought alot of clout back to the book.
its a bit of a nostalgia trip as well as i used to get this book in forbiden planet back when they were based on dawson street and vividly remember thinking i missed out on the last issue because i wasnt there in time to get the few issues they were ordering at that stage. it wasnt till this year i found out it never got released at all so its nice to finally finish off the set.

the book itself contains issue 93 and 94 to give the conclusion some context, which is nice considering how long they'd be expecting people to remember the plot lines , and deals with how Ghost Rider ends up as the angel of death ruling hell in blackhearts stead and what he decides to do with it. im not ruining anthing by saying that cause even though it didnt see print they still told people how it ended in interviews over the years. but its nice to see it in pictures. texiera and saltares art is just gorgeous, like a gritty adam kubert, and they were one of the few art teams that could actually give GR some facial expression and emotion without compromising the skull look and this book makes me glad ive ordered the new series TPB they did with daniel way last year.
the story itself resolves the plot threads left dangling and theres even a happy ending of sorts for one of the characters though unbeknownst to danny the plans he has for the future ares forlorn ones.

dont know how much appeal this will have to people not interested in the character but for those of us who waited a decade to get this book its a nice read and gives some much needed closure.

Fysh

Recent purchases include Fables Volumes 7 & 8 - both good reads and very entertaining, particularly the Arabian Days & Nights storyline. The oversized issue 50 was a good read as well, although

I was disappointed to see Snow White and Bigby step out of the spotlight, even if they do return later

. That being said...I'd still like to have a greater sense of the overall direction and storyline for the series, because quite frankly for a series that's up to 8 trades and a prequel volume (not to mention the first trade of its spinoff series) to still have its main storyline as vaguely defined as "fairytale creatures secretly live in the real world, having been chased out of their home realms by an evil overlord type, and try to find out what happened and get back to the homelands" is just, well, crap.

It's quite obvious that Willingham has some overall idea of where this is going, but he's past what has been the halfway mark for most longform Vertigo series at the moment so it's more than a little galling for the story to still be so unclear in the context of its direction.

*grumble*

And now to sound like a bit of a hypocrite : also picked up 100 Bullets vol 10 recently and enjoyed it. I need to re-read the whole series to assimilate the latest storyline developments, but it's good. I reckon there's, what, about 4 or 5 trades worth of story left in the 100 Bullets series? But so far every trade has been a damn good read, both in terms of the trade itself and the greater story being told. Plus, this may be just me, but I'll take the artwork of 100 Bullets over the artwork in Fables any day of the week.

Next up : Nextwave issue #12 (SOB!)

bombidol

Is Vol 10 of 100 Bullets out? excellent. me thinks ill split down town and do some shoppin!

Recently reading

Punisher MAX: Ennis writing Big Pun is always worth a read

Barracuda - spin off from punisher. first issue was ok just a set up but you can tell its gonna get wild.

bombidol

Recent Purchases

Hellblazer - Staring at the wall
American Virgin - Head
Fables - Vol 3
Daredevil - Parts of a hole
Daredevil - Out
Walking Dead - Vol 3
Walking Dead - Vol 4
Hard Boiled
and a load of singles inc 1602 Fantastik 4

bombidol

Ugh Hardboiled is pretty bad. Reads like a cheapo Thargs Future shock and the art is so detailed its annoying

Draco

Fysh wrote:

Next up : Nextwave issue #12 (SOB!)

A little piece of me died inside.

Fell #7: Nice to see Fell getting outsmarted when he's trying to be terribly clever. The breaking of the usual 3x3 to a 2x2 grid on some pages was used effectively. I'd have liked some back matter rather than the ad for Cassanova though as I've already gotten most of the issues in the upcoming trade.