What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

I didn't say anything about Young Avengers because I didn't have a *clue* who any of the characters were, except for Loki, maybe, but for some reason Loki is really young? I don't even know. A character called "Hulkling" has shapeshifting powers, not strength-related powers? And I had no idea what the first 8 pages or so had to do with the rest.

It reminded me of Dan "Megafauna" Raspler's old Young Heroes in Love series, though.

How much are these comics, like Hawkeye, Batman, Prophet, etc., on Comixology? I don't have an iPad or anything like that, so it's out of the question, but I could very easily see picking up series like that for $1 or $2 a comic if that's how much they were. I'd totally stick with Batman or Hawkeye monthly if it were $1 each. $4 each just kills me.

Telling me that Joker's plot is more interesting than the "torture and kill everyone" it appears to be in the first issue convinces me to read the next issue. Did the whole "slice Joker's face off" thing actually happen in-comic, or is that them taking advantage of the New 52 reboot to create backstory?

Loki is young due to some funny business that went on in Gillen's Journey into Mystery run and Thor from a couple of years ago. I just read some scans of those, they were pretty good. Kind of junky Marvel stuff, but fun and not embarassing. Basically Loki died and Thor, having that "but he IS my brother" thing going on, found him a young body to incarnate into. But now, Loki is this kid and everybody hates him...he's kind of like a Jughead sort of figure, which I find amusing. Still scheming, but he is a kid.

Yeah, new stuff on Comixology is anywhere from $1.99 to a whopping $3.99. I won't buy a $3.99 digital comic. I hate to say it, but $4 books that take not even 10 minutes to read are better read as scans...if you like it, buy the trade or go buy the issue at your FLCS, which is what I do out of principle. I'm pretty sure the industry thinks like that too...let the scans go, and they'll market the trades.

Well, the thing about Joker's plan is that it's not really that much different than Arkham Asylum...but it's handled pretty well, and there's some good horror build-up to it. Joker's face got cut off in the books, for some reason I'm retarded and can't remember where/when it was. It's recent though, and it was the last time Joker was in a major storyline.

www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/29605...rob-liefeld-drawings

Actually, I think the art is RIGHT on par with Liefeld, to be honest. The concepts are cool, but the execution is very bad. #36 on the list, that's what they look like.

I finished up Animal Man vol. 2 and Seven Soldiers of Victory this week. I'd give Seven Soldiers an uneven 7. I really liked the Zatanna, Shining Knight, and Bulleteer stories. Klarion and Frankenstein were pretty good, too, but what was up with Frankenstein just borrowing up from the earth in his introductory issue? I was kind of lost on Mister Miracle because I am totally unfamiliar with DC cosmology and the New Gods. It's a lot like Marvel's Eternals though, obviously both created by Jack Kirby so we can see that resemblance. I hated the Manhattan Guardian stuff. Except for the subway pirates, they were cool, and felt like something straight out of Neverwhere. In the end, I didn't get the connection back Zatanna's dad or what the role of Slauther Swamp really had to do with anything.

Animal Man vol. 2 was also uneven. The first half was all about repairing the Animal Man continuity, and although done in a "meta" way just showcases why I don't like reading most Marvel/DC stuff and all their crossover/continuity stuff. So much garbage gets piled into characters' stories as a result. But then reading Buddy's transformation as a hero to an environmental activist to an eco terrorist back to a family man was all really good. There was another webcomic I learned off that is currently playing off the ideas that superheroes really can't do anything about what's really affecting the world: poverty, global warming, etc.

OH MAN, those Rob Liefeld pages are HYSTERICAL. I've been just rolling...make sure you see the SECOND set of 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings. The guy's comments are really funny too.

Jesus, it really is amazing that he's a millionaire, superstar comics illustrator. You can really see how he just does not give a shit about what he's doing AND he's technically incompetent to boot. Not just "bad", he's literally incompetent at a very basic illustration level. His work is on par with that kid in 10th grade that thought he was hot shit because he drew a crap-ass picture of Wolverine that looked like a kid's imitation of Marc Silvestri. There is NOTHING appealing about anything he's done, and he almost single-handedly embodies why comics (and superhero books in particular) were mostly garbage in the 1990s. Gawd, seeing all of those pouch belts, weird asses, pointy feet, scowls, face-lines...so god damned UGLY.

Nothing like the art in the new Prophet at all, though.

I had that Liefeld thing up on my Facebook a couple weeks ago. Will Kenyon called it "tedious."

Joker's face gets cut off in the first issue of the New 52 Detective Comics. Which was horrible, btw.

Michael Barnes wrote: OH MAN, those Rob Liefeld pages are HYSTERICAL. I've been just rolling...make sure you see the SECOND set of 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings. The guy's comments are really funny too.

