What comic are you reading at the moment.

Xofpod · 08-10-2020 10:13am

Doomsday Clock. Meh. Should have known better.

Fysh · 08-10-2020 5:36pm

Xofpod wrote: »

Doomsday Clock. Meh. Should have known better.

Continuity gubbins puts me off at the best of times, but I figured I'd skim the wiki page for the plot of Doomsday Clock. There's some bang of bad fanfiction to the description that the best art in the world won't shift.

CastorTroy · 15-10-2020 9:12pm

I'm still unsure if it was canon. Seems it was.
The current one annoying me with whether it's canon or not is the Death Metal. Again, I believe it is canon but it just feels off. Having everything else continuing as normal doesn't help, like even having the Joker War.
What also doesn't help is I wasn't a fan of that Metal story overall that brought in the dark multiverse and all the dark versions of Batman.

I started reading Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan version from the beginning for the first time. 15 issues in so far. Enjoying it.

Fysh · 18-10-2020 9:58pm

I realised a little while ago I've accumulated a bunch of digital comics via Humble Bundles and haven't read most of them, so have started making a dent on those. I got through Nailbiter (I liked the premise but it went pretty stupid towards the end, and was overly reliant on bad thriller tropes for my tastes) and 4 trades of Revival (felt like two stories struggling to co-exist - the rural noir part was fine, the supernatural gubbins that underpins the larger plot not so much) a while back.

More recently, I finished up all the trades of Stray Bullets. I enjoyed the original series quite a lot - it felt like something halfway between Criminal and Love & Rockets, which is right up my alley. This got me excited for Sunshine & Roses, but unfortunately that one outstayed its welcome by, realistically, the end of the first trade. It's got that classic prequel problem of trying to tell interesting stories during a time-jump period in the original series, which means the characters can't really change too much. Realistically I was probably done by the end of the second volume at most, but the third and fourth volumes of Sunshine & Roses really confirmed that. Orson's stories remained good, but nothing interesting did (or could, due to the series chronology) happen around Beth or Nina other than them continuing to be massively selfish arseholes. Which gets tedious after a while.

I'm now torn between getting started on some of the Humanoids stuff I picked up recently, or some of the Bloom County comic strips...

Ridley · 25-11-2020 12:02am

Dragon Ball Super 7
Dragon Ball Super 8
Dragon Ball Super 9

Story moves past the point where the anime ends with an ancient evil goat escaping space prison and ripping off earlier Dragon Ball villainy.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection (V1) - A re-read as I decided to throw a lot of disposable wealth amassed during COVID at getting the rest of the available volumes based on how good the first book was. It still is. I'd rather Splinter was established as being a Japanese rat

rather than 'just' the reincarnation of Hamato Yoshi

at some point so he's actually from there even if the turtles aren't but it's still better than the original character having a photographic memory of martial arts or Michael Bay's Splinter being the product of hideous computer wizardry.

I've bought the first Transformers collection on the strength of this and hope to get to the GI Joe and Sonic the Hedgehog ones eventually although digital may be the only option at a reasonable price.

James Bond: Kill Chain
James Bond: Felix Leiter

Donald Duck: The Pixilated Parrot - I do enjoy these books. Perfect two-panel gag for which this description will be just as good where a woman accosts Donald against a white picket fence to ask if he can see any wrinkles on her face (cause those mid-20th century fictional lady folks amirite, fellas?) just as the titular bird - compelled to count - walks past behind the fence and throws out a figure in the tens of thousands. Speech balloon comes up from behind the fence over the duck's head. Amazing.

The Boys Omnibus 1* - Prefer the TV series which could just be down to the order in which I experienced them but I'll take the post-MCU reaction of that show over dat whole out-Preachering Preacher DC thang.

Green Lantern: Earth One 1* - Meh, feels like change for the sake of change with the origin. The creative team do better with Planet of the Apes and Star Wars.

Batman: Cataclysm - Liked it the most of the stories on the road to a No Man's Land re-read so far. Ground level heroics in the face of a natural disaster which actually suffer when They threaten to make it the result of a villain's scheme. I think they missed a trick by having Bruce Wayne's buildings be quake-proofed because he respects the science or some such and not having been seen as an extravagant expense in an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances that he just happened to luck out on. That's my one giant penny's worth, I'd afraid. Alfraid. It works.

Star Wars: Poe Dameron 2: The Gathering Storm

Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?* - Informs the movie a fair bit and has the benefit of John Romita Jr. art.

The answer is Chadwick Boseman

.

