What comic are you reading at the moment.

Tree

just finished part one of no.5 by some japanese dudey beginning w/ t and with a few k's in his name. Really lovely imagery, need to find more of it

Jack B. Badd

Japanese doody?
/me shudders

Reading Heartbreak Soup atm. Daft but a decent read

bombidol

ActorSeeksJob wrote:

just got these :

Y : The Last Man vols 4-9
Walking Dead vol2
Punisher Max Series vol 1-3

going to have a nice relaxing weekend reading those

Thats a lot of money! but a great haul.

ActorSeeksJob

yeah I know but I couldn't resist, after my finals I seriously wanted to chill with some nice graphic novels. I try only pick the best ones also so it's rarely wasted money imo.

galactus

Essential Spider-man #8: very routine. Got this in hard-copy. If they publish #9, i won't be buying. Still, it beats recent PANTS movie.

Far, FAR better is The Defenders: Hulk, Namor, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Valkyrie and Hell-cat (IIRC).

Defenders were brought in as an anti-Avengers kinda thing. Just before all the cross-over rubbish that Marvel initiated.

Defenders are a great antidote to the more mainsteam Avengers. Yeah, Avengers used to argue amongst themselves but strangely there was more of a team thing to Defenders.

Also reading Hulk, esp. Rampaging Hulk (a lot of these were Walter Simonson issues in B/W). Once again, kneel before Walt Simonson!


Yeah, Marvel zombie to the last or what. Just don't ask where i got these but i need a bigger LCD.

Fysh

Still haven't gotten more than 20 pages into Safe Area Gorazde, and I don't know why because what I've read so far has been entertaining enough, but anyway...

"Exit Wounds" by Rutu Modan

I picked this up second hand thinking it was actually something else that I'd seen in a Drawn & Quarterly sampler, but as it turned out it was a damn good read in its own right. The story deals with a young taxi driver, Koby,whose father has disappeared, possibly the victim of a suicide bombing; he's approached by his father's mistress, who believes him to be dead and wants Koby's help to find him.

Aside from the plot there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the periphery here; Koby ends up examining his relationship with his father and his family, as well as trying to understand the kind of man his father was, and thus examining himself and his own sense of identity.

Dark Days by Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

When I originally read 30 Days Of Night, I thought it was a decent albeit simple comic which I was happy with since it was around the time I first started to get really interested in Templesmith's art style. I figured I wasn't arsed with Dark Days because, well, it didn't look that interesting and every time I saw it on sale it was around 25 euro. Having picked up a second hand copy in decent nick for a tenner, this is no longer an issue.

It's more of same really - a decent enough vampire-hunter story, with as much characterisation as you can expect to be applied to one of the supporting cast in the original story, and pretty pretty artwork.

That said, I'm generally happy shelling out cash for Templesmith's artwork anyway, so it's all good.

Mike Allred's The Everyman

Another cheap second-hand purchase, this is a one-shot from 1991. Now, the only other stuff I could remember reading with Allred's name on it was an issue of Solo which I hated because, well, to my mind the Silver Age of superheroes was dull the first time around so I certainly don't need to read someone trying to bring it back. But that's an argument for another time.

The Everyman is, happily, better stuff; or at least more attuned to my tastes. It opens with the introduction of Emily, a practicing witch whose coven is being blamed for crop failures in nearby towns. A botched intimidation attempt by local farmers ends in her death, but a spell brings her soul - and those of everyone else buried in the same cemetery - back into a new androgynous body, giving her a chance to get revenge.

In itself it's a simple enough story, but there's space made to explore a bit of the weirdness of having dozens of personalities vying for control of one body, each with their own agenda. Plus, well, for a fiver it's a steal.


Now to try and figure out what I'm going to read next, given that I'm veering away from the spandex comics for a while...

Saruwatari

Just finished reading my brother's "Venom : Shivers" 2 & 3 today, since I've nothing to read until Gary Gianni's "Corpus Monstrum" arrives in the mail. "Venom" is dog-awful, with sloppy writing and even worse artwork...