Jesus, it really is amazing that he's a millionaire, superstar comics illustrator. You can really see how he just does not give a shit about what he's doing AND he's technically incompetent to boot. Not just "bad", he's literally incompetent at a very basic illustration level. His work is on par with that kid in 10th grade that thought he was hot shit because he drew a crap-ass picture of Wolverine that looked like a kid's imitation of Marc Silvestri. There is NOTHING appealing about anything he's done, and he almost single-handedly embodies why comics (and superhero books in particular) were mostly garbage in the 1990s. Gawd, seeing all of those pouch belts, weird asses, pointy feet, scowls, face-lines...so god damned UGLY.

Nothing like the art in the new Prophet at all, though.

I've seen that Liefeld site before, but it's like a new experience every time I see it, because my mind keeps blotting out the awfulness after each visit. Those Image boys damn near ruined the entire industry in the '90s, and Liefeld was the worst. I've loved comics for a long time, but I completely stopped buying comics for several years during the '90s. And it still puzzles me how many fans back then loved that crappy art.

Oh yeah, I remember people talking about how "awesome" Leifeld was in the 90s...it's easy to look back now and say "that was really shitty, how did this guy make it" but at the time, people were into that trash.

I mean, look at some of the books from that time...Youngblood, Spawn, all the really bad X-Men stuff...

Barnes, have you gotten to "Doom Force" yet in your Doom Patrol reading? It was a one-shot, completely unconnected to any of the rest of Doom Patrol, but basically an entire issue devoted to ragging on then-popular Rob Liefield with spot-on art. In the paperbacks it shows up as the very very very last story, but you can read it *any* time, and I'd argue that it was a bad idea putting it there, as it totally undercuts the fantastic actual ending Doom Patrol had. Go ahead and check it out now.

Oh yes, I just read that over the weekend! At first I was like "WTF is going on..." but then it was pretty clear that it was a savage parody of all that garbage. But yeah, it shouldn't have been after DP's lovely ending.

Just in case you aren't, everybody should be reading JL8 the webcomic about the JLA as kindergardners. DC should seriously be printing this. The art is charming. limbero.org/jl8/archive

First off, a great article posted today by one of the great cartoonists, in response to one of the more awful comics critics that inexplicably gets a lot of praise (Ng Suat Tong; Noah Berlatsky, who shares the same website as NST, is actually significantly more awful):

www.tcj.com/the-literaries/

Anyway, I recently finished the Death of Captain America omnibus by Brubaker and Epting, collecting the 18 issues post-Death. Very good contemporary superhero comics. I thought it was a lot better than the previous Cap omnibus, or maybe I was just in a different mood; in any case, I enjoyed it more. The key is that this, combined with the previous omnibus, felt VERY cohesive; it's a single 42-issue story, and not even in the way that many runs are a "singly story": no, it REALLY is a single story, there aren't really even any arcs. I love all three of the villains, but I love Dr. Faustus' beard most of all; I thought to myself "that HAS to be a Kirby design", and I just checked, and of course it is. Bucky's arc here is engrossing, though the Black Widow romance part is by far the weakest link of the whole thing, both poorly executed and totally the wrong Marvel girl to add *another* romantic interest to. Even smaller arcs like Tony Stark's were engaging. But by the time I finished it, boy HOWDY am I fucking tired of reading superhero comics. Barnes' enthusiasm made me temporarily plunge back into them over the past month or so, but I think I'd be pretty happy avoiding contemporary superhero comics for the rest of the year. Barnes, if you're still looking for the Death of Cap omnibus, I might have one to pass on. Something about Brubaker just can't *stick* with me.

Last night I got a third of the way through Los Tejanos by Jack Jackson, recently re-released in hardcover paired with Lost Cause. I read Los Tejanos ages ago in high school, so it's like reading it anew, and I never read Lost Cause. It's dry as HELL, his figures are really stiff, I really would appreciate just the tiniest introductions to characters, and for someone like me that thought history was the most boring subject in school, it tastes medicinal sometimes. But the drawings are invested with such unbelievable care and effort that I care along with him; I also see a kinship between Jaxon and my dad, both in their art and the somewhat awkward, EC-learned storytelling style, and I find that really endears me to it on a personal level. I'm also looking forward to the controversially politically-incorrect Lost Cause.

Yes, I am definitely up for buying it from you. I have the upcoming paperback reissue on preorder, but I'd be happy to give you money instead of Amazon.

Contemporary. That's really a key word with the Brubaker Cap. It's feels very contemporary, and in a mainstream- not comic book- way. It feels like something you might see on an HBO series, and not in a negative way. Brubaker has a GREAT handle on when to just let loose and reminder the reader that this is a comic book descended from the traditional Kirby model, and when to pull back and play up the adult thriller-style material.