X-Men Gold 1: Back to the Basics* - So Syaf just shot his anti-semitism salvo all over that two-page spread of Kitty Pryde standing up against bigotry in the first damn issue, huh?

The Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide 2 HC- Looking back through the thread, it's been about two years since I read the last one and I'm hoping it won't take as long to get to the conclusion. After that, I hope to go back over and get through The Gauntlet so I'll have read every ASM since JMS. This book is something of a middle-act between the first volume and the next. Accidentally spoiled myself on some Clone Conspiracy stuff but I do prefer the Anubis Jackal look to the green furry gremlin of old.

Thor: Latverian Prometheus*
Siege: Thor*
Thor: Siege Aftermath*

Clor's so good I forgot that was a thing twice.

I don't normally get on Kieron Gillen's work but credit to him for just running with the ball from JMS' departure. Don't think I would have been able to tell there'd be a writer switch if I hadn't known better. The Thor-in-Hell arc is his strongest work for my tastes

with one issue almost free of Thor dialogue until the end

. Interesting take on Loki's mischief being a compulsion for that is his role so he will fulfil it, and magic being held together through belief.

You can't break the rules if you know you're breaking them but you can if you know they don't apply to you

.

*Digital version

Jayd0g · 25-11-2020 2:15pm

Those IDW collections are gorgeous. I've the first few Transformers volumes and they were a great introduction to the franchise. A tad too expensive for me to continue collecting though.

CastorTroy · 06-01-2021 8:22pm

So DC's Death Metal ends and

Reboots/restarts/brings back the DCU. The multiverse is back to being infinite and everyone remembers all their past lives.
The coming weeks are going to be Future State so will see what happens after that.

Fysh · 07-01-2021 1:11pm

CastorTroy wrote: »

So DC's Death Metal ends and
Reboots/restarts/brings back the DCU. The multiverse is back to being infinite and everyone remembers all their past lives.
The coming weeks are going to be Future State so will see what happens after that.

Future State is only a couple of months long and then devolves to a less tightly-woven approach to continuity, as I understand it.

CastorTroy · 07-01-2021 6:55pm

Fysh wrote: »

Future State is only a couple of months long and then devolves to a less tightly-woven approach to continuity, as I understand it.

Yeah the last issue is first week in March, I think. The fact they're all 2 or 3 issues long seems to imply some will become ongoing in some way, especially with the new Wonder Girl/Woman tv series planned with the new character

Fysh · 07-01-2021 10:05pm

I don't really have much involvement in any of the mainstay DC or Marvel series these days.

I had been hopeful about Si Spurrier's Hellblazer revamp getting a long run, but that got axed before the first trade dropped, because it's not like expanding the following via trade collections was ever part of the strategy with Vertigo titles :rolleyes: The first trade is really good and feels like old-school Hellblazer at its best, it's just really frustrating knowing that there's only one more trade to go before it goes back in its box and another well-intentioned but daft variation on the character gets trotted out instead.

Ridley · 12-01-2021 10:37pm

Dragon Ball Super 10

The StoryTeller: Witches* - Pink on purple watercolours in one tale is nice and artistic an' all but a devil to read on a monitor.

Largely lip service to the TV show except for the adaptation of another unused teleplay (which is also where it's apparent where the puppets would be) so, y'know, try to lean into that more, plz. Still, it's giving creators an issue to retell folklore around a supernatural creature from lesser known stories around the world that doesn't have Disney's name on it.

Aliens: Dust to Dust - Aliens the third thing after Star Wars and Conan I've sought to complete the Dark Horse collections of before Marvel just saunters over to be handed the rights after DH did all the work. Miniseries with a Xenomorph attack from a kid's perspective. Not that it's use here is bad but I just groan now when an android pops up cause of how overused they are in this franchise. Androids always have to be in an Alien story, making the lead character female every time is a leap too far apparently. The suggestion that

a Xenomorph can carry over the mother's protective instinct when it takes on its host's traits

is cheesy as hell in text but it's ambiguous enough in the book to get away with it.

Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Heroes
Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Villains
Star Wars: The Storms of Crait#1*
Star Wars: DJ - Most Wanted #1*

Not normally one for one-shots but I am finding Marvel's Star Wars works better that way. TV and films out the wazoo will constrain them to an extent and yet most of the ambition on the transmedia side is coming from the novels compared to the comics where the opposite was the case pre-Disney buyout (eye em oh).

Fantastic Four 4: Thing vs Immortal Hulk
Fantastic Four 5: Point of Origin

Putting Reed Richards' defining mistake in the hands of someone else is silly.

