Comics, etc.

Two more books:

Barbaric, vol. 1: Murderable Offenses
This volume collects the first three issues of the series written by Michael Moreci and illustrated by Nathan Gooden. It is a fantasy book with contemporary language in which a barbarian named Owen (the book is funny too) has been cursed to always do the right thing and therefore can’t plunder, pillage, or otherwise do what barbarians do. All he can do is talk to his bloodthirsty axe named Axe (I said the book is funny), who only he can hear, and who tells him who has done wrong and should therefore be brutally murdered. Then Owen meets a woman about to be burned after being accused of witchcraft, and when he intervenes, well… lots of stuff happen.

I thought this book was supremely entertaining and very, very funny. I liked the artwork as well, so look up some pages and, if you like irreverent fantasy with a modern sensibility, do yourself a favor and get it. I’m looking forward to volume 2!

Dark Nights: Death Metal
I thought Dark Nights: Metal was just okay, but I found this sequel by Snyder and Capullo to be a lot more enjoyable, and I don’t know why. Maybe because I had lowered my expectations after the first one? Perhaps. I did find the story more coherent and less disjointed than the first one, and I liked the costumes and creature designs more in this one. While I wouldn’t say it was great, I did have a good time reading it, so you could do worse than checking it out. A ringing endorsement!

I finished Junji Ito's adaptation of No Longer Human. It is for obvious reasons a very downbeat work and very much a different work from Ito's norm but i found it a moving and powerful piece of work if you are in the right frame of mind.

I’m really enjoying the new series 8 Billion Genies- it’s about the aftermath of every person on Earth simultaneously getting a personal genie capable of granting one wish. It follows a group of people trapped in a Detroit dive bar during the wishpocalypse but frequently cuts away to events happening all over the globe. Or cube, or ice cream cone, or whatever other shape the Earth is currently wished into.

The Spider-Verse Explodes with New Heroes, New Paths, and More in 'Edge of Spider-Verse' #1

Here's what fans can expect from the first leg of this incredible journey in EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE #1:

Alex Segura and Caio Majado launch a new status quo for Araña, complete with a stunning new costume design by Humberto Ramos!

Dan Slott and Martin Coccolo introduce Spider-Laird, a new Spider-Hero from the Scottish Highlands of the 18th Century!

Karla Pacheco and Pere Perez web-sling back to prehistoric times with the roaring debut of Spider-Rex!

Dustin Weaver and D.J. Bryant tell a haunting tale of Spider-Noir that will take your breath away!

IMAGE(https://terrigen-cdn-dev.marvel.com/content/prod/1x/edge_of_spiderverse_1_spiderrexvariant.jpg)

Hey all, I'm really interested in getting into some of the older X-Men stuff. Struggling to get a foot in the door though. There's a lot of it, and many of the stories seem interconnected in ways other series aren't. The lore is pretty heavy with this franchise.

I grew up with the 90's cartoon and love this older, vibrant art style (below), and the overly exaggerated sketchy art (also below - from Weapon X which I loved)

I've been advised to read through Claremont's original X-Men run, but I'm finding it just too wordy. It's the old style where everything is over-explained and dialogue is heavy. I'm going to give it a few more issues in hopes that I settle into it, but I'm not sure it's exactly what I'm after.

I didn't love some of the recent comics, felt confused by others, and the one I really loved felt like more of an off-shoot than anything (Uncanny X-Force).

Tips? Advice? Words of wisdom?

Thanks all

IMAGE(https://preview.redd.it/liaiq1l8ayi41.jpg?auto=webp&s=92a81da5b98dc52d10a883417d8c06ef1eb90f46)
IMAGE(https://752617.smushcdn.com/1328696/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220506_182515-scaled.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)

Claremont's run would have been my suggestion. Second choice would have been to start from the very beginning with the original team. Maybe someone else has some better idea, but I think Claremont was the defining writer of the modern conception, adding so much lore.

Not sure how you are reading, but if it's Marvel Unlimited go with some of the crossovers. Like Xcutioners Song or something. Still lots of stuff that may not make sense, but at least by the time you have finished the crossover, you are in better shape.
Also, skip right to Age of Apocalypse.

Sounds like I should give Claremont's run a bit more time to settle, it's just a bit different to what I'm used to. I will report back when I'm a bit deeper in.

I would say drop everything and start with X-Men #1 by Jim Lee (and yes, Claremont), and keep going from there ignoring everything else. When it's chronologically right, read the Uncanny X-Men issues by Joe Madureira, and of course the Age of Apocalypse crossover lunchbox12682 mentioned.

