What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

Still reading the Dark Horse Conan re-prints. It might be heresy and it might be the re-coloring, but I like Buscema's Conan artwork much more than Windsor-Smith's. I wasn't a fan of Buscema on the FF or the Avengers, but I think Conan was the right book for him (lots of angry faces for him to draw).

I'm finishing off the first collection of The Secret History. It's one a them fancy European comics, and the one line summary is that there are 4 archons with magic powers/talismans running around influencing history. Seven 50 page issues are collected in the first volume and each issue is a snapshot of what the archons are up to during a particular period in history - pre-history up to WWII in volume 1. The actual motivations for the different Archons seems a bit lacking - I guess you develop grudges and get a little crazy if you hang around for 1000's of years? - but the stories and art are both well done. There are some also some gaps in the logic/unexplained things that will hopefully be cleared up in the later issues but overall I'm looking forward to reading volume 2 (volume 3 comes out in the fall and I believe volume 4 will wrap up the story whenever it is finished).

I was sure The Secret History was done and dusted. I bought them all digitally.

Maybe I was just drunk when I did it....

Edit: Wow you are right I only have the first four books... I thought that was it!! Better get onto Comixology and buy the rest!!

I think it's stil going on. I've read all the issues available in English (20) but it doesn't look like it's finished. There's a spin off called Great Game.

luckyb0y wrote: I think it's stil going on. I've read all the issues available in English (20) but it doesn't look like it's finished. There's a spin off called Great Game.

Issue 30 (of a planned 32) came out in June in French.

I dont think The Great Game is a spin-off as much as another story by the same author.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check them out from the library.

Two excellent reads lately: 50 Girls 50, an anthology collecting EC stories drawn by Al Williamson (often with assist from Frank Frazetta). Gorgeous stories that really show how great EC was. Most are written by Al Feldstein, but there are also a couple of Bradbury adaptations in there.

Also Lost Cat, the new one from Jason, who is a favorite of mine. As with most things Jason, it's a bit odd and funny and wistful, with some unexpected turns. I don't hear too many people gushing over him on a regular basis, which is odd, because he just keeps putting out great comics.

I finished the second part of Leo's Aldebaran trilogy, Betelgeuse. It once again featured more weirdo bras on top of a pretty good sci-fi story. The third part is Antares, and I only have parts one and two of that so far, so I'll hold off until I get part three. Meantime I have two volumes of Valerian to tide me over, as well as the other stuff that's piling up.

A couple of weeks ago I read Acriboréa, a 5 issue sci-fi epic published in France by Delcourt, penned by Sylvain Cordurié (wrote Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of London) and drawn by Stéphane Créty. I don't know if it's available in English or any other language, but holy shit was it ever spectacular.

In the twenty-fifth century, Earth is somehow doomed, and to ensure the survival of humanity has recently (50 years earlier) started colonizing this great system with 3 inhabitable planets, each already occupied by a different sentient race living in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Only Acriboréa has been colonized so far as its nomadic natives are most peaceful. A second wave of 12 million colonists is en route, and the government, trying a mass experiment to soothe the tensions sure to arise, have started harvesting the natives' offspring, which really are a different race with some type of psychic powers, in order to control the emotions of the population.

Here's the thing: these offspring only ever appear when their race is encountering some major problem of some kind, to set things right for their world, and they always solve whatever problem they were created to address. Epic shit literally hits the fan in issue 2, with jaw-dropping consequences. This would make an awesome movie or pair of movies. Hints of Crysis and Mass Effect.

I have been reading Building Stories, by Chris Ware. It is a vast feast of steamed vegetables, by which I mean that it is well-executed but not particularly enjoyable. The whole thing comes in a box at a glance appears to be a board game, but actually contains maybe 14 items that collectively tell the life story of a dumpy, handicapped middle-age woman who is very dissatisfied with her life. The artwork is very average, but the presentation is first-rate. While there are some interesting observations about life in general, the relentlessly drab and downbeat story has steadily drained my enthusiasm, to the point where I may not be able to finish the whole thing. I'm not stuck on flashy superhero comics, but I think I need my comics to be at least a little more fun than Building Stories.

I've read Jimmy Corrigan, Lint, Rusty Brown, and a couple other Ware things and dude, We Get It. Love his style and art, but boy do I don't care about middle class white angst.

I finally broke down and bought Weird Science: The EC Archives, vol 2 and 3 (shop didn't have vol 1). Goddamn it's some excellent comics. Way more interesting and mature than the crap that passes these days.

That's exactly why I never get far with Chris Ware, Dave. I could not care less about that either.

What Valerian is good to start with? I read a bit a while ago and wasn't impressed, I think it was something from the early 80s.

Acriborea sounds great, I'm going to see if there's a fan-translated edition out there. Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of London was really good.

First three issues of the new X-Men with the all women team were excellent, the fourth was awful.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: First three issues of the new X-Men with the all women team were excellent, the fourth was awful.

S.

I'm not surprised. With all that double-shipping, it must be tough for Marvel to maintain quality control. Not that DC is any better right now, with the way they are forcefully driving off talent these days.