She-Hulk 2: Disorderly Conduct - Anthology series where every issue is a different Jamie Madrox dupe, plz.

X-Men Blue 1: Strangest* - Both Blue and Gold do Sentinel stories at the same time for some reason forcing me to look up what happened just to even type this sentence.

Uncanny Inhumans 4: IVX - Enjoyed it actually. Character gets revived based solely of the written account of other people with X-istential results then switches over Maximus' attempts to recreate the Terrigen Crystals

before deciding that building a giant mecha is a much more worthwhile use of his time

.

Avengers Disassembled - I mean, it's not a story. Three issues of everything going wrong until Dr. Strange pops up to explain it all.

The Vision 1: Little Worse Than a Man*
The Vision 2: Little Better Than a Beast* - Unashamed background reading in time for WandaVision. Nothing weird about

Scarlet Witch hooking up with Wonder Man and giving Vision a copy of her own brain pattern so he can make a wife

at all. Doubt it'll have much in common with the TV series.

*Digital version

Ridley · 11-04-2021 11:00pm

Please, someone else read something, I don't want to do a blog.

Champions 1: Change the World
Champions 2: The Freelancer Lifestyle
Avengers/Champions: Worlds Collide
Secret Empire: United We Stand
Uncanny Avengers 5: Stars and Garters
Ms Marvel Omnibus 1

I think the way this order worked was my wanting to continue with reading the main Avengers line but didn't what to start the Champions issues mid-run which is where they cross over (after the Champions quit the Avengers). Around that time as Disney+ MCU TV background reading, I ordered Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade and Ms Marvel, and read Vision digitally, while figuring that as Viv Vision and Kamala Khan were Champions members it sense to start at the beginning for them. Then Young Avengers and Marvel kept getting delayed due to stock issues because of some pandemic or something so I just threw up my arms and got on with Champions.

Those done I could finally hit the No Surrender story. Except I saw the Unity squad was in it with the Human Torch listed on the team and I thought he had been written out in volume 4. So that meant going back over with Stars and Garters and that meant finding out some of those issues were in the Secret Empire tie-in collection. Ms Marvel showed up eventually but I still haven't hit No Surrender yet.

Anyhoo, early run Champions has time-displaced, likeable Cyclops drawn by Ramos so that wins.

Fun with him being about the same age as the others but his points of reference are at least a generation outdated. Viv specifically being stated as not into guys seems to go against what was going on in the Vision book. Could be wrong though. Morales is Spider-Man. Cho-Hulk I have no other point of reference for. Having later read the Ms Marvel omnibus, Waid's Kamala seems to have some of the edge taken off her that she was given by (creator) Wilson. Can't put my finger on what seems off.

I do wonder what a reader new to the comics would make of the Ms. Marvel run just ending to accommodate Secret Wars without acknowledging that's what's happening in any way.

And Secret Empire just flips mutants and Inhumans with the former getting a monarchy and the latter getting internment camps. It's almost like someone just tried to make the Inhumans into mutants solely to spite Fox or something!

Doctor Strange 2: Remittance*

Batman: Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 2 - Well, I liked the War of Jokes and Riddles. The secret is lousy and doesn't land as the big reveal the book wants it to be. Best story from the collection, however, be read legally online.

The Flash: Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 2

WWE 1: Redesign. Rebuild. Reclaim.* - Grabbed in a sale. Way better than it has any right to be, really, since it's a big ol' advert for a match which isn't paid off in the comic (and hadn't happened yet while being written if I've got the dates correct) but shows what you can do by putting creators on a book who don't treat the subject matter as fluff. Same can't be said for the wrestler 'quotes' on the front of these collections which are catchphrases.

Alien: The Original Screenplay - Wasn't worth the effort, eye em oh as it's the film story with the stuff that was correctly dropped as it was saying too much where the Alien 3 book was something different.

Unrelated to this specific book: if you were Greg "

" Land, famous for tracing porn and lifting art, and were being paid to fart out a cover for an omnibus of Dark Horse's Aliens comics for Marvel, would you copy Giger's designs which are notably phallic or would you copy porn cause if you're gonna lean into it you might as well for a big ol' penis creature?

Or would you continue to be the hackiest hack to ever hack and just rip off your colleagues in the industry again?

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood 01 - This is the first third, when are they gonna get to the bizarre adventure factory? Next book, I'm told.

*Digital version

beakerjoe · 16-04-2021 2:53pm

Just thought Id pop in to the thread to let folks know about the new Marvel Werewolf game happening the the Forum Games region of Boards.

