Comics, etc.

I can't look at Spider-Man anymore. It just got weirder and weirder and I lost interest, I think, as a defense mechanism to keep the character's integrity intact in my own mind.

I never really got the "villain" vibe from Stark in CW. Misguided, maybe, but never intentionally harmful. I found him fulfilling the old habit of his character to over-indulge. This time it just happened to be on an ideal.

Mmm...that's some good vitriol. Just needs some garlic.

Seriously though, I quit comics for a long timeafter Preacher was cancelled, and I had quit prior to that somewhere after Bishop's first appearance in X-Men. That was the last comic arc I bought for quite a few years. Maybe it's these long breaks that keep me from getting jaded by the sameness of the storylines. I guess House of M and even Messiah Complex are just retreads of the old Fall of the Mutants and Executioner's Song crossovers. All just there to drive sales. Dammit, now I feel guilty for buying all those books. I wonder if the wife will let me spend some money on some trades...some of the ones you guys have mentioned sound good.

I'm still reading here and there; mostly been reading novels, though. I've fallen behind on a lot, though. I can only think of three books I'd go to the store for immediately:

Y
Invincible (thanks to this thread! It rocks!)
100 Bullets - everyone who likes true crime / conspiracy noir type stuff needs to read this; it's out of this world.

There's a bunch of other stuff I read but am not as hooked on:

Ex Machina (but I always love it, go figure)
The Walking Dead

I need to get more of that X-Factor, because I LOVED the Madrox series.

Would be a good idea. I plan to have Logan sit in for me when I am on my honeymoon.

- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.

Xbox Live: Fedaykin98

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Apparently, Hemidal and I must now fight in the middle of the city.

Should I change my avatar?

Only if yours has had the f*ck beat out of it.

Better?

Yes!

I was going to compliment it with a pic of Cap wailing on Iron Man with his shield but I can't seem to find it on google.

Hmmmmm, I still really enjoy The Walking Dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wal...

Sommer is right as well with KoDT. I have followed since Shadis and Dragon magazines into its own series. If you have table top RPG'd you cannot go wrong and will find yourself relating at so many levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights...

If you never read it....you should be shot, but since there is a movie being made of it, I will forgive most of the mainstream masses for not having read Preacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preache...

Civil War did blow and Quesada needs to go back to drawing comics, I don't know who he had to have whacked to become EIC of Marvel, but he must of killed a whole family.

I was following Green Arrow for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_A...

One of my favorite comic artists died last year, Mike Wieringo, and his Tellos series is not one to be missed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellos

Go here as well, http://www.comicbookresources.com/ if you don't have it bookmarked already. You can find good stuff and get some neat ideas of reading material, sometimes mainstream, sometimes independent. Good Luck.

I'm trying, poorly, to get back into comics. I enjoyed reading through The Walking Dead and the Marvel Zombies stuff last year but just can't seem to make time lately for other titles. A friend of mine gave me a huge stack of trades & singles for Civil War, Astonishing XMen, New XMen and a bunch of the Ultimates but I have no idea where to even start.

One thing that is turning me off to comics is trying to figure out where to begin reading and what's fragmented into what (especially in Marvel's lineup). The last thing I remember picking up back when I was a steady reader was the Marvel Onslaught shenanigans and that was 10 years ago... Damn I feel old...

Maybe this thread will get me motivated again.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Yes!

I was going to compliment it with a pic of Cap wailing on Iron Man with his shield but I can't seem to find it on google.

Close enough

IMAGE(http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs17/300W/f/2007/218/b/c/Captain_vs__Iron_Man_colors_by_thincage.jpg)

Sheesh, the only comics I read these days are the trade paperback collections. I can't recommend enough that everybody read JMS's Rising Stars from a few years ago. The trades should be fairly cheap and the story is self contained. Other than that the last comic I read was catching up on Hellboy back-issues.

There was one where his head was damn near crushed.

Well, anyway, I'm glad I brought all this up so now the next time we all get together it will be extra awkward.

cartoonin99 wrote:

I was following Green Arrow for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_A...

Holy Crap another person that reads this. What do you think of Winnick's runs with the character?

Danjo brought up, a minute ago, that I don't like Captain America because I've read every issue of Wolverine, and Wolverine doesn't like Captain America too much, for almost the same reasons I stated.

