Comics, etc.

I remember Unwritten being really good but I haven’t read it since it originally came out.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Preacher is good.

Ha, of course! Possibly the GOAT.

I also liked the first several books of Unwritten. It's so long, though, possibly twice as long as needed. I haven't finished it. I need to.

I often have to apologize for this, but I just did not enjoy Y: The Last Man. Just couldn't get into it.

I am still digging Firepower!

IMAGE(https://comicbookroundup.com/img/covers/f/fire-power/7.jpg)

cartoonin wrote:

I am still digging Firepower!

IMAGE(https://comicbookroundup.com/img/covers/f/fire-power/7.jpg)

I'm looking forward to grabbing the trade!

Grenn wrote:

I often have to apologize for this, but I just did not enjoy Y: The Last Man. Just couldn't get into it.

I remember being a huge fan of BKV back in the 00's, and I'm not sure I've ever swung around on a guy quite like have with him. Whenever I've gone back and tried to read one of his old books it just feels flat and the dialogue doesn't quite work.

Even Runaways feels a little less compelling in retrospect.

I don't know that I'm a BKV fanatic, but I've enjoyed most things I've read by him:

Y The Last Man
Ex Machina
Runaways
Paper Girls
The first several books of Saga

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I don't know that I'm a BKV fanatic, but I've enjoyed most things I've read by him:

Y The Last Man
Ex Machina
Runaways
Paper Girls
The first several books of Saga

I've never been quite taken with BKV's work, but I admit I haven't tried very hard. Saga was as close as I got, and I really liked the early Saga volumes, but after that it just turned into an endless TV series, where nothing much mattered.

Natus wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I don't know that I'm a BKV fanatic, but I've enjoyed most things I've read by him:

Y The Last Man
Ex Machina
Runaways
Paper Girls
The first several books of Saga

I've never been quite taken with BKV's work, but I admit I haven't tried very hard. Saga was as close as I got, and I really liked the early Saga volumes, but after that it just turned into an endless TV series, where nothing much mattered.

On the one hand, I totally agree with your assessment of Saga. On the other hand, since I haven't finished it, maybe it concluded (is it done? No idea!) in a really satisfactory manner, and maybe he planned it all from the beginning. And to be fair about the length, he did call it Saga, not Year One.

Over time, and as we've seen long but limited series blossom more and more in both comics and TV, I am less and less interested in an ongoing narrative with no particular endpoint. I know a lot of Goodjers say similar things about TV shows, and want to make sure they don't get canceled early before they'll even start. There have been too many series where the ending was a mess, and that can make you feel like you wasted dozens of hours.

We just discussed Unwritten, which I also haven't finished. Similar to Saga, it started very strong. Unlike Saga, it kind of seemed to have resolved a lot of the premise after several dozen issues, but then took a left turn and kept going. Someday I'll finish both books and post my thoughts.

Btw I say this all the time in TV threads, but in case some people are unaware, Person of Interest is an absolutely fantastic TV show that is the complete antidote to this issue of meandering narratives. Despite having a perfect formula to totally episodic and indefinite, it has tons of plot, character development, and changes over the course of the show. I wish they'd made several more seasons.

Saga has been on hiatus for a little over two years now, I think. I really want it come back because I think it's great, so if it keeps up the quality, it can go on for as long as they want to, as far as I'm concerned.

Bought the omnibus editions of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk, and even though it does one of my personal pet peeves these days (a protagonist who cannot get their ass kicked without some borderline absurdist set of circumstances happening first), I still love it and Juan Bobillo's art is just delightful.

Also bought The Wicked and the Divine #1, because it was time to finally give it a shot.

Prederick wrote:

Bought the omnibus editions of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk, and even though it does one of my personal pet peeves these days (a protagonist who cannot get their ass kicked without some borderline absurdist set of circumstances happening first), I still love it and Juan Bobillo's art is just delightful.

Also bought The Wicked and the Divine #1, because it was time to finally give it a shot.

I love Wicked and the Divine, really hope you enjoy it. That reminds me I think the third trade for Die is out which is my current Kieron Gillen read

I really liked The Wicked and the Divine at first but it’s another one of those series where it becomes clear that the writer had only planned the story out so far and didn’t know what to do after they reached that point.

I struggled with The Wicked and the Divine because I am not nearly familiar enough with the mythological characters being referenced to understand and track who they are and what is happening. Very similar to my feelings on Phonogram, another book that I felt seemed like it would be incredible if I just had any understanding of all the music references being made. I think I got through like 8 volumes of Wicked and Divine before I was like "who am I kidding, I'm not getting any of this." I like the vibe of Gillen's work, and love McKelvie's art. It will be cool if one day they make a book that is actually for me (maybe Young Avengers was the thing they did together that was closest to being up my alley, but it still wasn't quite there).

I had a similar experience with WickDiv. I did enjoy some Phonogram, and even though I've been neck deep in certain indie music scenes for decades, I never heard of any of those damn bands. I assume they're real? Did their music ever get outside of England?

