[stone monkey]

REVIVE!!!

Just to let people know that Jonathan Hickman is absolutely hitting it out of the park in Ultimates Comics: The Ultimates at the moment. Lovely art by Esad Ribic too. Huge and smart sf/superhero storytelling going on. The trade of this one (if you're one of those people) should be pretty good, I think.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

So the rebooted DCU appears to be... Marvel. Great.

[Abyss]

POOPOO MCBUMFACE, on 02 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

So the rebooted DCU appears to be... Marvel. Great.

I cannot find it in me to care about the reboot even slightly, but this whole 'DC is portraying women as fanboy sex objects!/Starfire's a ho!!/Catwoman's in her undies!!!/And she's sheboinging Batman!!!!!!' thing is immensely entertaining.

[QuickTidal]

POOPOO MCBUMFACE, on 02 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

So the rebooted DCU appears to be... Marvel. Great.

Indeed.

I only picked up ACTION COMICS #1 (Grant Morrison) which was decent, and JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (Geoff Johns) which was not so much...but so far I am underwhelmed by the quality, and beyond that I cna't get my hands on ANYTHING first run the week it comes out. Chris goes to the comic store at 11 AM on his break and EVERYTHING is already gone. The stores are under-ordering even now a month in, and I feel that's going to help the DCnu fall flat on its face.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 03 October 2011 - 03:31 PM, said:

POOPOO MCBUMFACE, on 02 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

So the rebooted DCU appears to be... Marvel. Great.

...The stores are under-ordering even now a month in,....

Which tells us something right there.
I know DC has trumpetted some upticked sales digits, but there's an easy third of these books that are unlikely to survive, and another third likely to lose their marquee creator names after four months at best. DC has a long way to go before they can triumphantly point at thise reboot as any kind of serious success.

[Coco with marshmallows]

regarding the DC reboot, i refer back to my earlier comment re: advertising it.

I didn't even realise the reboot had arrived till i noticed Action Comics #1 at the store, and I go fairly regularly.

So, this is going to fail MASSIVELY, as DC have done nothing to attract new readers to comics, which is what they needed for it to work.

[wolf_2099]

Abyss, on 03 October 2011 - 03:37 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 03 October 2011 - 03:31 PM, said:

POOPOO MCBUMFACE, on 02 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

So the rebooted DCU appears to be... Marvel. Great.

...The stores are under-ordering even now a month in,....

Which tells us something right there.
I know DC has trumpetted some upticked sales digits, but there's an easy third of these books that are unlikely to survive, and another third likely to lose their marquee creator names after four months at best. DC has a long way to go before they can triumphantly point at thise reboot as any kind of serious success.

DC was unwilling to do a sizeable overprint. If DC isn't even willing to overprint to make comics ready for re-order, why would a retailer have any faith in it?
This was like any other big event.

If they had really wanted to be new reader friendly, and stand behind their re-launch, they would have had a huge over-printing. That way when a comic sold out, they retailer could re-order for the next week, instead of the next month. When 2nd and 3rd print are coming out the same day, you fucked up somewhere.

Instead, they printed to over with a minor increase in over-printing, so they could exclaim "SOLD OUT!". Page taken from Marvel, right there.

[stone monkey]

Just got hold of The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius - it collects the six volumes of the original run.

Jodorowsky's writing is something of an acquired taste; inasmuch as he's pretty much batshit insane. He has ideas to burn, all of them ridiculous (and a lot of them ridiculously cool). I guess his work strikes a chord with me as I already have all of The Metabarons (which has beautiful fully painted art by Juan Gimenez) and spins off The Metabaron, the popular character from The Incal, and tells you all sorts of completely mental things about his ancestors. I also have the recent Weapons of the Metabaron, which is apparently the start of a new sequence and has some frankly astonishing art by Travis Charest and some rather less interesting art by Zoran Janjetov (because it took Charest about 10 years to do 40-odd pages - to be fair, his work ethic has never been that solid)

Moebius is, of course, a genius and you can see it here in spades. The whole bande dessinee tradition of Franco-Belgian comics is all very interesting (and not something I know as much about as I should, unfortunately) and the best of the artists it has produced, like Moebius, Enki Bilal and Philippe Druillet, can stand alongside those of any of the other comic book tradition in the world. And Moebius is the king of them, one of the greatest ever, anywhere. I think The Incal has some of the best of his work that I've seen.

