Comics, etc.

That was a really good watch. As a late-comer to comics and pretty much exclusive to digital purchases, I'm baffled by what I learned. It really makes me want to build a relationship with my local comics shop, though as a digital-preferred reader due to convenience and price, I'm not sure how I could actually help.

These days I buy 95% of my comics from DCBS. This means I have to preorder everything 3 months out, but most comics are 40-50% off. I'm wavering on whether this is the best method for me--it saves money to get a $3.99 comic for $2.39, but less so when the combo of doubleshipping and preordering mean that I just read X-Men Gold #1 and didn't really like it but have already paid for the next 4 issues. I wish someone would find a way to fix this dumb industry. I wonder if there will ever be a viable method for print on demand comics...

I mean, technically I can call this 'research', right?

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/morecomics.jpg)

Also finished reading Monstress - book 1 (which is gruesome but awesome. Gruaesome?)

and I had Nimona on the backlog for a while so I powered through that as well (by Noelle Stevenson, the writer/artist behind Lumberjanes, about a shapeshifting girl who starts apprenticing as sidekick to a supervillain. It's super cute, funny and heartbreaking at times).

Saga and Copperhead are both good stuff.

Black Magick was an unknown gamble but it's another really good one (police procedural except the detective in question is a powerful witch on the sly). REALLY nice artwork - mostly monochrome but with colour to represent magical stuff or particular important panels. Super effective.

Image comics really seem to be knocking it out of the park IMO. I don't think I've read much so far that has felt like a disappointment (although I've been specifically mostly cherry picking comics with female lead characters or that are written/created by women, so maybe all the comics starring men are terrible )

pyxistyx wrote:

I mean, technically I can call this 'research', right?

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/morecomics.jpg)

Also finished reading Monstress - book 1 (which is gruesome but awesome. Gruaesome?)

and I had Nimona on the backlog for a while so I powered through that as well (by Noelle Stevenson, the writer/artist behind Lumberjanes, about a shapeshifting girl who starts apprenticing as sidekick to a supervillain. It's super cute, funny and heartbreaking at times).

I LOVE Nimona. And Monstress is amazing. I need to check when volume 2 comes out.

I just caught up on Saga, so I'm excited for the next volume to come out.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Saga and Copperhead are both good stuff.

Copperhead was ok. I like the characters and the banter quite a bit. I'm not too keen on the space western setting though, I feel like that sub genre has been played out past it's sell by date IMO.

Went back to Gantz which I like and hate. I'm glade it is finished now. Sad to see it isn't fully translated yet officially. If my math isn't off it will take over 60 years to release the English volumes assuming they are the same length as the Japanese volumes.

Still working on Lock and Key. I'm on volume 2 now which brings on more crazy. Still a great comic that isn't as scary as it is billed as.

I'll probably pickup the Avatar comics once they go on sell again. They were half off not to long ago but they weren't on my radar then. To bad there aren't any Korra comics to continue the series. I like Korra a little more than Aang.

The unworthy thor looks pretty good. Once he is worthy will they change the name of the comic? Odinson Thor is using a different hammer/axe so I guess Jane Thor isn't going anywhere. I doubt they will keep him from his original hammer though. Axe hammer is cooler in my opinion.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I'll probably pickup the Avatar comics once they go on sell again. They were half off not to long ago but they weren't on my radar then. To bad there aren't any Korra comics to continue the series. I like Korra a little more than Aang.

You're in luck! The Korra comic is coming out this July.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Still working on Lock and Key. I'm on volume 2 now which brings on more crazy. Still a great comic that isn't as scary as it is billed as.

I wouldn't expect anything in Locke and Key to scare you. Maybe if body horror gets to you. I can't say I've ever seen it billed as being scary to read though, just horror themed. I'd peg it as young adult horror.

