They have a lot of Valiant, it looks like. Definitely prioritize Eternal Warrior. The second arc is fantastic. Also, Unity. It's like the best blockbuster action film that could never get made.
Also, looks like Transformers v. GI Joe is available there. Definitely eat that up. It's as good as anything gets.
A run refers to a writer's whole stint on a title, which can go on for a few issues or a few years. But comics get collected into trade paperbacks, and how many issues are contained in them vary. Usually every 5-6 issues for current comics, so people can catch up, or later down the line a collection of a writer's run is collected in full if it's not too many. The Rucka Wolverine run I was talking about was only 19 issues, so they released it all as one book, and Scribd has that.Quoting D_Davis (view post)
Scribd isn't really a comic database where they have them in issues form. They literally just stock digital copies of various published paperbacks, so there are quite a few incomplete runs, especially for recent titles.
It's much better for standalone graphic novels if you're just browsing the service (look under Top Shelf and IDW), since for mainstream superhero stuff, you kinda have to know what TPB version/volumes to look for. One that I know for sure is complete there is Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker's runs on Daredevil, which followed one another rather seamlessly. I remember you said you like Charlie Huston's pulp crime stuff, so that might be right up your alley. Here is the reading order for that, Scribd has it in this form:
Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol 1
Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol 2
Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol 3
Daredevil: The Devil Inside and Out Volume 1
Daredevil: The Devil Inside and Out Volume 2
Daredevil: Hell To Pay Volume 1
Daredevil: Hell To Pay Volume 2
Daredevil: Cruel and Unusual
Daredevil: Lady Bullseye
Daredevil: Return of the King
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Richard McGuire's Here is the kind of comic that's guaranteed to be studied and written about for some time. With each double-spread jumping to a different time period while documenting the space of a house, sometimes literally and sometimes where Native Americans or animals roamed in earlier times, McGuire's fashions a conceit that allows him to explore memory, history, and the changing cultural landscape. It moves perhaps a little too fast, as there isn't the level of fastidious narrative that anchors Ware's Building Stories, which has a sort-of similar concept of a jumbled narrative, but it remains the kind of formal study that this medium allows for.
There were several movements in the text, such as holding a child up to a window and showing her the moon, or children building forts on a sofa, that wonderfully capture nostalgia of childhood. Again, it's a little less plot-driven than something like Building Stories or Asterios Polyp but it's fascinating on its own merit.
EDIT: Also, Davis, I would recommend Asterios Polyp to you, which it looks like they have...
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Jason Latour throwing shade at Erik Larsen:
What I love is his mic drop tweet, though:
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I loved that Erik Larsen interview. It sums up my feelings on this portion of comic book fans pretty well. I specially loved this quote:
Anyway, I don't understand why it's so shameful to be a male and be attracted to women. What Latour is doing in those tweets is taking some easy shots at what has become an easy target, not answer Larsen's viewpoints which are explained at lenght in the interview I linked.
Last edited by Grouchy; 03-23-2015 at 03:32 PM.
How does it not? Latour's point is pretty succinct in answering that charge to me. He's saying that superheroes should be allowed to be sexy and sexual, but maybe the old school male comic book fans of Larsen's ilk don't get to be the only ones to say what "sexy" looks like, which to me is a home run argument. There's no small amount of female fans--who make up the bulk of Barbara Gordon and Jessica Drew's fandom--who think that the new Batgirl and Spider-Woman costumes are hot as fuck, and as Latour said, it's wholly reductive to say that their idea of what sexy clothes are is somehow less valid for Marvel and DC's consideration than the male lust's traditional idea of sexy. To say otherwise is to insinuate that those characters "belong" more to the same old male fans than to the demographic Larsen calls a vocal minority, even though that vocal minority are the ones buying those books.
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But the new Batgirl and Spider-Woman costumes (which are very much alike) are obviously created because of what Larsen is saying, to placate fans who expressed moral outrage at stupid things like Manara's cover. And again, Larsen is also right in that what matters is how the character is drawn, not the costume per se. You can still draw Spider-Woman with a huge, curvy ass and ample bosom. They just don't do it because their goddamn marketing researchers tell them not to.
The truth is, nobody knows what's going to work or not until it does or doesn't. But to try to base every creative decision on a group of screaming wannabe censors doesn't seem like the right way to approach the problem.
The Captain Marvel and Batgirl redesigns that kicked off this trend predated that Milo Manara cover. Spider-Woman's redesign could be a form of course correction because of that incident, but if anything, it feels more like jumping on a trend that was already well underway and thought the backlash was a timely excuse to join in.
