What comic are you reading at the moment.

Fysh

If you liked Bad Weekend your best bet is to read the Criminal #1-12 issues from that bundle, Bad Weekend was an expanded version of the story in #2 and #3. (And then the entire rest of Criminal, it's phenomenal stuff).

Outside of that bundle, Sleeper (by Brubaker and Phillips) is a great espionage/superhero story with a Criminal sort of feel, set in the old Wildstorm universe.

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118435860#Comment_118435860

No idea if you'll see this in time, but if you're still looking for Absolute Sandman vol 2, Gosh! Comics in London have a 2nd hand copy at a reasonable price.

Tech_Head

Thanks for thinking of me. It’s the omnibus I’m looking for. Came back into Bookdepository this week so hoping the one I have in order at Amazon.de at a sale prices comes in soon!

Thargor

Im reading all 3 volumes of Invincible before season 2 of the animation comes out, no clue whats coming in them, Ive barely scratched the first one and its nearly at the end of season 1 of the animations story already. They're... okay I suppose, a bit bland and generic in a way.

I dont read Manga but Ive downloaded all of Attack on Titan and am going to start working my way through that instead of rewatching the series just to refresh myself for the final season.

Fysh

I picked up and read a few bits digitally last week:

Ha-ha #5 & #6 - I forgot these were out because I don't have a decent LCS near me these days, but in any case they were both strong issues. I really enjoyed this set of done-in-ones, there's a lot of shared qualities between them and Ice-Cream Man, but Ha-Ha is more focused on oddness than horror.

Monkey Meat #1 - I'm a long-standing sucker for anthology setups, and this was no different. A nastier, bleaker tone than I had perhaps expected but then it's a satire on late-stage capitalism so I think that one's on me. Some good black humour in this and kinetic artwork, so I'm on for more of this.

Second Chances #1 - I took a punt on this based on the lovely art preview a few months back, and on that ground it's a success. The writing is the weaker part of the pairing, which may be explained as being the writer's first published work (as far as I can tell). It's not awful by any means, but it is that sort of derivative mix that you get when someone hasn't yet found their own voice and is still leaning a bit too much on their influences. I would read the rest of it, but I might wait to get it from the library.

What's The Furthest Place From Here? #1 - Teenage Punx Vs The Apocalypse, you say? Yeah, alright, I'll give it a go. It's very much an issue #1 so setting things up, establishing characters etc, but I like that it is unashamed in how it makes music such a central part of its protagonist's lives. (I also like that they're doing deluxe versions of the single issues that come with soundtracks - I'm not a vinyl person and am mostly digital these days, but I still appreciate the effort to make the artefacts interesting in and of themselves). The tone of it reminds me of Charles Forsman's comics somehow, probably more the TEOFTW/I Am Not OK With This end of things, although the art is a bit more Jim Rugg.

Red Room: The Antisocial Network TP - I picked this up having been impressed/repulsed by a random single issue of it I picked up last year. Given that the theme is basically "snuff livestreams", making it live up to the ida requires a certain willingness to be grotesque, and Piskor has excelled here. Gore is often used lazily in horror as a means to shock, but Piskor here offers countless images that will make you wince or shudder, and uses them to establish and explore a grim, miserable world filled with awful people - and he makes it compelling. Horror done well should be unsettling, and this is done very very well.

Next up, I've got a couple of Spanish comics, the first Gillen Eternals trade, and a massive Taschen collection of the Krazy Kat Sunday colour strips. (And some of the stuff I was given for Christmas, which I shamefully still haven't read...)

Xofpod

Mazeworld was thoroughly enjoyable, phenomenal art even if the writing was a bit uninspired.

Continuing to scratch that 90s itch with some collected Xmen from the time - collected Fatal Attractions, and Onslaught stuff. John Romita Jr.'s art always really stood out to me from this period.

Also thinking about going back and looking at some of the stuff that completely passed me by at the time - maybe 100 Bullets, or Transmetropolitan, or some of the Brubaker crime stuff, as discussed above. Any recommendations?

Fysh

Transmet if you like SF or some of Brubaker's crime stuff would be my suggestion. If you want to keep it 90s, go for the first season of Brubaker and Phillips' Sleeper season - look for this version of the "Book One" collection as it also includes a setup/prequel miniseries.

Tech_Head

Got a copy from Bookdepository 👍

CastorTroy

About halfway through Paper Girls. Liking it and nice easy read. Only started reading last night.

mrcheez

Started into first few volumes of Kill or Be Killed by Ed Brubaker.