Y'all are dead to me, not liking Chris Ware. Best cartoonist who ever lived. But I do get why some (maybe make that "a lot of") people don't like him. Ware:comics::Magic:games in my worldview. I've already gushed *profusely* over Building Stories in this thread, several *pages* of comments worth, so I won't gush again, but other than possibly the two most recent issues of Acme Novelty Library, I do think it's his best comic, despite being more sprawling and inconsistent. She is easily the most full and real character in ALL of comics, including non-fiction.

Shellhead, what order have you read in so far?

People complaining that Chris Ware is no fun...sure, Jimmy Corrigan and Building Stories aren't a lot of fun in the conventional sense (though I found myself laughing a surprising amount in Building Stories), but Chris Ware is *also* a great HUMOR cartoonist, believe it or not. His text pieces are very rarely serious, much more frequently funny.

So I always say that the best introduction to Chris Ware is the tall red "ACME Novelty Library Report to Shareholders" book. Mainly because it's very funny, not at all novelistic, and different from his graphic novel stuff. He's got great range, which you wouldn't suspect from reading Jimmy Corrigan.

Legomancer, you've been enjoying the ECs? Check out the brand new "Fall Guy for Murder" book, full of Johnny Craig stories. Usually the most effusive EC praise tends to be for the Kurtzman comics and for Krigstein, but Johnny Craig is underrated should definitely be held up with those guys. His stories are still great and he's also one of my very favorite EC artists. Of the Fantagraphics EC books released, I'd recommend "Corpse on the Imjin" first, but "Fall Guy for Murder" easily second. As for Feldstein's writing: I ADORED it as a kid (the sci-fi stories most of all). I still enjoy reading a couple Feldstein stories at a time, but more than a single issue at once and I go nuts. To me, those Fantagraphics "by artist" books sound like a nightmare to read, because Feldstein is already REALLY repetitive and formulaic when it comes to his stories, for the most part...but even worse for those books, he typically assigned stories to artists based on the type of story, so for example Kamen always got the "funny love triangle" stories, Jack Davis aways got the "battle between wife and henpecked husband" stories, Ingels got the "corpse risen from the dead to take revenge" stories, etc., so I'd expect the repetition to be even MORE extreme when sorted by artist. I'm glad to hear that was not the case for the Williamson book.

Edit: about Building Stories: DON'T start with the grey hardcover. That one's the toughest slog. Also, whenever you feel like it's getting too dour, read one of the Branford Bee comics. Make sure you read the giant newspaper-sized booklet before you give up, the one that starts with the word "God...". And yes, she's mostly unhappy. But the depiction of the joy (yeah, and loss too) of parenthood is the most affecting thing about the book...make sure to read the little wordless booklet too. God damn I loved Building Stories, why do I waste my time with anything halfway-crappy when I could read Building Stories again.

Ugh, and this obnoxious "I don't care about middle class white angst" comment that you see in so many dismissals of Chris Ware...I love how it tries to make you feel all superior and liberal if you agree (at least after Building Stories people stopped adding "male" to the adjective list)...but you might as well say shit like "I'm not interested in Lord of the Rings, I don't care about young hobbit angst". *Every* fucking work of art is about people in some specific circumstance that probably doesn't apply to most people, usually WAY further removed from reality than Chris Ware, in order to ALSO deal with something more universal. If you can't get past the fact that his characters are white and middle class, then how the fuck do you get past the fact that Bruce Wayne is a millionaire who dresses like a fucking bat?

Marvel Unlimited have finally got their shit together.

You can now download 12 comics for offline reading instead of the previous six on the iPad. Big selection, lots of fun.

dragonstout wrote: If you can't get past the fact that his characters are white and middle class, then how the fuck do you get past the fact that Bruce Wayne is a millionaire who dresses like a fucking bat?

I don't. I think superhero shit is absurd and can only handle it when it's treated as absurd, not the po-faced modern bullshit.

I see Ware just going ot the same well over and over and over again. Lint was my breaking point, as there was nothing there that hadn't been done a million times, half of them already by Ware himself. I had the same issue with Asterios Polyp, which was a marvelously drawn yet utterly banal book (with an eye-rolling "Intro to Creative Writing" ending that any editor should have deep-sixed.

A lot of these "literary" comics are hitting the same notes that fiction was hitting in the 70s, but I've read John Updike, I read 'Something Happened'. This stuff is new to comics and good one 'em for getting there, but it's way past done. Even Dan Clowes is kind of getting stuck, with Wilson and Mr. Wonderful, both of which are a step backwards from the promise of Ice Haven.

I like Ware, but I'd just like to see him extend himself a little, beyond just the craft. He's a masterful artist and designer, but I don't need new ways of looking at essentially the same story. (And yeah. I really like his short humor pieces.)

Barnes, Valerian feels a little dated, yeah. I'm reading them (I've read the first three so far, and I can't think of any one that stands out over the others), but I'm not enjoying them as much as Aldebaran/Betelgeuse/Antares, and I'm not enjoying those as much as I enjoyed Orbital. I've read The Incal and it's a pretty wild ride, but what I'd really like to find is more like the Manga Planetes, which I read years ago and loved, and haven't found anything that compares to it (either manga-wise or theme-wise).