Dominic Knight wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

I'll probably pickup the Avatar comics once they go on sell again. They were half off not to long ago but they weren't on my radar then. To bad there aren't any Korra comics to continue the series. I like Korra a little more than Aang.

You're in luck! The Korra comic is coming out this July.

Nice

Stengah wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

Still working on Lock and Key. I'm on volume 2 now which brings on more crazy. Still a great comic that isn't as scary as it is billed as.

I wouldn't expect anything in Locke and Key to scare you. Maybe if body horror gets to you. I can't say I've ever seen it billed as being scary to read though, just horror themed. I'd peg it as young adult horror.

For me it can't be called horror and not be scary or attempt to be scary. Kind of like the difference between House and House 2. Neither movie is scary but at least House made a attempt to be scary so I would call it a horror movie. House 2 was a basically a comedy that made no attempt to be scary. I'm not sure why people think of it as a horror movie. Maybe cute puppy caterpillars are scary to people. Lock and Key doesn't do anything I can think of that would make it horror. Even the oddball head thing was only shocking for a minute.

The series starts with a brutal murder orchestrated by a psychic creature in a well to force the victim's family to return to their ancestral mansion so it can trick them into freeing it. That alone puts it well within the horror genre.

Not for me that would make the punisher and invincible and most of marvel and dcs comics horror. There is nothing in lock and key that comes close to the level of violence in invincible let alone the punisher. The joker cutting off his face was more over the top than what was in lock in key. I don't think anyone would call it horror though, but maybe they do. Wearing your own face is pretty freaky.

It uses a lot of horror themes and imagery but it's pretty solidly urban fantasy.

I consider Locke & Key horror that isn't terribly scary - though it does have its moments, and they do play for keeps. The presentation may not be as horrible as the subject matter, if that makes sense. Imagine this happening to real people.

Because something being scary is very subjective, it might be useful to look at other typical horror characteristics. L&K fits many of those.

You can say the same thing about comedy - it's meant to evoke a humorous response, which is probably even more subjective. Interestingly, comedy simply used to mean a story with a happy ending, and if you're Shakespeare, a story that ends with a wedding.

genre fight!!

I just sort my comics by publisher (and then break down the Marvel stuff by team or character)

but I do have that issue with movies. for Horror I usually go by tone more than subject matter. I was wondering recently if i should split it in two between Supernatural stuff and the more Wrong Turn-type "humans are the real monsters" stuff.. but I'm thinking it'll be hard to distinguish some of those from what I usually put with Thrillers.

all this to say, genres work great as unlimited tags but completely suck for any kind of sorting.

Had one final raid of my local book store's shelves for anything interesting since I ended up with an extra few quid in my pocket which I wasn't expecting.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/img_2838.jpg)

paper Girls looks veeeery interesting (from the writer of Saga) Nameless does not fit in with the other category of books I've been grabbing (either ones with specific female protagonists or with a strong female writing/art presence) BUT it does look like it's a bit cosmic horror / dead-spacey, which is right up my alley..so I figured I should give it a shot.

* * * *

Incidentally, I hit my first dud - "The Surface". Which...while I liked the art, and the fact that the main characters were openly poly bisexuals, everything else was REALLY pretentious "the universe is really a hologram" twaddle that I ended up giving up on and just enjoying the art.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Went back to Gantz which I like and hate. I'm glade it is finished now. Sad to see it isn't fully translated yet officially. If my math isn't off it will take over 60 years to release the English volumes assuming they are the same length as the Japanese volumes.

All us Berserk fans are chuckling at your pain. That said, I was a Gantz fan for a long time. That series goes from zero to nuts quite fast. And the ending was, well, nuts.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Not for me that would make the punisher and invincible and most of marvel and dcs comics horror. There is nothing in lock and key that comes close to the level of violence in invincible let alone the punisher. The joker cutting off his face was more over the top than what was in lock in key. I don't think anyone would call it horror though, but maybe they do. Wearing your own face is pretty freaky.

