Ms. Marvel seems pretty promising. I enjoyed G. Willow Wilson's Air, and I really liked Alphona's art on Runaways, so it's nice seeing them doing something worthy of their talents. Both have been a bit MIA for awhile.
Ms. Marvel seems pretty promising. I enjoyed G. Willow Wilson's Air, and I really liked Alphona's art on Runaways, so it's nice seeing them doing something worthy of their talents. Both have been a bit MIA for awhile.
Couple more good recent reads: BPRD. The Plague of Frogs HCs. I'm two volumes in and it's terrific. I didn't realize, given the sporadic quality of the earlier issues and my hesitation with Mignola-conflict (read: spirits and hard punching), how excellent this story would be. Arcudi really brings a needed touch of humanity, as well as a more finely-tuned plot and sense of humor. It can't be grim demon statues all the time. And Guy Davis is pretty much the best monster illustrator around.
And speaking of Guy Davis, I read this interesting Vertigo book that he pencilled with Phil Hester on inks, giving Davis's trademark squiggles rigid form and block shading. Written by the great William Messner-Loebs, the book The Brave Old World imagines Y2K time travelers restarting technology from the year 1900. As a lens for us to observe the century's technological escalation in the face of social and scientific ignorance, it is an uncanny read. Beautifully drawn, and genuinely unpredictable. Highly recommended.
Also, anybody reading The Valiant? It's one of the best-looking books on the racks right now, but with 50% of it done, it still just feels like a trailer. The concept suggests sprawl, but it's almost a chamber piece. It moves like gangbusters, but I was hoping for something with more heft. Still, looking forward to the new Valiant line-up (even Lemire's Bloodshot, sure).
Oh, damn:
http://io9.com/finally-a-real-netfli...ere-1684916526
Not as comprehensive as Marvel Unlimited for their Marvel offering, but you get Valiant, Top Shelf, IDW, Archie, Boom and Dynamite, which are great. Plus ebooks and audiobooks. That's fucking amazing for $9 a month.
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
All of my comics today were amazing. All tens:
Captain Victory 5 - for the C.Willumsen, represent
Transformers v GI Joe 5 - a masterpiece of our time
Rai 7 - move over everyone
X-Force 15 - Spurrier how you so juice?
Divinity 1 - blew me to space and back... yeah
War Stories 5 - Ennis's peak is still cresting cloud cover
...and the continuation of Jenkins/Philips on Hellblazer, trade 10. Haven't hit it yet, but why would I even entertain doubts?
Signing up today.
Is there a list of the best complete runs/arcs they have for comics?
This is awesome.
Just read a couple of Milligan books that have been inexplicably unread, sitting on my shelf for years.
His Elektra run was interesting. Definitely scaling his ambitions for an ongoing, I was a little put-off by the overt address of conventional femininity, but then Milligan has never been one to kowtow to PCisms. Deodato's artwork seems redefining for the time, but he's never been one of my favorites. Some good stuff, but not essential.
The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, however, is an unmissable Sinister/Apocalypse yarn, with terrific artwork from JP Leon. Intensely melodramatic, but in a fine, operatic way. I love the overt monologuing and the layered narrative voice. Tragic, but the nature of the time loop gives the emotional severity a proper context. With this and his run on X-Men, I'm thinking that Milligan is the best writer for Apocalypse that I've come across.
Rereading Gotham Central. This is so damned good.
I've been burning through the Scribd comics library, and it is, I would say, a very good collection indeed. I'm somewhat surprised that all the best-selling Top Shelf graphic novels are there. If you guys have been wanting to get into those, the service is a bargain. I've always thought about getting a digital copy of From Hell that I can make bookmarks and notes on easily, for when I finally do what I've wanted to do for years which is treating it like a textbook than just a novel (I bought the annotated companion book last year for this purpose, but the thought of having to lug a copy of From Hell around was dispiriting). I guess now I have one on this service.
Page navigation on Scribd's Kindle Fire app is absolute garbage, though. I've had to keep the iOS app open on my iPhone next to me in case the Kindle app goes on the fritz, which it does often, and use that to scroll to the page I was at and rely on the syncing to get the Kindle to go there. I hope they fix that shit. Otherwise I might buy a used iPad just to use this app.
Movie Theater Diary
It's pretty ridiculous how much better Valiant is than DC and Marvel (as far as publishers with clear shared universe dynamics go). Perhaps it's just the more modest scope, number of titles-wise. But with Dysart, Milligan, and Kindt in your corner, as well as Robert Gill, Doug Braithwaite, and Trevor Hairsine as artists on retainer, it's no wonder the ratio of quality to output is so high. Harbinger was just a prelude for Imperium; Dysart has hit such a brilliant stride with it. His plotting continues to surprise, as well as retain its severe political consciousness. The fantasia of Divinity's first chapter has been haunting, and remains one of the best single issues I've read in a while. Gill and Milligan share a degree of dreamy realism, which works perfectly with Valiant's inexplicable characters like Shadowman and the Eternal Warrior. And Unity is the most satisfying action comic out there (together Kindt and Cafu define crisp).