So I might actually be perpetuating the ill-informed opinion of a fictional character.

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned Buffy: Season Eight yet. That's right, Whedonfans, it's canon.

I've backed away completely from the monthly superhero comics after all that Death and Return of Superman, Knightfall, and Clone Spider-Man bullcrap. One-shots and mini-series for me, plus a few Star Wars monthly titles are pretty much it for me.

Incidentally, if you ever have a chance to watch the animated movie of the Death of Superman, they completely reworked the death and return story lines and came out with something that is extremely entertaining.

I prefer this one.

Bite it, Stark. Ya lousy drunk.

IMAGE(http://comicpants.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/iron-mancaptain-amcasualties-of-war.jpg)

It's like they got in a fight at the Avengers Prom. Simple Minds playing in the background. Principal all furious.

Speaking of animated shows, if you're a fan of Hellboy or Mike Mignola, and to a lesser extent wacky shows like THE TICK, you need to check out THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD.

Oh, and if you like comics but prefer actual BOOK books, you need to read SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE by Austin Grossman. One of the best books I read last year. Light reading, but great stuff... like an Astro City novel (and speaking of which... ASTRO CITY is awesome, too).

I've pretty much just started looking for limited series and alternative sources for my comics. In the past three months, I read "Ultra: Seven Days", "Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood" and "Safe Area Goražde". All three are great, for varying reasons. And I still have "The Invisibles", "Transmetropolitan", "100 Bullets", "Box Office Poison" and "Blankets" to delve into.

I pick up stuff from Marvel and DC every now and then, but it's usually older stuff that I've heard is choice. More often, now, when I read the Wikipedia pages explaining what's going on in certain universes now, or the insanely lazy concept of the "Omega Level Mutant" (walking Deus Ex Machina) my head just hurts. Superhero comics were always soap operas for boys, but sometimes, it's just ridiculous.

That said, the entire recent debacle with Spider Man and Mary Jane's marriage and Mephisto leads me to believe that you can't keep creating interesting and new storylines every month for 45 years.

Prederick wrote:

I've pretty much just started looking for limited series and alternative sources for my comics. In the past three months, I read "Ultra: Seven Days", "Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood" and "Safe Area Goražde". All three are great, for varying reasons. And I still have "The Invisibles", "Transmetropolitan", "100 Bullets", "Box Office Poison" and "Blankets" to delve into.

If you like "Safe Area," make sure to check out the PALESTINE books by the same author. Sacco's art can be pretty insanely detailed, and political, but I enjoyed them.

BLANKETS is a massive, very successful indy comic... enjoyable, and worth reading, but nothing you haven't seen before if you've read other indy comics. Still, Craig Thompson is pretty solid... check out his GOODBYE, CHUNKY RICE for a shorter, lighter read.

I read every issue of THE INVISIBLES... and I understood none of it It's definitely an interesting, if batsh*t crazy, read.

As for Marvel and DC... I want to phrase this really carefully, because I don't want to offend anyone. For ME, personally, I feel like I've done it and seen pretty much everything superhero comics have to show me. I definitely feel like I've outgrown the genre, although I still enjoy looking at older stuff (DC SHOWCASE PRESENTS trades).

I think that part of why superhero comics have turned me off is that they've been getting darker and skewing older lately since the buying pool keeps aging and no new younger readers seem to take their place. This leads to adult-pandering stuff like Identity Crisis and the like... i don't WANT to see treasured icons raping people and killing villains all in the name of "Adult" content. Sure, they're good stories on their own... but I just don't like the direction it seems to be taking.

re: the Spider-Man/JMS/Quesada/Mephisto thing... I think this is just a perfect example of what NOT to do. I still think good stories can be told in this format... but death and massive changes (e.g. revealing my identity in a miniseries) don't really go hand in hand with monthly, serialized publications. It just leads to massive cop-outs (like the whole "it was all a spell!" explanation that Quesada seems ready to foist on everyone).

Oh, and I agree about Joe Q... I remember loving his art when he was drawing THE RAY for DC way back when. Not a real big fan of his recent goofy stuff, though... like that horrid Spider-Man suit with the 3 (how does a spider have 7 arms!?!?!?!?) robot arms.