Tree

Just finished Donna Barr's Stinz : the war stories. absolutley loved it. Great stories about a half horse going off to join the german army pre WWI

Spyral

Tintin in Tibet :P

Fysh

Tree wrote:

Just finished Donna Barr's Stinz : the war stories. absolutley loved it. Great stories about a half horse going off to join the german army pre WWI

You have no idea how intrigued I am about this comic now. No idea. It just better be as good as you've made it sound...

ztoical

I've made it about a third of the way through my bag of MoCCA comics and thought it better to link in sections rather then trying for one huge post. I've tired to link to websites where I can, people are getting alot better at putting contact info on their work, and I've also tried to list the price thou in some cases I couldn't remember the price or else I traded for it so not sure what the price is. Most of the books can be order via the websites linked or some you can read them online [ie Chester 5000, Lifemeter, and Knights of the Shroud]

Critical Citadel A collection of stories by 7 cartoonists, all recent graduates from SVA. 80 pages, colour cover with black and white interior. Landscape format which was a nice chanage and good mix of styles/storytelling. $10

HumanBening Lawnmower #1 A Music fanzine who state their goal as "to document the current and growing state of grassroots rock n' roll music, uncover treasures of the past and explore new sounds" Mixture of comics, illustrations, pin ups and articles. Edited by my friend Avi Spivak, its been a monster effort on his part to produce this book and he promises this is just bigger and better things to come with future issues. $4 for over 60 pages its a better sweet deal.

Don't eat the electric sheep #1-5 by Joe Flood - I meant to pick up D.E.T.E.S. at last years MoCCA but I was distracted by Joe's super shinny tacky gold backdrop. This year Mr. Flood was going for the much more somber table layout and i final got my comics. Its nice to get all 5 issues together as you can really see the development of the art, esp the inking which is super strong in issue 5. Story wise it is a cross between Sci-fi, thriller and madcap comedy. Keep an eye on Joe's Blog for updates on where to find issues.

Poison the Cure #1 Alex's teaser reads "Poison the Cure opens with a team of interstellar explorers who find a dead, desolate planet devoid of intelligent life, but littered with the remnants of civilization. Clues are found that tell the tale of a world being destroyed by greed and corruption and of a group of companions in search of hope and justice" Part 1 of 4 is over 100 pages for $9 and theres alot of artwork and story cramed into those 100 pages. Its amazing the little things that make a book work [like rounded corners which i will mention later] The book is black and white but printed on light yellow paper which adds alot of the feel of the story.

Life Meter #2 An anthology of video game inspired comics. Man if ever a comic was going to make me feel old this one was lol. The hight of my gaming career was back in the days of the dreamcast and Nights into Dreams and who is on the cover of this book? Issue 1 was a mere 32 pages mini comic but number 2 is over 100 pages [it sold out by the end of day 1 of MoCCA!] Stories range from old school gaming to the more recent Guitar Hero. $10

Chester 5000 XYV by Miss Jess Fink, Not for the underage or faint of heart. i've been following the weekly adventures of Chester via Miss Finks livejournal and when I heard there would be a print verision at MoCCA I was like a woman on a mission saturday morning. Described as "a tale of erotic, robotic romance" Chester 5000 proves that if your going to do porn then you'd damn better be good as good as Jess Fink to pull it off. Miss Fink makes sex look fun and enjoyable, she draws characters that are sexy without being slezzy and women who are sensual without being anorexic.

Porno also by Miss Jess Fink described via her website "A collection of 2 of my favorite stories from my Eros/Fantagraphics erotic work. A man who loves bush and a lady who likes it in the dark." See my comments above for Chester as to why Miss Finks erotic work is so fantastic.

Zack Giallongo's Wicked Cool Sketchaboo Doodles and sketches by artist of Pishio the Cat - sketch books aren't for everyone but as an artist I always like to see other peoples process. $2

The Hookah Girl and other true stories #1 by Marguerite Dabaie - something different for people a memoir on Growing Up Palestinian Christian in the US.

Knights of the Shroud #4 By Matt Bayne Ooooo super cover for issue 4 - picked earlier issues up at last years MoCCA and even thou I've been reading the comic online there is something nice about having a mini comic in your hand. I think I said this last year but i shall say it again I do think the web does Matt's inks no justice and it is well worth picking up the printed editions.

Noose by Mark Burrier -$4 A collection of rather morbid but funny stories all connected with the appearance of a noose and hole in the ground localized in a deserted field. 2 colour silkscreened cover on really lovely textured paper. Also picked up 2 t-shirts from Mark's table - really strong simple linework on both the shirts and in the comics. Check his site now!

A drift Ah rounded corners, I'm such a sucker for stupid things like that. A really lovely mini comic from one percent press. The cover is silkscreened with the aformentioned rounded corners and the inside tells the story of a man a drift at sea in a series of single panel pages. Really beautiful work, strong storytelling, simple, uncluttered linework, and a great example of the 30/70 rule for composition. They came by and traded with me for this book but after a quick glance through I had to go an attack their table for more work. Also picked up from onepercentpress "the other side", "I will bite you", "the bait and switch" and "simple routines" #6 + 7. I could write a reveiw for each one but I decided to limit myself to one, twas hard as they are all really great.

Nebuli by Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos - A big fan of both artists work, this book is really interesting in that it is a total blend of their styles. According to their own blurb in the book they traded jobs on the book back and forth so it really is a mind meld comic. According to both artists websites the book is currently only available at cons.