Mario_Alba wrote:

I would say drop everything and start with X-Men #1 by Jim Lee (and yes, Claremont), and keep going from there ignoring everything else. When it's chronologically right, read the Uncanny X-Men issues by Joe Madureira, and of course the Age of Apocalypse crossover lunchbox12682 mentioned.

That art is amazing! I'd head the name (I think he did some cover pages for DC?) but didn't realise he was behind all that fantastic X-Men art I adore. This looks like a perfect entry point for me, thank you

quick edit:

I also just wanted to mention what a delight Strange by Jed Mackey is. Strange is dead and his wife is now Sorcer(ess) Supreme. She's a little more unhinged and has some fun Dark Dimension powers on top of the usual stuff!

I was hesitant to jump into another Strange run after adoring Jason Aaron's Last Days of Magic, but this is really hitting the spot. The art is quite nice and it's an intriguing contrast to the usual Strange stuff.

The art is an absolute treat

IMAGE(https://terrigen-cdn-dev.marvel.com/content/prod/1x/strange_2022_2.jpg)

Awesome! Enjoy the ride! Lee has been at DC for many years now, but he made his name with the X-Men, and to me, he was the definitive X-Men artist. I have liked others after him, but his redesigns and interpretations of the X-Men are the versions of the characters I always think of when I think of Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, and the rest of the crew. As a matter of fact, I just bought this little book, and it is a delight.

The Last Days of Magic story was fun, especially with Chris Bachalo's art. If you like his style, he drew the Generation X issues in the Age of Apocalypse, if I remember correctly.

Mario_Alba wrote:

The Last Days of Magic story was fun, especially with Chris Bachalo's art. If you like his style, he drew the Generation X issues in the Age of Apocalypse, if I remember correctly.

LOVE Bachalo's art. I actually need more of it. That "crazytown" vibe is what's missing in my own non-graphic work.

For whatever reason, I don't like Bachalo's art. It's not JRJ bad, but something as always bugged me about it.

It's definitely not for everyone. I loved his Steampunk, and I thought his Witchblade covers were phenomenal. I liked his X-Men as well, even though I don't think he drew too many issues.

It's definitely not for everyone.

I am an 80s kid, so I still harken back to Dave Cockrum as one of my favorite X-Men artists, with Art Adams (my fave comic artist of all time) coming in second, even if he is slow as all-get-out and usually sticks to limited series' or fill ins or cover art.

Paul Smith is up there too, since he gave us Mohawk Storm.

IMAGE(https://www.cbr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/storm-mohawk.jpg)

Maleev is one of my favorites but that's mainly biased based on his Daredevil run.

I've gotten super into the work of Sophie Campbell recently. I think Wet Moon, which is her long-running slice of life/soap opera about a group of kids in their first semester of college, is fully a masterpiece. It understands things about being a messy, depressed 18 year old that I had almost forgotten, and it has some of the best friendship material I've ever read. However, it has a rough start - it's kind of abrasive at first and it takes her a couple volumes to refine the art style and characters - so it's a little hard to recommend generally.

So, instead, as an entry into Campbell's work, I'm going to recommend her current run on IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic (starting at issue 101.) Her art is gorgeous and super-expressive - she has a real knack for drawing the turtles in civilian clothes. And the story she's telling - it's still very much Ninja Turtles with the colour-coded masks and signature weapons and all that, but it also manages to be surprisingly thoughtful and nuanced and empathetic and it's got all sorts of cool women characters in the cast and it has deeply queer sensibilities. It's just really neat!

4dSwissCheese wrote:

I've gotten super into the work of Sophie Campbell recently. I think Wet Moon, which is her long-running slice of life/soap opera about a group of kids in their first semester of college, is fully a masterpiece. It understands things about being a messy, depressed 18 year old that I had almost forgotten, and it has some of the best friendship material I've ever read. However, it has a rough start - it's kind of abrasive at first and it takes her a couple volumes to refine the art style and characters - so it's a little hard to recommend generally.

So, instead, as an entry into Campbell's work, I'm going to recommend her current run on IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic (starting at issue 101.) Her art is gorgeous and super-expressive - she has a real knack for drawing the turtles in civilian clothes. And the story she's telling - it's still very much Ninja Turtles with the colour-coded masks and signature weapons and all that, but it also manages to be surprisingly thoughtful and nuanced and empathetic and it's got all sorts of cool women characters in the cast and it has deeply queer sensibilities. It's just really neat!

