What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

Afrodisiac by Jim Rugg. Awesome book!

Re-reading older Astro City trades and the stories don't feel like they've aged that well (and the art doesn't help).

Almalik wrote: Afrodisiac by Jim Rugg. Awesome book!

I liked Street Angel a lot, Jim Rugg knows how to have fun.

Almalik wrote: Re-reading older Astro City trades and the stories don't feel like they've aged that well (and the art doesn't help).

I used to especially like that artist, WTFFFFFFFFFFFF was I thinking. Astro City is already written maudlin, and then Brent Anderson just cranks the maudlin to 11. What we were talking about earlier, with the artists doing the acting? There you go. Very Will Eisner-influenced, but not in terms of the lovely page layouts or the wacky storytelling experiments or humor: the turgid melodrama of late Eisner. It was Eisner's dramatization of Hamlet's To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy that really clarified the artist-as-actor dynamic for me, but not in a good way.

Can't disagree with you guys more on Astro City. Maudlin is last word I'd use to describe them and I'll take a hundred Brent Anderson's before a J.H. Williams III when it comes to acting. They're silly, self aware, fun, and incredibly forward thinking in terms of how we understand comic universes. Where this idea of Maudlin comes from I just don't know. Some very serious topics are covered in a very light kind of way with constant references to the way we perceive comic book world and how it might look if we could live there briefly but stay aware of how utterly dumb it all is without every being apologetic about it and simultaneously showing us how it can mean so much more than all it's stupidity implies.

I think, at it's best, it's the final word in the re-construction of the super hero more so than All Star Superman or anything Mark Waid has done.

But that's why they publish different comics I guess. We can't all agree.

Outside of Glamourpuss it's the only comic I buy as it comes out. Although I've occasionally bought in to whatever Morrison is writing at the time.

Fury sucks. Typical Ennis. Woman references sucking dick, Irish guy shows up out of nowhere, main character says fuck a bunch. Oddly, no actual violence. I'm sure it's comin' though. I just did not enjoy it at all, it's definitely a Cold War espionage thing, Vietnam/Indochina and all that...but I'm not interested. The covers are pretty great though, they are defintely Steranko homages.

Prophet is so good. I can't help but hear the narrator from Bastion reading the V/O.

Tangent- Dredd sucked. I can't believe people like it so much. It's more of a 1987 Golan-Globus movie than a 2000AD one. I'm sure Michael Dudikoff in there somewhere. I think the writers completely missed all of the satire, color, and appeal of the Judge Dredd comics and instead replaced all of the above with graphic violence, hard-ass grimness, and constant bad language. Never has Mega City looked so sparse- the whole thing reminded me of Freejack.

Defending Garth Ennis, a little:

Kev Hawkins makes me laugh.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Damn, never read this comic, but this has almost instantly turned into my favorite two panels of any comic. Gonna have to track this down! Thanks!

There's a Morrison Animal Man Omnibus coming out in late 2013. If you pre-order it now, you can get a substantial discount.

I've been into getting Omnibuses recently actually. It's expensive and frustrating regarding what gets printed and what doesn't... but the idea of going back to floppies seems absurdly outdated. I know a bunch of people that basically just wait for trades on everything they buy. I hope the industry can make the transition.

I actually have all three Morrison Animal Man paperbacks up for sale on Amazon right now. If you buy them from me via fortressat instead of Amazon, of course I will give a discount (amazon takes out CRAZY fees).

dragonstout wrote: I actually have all three Morrison Animal Man paperbacks up for sale on Amazon right now. If you buy them from me via fortressat instead of Amazon, of course I will give a discount (amazon takes out CRAZY fees).

Are you "Dragonstout" on amazon too? I tend to buy comics stuff on a whim these days, but I like to keep an eye out for familiar names when "window shopping" the Amazon marketplace.

I have mostly caught up on Punk Rock Jesus over the weekend. I don't have the last issue to see how it winds up, but I have enjoyed the ride so far. I still get frustarated with Sean Murphy's art at times, but using the panel-by-panel option on Comixology helps. His work is so detailed that the expanded view of each panel allows for more clarity in reading. I read his Joe the Barbarian in trade and was confused by art many times. I think I'll make sure to pick up his stuff digitally from now on.

Whoops, I thought I had put up those Animal Man paperbacks, but hadn't. No wonder no one bought them! Yup, I'm dragonstout83 on Amazon. I've been shocked by how quickly stuff sells on Amazon, even pretty obscure forgotten stuff.

dragonstout wrote: I've been shocked by how quickly stuff sells on Amazon, even pretty obscure forgotten stuff.

That's my favorite bit of Amazon's marketplace. For all the sellers trynig to make a buck off consumer ignorance, there are at least as many who are just looking to clear some space and move some product and I've found some truly great deals and tracked down stuff that I'd never thought I'd be able to find.

(On the former category, at least for CDs, a lot of sellers prey on a "it's not available from Amazon so it must be extremely rare and valuable" mentality. There's lots of "direct from the label only" product out there that Amazon Marketplace marketeers regularly list anywhere from 5x to 30x MSRP--even though the discs are still in print and available. I see it alot with Grateful Dead vault releases since they're such a recognizable name, but it's pretty common with small label stuff. I was shocked to see the first CD from an acid jazz band I really dig, Rudder, going for $100+ on Amazon. When I checked the label's website for more info, I discovered I could buy it from them for all of $8--and it came with a bonus disc on top of that.)

I'd always been kind of afraid to sell on Amazon, since I'd been selling on eBay for 15 years and had grown comfortable with how that worked. The absurd fees that Amazon charges also scared me off, as well as the feeling that they're COMPETING with me, and that I personally barely notice the Amazon marketplace offers unless the book's out of print and not offered by Amazon; the link is tiny. I also find it frustrating that there's no incentive to buy multiple books from the same seller; I've gotten a lot of eBay business/bids because people want to save on shipping, so that pushes them to look for more stuff I'm selling. I've also definitely had much worse experiences buying used books on Amazon vs. eBay, thanks to the fact that they don't have photos of the book they're selling.

But all that stuff in my Comics Emporium thread...that's stuff I KNOW would be bad to put on eBay, as it's so unlikely that someone would be looking on eBay for, say, Danny Gregory's "Everyday Matters" memoir from like 10 years ago. That thing sold so fast on Amazon, WTF; maybe there's some Danny Gregory cult I don't know about?

I also freaking LOVE not having to bother with scans or writing up descriptions.

perhaps i should start using amazon. I've found comics really hard to sell at anything like a worthwhile price on ebay in the UK.

Barnes, you never said Godzilla: Half-Century War was by Orc Stain creator James Stokoe! Now I'm going to have to read this.