If you like Marvels MCU and their characters, both good or bad, our role playing game will be based on the heroes and villains we all know and love.

Sign up page is in my Signature and we always welcome new players. Any Q's, PM me

Mal-Adjusted · 17-04-2021 2:55am

Been reading the old 90's JSA trades, great, fun comic with a large, bright cast. A far cry from today where DC just seems to be farting out 15 Bat books every month.

Fysh · 17-04-2021 10:50pm

I've been reading a few bits and pieces recently.

El Murciélago Sale A Por Birras is a very silly, very funny parody comic of the sort you'd perhaps more normally expect as a small press thing. It started as a series of tweets, but manages to remain a funny riff on Batman-as-pop-culture-concept pretty much all the way through. Very possibly even more fun than the dialogue-less "Antics of Batman & Commissioner Gordon" bits of Teen Titans Go! (which I personally adore).

Strange Planet is a collection of Nathan Pyle's webcomics (see here (Twitter) for examples). They are wry and quirky, and I really like them. As with many webcomic collections, this is as much a case of wanting to support the artist as specifically wanting the book.

Regreso al Edén is another great slice-of-life/character drama from Paco Roca, whose La Casa I previously loved. (Though I may have forgotten to post about it). This book has a similar focus on character and examining how families grow and develop over time, but the mood and tone is quite different - because where La Casa was about a family coming together upon the death of their father (an occasion of grief and sadness, but also of sharing happy memories), Regreso Al Edén is a portrait of the unending difficulty of life for a family of modest means under Franco's dictatorship in Spain, compounded by the family having members who fought on the losing side of the Civil War.

Annihilator is a comic I wanted to read for the Frazer Irving art. Which was absolutely delightful. The writing was about what you'd expect with Grant Morrison, really, which for me often as not means "fine if it doesn't get in the way too much". It doesn't get in the way too much here, and the narrative gimmick even allows for us to just have the best bits of the more fantastical aspect of the story without having to wade through the endless tedious gubbins explaining how clever Morrison is the exact details of the plot mechanics involved.

I have also been reading some single issues recently since I picked up a couple more bundles.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead #1 - #3 - I had anticipated enjoying this more, but I think it's not for me. There's nothing wrong with any of it, but for whatever reason I don't feel any need to know how the various strands of character arc or plot will resolve.

Ludocrats #1-5 - Oddly I expected to enjoy this more. Nothing wrong with it, exactly, but where I hoped it would land like Nextwave did back on release, it felt more like an echo of that. Oh well. I may revisit this at some point, to see if I was just not in the right mood for it at the time.

Ha-ha #1 - a disconcerting, somewhat Lynchian suburban horror from the same writer of the excellent Ice-Cream Man series. If you like ICM you'll almost certainly enjoy this, in that there's a certain shared.... off-kilter tilt to the perspective in it.

I actually have more digital comics backlogged than I know when to get through, so I'm trying to be better about just bailing on things if they aren't fun. My next reading will be one of Once & Future vol 1, Ice Cream Man vol 4, Haha #2 & 3, or Rain Like Hammers #1 & 2.

storker · 17-04-2021 11:05pm

I'm taking the odd trip down memory lane courtesy of Kindle with some the only Marvel-type comic I ever liked:

Fysh · 17-04-2021 11:14pm

Also, just wanted to say thanks to Ridley for linking to that Batman comic from Rebirth Deluxe Edition Volume 2 - that was great!

Xofpod · 18-04-2021 9:21pm

All about the Zenith. Bought the four phases in the hardback collected editions recently and flucking love them. 30+ years later, still one of my favourite comics of all time, with Phase III being the standout.

mrcheez · 18-04-2021 11:45pm

Gideon Falls vol 5 at the mo. The final volume should be arriving in the post in a few weeks... loved everything about this one.

Also have gotten addicted to digital copies thanks to copious Humble Bundles... Reading Bog Bodies by Declan Shalvey and Legendary Comics take on Dracula featuring Bela Lugosi...great stuff

https://youtu.be/zPAfrNH9c68

Fysh · 19-04-2021 4:06pm

Bog Bodies was great, between that and Savage Town I'm very much on board to read as many Irish-set crime stories as Shalvey wants to write.

Fysh · 20-04-2021 9:43pm

Some more reading for me, all digital since I've got a bunch of comics on my tablet.

Once & Future, volume 1 - This was fun! The artwork suited it really well, too! The story was good, dialogue was good fun (pretty much a given with Gillen) and it was a refreshing breather from Gillen's other current work, Die - which is great, but much heavier and moodier.