Dark, gritty, superbly-drawn.. love it. Like a satanic spin on Kick Ass.

I'll take the earlier recommendation to check out the Criminal series after, but I'm a full Brubaker-convert now!

Thargor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118742518#Comment_118742518

Exactly what I was looking for, thanks for that.

I just finished all of Invincible, a 15 year long arc when originally published unbelievably. I loved it tbh, it was never boring for the whole thing, literally random shocks and surprises in every chapter and it never got cliched or irritating like these things usually do.

Fysh

It's been a while since I posted here, and I've done a fair bit of comics buying and reading recently.

The Nice House On The Lake, Volume 1

This is some good, interesting stuff. I'm liking the art and narrative, with the only minor niggle being that there are a few too many sets of pages that are a set of panels across both pages but split in a way that doesn't make it [i]at all[/i] obvious, which means a double-take when reading. I'm on for volume 2 when it releases.

The Fey and the Furious and Monday, Monday

Enjoyable though often slight-feeling stories set in the world of the Rivers Of London books. Library reads as these are very much read-once comics for me, though I will say that the art standard has been improving over the last few volumes, particularly in terms of better mesh between colour and linework.

A Tomar Por Curro

A Spanish collection of single panel and shortish comic strips, with a theme I can best describe as the "antiwork" movement. Some very inventive strips in here, and quite a few laughs as well.

Eternals: Only Death Is Eternal

Being honest, I picked this up because it's a Panini reprint trade that was going cheap (£10) and I like Gillen's writing enough that I was willing to take that gamble. I enjoyed this more than I thought I might, because while the base Eternals premise isn't one that interests me much, Gillen's focus and characterisation is pretty strong, and the trade ends with a pretty good hook for "ooh, I wonder where this goes". I may check out the next trade in due course.

Department Of Truth: The Shining City On The Hill

I am really enjoying this series, it's like a murkier, weirder complement to Hickman's Manhattan Projects. And yet not without gentle moments, which land all the more effectively because they contrast with some of the horror and brutality happening elsewhere. This feels like it could be a less overtly humorous companion piece to Hickman's Manhattan Projects.

The Dreaming Volume 2: Empty Shells

My continuing lack of easy local access to a good comic shop means that I largely passed on the Sandman Universe title reboots when they first launched - I recall picking up a couple of the first issues, but forgot to come back for the trades when they first released. Hence only getting around to this now. I'm glad I did get around to them, though, as Spurrier has done some really good work here (much like he did on his Hellblazer run). Where I remember certain aspects of the first volume feeling a little slow, the pacing here was just right. I'm a bit disappointed there's only one more volume left, but equally I'd rather that the story conclude while it's still going strong than outstay its welcome.

Red Mother Volumes 1 & 2 (digital)

I got these as part of some bundle or other. I had thought I'd enjoy them quite a bit, as I like my weird horror stories and this seemed to fit the bill. Unfortunately, over the course of 2 volumes it makes the classic blunder so many horror stories do of establishing that there's a conspiracy to manipulate the main character for nefarious purposes - and then suggesting that apparently the entire world is in on it. Which, for me at least, has the opposite-to-intended effect and saps the tension from the story somehow. A pity, as the art's not bad and there are some nice visuals occasionally.

Bite Me Comic

This is an odd one - a small press magazine special issue done in the style of comics like Misty or Mandy. The storytelling feels (intentionally) throwback, but since it also includes a couple of strips that originally appeared in Misty, it's quite nice to see some of that art style again - like in Tomb of Dracula, there was some really good artwork being created for horror comics in the 70s and 80s. As with all anthologies some stories are better than others, but overall I enjoyed this as a bit of a different mix of stories.

Horror Buffet #1 (small press)

A very short collection of one-page horror stories. I liked the art and the use of colour - a limited set of colours is used in each strip to help set a mood - and the goal of telling a creepy story on each page works well. I just wish it wasn't so short - only 6 pages of comics! - because if there were more to it, this would be easy to recommend. An author to keep an eye on, at least.

Love & Rockets Volume IV #11

It makes me oddly happy that a comic as eccentric as Love & Rockets is still coming out, so picking this up was as much a desire to support it in some way as it was a specific desire to read some of the current storyline. Being that I am way behind on my L&R (like, Amor Y Cohetes is the last collection I bought and I haven't read any of the previous Volume IV issues) I'm missing the context for most of this issue, but read on its own it's still an engaging and interesting read.