See, I'm just tired of the genre as well, because there's so much behind it, because deaths mean nothing ("He's dead!" "He's back!" "He's dead again!" "Nope, he's back!"), because there's just not much way to tell the stories anymore. Without just gettting silly. And "The House Of M" was just insanely silly. To me.

I don't mind my heroes being dark. I just haven't seen the big two present a storyline that really intrigued me in a long time.

Oh, and "Powers", and "Runaways" I <3 (at least until Whedon took over). Basically, i'm tired of the old heroes and their stories.

I haven't read the comics in a while, still waiting for continuation of translated Sandman down here. I probably have been plugging it already, but just to make sure, do yourself a favor and read Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth. Apart from Sandman it's the only comic book that was able to make me really sad.

Holy Crap another person that reads this. What do you think of Winnick's runs with the character?

I enjoyed Winnick's stuff on Green Arrow actually.

While looking for Sandman, a "Batman & Superman: Absolute Power" trade paperback caught my eye. I flipped through it only a little. Can anyone say if it's worth buying/reading?

Prederick wrote:

See, I'm just tired of the genre as well, because there's so much behind it, because deaths mean nothing ("He's dead!" "He's back!" "He's dead again!" "Nope, he's back!"), because there's just not much way to tell the stories anymore. Without just gettting silly. And "The House Of M" was just insanely silly. To me.

The problem is that comics used to have lots of reader turnover. You were young, read comics for a few years, then moved on to other stuff. Younger kids then took over... repeat cycle. I don't know if anyone thought the same people would be reading comics for 20+ years.

Another part of that is the business side of things... Spider-Man and Batman are cash-cows for merchandising. You can't have "dead means dead dead" in a world where your characters CAN'T die. That's what indy comics and manga are for, I guess. I get really sort of insulted when people say that classic characters with a 40/50/60 year history should be killed off and "stay dead." Who are you to ruin that character for future readers, Mr. editor-man?

Oh, and "Powers", and "Runaways" I <3 (at least until Whedon took over). Basically, i'm tired of the old heroes and their stories.

... and here's where I ladle on the hate-- I think RUNAWAYS is the most overhyped comic of the "aughties."

cartoonin99 wrote:

If you never read it....you should be shot, but since there is a movie being made of it, I will forgive most of the mainstream masses for not having read Preacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preache...

Word. According to the wiki, it appears it's now an HBO series. That's great, HBO needs something soon to pick up, haven't watched anything from it since Rome and Deadwood.

I haven't been reading many comics series lately, although I love Y: The last man and Fables. I get Y: in trade paperbacks.

Also, Flight is series of short stories done by different artists, so it encompasses many different themes and art styles. I think the fourth volume is the most recent. If you are a music fan, Phonogram:Rue Britannia was a mini series that's been published as a collection. Adrian Tomine is great, he does short stories that are realistic rather than fantasy. Another realistic story, but with a creative and symbolic art style, is Jimmy Corrigan, a stand alone story about a man meeting his father for the first time.

SommerMatt wrote:

The problem is that comics used to have lots of reader turnover. You were young, read comics for a few years, then moved on to other stuff. Younger kids then took over... repeat cycle. I don't know if anyone thought the same people would be reading comics for 20+ years.

Another part of that is the business side of things... Spider-Man and Batman are cash-cows for merchandising. You can't have "dead means dead dead" in a world where your characters CAN'T die. That's what indy comics and manga are for, I guess. I get really sort of insulted when people say that classic characters with a 40/50/60 year history should be killed off and "stay dead." Who are you to ruin that character for future readers, Mr. editor-man?

Oh no, don't get me wrong. I know why they do it. It just doesn't jive for me anymore. You see what i'm saying? They don't have to stop, I just can't take it.

... and here's where I ladle on the hate-- I think RUNAWAYS is the most overhyped comic of the "aughties." :)

Well and good. I know a lot of people that look at me like I have a 3rd head when I say that the aforementioned writer of "Runaways" makes me stay the hell away from a comic.

Oddly enough I think Whedon is doing his best comic work on Runaways, better than Brian K. Vaughan's last couple of arcs. On the flip side I also think that BKV's arc on the Buffy Season 8 series was better than Whedon's.