Minis Debuted at MoCCA and picked up for the lovely Fysh - a collection of mini comics produced from 2000 to 2002 by the talented Miss Cloonan

Tree

Fysh wrote:

You have no idea how intrigued I am about this comic now. No idea. It just better be as good as you've made it sound...

its brilliant, really really good. dunno where to find it though

ActorSeeksJob

Planning on stocking up on the following tomorrow :

Some more Punisher MAX series
Any remaining Y: The Last Man from volume 10 and on
Some more volumes of The Walking Dead

Then maybe try some of these if possible(thanks to the recommendations here)

Kabuki
Townscapes

Just a question, what versions of Punisher are considered the best? I'm really enjoying reading the MAX series and another one by Ennis, just wondering if there were other excellent one's I was missing.

Fysh

I'm by no means an expert on the punisher but the concensus seems to be that if you like the Max series, the "regular" series won't really be too your taste as it's too tame. I'd say check out the Ennis stuff anyway; you never know.

As for Y : The Last Man, volume 10 isn't out yet, but there are 3 more volumes of Walking Dead out that I know of.

If you're looking for other stuff to check out, I'd suggest 100 Bullets & Sin City if you haven't already read them. Fables gets bandied about a lot but I'm really starting to go off it as a series because it looks like the story's going nowhere (the same thing happened to me after volume 4 of The Walking Dead, actually) - mind you, the first 2 or 3 trades of Fables are still worth checking out.

ActorSeeksJob

yeah probably wouldn't be a fan of the tame version of the punisher, might just stick with the MAX series and check out the other Ennis stuff which I quite liked. Was hoping there would be some really dark, extremely interesting and well written version of The Punisher, I enjoy the MAX series a lot but I also want something that will connect with me.

any idea when the next volume of Y: The Last Man is out? Couldn't really find a release date via google, or any idea how many volumes left? Sad that I wont be reading that tomorrow.

yeah have read 100 Bullets(not bad) and Sin City(really liked the first few books), think I'll check out this Fables, sounds pretty interesting. Trying to get through all the critically acclaimed works also.

Fysh

I don't think DC have listed a release date yet, but Volume 10 will be the end of the series as far as I know - it's finishing with issue 60 which comes out sometime near the end of the year, so I suppose volume 10 will be out around March or April..

Draco

Issue 57 of Y: The Last Man is out this week. The last volume came out about 2 months after the last issue in it so you might be lucky and see it before the end of the year but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I got the first volume of Fables recently and it's pretty decent. I was expecting something a little more smaltzy or something but it was a decent detective story.

Also I got the first volume of the Invisibles. I'm not worried that my brain is a bit buggered as everything in it seemed rather reasonable. Too much Morrison and Philip K. Dick I think

MarkHall

The judge dredd casefiles Vol 8.
Features the storys of 'City of the Damned' and 'Dredd Angel'.
I didn't think it would take me less than an Hour to read a years worth of Dredd. Great collections and well worth picking them up.

ActorSeeksJob

the invisibles is pretty class, although I found the last few volumes to be not as good as the first few, also the art in the last volume was so ugly. still a good read though. Didn't expect the last volume of Y: The Last Man to be so far away.

Fysh

More reading for me...

Pop Gun War by Farel Dalrymple

Carrying on with my hunger for non-spandex stuff I picked this up recently and was happily impressed. The first few pages of story baffled the hell out of me, being as they were silent and not particularly explained, but once the comic itself gets underway you're dragged into a surreal version of New York City populated by the sort of characters you might find in Little Nemo In Slumberland or Eraserhead. A great read, and worth checking out.

Hellblazer : Reasons To Be Cheerful

I was faintly annoyed with this TPB at first, as I initially thought it was the conclusion of Mike Carey's run. However, having re-read it and properly digested the setup it gives for the final volume (out in September, apparently) I'm actually dead impressed, chiefly because the events of this volume actually serve to stitch together the previous stories which had so far seemed to be a series of disconnected 6-issue story arcs. More importantly, it sets up some interesting developments for the supporting cast. Depending on how this series ends, I could be very impressed by this. (Although I get the feeling I might stop reading Hellblazer for a while once I get the conclusion of Denise Mina's story; it seems to be stagnating somewhat...)

Still haven't finished Safe Area Gorazde though...

ztoical

Fysh wrote:

More reading for me...