The outliers are Venditti and Van Lente, both of whom can deliver formula pretty well, but lack voice. And I'm concerned about Lemire's Bloodshot. Those mall scenes in The Valiant were a mighty hindrance to the book's draw. I just really don't click with that guy's writing. Suayan's art with undoubtedly be worth it, though.
Hey are you reading The Names?
Movie Theater Diary
I am indeed. I'll probably get the trade when it's collected, because it's blowing my mind. Definitely A-tier Milligan, as was Terminal Hero, for that matter. After his low-key new-52 stuff, the man is proving he's still got fire in him, though his Hellblazer never dipped. I just LOVE Leandro Fernandez's work, and coupled with that coloring...
The fantasy angle, too, remains aloof, which is nice. All the weird violence, layered with direct address of oppressive financial structures and odd sexual beats... it's too perfect.
Bartkira. Akira redrawn with Simpsons characters.
http://www.bartkira.com
Sven is gonna have so much mixed feelings about this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/mo...f=Default&_r=0
Movie Theater Diary
Sigh. Why does everything have to make me cynical about everything? [/such an old man]
In defense of the idea, though, I think its comical properties are probably pretty rife for adaptation. Q&A & A&A are fine concepts for buddy cinema, I think. Modest effects budgets, tight dialogue, the right casting... they could actually be alright. I am definitely not looking forward to the CG-orgy that XO would have to be, or the lameification of teen issues in Harbinger...
I hope Valiant goes the animated route.
I had a great idea for an Eternal Warrior film last night, actually. I may try to flesh it out a bit.
Not much of note happens in Gabrielle Bell's non-fictional comics The Voyeur, which recounts various travails that she experiences as a struggling and growingly accepted comics creator, but after quickly reading through Michael Cho's The Shoplifter that very quotidian nature in Bell's work remains a highlight.
Cho's work has a nice visual unifying structure in the red coloring, and there's a tenderness to a lot of the story's arc, but it feels so prescripted and automatic, assuming the mundane aspects that number8 feels taints Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings. It's just so typically indie comics, with the ordained ambiguous ending that reads anywhere between hopeful and pessimistic.
In contrast, Bell's work, while initially equally mundane, benefits from a grounded specificity, and her various psychological concerns feel anchored to her and not just generated from an indie plot generator. Cho's writing, while interesting, has too many faux-profound discussions and just leaves the text limp.
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Man that generic "indie comic" autobio style is just the worst. Frankly, a lot of the time Bell's work strikes me as fitting into that template, too, but I'll always give her the benefit of the doubt because of that Kramers Ergot strip where she imagines that she's turned into a chair. That one was a subtle stunner.
Actually, just found that one in its entirety online: https://scribblophile.wordpress.com/...abrielle-bell/
That's a comic that's always hit me very hard and has stuck with me, though I've never quite found the same impact in any of her other work.
I feel silly being so giddy that Divinity was revealed to be a Valiant U v. Utopian villain story. I thought it was just gonna be a cool, heady fantasy mini, but knowing that Abram may be folded into, or at least reverberate through, future stories is a fabulous prospect. Seeing Gilad was especially exciting since earlier today I was working on the aforementioned EW movie idea.
I just got around to finally reading Greg Rucka and Darick Robertson's 2003 run on Wolverine (thanks again, Scribd) and it's such an interesting little 19 issue run because it's uncharacteristically low-key for Wolverine. Not just the fact that it's "grounded" in that it's removed from the rest of the Marvel universe and no one wears their costumes throughout it, but also that it feels like a comic working within the confines of a 1990s TV budget. No supervillains, no big action scenes, there's barely even any action scenes as the tone is so airport book, with lots of verbal confrontations in bars and bedrooms and a reliance on incorporating historical/technical details. It would even actually cut away from the action; it'd show Logan confronting a group of bad guys, he roars, pops his claws, jumps forward, and the next page is some other scene. It's the type of book that really shouldn't sound appealing at all, but it's such a weirdly unique take on the character (Logan is very contemplative and brooding and not boisterous at all in it, constantly weighed down by the fear that he's more animal than man) that I breezed through it.
Mark Millar took over with #20 and of course immediately put him back in the yellow suit and tossed him in the mix with ninjas and SHIELD.
Movie Theater Diary
That's kind of hard to answer. I don't know what characters/authors you're into, and the way it works is that they stock digital versions of trade collections, so it's not always full runs. They have ways to browse by publisher/writer/character, though, so that should be useful. I'd say just sign up for a trial and look around.
If you go to the Top Shelf page, almost all their graphic novels are there. That alone is quite the treasure trove.
Movie Theater Diary
Posting Permissions
forum
Reply With Quote