He turned Bucky into a fantastic character, which is particularly exciting after decades of "don't bring back Bucky". I love Bucky's full story- the tragedy, the redemption, the revenge. I love Falcon's portrayal in it, I even love how Sharon works into the story. Jack Monroe's story was great. Red Skull is better than he's ever been, and Crossbones is a great adversary. Sin feels a little Robert Rodriguez for my tastes, but what the hell. It _is_ pulp.

Above it all, what I love most about the books is Cap. Brubaker never loses sight of the fact that Cap is a _good man_, and a real inspiration for everyone. He really is the American ideal, not some baseless patriotic figure or jingoist neo-fascist ubermensch. He's a natural leader, a natural icon, and when he dies the loss is profound.

Yet, for a whole, whole lot of those 42 issues...Cap isn't even in the book. He's a _presence_. You are never NOT aware that you're reading Captain America. He's in every panel, even when he's nowhere on the page. Because that's who he really is, a titanically inspiring and resonating figure. I love that Brubaker pivots the book around the idea of Captain America more than around the character himself.

But then again, when he's on the page, it's great. It's exciting. It's classic Cap. I think it's the best thing Brubaker has done.

The Black Widow stuff was weak...but man, it was great when she stole the shield.

Reading Jodorowsky's Technopriests today. Here's the elevator pitch. Lady gets ravished by a gang of space pirates, who leave behind two beasts of burden. She has three kids from the rape- a black one, a white one, and a red one with four arms like her daddy. She uses said beasts of burden to found one of the galaxy's most respected cheesemaking families. Sends one of the kids off to design magical video games at the Technopriest school. It's pretty good, typical Euro sci-fi with some nice space opera material.

Did not like Valerian and Laureline at all. I think I may have come in on the wrong book or something, will try again later.

The Death of Cap omnibus is not going to be as cheap as the first one, though (mainly because *I* had to pay a lot for it); I probably should've just waited for the paperback.

It's kind of a gimme, but it still took my breath away when Bucky first busts out in the Cap costume...though the new costume is garbage, compared to the old one, almost to a degree where I suspected it might be intentional; really, do you need a star on the chest AND each shoulder? The original costume looks much more solid and military. If you look at Alex Ross's initial designs for the redesign, though, they're *insanely* bad, though, so it could have been worse.

I think with the first book, I was just disappointed by what a big fuss was being made over bringing Bucky back, and he also spends so much of the first book being not a *character*, but a *symbol* for Cap (interesting that the second book reverses those roles!). As a character he's more interesting to me. Also, I remember that first book being much more dependent on knowing your old character continuity (which for Cap, I mostly don't), whereas this second book was more self-contained.

With regards to it being very contemporary...this is actually maybe the main thing that bugs me about Brubaker: all of his books come from very non-superhero origins, typically noir/crime or, in this case, spy stuff, but then with superheroes kind of shoved in; I get this vague feeling of shame about doing superhero books with Brubaker sometimes. Cap has some VERY gung-ho superhero moments, though: the flying robot arm! Or just every time the Falcon is talking to birds. And freaking Arnim Zola (though he is nonsensically wearing a leather jacket in a bunch of scenes)! But that "like an HBO show" feeling turns me off of his comics, not on. The art is 100x better than that Iron Man artist's uncanny-valley art, but the whole way the color is trying for photo-realism turns me off.

I love how Skull's plans fall apart largely because of what a complete dick he is to everyone; in his fascist view, he can't imagine why Dr. Faustus or Sin wouldn't just do whatever he says. Trouble is...I bought Sin's rebellion, but not Faustus. Faustus went pretty damn far with destroying the country before giving it all up because he was annoyed by the Skull? Ehhhh....

All the characters are done well, but I singled out Bucky because despite Sharon's major role throughout, she spends *so* much time under-influence that I didn't get much of a sense of what she was going through beyond initially "I feel so guilty".

The thing about Black Widow is that she's been a major romantic interest for Iron Man and Daredevil at this point, so to then say that she still holds a torch for some dude that she knew for a *week* is just weak, especially when that dude was being mind-controlled at the time.

Let me know what you want for it. Be sure to include the years of entertainment and steering you toward good games that I've provided you free of charge in your price. :-P

I love how the freaking debt crisis/home loan blowout was part of the whole bad guy plan. That was smart stuff, and it was really written before that was front page news.

You're right that Brubaker usually comes from kind of "outside" the usual superhero genre. You really see that in Sleeper and Gotham Central, too. I think it works mostly because it grounds this stuff without being too obnoxious about it. Mainly because there again, he'll go full-on comic book nonsense at the drop of a hat. I don't really feel like it's shame as much as it's a drive to make the material adult and mature without veering into needless gore, violence, and sex. Maybe he oversells that a bit, and that's where you might feel that sense of shame.

Bucky's costume looks like crap, and I do think it's kind of on purpose. He's the ersatz Cap, and by designing/drawing that costume so badly it reinforces the iconic power of the real Cap's outfit.