Pop Gun War by Farel Dalrymple

Carrying on with my hunger for non-spandex stuff I picked this up recently and was happily impressed. The first few pages of story baffled the hell out of me, being as they were silent and not particularly explained, but once the comic itself gets underway you're dragged into a surreal version of New York City populated by the sort of characters you might find in Little Nemo In Slumberland or Eraserhead. A great read, and worth checking out.

pop gun war is a personal fav cus it mixes traditional inking with etchings and monoprints and they are worked in together really well...........which issue did you get Fysh?

bombidol

Just finished the first trade of

"7 Brothers"

by John Woo and Garth Ennis on Virgin Comics. I was mad dubious about this when I bought it and I still am. It kind of goes no where. BUT! Not a hint of Ireland, World War 2 or the mafia in it so far. So at least Ennis is trying something different.

Silver Surfer Requiem
Dunno whats going on here to be honest

Ultimate Fantastic 4 Vol 7 or 8 (the newest one)
Utter scutter.

World War Hulk #1
Yes please. Hulk SMASH

Mouse Guard
Rocking little book.

ztoical

ztoical wrote:

pop gun war is a personal fav cus it mixes traditional inking with etchings and monoprints and they are worked in together really well...........which issue did you get Fysh?

o wait silly me should have clicked the linky thing lol..........forgot dark horse did a collected edition. If you liked pop gun war you should check out some of the meathaus anthologies

ztoical

hey Fysh maybe we should sticky this thread?

Can you do tags on boards? I was looking back over this thread and there really is alot of great stuff rec'd and really good variety of books covered but as we've reached what is it now page 35 odd its getting hard to back track through it all. If we can't do tags does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it more manageable? Would help newbies looking for rec's cus we keep sending them to this post when ever they come by anyway.

Anyone got any ideas or is everyone happy to just let it keep going as is?

Fysh

Yep, it could use a stickying - problem is, at the moment there's already too many stickies for my liking. I'll have a think about how to best consolidate the existing stickies and then sort something out. I'm in favour of stickying it though, as I want to stop threads looking for recommendations since they're a bit pointless.

As for tags, they can only be specified in the first post which means I'll have to edit the thread to add them in. I'll read through the whole thing to pick out the relevant titles and add them in when I'm doing the tidying up.

ztoical

Fysh wrote:

Yep, it could use a stickying - problem is, at the moment there's already too many stickies for my liking. I'll have a think about how to best consolidate the existing stickies and then sort something out. I'm in favour of stickying it though, as I want to stop threads looking for recommendations since they're a bit pointless.

As for tags, they can only be specified in the first post which means I'll have to edit the thread to add them in. I'll read through the whole thing to pick out the relevant titles and add them in when I'm doing the tidying up.

coolio if you want someone to go through and make list or anything let me know, there's alot of pages to go through.

o and did you know there maybe a pop gun war movie?

Draco

Fysh wrote:

Hellblazer : Reasons To Be Cheerful

I was faintly annoyed with this TPB at first, as I initially thought it was the conclusion of Mike Carey's run. However, having re-read it and properly digested the setup it gives for the final volume (out in September, apparently) I'm actually dead impressed, chiefly because the events of this volume actually serve to stitch together the previous stories which had so far seemed to be a series of disconnected 6-issue story arcs. More importantly, it sets up some interesting developments for the supporting cast. Depending on how this series ends, I could be very impressed by this. (Although I get the feeling I might stop reading Hellblazer for a while once I get the conclusion of Denise Mina's story; it seems to be stagnating somewhat...)

I stopped at issue 200 because it just seemed to be going nowhere but if every does get tied together I might get this and the following volume and read the lot in one go again. I'll let you be the victim first before I hand over hard earned cash.

0prah11

Call me crazy ,but I'm reading the 8 Bit Theater - Nuklear power. It's a one of a kind comic book and it's really unique. It's the only 8 bit comic book out there. It's really funny and it's roughly based on the FF story line.

ztoical

0prah11 wrote:

Call me crazy ,but I'm reading the 8 Bit Theater - Nuklear power. It's a one of a kind comic book and it's really unique. It's the only 8 bit comic book out there. It's really funny and it's roughly based on the FF story line.

Man I use to have all the 8 bit theatre flash movies but then my laptop died and I lost them all - they have some still on the site but not all of them. Anyone got them hidden away somewhere?

Diesel sweeties has that 8 bit feel but describes its self as pixelated rather then 8 bit [thou not at the moment cus its gust artists] other then that its nothing like 8 bit theater .

There use to be a great x-men web comic in the style of 8 bit theater but it hasn't updated in yonks [at studio computer so don't have access to my links thou i think last time i checked the site wasn't working]

ztoical

ztoical wrote:

There use to be a great x-men web comic in the style of 8 bit theater but it hasn't updated in yonks [at studio computer so don't have access to my links thou i think last time i checked the site wasn't working]

ah found it - cus i've nothing better to do today other then watch animation render really really really slowly
uncanny x-sprites - the main website seems to be MIA but you can see a bunch of the comics here