Moonshine, volume 1 - I really like Eduardo Risso's art, and he pairs very well with Azzarello. I've cooled on Azzarello somewhat in recent years, but this sort of thing suits both their strengths very well. I can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to it.

Haha #2 & 3 - More idiosynchratic horror, and much like Ice Cream Man & the first issue of Haha, it's great - in that way that properly good horror is, where it's compelling and odd and funny but also off-kilter, creepy and worms its way into your thoughts with nagging little moments that won't leave you alone. #3 in particular is a delight because the comics industry, for some bloody awful reason, has not granted enough recognition to Roger Langridge, whose cartooning and physical acting is phenomenal and which makes him the perfect fit for this funny, weird, sad story about a lonely mime.

Rain Like Hammers #1 - I really like Graham's comics. There's something about the variety of his interests and references, the goofy humour he peppers throughout his pages, and the imaginative aspect of his stories that really works for me. This feels very contemplative and measured, in a way that's an interesting change for him - all of the elements that I like about his other comics are here, but the narrative focus is more on being, rather than doing, so to speak. It's about lots of little moments that are kind of trivial, rather than Big Plot Stuff. It took me a few pages to realise that, and after doing so I enjoyed it as a nice sedate read.

I also read Saphari by Miguel Angel Martín recently, a physical copy, having seen it on a number of "best of 2020 comics" lists in Spain. I'm not really sure what to make of it, and I'm not really sure why it got such praise. The art is good, but not astonishing - it works well for the story and rhythm, but there weren't any sequences or panels that really stood out as being exceptional art or would make you linger over them. Narratively, it is nominally a thriller - but a lot of moments, described by some reviewers as social commentary, really felt like edgy teenager "cleverness". I'm fine with stories in which every character is an arsehole, but I need to have something to engage me, and I didn't feel there was anything engaging here. I may go back to this again in a while, though, to see if I've missed something first time around.

Thargor · 27-04-2021 7:39pm

Working my way through the Marvel MAX line, some of them are incredible like Punisher MAX, which is easily the best Punisher ever. Then you come to War Machine MAX, which I was looking forward to, but it is the worst thing Ive ever read, its so badly drawn it hurts the eyes, the plot and dialogue are just cliched pointless gibberish. Look at this crap, thats the main guys love interest and they draw her like an ape woman through the whole thing, its actually amazing in places how bad it is:

mrcheez · 27-04-2021 8:28pm

Punisher MAX is outstanding...I need more shelf space to get 3 and 4

Fysh · 28-04-2021 11:33am

Ah, the Max line. I know Punisher Max is well regarded, but I dimly recall seeing some War Machine Max title that had horrible CGI art and just noped right out of there.

Are there any other Max titles apart from Punisher that actually ended up being good in their own right?

Jayd0g · 28-04-2021 1:21pm

It's been a while since I've read them, but I remember enjoying the Cage, Deadpool and Fury series.

Fysh · 09-05-2021 5:13pm

Some more comics reading for me, in no particular order:

Jupiter's Legacy, volume 1 - this didn't really do anything for me, so I won't be reading more. The art is grand, but nothing exceptional - and the story feels like "what if Mad Men, only with superheroes?" Except Mad Men works because of strong character writing and performance, and Millar has never been particularly good about any kind of understated or subtle character writing. At least his edgelord-adjacent tediousness is a bit more restrained here.

Twisted Romance - this was fun and had some interesting spins on what a "romance" story might be. I skipped the prose stories because reading magazine formatted text on my tablet is annoying.

Gideon Falls, volumes 1 and 2 - I enjoyed these quite a bit, and will most likely continue the rest of the series. The narrative was less predictable than the first few issues had me thinking, and there's something appealing about the scratchy artwork. This also reminds me that Hickman still hasn't gone back and finished Black Monday Murders, rather annoyingly.

An Unkindness of Ravens #1 - 3 - this is not my thing, and I don't think I'm the target audience. The artwork is nice, as are the covers - I'd be interested in reading future work by either the artist or writer - but the story teen melodrama / soap opera crossed with a bit of a The Craft/Charmed version of witchcraft. It's not bad, but it's not for me.

Something Is Killing The Children vols 1 & 2 - this was really good - good art, good writing and a setup that feels like somewhere between an 80s Spielberg film and a top-tier Stephen King. Unusually, I genuinely appreciated the cover galleries at the back of each volume and the variety of styles they featured. Definitely on for reading more of this, I just need to find a way of buying it DRM-free.