I hit a couple of comic shops in Glasgow recently and one of them was doing 2-for-£1 lucky-dip bundles of single issues from the last few years, which is why the following reviews are such a random assortment.

Leviathan #2

John Layman & Nick Pitarra doing some sort of monster/kaiju feature? Sounds like fun! Issue #2 is not quite as good an entry point as issue 1, but you get the general idea of what's happened so far and what's coming next. Except that sadly, it seems this title has been cancelled. Oh well.

On The Stump #1

A weird political satire in which politicians have to win cage fights as part of passing legislation. The art is fairly good, with the fights having a similar energy to Tradd Moore's art on the Luther Strode books (though not quite as dynamic). The story seems like it's going to be too earnestly about its theme to be interesting, with a distinct feeling that characters may end up standing around and exposit directly at the reader. Not for me.

Protector #2 (also known as "First Knife", apparently)

This is more like it - weird sci-fi involving Simon Roy, whose work I've been enjoying since the excellent Jan's Atomic Heart way back when. As with Leviathan, issue 2 isn't the best place to start (not least because this is a 5-issue mini) but it still more or less works. This feels like it's not a million miles away from the Prophet reboot that Roy worked on with Brandon Graham, although fewer aliens appear to be involved. The art is just lovely, with a Brandon-Graham-like use of sound-effects and a nice combination of colour and toning effects. It was enjoyably weird enough that I will check out the trade at some point.

As a bonus, looking up the creators of this issue pointed me to this Gumroad page with an anthology title called Slavic Nihilism which sounds like my jam.

Gung-Ho: Black Sheep #2

I'll be honest, I've never heard of this title or either of the creators listed on it. Storywise, it looks to be a fairly derivative YA affair - which is a shame, as I've been bored of Generic Post-Apocalypse as a setting for a while now. Having said that, the art here is appealing - fully-painted and without outlines, it's a refreshing change from a lot of Direct Market comics. I don't think I'd be fussed to read more of this story, but I'd like to see more comics by the artist.

Dying Is Easy #2

I was intrigued when I first heard about this because I've enjoyed some of Joe Hill's writing, and hearing that he was back to doing more comics (after a novel that I thought was pretty dreadful) caught my attention. Again, this is #2 of a 5-issue mini so not the best place to start - but even with that, it feels a bit slight. Martin Simmonds - whose art works really well in Department Of Truth - feels kind of wasted here, like there's not enough story to tell visually. So this feels like it's going to be one of those trades that really could have just been a novella or a short story by the writer, rather than a story that has a distinct visual identity.

John Carpenter's Tales Of Science Fiction: Vortex 2.0 #5

Well, if issue 2-of-5 was a bad place to start, 5-of-8 is even worse, right? (It gets worse - the 2.0 after "Vortex" is because this is a sequel miniseries...) But on the plus side, John Carpenter's involved, right? Well, kind of. His name's in the title because the core story idea is one of his, and he is a co-publisher at Storm King Comics, but the writing and development of the comic are by a separate team. Narratively it reads like a sort of mix of The Thing, Alien and Dead Space. The art is serviceable if not particularly distinctive.

There is a part of me that's definitely interested by an anthology comic series helmed by John Carpenter, but I don't know if I'm as keen with a setup where the writing and art tasks are handed off to different teams rather than being directly handled or overseen by Carpenter himself. Not sure if I'll read more of this.

Friday #1

This is a physical print of the digital comic by Brubaker and Martín which I picked up on a whim. I've been meaning to check it out for a while as I generally like all of Brubaker's work - unsurprisingly, I enjoyed this too and the setup (a former "kid detective" returns as an adult to the town she left behind and gets roped into a new mystery) is handled really well by Brubaker, with Martín's art being a really good fit. I'm not yet decided whether I'll go digital or print-trades for this, though.

Fysh

Turns out I forgot Scarenthood, which was a thoroughly enjoyable and very Irish title from last year. Very funny dialogue, and some very creepy moments throughout.

Fysh

I went back to Jason Lutes' Berlin, which I got about 40% through months ago and then put down for some reason. I couldn't tell you why that was, because I raced through the rest of it over the weekend and it was excellent. A phenomenal combination of a city's history, larger historical events in context, and a sprawling array of characters trying to navigate those events.