This sounds great thanks for the recommendation, as someone who's only exposure to the Turtles is the 80s cartoons/games/films is it hard to jump into?

bbk1980 wrote:

This sounds great thanks for the recommendation, as someone who's only exposure to the Turtles is the 80s cartoons/games/films is it hard to jump into?

I have a similar background with Turtles and found it quite approachable. It's within a long established continuity, but the previous arc was a big, table-clearing climax, so Campbell is able to pretty cleanly come in, do a time jump and then reintroduce the cast and establish a new status quo. The wikipedia is pretty good for when a random side character shows up and you want to know their deal is.

The one that took me a second is that there's a fifth Turtle in this continuity, Jennika. She was apparently in the comic for a while as a human ninja who trained with Splinter and the Turtles, but she only recently got mutated (essentially a She-Hulk thing - badly wounded, got a blood transfusion from Leonardo) so she's new to actually being a turtle and her relationship with the others is unsettled as you're coming in.

Okay, I know that quite a while back, people were displeased about stuff happening with Comixology, but I was in an unintentional comics pause at the time, and I didn't know what it was all about.

Now I try to go to Comixology and it just redirects me to Amazon. Does that mean that my ability to download comics I bought without DRM is gone? Are my purchases gone, too?

I noticed this because I read the first volume of Mind MGMT, which starts slow but gets really good. The art is what it is, which isn't to my taste, but whatever. I actually read the first volume because there's a Mind MGMT boardgame that is shipping from Kickstarter right now, and its description made the comic sound super interesting.

EDIT: Okay, I googled it for myself, and it looks like my purchases are on Amazon and I can still download backups. I assume I can't download DRM-free backups of future purchases?

Anyone read Devilman Lady? Just checked out the anime and digging it wondering if the mange is worth shot.

This bad boy just arrived!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/NYScsu0.jpg)

Humble Bundle has a few good bundles on comics. The image bundle has saga and sex criminals included. There is a Neil Gaiman bundle.

Bite Size Geek's first top 10 list!

What are you guys using to track your comics? Currently I just track stuff in my comic reader but that doesn't work for physical books and I don't get reminders when new stuff I'm reading comes out.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

What are you guys using to track your comics? Currently I just track stuff in my comic reader but that doesn't work for physical books and I don't get reminders when new stuff I'm reading comes out.

A google doc... if there's a better way, someone please share it! It is one of the few benefits of the cloud I've seen though. If I'm at the store I can pull of the doc on my phone to double-check my haves and have-nots. Otherwise, I update it when I get home with my haul.

Ok, hoping for some guidance. I decided to finally check out the Krakoa era X-Men, so I snagged House/Powers of X, the Hickman X-Men omnibus, and X of Swords. I'd like to get what's next, but X of Swords happens right in the middle of the omnibus, so I'd like to be sure. It seems like Hellfire Gala is next, yeah? What's after that in order? Googling "read order" unhelpfully just gives results in single issue form.

SpacePProtean wrote:

Ok, hoping for some guidance. I decided to finally check out the Krakoa era X-Men, so I snagged House/Powers of X, the Hickman X-Men omnibus, and X of Swords. I'd like to get what's next, but X of Swords happens right in the middle of the omnibus, so I'd like to be sure. It seems like Hellfire Gala is next, yeah? What's after that in order? Googling "read order" unhelpfully just gives results in single issue form.

In order, events are (*deep breath* hopefully I’ve got this right):
Hellfire Gala/Planetary-Sized X-Men
Trial of Magneto
Inferno
X Lives/Deaths of Wolverine
AXE: Judgment Day
Sins of Sinister (currently ongoing)

Hellfire Gala is weird because it’s one issue from each ongoing series with a shared setting, rather than like X of Swords where there’s a single continuous big story.

If you are interested in the main thrust of the Krakoa story, following the council, I would do Inferno —> Immortal X-Men —> AXE —> Sins of Sinister. Inferno is Hickman again. The others are Kieran Gillen who’s taken over the lead architect role.

If you’re interested in following up the Arrako and space stuff (and also because they’re good books) you might also want to do SWORD (after Hellfire Gala) and X-Men Red (after Inferno; runs parallel to Immortal).

I haven't read many comics lately. I started Mind MGMT, which was very good, but then fell off. I should get back to that.

Anyone have any cool books from recent days to recommend? I've been a fan of creators like Brian K Vaughn and Brubaker/Philips in the past. I think the last new book I read was the sequel to Nailbiter (I really enjoyed the original and the new entry).

The Last Ronin (TMNT book)
Do a Powerbomb (Pro Wrestling tournament put on by a necromancer)
Firepower by Robert Kirkman his better version of Iron Fist