Fysh · 09-05-2021 5:21pm

Oh, I forgot to mention Ice Cream Man vols 4 & 5. I really like these comics, they have a really strong vein of character- focused done-in-one horror that is unlike anything else on the market and, for me, they show what sorts of things comics as a medium can do really well. My only qualm was issue #17 in volume 5, which is a Superman riff (specifically commenting on All-Star Superman) - while it was well done as a homage/riff, it felt like it was falling into that really tedious type of insularity far too many Direct Market superhero comics have, which is weird for a series that has otherwise set itself an extremely broad scope. Still, one slight mis-step amongst 19 excellent issues is nothing much to gripe about.

mrcheez · 09-05-2021 8:07pm

Gideon Falls Vol 6 arriving tomorrow from Amazon ... giggity

Fysh · 13-05-2021 11:28pm

A couple more bits chosen at random from my digital comics backlog:

Shadowman #1 - this is from the Valiant relaunch a while ago. I dimly recall hearing of Shadowman in the 90s because of the game, but hadn't ever seen the comic. Frankly, this issue did nothing to change that - the first page has some shockingly bad inner monologue, and it doesn't manage to get much better than "rote". Definitely not something I'd read more of, much less spend any money on.

Bloom County Digital Collection, Volume 1

I want to like this as the art style works for me and the tone of the dialogue generally makes me laugh. I'm hoping it becomes more confident in itself and less dependent on now-extremely-dated pop-culture references. I'll give it at least another couple of volumes to find its footing, though.

JayRoc · 14-05-2021 8:39am

Fysh wrote: »

.

Bloom County Digital Collection, Volume 1

I want to like this as the art style works for me and the tone of the dialogue generally makes me laugh. I'm hoping it becomes more confident in itself and less dependent on now-extremely-dated pop-culture references. I'll give it at least another couple of volumes to find its footing, though.

Bloom County is one of the greats IMO. The only comic strip I would go back to every few years for a read-through.

It finds its feet a lot more after the first collection. The artwork definitely becomes more polished.

Yes, a lot of the political references in particular were already dated by the time I read it at first, and extremely american-centric, but the characters more than make up for it.
Bill The Cat and Opus in particular.

Fysh · 14-05-2021 11:58am

Ah, good to know. I've read good things about it, but in particular I think Watterson's willingness to do joke crossover strips with Breathed in the last few years seals the deal - Calvin & Hobbes is my all time favourite comic strip so if its infamously retiring creator is willing to collaborate with someone, that someone's work must also be pretty good

I finished reading the first Hack/Slash Omnibus today. I'm not really sure what to make of it - on the one hand, it's enjoyable enough as a riff on horror film conventions, and is pretty funny at times. On the other hand, the omnibus format isn't great for this material - given that it's a fairly pop-culture sort of story, having 300-odd pages in one collection just feels like an opportunity for the general gimmick to wear a bit thin. I'm not generally a fan of cheesecake in my narrative comics, and that seemed to become more pronounced as the story went on. It's not a huge problem, and I do get that it fits with the overall theme of slasher films, but still - not really my thing. Will have to see if I feel like returning to this. Although Omnibus 2 is a collection of the ongoing series rather than a collection of one shots and minis, so maybe an overall narrative throughline will help hold my interest...

Fysh · 14-05-2021 4:32pm

Skyward vol 1 - a bit meh, unfortunately. Textbook scifi thriller lite stuff - for no obvious reason, gravity drops to a fraction of its original value. But the results of this are very inconsistent - which means that when they are a plot mcguffin, it pulls me right out of the story (e.g.

the reduction in gravity is enough to completely change how storms work, but no change whatsoever to atmospheric density or oxygen levels

). This would be fine in a story where the protagonist doesn't know or care about how or why The Disaster happened, but when it's a focal point of the narrative (which is derivative and generic YA gubbins) it falls apart - or at least it does for me (I expect my scifi to ask and answer awkward questions). Don't think I'll bother with the other 2 volumes of this.

Thargor · 25-05-2021 3:54am

Anyone read Doomsday Clock? Watchmen crossover into the DC Universe, I thought it was just going to be a gimmick and it ends up being a damn good sequel to Watchmen, one of the best things Ive read in ages actually.

Xofpod · 25-05-2021 10:26am

Thargor wrote: »

Anyone read Doomsday Clock? Watchmen crossover into the DC Universe, I thought it was just going to be a gimmick and it ends up being a damn good sequel to Watchmen, one of the best things Ive read in ages actually.

Wasn't a fan. Just saw it as shoehorning the kudos of Watchmen into the ever-shifting, permanently retconning DC continuity.