Thargor

Superman was in Dublin this month:

Ridley

Still trapped if you don't count the dozen or so ground-level windows most could comfortably get through without compromising the surrounding struct

Xofpod

Just read the collected Strontium Dog:the Final Solution. Was somewhat aware at the time of the politics running under a lot of 2000AD stories but reading again years later, the depiction of the far right mentality just lurking under the surface of British society is chilling. And just as the news happens to be full of the plan to "outsource" asylum seekers to Rwanda....

JuanGreen

Just started Paper Girls, I'm not as familiar with Brian K. Vaughn as I probably should be since I usually like his stuff. Haven't gotten the chance to read the new Saga comics.

Fysh

I'm sure I have some digital trades of Paper Girls, Saga and We Stand On Guard, I should really have a read of them :) I'm a bit ambivalent about Vaughn's writing, I enjoyed most of Y: The Last Man but found the conclusion disappointing. And Pride of Baghdad just didn't really land for me.

CastorTroy

I liked Paper Girls when I read it recently. I think I may have gotten a bit lost if I had been reading it monthly since there were a lot of references to earlier events I probably would've forgotten.

mrcheez

After completing the superb Kill or Be Killed (that ending...damn it was good) I finished Criminal Volume 1 - Coward this morning...another Ed Brubaker...

Was expecting it to be the first volume in a large multi-volume story arc but it's a self-contained story it seems? Which is perfect for me as I can get through a full story in one go without having to worry about catching up when I next get time to get back to it.

Superb writing as always from the man of the moment Brubaker. Looking forward to the next volume.

Fysh

Criminal is all self-contained stories in a shared world with recurring characters. If you liked the first volume I'd say you'll enjoy the rest - if I had to pick a favourite story it'd probably be Last Of The Innocent, but all of them are really good comics.

I read the first volumes of That Texas Blood and Velvet yesterday.

TTB seems like an interesting start to a crime series - the writing feels somewhere between Criminal and some of Cormac McCarthy's writing (chiefly the Border trilogy and No Country For Old Men, I suppose), with art by Jacob Phillips (son of Sean Phillips and colourist on Criminal for a while now).

Velvet seems more of a spy/action thriller, with Epting's art making me think a bit of a Brubaker's time on Captain America (which I didn't read but heard good things about). The first volume has me wanting to know what happens next.

mrcheez

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118946345#Comment_118946345

yeah kinda got the feeling Criminal was a bit like The Wire crossed with Fargo alright

mrcheez

Thinking of grabbing this bundle.. look like some interesting single-book stories in there?

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/supermassive-heavy-metal-books

Always associated Heavy Metal with softcore pr0n fantasy, but there seem to be some very intriguing titles that don't necessarily involve scantily clad elf-women ;)

Fysh

I don't recognise any of the stories in the bundle, but tbh I've not read much of anything from Heavy Metal. I'll most likely take a look just to see, if nothing else the art should be good.

Worth noting the format is only PDF, in case that changes your mind.

On a similar note Humble also have a Cinebook bundle of FrancoBelgian SF and Fantasy comics - that requires you to use some stupid app of theirs, plus it turns out Cinebook have edited and censored some of the art in their titles (digital and physical). Personally that has put me off buying any more of their reprints.

mrcheez

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119072545#Comment_119072545

yeah PDF is the main format I always use.. just find it so much easier to navigate through the comics using Adobe Reader.. single tap on the right side to go next page.. hate swiping

You're right though, the art in some of those Heavy Metal books is superb

CastorTroy

Finally finished Sandman then read Dying is Easy.

Now started Crossed. Been meaning to read it for a while but was reminded about it after watching The Sadness(recent Taiwanese film) and people compared it to Crossed.

Fysh

Yep, Crossed is exactly what came to mind when I watched The Sadness. I don't think I've read the original mini (IIRC there was something about it that struck me as Ennis at his most edgelordy, but I could be wrong there) but I did read the Wish You Were Here webcomic (later collected in 4 trades, I think) written by Si Spurrier - that was a pretty good read, that balanced the grimness with dark humour.

Thargor

Working my way through the last few major events of the Marvel Universe after giving up on it a few years ago, currently on Civil War 2, I think I'll be giving up again after this, it's just so bland and so preachy as well, they really are completely out of ideas and just going in circles now.

Xofpod

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119131846#Comment_119131846

Just read Sandman: Endless Nights, which I think I missed out on first time round. Slight but some good stuff in it.

Is Overture worth a read? Think I picked up the first issue but felt at the time it was something that really didn't need to be spun out further...