The presence of violence alone doesn't make something horror, how it's used does.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I consider Locke & Key horror that isn't terribly scary - though it does have its moments, and they do play for keeps. The presentation may not be as horrible as the subject matter, if that makes sense. Imagine this happening to real people.

Because something being scary is very subjective, it might be useful to look at other typical horror characteristics. L&K fits many of those.

That's why I'd say it's young adult horror. Goosebump books aren't scary and there's no violence, but they're definitely in the horror genre.

You're only two books in Baron, you're still in the setup part of the story. It's going to ramp up.

pyxistyx, please let us know what you think about Nameless. I read it because I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian. I was also intrigued by the outer space aspect, which is a natural step for post-spaceflight Lovecraftian horror.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

pyxistyx, please let us know what you think about Nameless. I read it because I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian. I was also intrigued by the outer space aspect, which is a natural step for post-spaceflight Lovecraftian horror.

Saw this title on Hoopla, should I give it a go?

pyxistyx wrote:

paper Girls looks veeeery interesting (from the writer of Saga) Nameless does not fit in with the other category of books I've been grabbing (either ones with specific female protagonists or with a strong female writing/art presence) BUT it does look like it's a bit cosmic horror / dead-spacey, which is right up my alley..so I figured I should give it a shot.

I love Paper Girls. It's one of my favorites that a friend recommended.

Yeah Paper Girls was great Definitely going to grab the second volume (and third, when it's available).

I enjoyed Nameless a lot too, although it's much tougher going. Probably the creepiest comic I've read in ages (certainly the most gory!). Definitely has a Lovecraftian meets Dead Space vibe to it. Going to need another read through I think. Worth a read if you love cosmic horror stuff FridgeGremlin.

Fedaykin98, have you read Southern Cross? It's also very Lovecraft in space and is well worth a read too.

pyxistyx wrote:

Yeah Paper Girls was great Definitely going to grab the second volume (and third, when it's available).

I enjoyed Nameless a lot too, although it's much tougher going. Probably the creepiest comic I've read in ages (certainly the most gory!). Definitely has a Lovecraftian meets Dead Space vibe to it. Going to need another read through I think. Worth a read if you love cosmic horror stuff FridgeGremlin.

Fedaykin98, have you read Southern Cross? It's also very Lovecraft in space and is well worth a read too.

I replied to your previous post about Southern Cross saying that I loved it.

In fact, I would endorse it more enthusiastically than I do Nameless. Nameless has higher highs and better art, but it is as Morrison as Morrison gets in that it collapses into nonsense at the end. See also everything else he's ever written.

There's a potentially interesting convo to be had about whether Morrison is some kind of post-modernist, or maybe worships Philp K Dick - half of whose stories collapsed into nonsense by the end, the other half being brilliant. In that case, Morrison is confused about which half are brilliant, or maybe just blinded by how brilliant Dick can be right before collapsing into nonsense.

Anyway, Nameless, like many other Morrison works, is fantastic for about 80-90% of the run, and then is retroactively destroyed by his horrible ending. He should really hire a ghost writer to finish all his books, or maybe just an editor.

Apologies to people who have read much of this before; I'm like AC/DC, continually repackaging the same ideas for new audiences and those can't seem to quit me.

Spoiler:

I love AC/DC.

In other news, the absolutely fantastic Locke & Key is on sale on Comixology for the next two weeks. But the first trade today, read it in time to buy the rest on sale, and then come in here and tell is whether it's horror or not.

Spoiler:

It is.

Ok, I thought it was just me not "getting" the ending to nameless but it sounds like that might not be entirely my fault! Good to know

I don't really follow comics but I thought some of you might find this interesting.

Marvel Joins Comixology's All-You-Can Read Subscription Service

Very interesting. I think I'll still keep my Marvel Unlimited subscription, as I'm reading stuff from the 90's at the moment, but looks really good for someone wanting to dabble in modern Marvel.