While the TV show wasn't perfect, it built on the original world, flung in some interesting new ideas and didn't settle for being a pale imitation of the original.

Maybe that's just me being jaded with DC stuff in recent years (although I've gone back to All Star Superman, which is as great as ever...)

TomSweeney · 25-05-2021 5:13pm

Man of Steel by John Byrne, really good , enjoying it, classic Superman and the first comic I have ever bought!

mrcheez · 26-05-2021 6:17pm

Finally finished Gideon Falls vol 6 today out in the sunshine. Found this chapter to be the best and a very satisfying conclusion to the story.

Andrea Sorrentino puts some stunning creative twists on the comic book format in this one as they traverse deeper into the multiverse. You could frame every page and hang it on your wall as a work of art.

The appendix includes the original script so you can see how Jeff Lemire described the scene and then how Andrea interpreted it.

10/10.

Thargor · 27-05-2021 1:35pm

What do people think of East of West? 3 issues in I'm liking it so far.

Fysh · 14-06-2021 5:40pm

I should revisit East of West. I picked up the first trade way back when it first came out, but it didn't really gel for me, and then it seemed to disappear for a while in the unfortunate way that so many Hickman indies seem to. Now that it's complete (and I have the first few trades courtesy of some bundle or other) it would be worth a second go...

I haven't been doing too much comic reading recently, but I did get through a few things.

Ha-ha #4 - I've enjoyed all of these issues, much as I enjoy Ice Cream Man, and this issue was no exception. The variety of artists on this series is great, I wish more series were able to accommodate using different artists every month.

Love & Rockets - Human Diastrophism - for whatever reason I fancied revisiting Palomar. This was a really good read (again), although I somewhat regret not going back to Heartbreak Soup first as it meant I had to try and remember some of the character backgrounds mid-story. Much like the first time I read it, there's a part of me that thinks the whole "serial killer in Palomar" aspect of the story is a bit far-fetched, but everything else is good enough that you just go along with it. I'll be re-reading Beyond Palomar again soon, and then likely going back and picking up the subsequent volumes of Palomar Love & Rockets that I missed out on. (Maybe I should try Jamie Hernandez's stuff again as well - I like his art style and in theory there's nothing in his stories that I don't like, but I remember not getting into them first time I tried, whereas Heartbreak Soup got me almost immediately...)

Rain Like Hammers 1-5 - I'm a big Brandon Graham fanboy (to the extent of even hunting down copies of some of his early smutty comics) and this did not disappoint. He seems to be like a nexus for anime, manga, franco-belgian comics, scifi and a bunch of other cool stuff, plus he has a playfulness and whimsy in a lot of his comics that I really enjoy. RLH has a variety of characters and disparate story strands, and narratively falls somewhere between King City and Multiple Warheads - while the tone and presentation is very playful at times, the character arcs and examination have depth and are done well, with a lot of nice little grounded moments. I read the singles digitally and will pick up a physical trade of this, I think.

Up next - probably Beyond Palomar or Family Tree volume 1 (got it cheap on digital). Or, knowing me, the next volume of Bloom County. Or some other random selection from the virtual heap of unread stuff on my tablet...

Fysh · 19-06-2021 6:01pm

Plastic - this is an image mini from a little while ago. I enjoyed this quite a lot - I wasn't sure what to expect from it at first, but "gory black comedy" probably covers it best. The humour and violence are well balanced so that neither aspect ever overpowers the other, so while the violence is frequently played for laughs we never entirely lose sight of how brutal it is. Definitely an enjoyable read, and I'd read more from the creative team in future.

Beyond Palomar - I'm making my way slowly through this. It's quite interesting, but the shift in focus to Luba's early days and a necessary widening of focus to an organised-crime power-play narrative isn't really holding my interest any more than it did first time around. There's nothing wrong with it exactly, but the supporting characters aren't interesting enough to make up for the fact that we can't really see much development of Luba's character (although we do get a bit).

Ignited #1-4 - I didn't realise that Humanoids had set up a shared-universe superhero imprint called H1 a few years back. Ordinarily I probably wouldn't care, but it's Carla Speed McNeil's involvement that interests me as I really like her work on Finder. This is a teen superhero group origin story, done reasonably well and with an interesting angle in that the event that sparks the protagonists to develop powers is a mass shooting event at their high school. I don't know if I'd necessarily seek out more of it, but these 4 issues do a good job of establishing characters and scenario.