If the trend is a reaction to anything, it's more to years of dissenting opinion rather than one specific incident. Jamie McKelvie and Cameron Stewart, who designed them, are both vocal about being believers of that aesthetic as artists and also the message behind them, anyway. If you've got really good creators who prefer to have their work look appealing to a certain crowd and they can turn successful products out of that (which they have), I have a hard time understanding why people who are not their intended audience insist on shitting on that.
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But I'm not shitting on anything! I actually like the new Batgirl costume! I don't like that it's Barbara Gordon, I find the character more interesting as Oracle, but never mind that.
From my perspective it's the other side that's constantly "shitting on" things. This latest "controversy" was started by a cover which makes reference to a pivotal event in comics. If you don't like it, fine, but I don't see the big crime being committed by either DC or the artists.
I was talking about Erik Larsen and his fans' shitting on female characters getting costume redesigns. I'm deeply involved in comic communities and it's just ugly to see fanboys react so angrily to Marvel and DC finally making active attempts to have a small corner of mainstream superhero comics look more appealing to young girls.
Rafael Albuquerque's cover doesn't have anything to do with the costume discussion, but I suppose it can be considered a casualty of the shift in demographic. Are you aware of what happened there? I only ask because I've argued with a lot of people who don't seem to. The outrage over that cover being pulled is insane considering everyone who actually works on the book, including Albuquerque himself, agree that a Killing Joke reference is not appropriate for the current Batgirl book's demographic. In that case, the big crime was perpetrated by the fanboys, because what happened was that readers of the book criticized the image, and then a whole barrage of people who probably don't even read Batgirl started sending those critics rape and death threats, which caused Albuquerque to disown the cover and requested that DC not publish it, since he commendably doesn't want to have those kind of supporters get their way.
I think it's bizarre when people rally around a comic art but refuse to listen to the artist.
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Yes, I read the whole thing, actually. People are deranged and spend too much time in front of their computer monitors is all I can take away from it.
But still, that doesn't change that there are web sites like The Outhouse or The Mary Sue which seem to be entirely devoted to "policing" (and this is not even my word) content in comic books. I don't have the same amount of spare time to spend "policing" anything. If you are that concerned about stories about people in thighs that you find offensive, then write and create your own and maybe make the comic book world a bit more diverse. Stop pissing around. Imagine if film critics dictated the studio's production policies instead of, well, box office returns. Kubrick might have been truly out of a career after 2001.
If I wanted to read the Civil War story line leading into Planet Hulk, where would I start?
Chew is so much fun.
Just read Planet Hulk. It gives you enough prelude to know what's going on. The Civil War stuff is pretty lame, but Planet Hulk might be Marvel's masterpiece.
Gave five volumes to my li'l sis for Christmas this year. The artwork is tremendous. Poyo is an inspiration.
Hey Sven, have you read the early 90s Valiant comics, or only the recent revival? How do they compare? I was a fan back in the day, but I haven't read the recent stuff.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Best things I've read recently:
Sundays with Walt & Skeezix. Twice as big as you can imagine. It dwarfs any coffee table book I've seen. Gorgeously designed, beautiful colors, and the most attractively serene image of familial love I've read.
When the Wind Blows. Harrowing depiction of nuclear fallout. The cartoony art style brings out the black humor with terrific irony.
Gotham Central. Excellent use of long-form serial storytelling. I didn't even realize how well I knew the characters until I got to the monumentally bleak ending. Great art too, nicely balancing roughness and rugged realism, with low contrast, dark colors building a lot of the atmosphere.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
I was always kind of chuffed that Gotham Central ended with a big crossover event. Didn't feel right, somehow.
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Not just great art, but also a great example of an artist being absolutely essential to the creative process, since most of the background gags that make the book what it is are Guillory's doing.
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Yeah, the crossover issue was a bit out of place. But I thought it was appropriate that in the final storyline that followed the crossover, no superheroes or supervillains appear, not even Batman (even if Corrigan is more cartoonishly villainish than some of the supervillains.)
I was disappointed to find out that Montoya went on to become a superhero. Between that and his Punisher work, Rucka seems to be in the habit of deflating his own endings.
I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?
lists and reviews
Oh wait, I totally misremembered. I thought Allen becoming The Spectre was in the last GC arc, but I guess it happened in the main Infinite Crisis itself.
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