I think they're all real, or at least, like, most of them? I want to say they released some sort of annotated version of Phonogram at some point that explained all of the references (I swear I had a copy that had like a numbered list in the back attributing every quoted lyric and explaining which bands were being referenced, maybe this was just part of the regular issues though? I am thinking of when I purchased it off the rack tho, either the first or second volume, so nearly 15 years ago), but yeah I assumed it was a lot of extremely narrow British indie pop music references.

Finish New 52 Wonder Woman first born story. They didn't stick the landing. The first born power level never made sense. A bunch of men came into play but was never used. They just sort of vanished which was really weird considering men on paradise island would cause some major issues. I would have thought some of the ladies might try to find their sons and brothers. Or maybe some amazons would straight up try to kill them. They just ignored the issue for the most part. Then the only god to die was the black one, boo. hmmm actually that might not be true, I don't believe we seen a killing blow to any other god. I'm sure they are already back in some other comic.

They change artist for a bit during the story but went back to the first one to end the story. The artist they got to continue the comic after the story is good but I hate the way wonder woman is drawn. They made her look like a 17 year old Selena Gomez with a super sexy body.

The current story has the old god of wars pets doing bad things. Also a witch magic up a new wonder woman to replace Dianna because she isn't spending enough time with the amazons. Considering Dianna is queen and a god the amazons are throwing a lot of shade on her.

Anyone have any recommendations for a Batgirl book for ~4-5 year old girl, other than Tiny Titans or DC Superhero Girls? My middle kid is very excited about Batgirl right now, and tho we've read a bunch of the DC Superhero Girls books and some of the Tiny Titans, she was asking for a book that's just Batgirl. It feels like something that should exist but I wasn't turning up anything promising in my initial googling. Even just like a Golden Book style thing, doesn't have to be a proper comic. A point of comparison I'm thinking of is a Wonder Woman book by Ralph Cosentino that she likes a lot.

Read that at first as a 45 year old girl and thought "Jeez, seems like she should be able to read anything she wants!"

Mrlogical, I don't have any specific suggestions, but if you have or know of a good comic store owner - that is to say, one who isn't like Comic Book Guy - they can almost certainly help you out. I had pretty much this exact conversation (different super hero) with a store owner here in Toronto, and he knew his sh*t. Busted out Little Golden Books, a few Marvel Super Hero Adventures graphic novels, and some other options too and chatted with me for 5 minutes (me on the curb and him in the doorway because, you know, pandemic.)

Happy to recommend or send a link, though the international shipping would probably not be worth your money. I'm sure you can find someone similar at least nominally local.

Oh, and what about the stepped readers? (Two links)

mrlogical wrote:

Anyone have any recommendations for a Batgirl book for ~4-5 year old girl, other than Tiny Titans or DC Superhero Girls? My middle kid is very excited about Batgirl right now, and tho we've read a bunch of the DC Superhero Girls books and some of the Tiny Titans, she was asking for a book that's just Batgirl. It feels like something that should exist but I wasn't turning up anything promising in my initial googling. Even just like a Golden Book style thing, doesn't have to be a proper comic. A point of comparison I'm thinking of is a Wonder Woman book by Ralph Cosentino that she likes a lot.

Brian Q. Millers Batgirl run is extremely good. It starts with Batgirl Rising. There are several Batgirl graphic novels by him. I don’t know if they are appropriate for 4-5 year olds.

Edit: Looking through them I don’t think they are.

cartoonin wrote:

I am still digging Firepower!

IMAGE(https://comicbookroundup.com/img/covers/f/fire-power/7.jpg)

Just finished the Vol 2 trade and I'm really loving it. The family dynamics are so good, the art is great. People really seem to care about each other. You can see the emotional through line from Invincible to Firepower.

Dupe

Dupe

The golden book Flower Power is wonder woman and Batgirl against ivy. It's... fine? It's not offensive, but it's far from my first choice when my 5 year old is in a superhero mood. She's more into wonder woman, so we've had an easier time finding age appropriate stuff

That really sucks, I've been loving that whole run.

Thanks for the Batgirl for kids suggestions, all.

We already have the Flower Power Golden Book and I agree, it's adequate but not great, also probably a little too young for her. The Step Into Reading book looks like a good option. I remember reading and enjoying the Bryan Q. Miller Batgirl run when that was happening! But yeah, not really 4-5 year old speed from my memory.

I've also started watching Batman: The Animated Series with her which is such a delight. My 9 year old is so terrified of conflict in stories that she's never really connected with superhero stuff (occasionally she'd get into something, but inevitably, just when we were in a good groove, something would happen she would deem scary and she'd refuse to pick up another story for months), so it's been so fun that my 4 year old is like "we need more comics!!!" We read through the Zita the Spacegirl books a month or two ago, which are phenomenal, and I see other books in that ballpark, but my daughter is suddenly focused on sort of "name brand" heroes and isn't interested in some of the other kids hero-y books I've shown her. If there's no Supergirl or Batgirl or Wonder Woman or perhaps Batman or Superman or Spider-Man, she's not interested. We'll keep exploring.

Not a super hero book but have you looked at LumberJanes?