Omni #1 - Another H1 story, this is probably my favourite of the bunch as the protagonist's abilities amount to super-intelligence but depicted and used in a much more interesting way than the Tony Stark/Reed Richards type way that superhero titles often go for. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Strangelands #1 - Another H1 story, this is definitely the weakest of the bunch for me. The art is weak, the story tries to do an in medias res thing that reeks of not having confidence in the actual story so throwing a half-baked action sequence in at the start, and the characters aren't interesting. For me, this kind of odd-couple story lives or dies on whether the dynamic between the protagonists is entertaining to watch - when it's done well you'll get sparkling dialogue and enjoy the bickering as much as the action. None of that happens here. I have digital copies of issues 2-4 but I doubt I'll bother with them on the strength of this.

mrcheez · 19-06-2021 6:16pm

Man you're flying through these! I can barely squeeze in the time what with gaming/TV/work backlogs

CastorTroy · 21-06-2021 11:08pm

That work craic always gets in the way.

I got through Magnificent Ms. Marvel.
Surprised this series isn't still going, especially with the Disney+ series coming.

I'm also reading Sandman for the first time.

Xofpod · 22-06-2021 12:42pm

Finally read the Tragical comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman and McKean. I never really cared for McKean's work, even including his Sandman covers or Arkham Asylum, but it is spectacular here, capturing mood and tone in a way I don't think I've ever seen in another comic.

Brackwom · 29-06-2021 6:16am

I am reading the third volume of collected comics of Joss Whedon's version of the Astonishing X-Men.

CastorTroy · 24-07-2021 7:57pm

Randomly started reading Scott Pilgrim. First volume was so easy to get through.

Fysh · 04-08-2021 4:40pm

On a whim I picked up Volume 3 of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl recently and really enjoyed it, far more than I might have guessed. The writing and art are great, and I really like the way SG tackles problems and tries to understand her antagonists and find alternative ways to end the conflict rather than just rely on punching. So I'll be reading more of this, I think.

I also ordered a bunch of comics, including the last 2 volumes of RASL (I read the first half of the series years ago when the Pocketbook collection came out, but never did see a second volume to finish the story), another SG trade, the first volume of Gotham Academy, and a few small press bits that caught my eye.

Fysh · 04-08-2021 9:17pm

No real surprise that the first thing I read today after work was The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Volume 1. It was, again, a really fun read - good character, good humour, entertaining stories with clever solutions to problems. The only complaint I have is something endemic to Marvel, which is that this collects 4 issues of comic and a reprint of Squirrel Girl's first appearance, and costs £15 for the privilege. Which, considering I got Volume 3 (which had more pages) for £7, new, in a high-street shop (and not discounted or on sale), stings a bit. I don't read much of anything Marvel these days so had forgotten how tightfisted they've gotten between cutting issues to 20 pages each and using that super-thin paper which makes it so easy to skip pages without realising.

Anyway. The point of this grousing is that Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is a good enough comic to make me put up with this sort of nonsense. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed taking a chance on something this much.

Next up will likely be either revisiting RASL or some small press stuff, I think.

Xofpod · 06-08-2021 3:22pm

Read the collected first volume of the Black Monday Murders. Will definitely pick up more but won't rush straight out for it.

mrcheez · 06-08-2021 4:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117715995#Comment_117715995

I have those on my bookshelf listed under "Backlog"... might have to break into them, I bought all the volumes in one go as I liked the art style

Fysh · 06-08-2021 11:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117716419#Comment_117716419

Black Monday Murders is great, but appears to be suffering from Hickman Syndrome in that it's 2/3 of the way through with no indication of when the last 1/3 might start being published...

Fysh · 08-08-2021 7:18pm

As expected, RASL was my next read. It's been long enough that I'd forgotten pretty much everything except the look of the main character so this was a fun story to revisit. It also gets points for the whole "Tesla as under-appreciated genius of the 20th century" angle. The second half of the story is satisfying, although a part of me was hoping that Smith had kept one more big idea up his sleeve. In saying that, the conclusion is grounded in the characters which is almost always a better choice than a cool big idea coming out of nowhere.

After that, I decided to take a chance on the first volume of Gotham Academy. It's a bit more YA than I generally like these days, but Karl Kerschl's artwork is great and the story is pretty fun in a Harry-Potter-in-Gotham sort of way.

I have some new small press stuff waiting for me, as well as yet another bundle of digital stuff - the 2000AD bundle has another week to go and includes Halo Jones, Zenith, half a dozen Judge Dredd casefiles volumes, and most of the Dredd 2012 movieverse comics along with a lot more. Definitely worth a look.

What comic are you reading at the moment.

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