Anyway....enough rambling, The Incal is brilliant, maddening, beautiful and important. Anyone who cares about comics should read it.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 21 October 2011 - 11:32 PM

[Abyss]

It's been a weak run on GNs this week...

DC - EARTH 2 - Boring retelling of the JLA meeting the Injustice Society from pre-reboot Earth 3 or something. Grant Morrison can do way better than this.

MARVEL - X-MEN: MESSIAH COMPLEX collected GN - reminded me of why i stopped actively reading X-Men comics. Hacked together mess where the few (the very, very few) cool original ideas are lost in the recycled storylines and the usual attempt to make readers buy a few dozen other x-titles.

THE SURROGATES - Great set up. Solid sf groundwork for the story. Really interesting premise. Believable characters. Unfortunately weak ending. Nice art tho'. Worth reading but not worth the dollars.

[Dolmen 2.0]

havent had a chance to read through this thread completely but i recently spotted something. Its called Hex the lost tribe. Artistically its rather red ferrari. And the general plot sounds rather interesting. Perhaps you guys have heard of it? Is it worth my time actively seeking a way to get a hold of this comic or is there anything similar you might suggest i get instead?

[RodeoRanch]

Just read the entire run of "Preacher." I honestly cannot tell if I enjoyed it or not. Such an odd comic.

[Abyss]

RodeoRanch, on 31 December 2011 - 05:47 PM, said:

Just read the entire run of "Preacher." I honestly cannot tell if I enjoyed it or not. Such an odd comic.

You probably did enjoy it... up until about 1/2 way thru when it takes a few abrupt turns and seems to lose its original premise and go for something simpler but less interesting.

SPOILERS PREACHER SPOILERS

Spoiler

The series starts out with 'Jessie wants to hold God accountable for the fucked up way the world is. He goes looking for a way to do this and God puts obstacles in his path, but it's not clear whether God actually wants Jessie to succeed.'.

But somewhere in the middle or so, just after Jessie is apparently nuked, the series becomes 'Jessie, Cassidy and Tulip wander around separately getting drunk and sexing and doing drugs while successively more awful and stupid things happen to Herr Starr and then some other guy to kills God after a really cool fight that happens entirely off screen. Also, sodomy.'

..and when pressed for some sort of justification, Ennis fans tend to fall back on... 'the whole story is really about redeeming Cassidy'... which i don't buy even slightly.

Not to say i didn't enjoy the series - i did, even when it goes off the rails. It's viciously irreverent, beautifully drawn, hilariously funny and sometimes very clever. It's just that the first half sets expectations very high and the second half doesn't really deliver.

[QuickTidal]

If you folks haven't yet read it, DC's THUNDER A.G.E.N.T.S is AMAZING.

Seriously, a United Nations higher authority who got men in the 40's to create superhero costumes/tech that enhances its users/wearers, but will also eventually kill them...that's just too batshit awesome to pass up.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 03 January 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

If you folks haven't yet read it, DC's THUNDER A.G.E.N.T.S is AMAZING.

Seriously, a United Nations higher authority who got men in the 40's to create superhero costumes/tech that enhances its users/wearers, but will also eventually kill them...that's just too batshit awesome to pass up.

If you like that, track down the run of Marvel's STRIKEFORCE MORITURI if you haven't read it yet.
Alien invasion story where Earth's defence is to create surperheroes with the same basic premise - superpowers, celebrity lifestyle, and if the aliens don't kill you it's guaranteed the powers will within one year.

[QuickTidal]

Re: the DCNu (titles worth reading)

FLASH (Native Torontonian artist Manapul makes the pages sing, and the writing is top notch)

ACTION COMICS (it's Superman's early life and origin story...as told by Grant fucking Morrison...that is all you need to know) - It's fucking excellent.

BATMAN & ROBIN - The only Bat title worth your time (since THE DARK KNIGHT has become a David Finch big-boobed girl art wankfest with no soul (oh and he draws the Joker like a huge douche), Detective comics can't seem to do anything interesting, and even regular Batman is lackluster) since Peter Tomasi actually KNOWS how to write and I could watch Gleason draw all day long. Beyond all that, a storyline where Bruce is trying to keep his son Damien (Robin) from killing people....that's fucking interesting.

THUNDER AGENTS - because I said so above.

Everything else is kind of hit and miss so far. I want to like CATWOMAN because of my fondness for Judd Winnick, but after reading Palmiotti's "single girl crimefighter" in POWER GIRL and how brillaint that was, it's hard to get on board with a Selena Kyle who is kind of vapid. Sigh.

Oh and Barbara Gordon, sans Wheelchair, back as Batgirl...can eff off. Cassandra Cain AND Stephanie Brown were both SO amazing as Batgirl...reinstating Gordon as the character truly seems like a step backwards to me, and mostly ignores THE KILLING JOKE events (I say mostly because in a recent Batgirl Barabara has dreams that she's in a wheelchair)

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 January 2012 - 05:23 PM

[RodeoRanch]

Working my way through the whole Sandman run. Bloody weird but hugely entertaining and oh-so elegant.

[Abyss]

DAYTRIPPER.

Whoa. Deep.

[QuickTidal]

Just announced.

China Miéville is going to be writing DIAL H FOR HERO in the second wave of the DCNu.

Miéville writing comics?! YES PLEASE!

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 12 January 2012 - 02:38 PM, said:

Just announced.

China Miéville is going to be writing DIAL H FOR HERO in the second wave of the DCNu.

Miéville writing comics?! YES PLEASE!

SERIOUSLY????

That's.... that's.... that's....

...i honestly don't know whether to be intrigued by the possibilities or horrified at the stupid....

DIAL is a silly property with limited potential... it always has been and it gets vomitted up from the bowels of DC's vault every few years based on a misguided notion that anyone left alive from the 80s still cares about it and/or to maintain the trademark. Maybe Mieville could do something brilliant with it but it's still Mieville writing DIAL H FOR HERO...

How... rather, HOW THE FUCK, do they not give him THE QUESTION, SWAMP THING, or a Batman book, or even fucking SUICIDE SQUAD??? FFS... give me China Meiville writing a LEGION OF SUPER HEROES book and i will actually pay money to subscribe to floppies for the first time in my life.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 12 January 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 12 January 2012 - 02:38 PM, said:

Just announced.

China Miéville is going to be writing DIAL H FOR HERO in the second wave of the DCNu.

Miéville writing comics?! YES PLEASE!

SERIOUSLY????

That's.... that's.... that's....

...i honestly don't know whether to be intrigued by the possibilities or horrified at the stupid....

DIAL is a silly property with limited potential... it always has been and it gets vomitted up from the bowels of DC's vault every few years based on a misguided notion that anyone left alive from the 80s still cares about it and/or to maintain the trademark. Maybe Mieville could do something brilliant with it but it's still Mieville writing DIAL H FOR HERO...

How... rather, HOW THE FUCK, do they not give him THE QUESTION, SWAMP THING, or a Batman book, or even fucking SUICIDE SQUAD??? FFS... give me China Meiville writing a LEGION OF SUPER HEROES book and i will actually pay money to subscribe to floppies for the first time in my life.

See, I'd much rather he write a book no one thinks is any good and make it good. Look at THUNDER AGENTS...while the premise is decent enough, the bronze age issues of that book are TERRIBLE...but Nick Spencer revitalized it. I think that's one of the goals of the DCNu, to revamp old titles with good authors who can make them sing.

Seeing him write Batman or Swamp Thing is simply too predictable.