What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

I don't buy Archie comics, but I see them and let me tell you, Archie isn't the laughing stock people make it out to be. They have an openly gay character, have talked about the Occupy movement, and a bunch of other stuff. They really are doing some great stuff.

Read a massive comic hardcover called Anomaly. That's a good name for a product that is so different from most of the comic book fare in so many ways. The physical product is the most obvious unusual aspect of Anomaly, weighing over 7 pounds and opening up to a wingspan of nearly 3 feet wide. That's right, each page is about 16.5" by 11", roughly twice as wide as a sheet of copy paper. So all the artwork is done in widescreen layout, and there was even a psychedelic centerfold that is damned near 6 feet wide.

The artwork is okay, and the best comparison that I can make is to Heavy Metal, though without any sex or ultraviolence. So, moderately good artwork that looks faintly airbrushed, on magazine stock paper. The story and overall writing are also moderately good, delivering a science-fiction story that largely takes place on a planet that looks like a fantasy setting. Seems to be a standalone story with possible room for a sequel, plus apparently there is bonus content available online. But ultimately, this is average quality material in an impressive package. You won't regret reading it, but you won't miss much if you skip it.

Been reading the single volume edition of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow "Hard Traveling Heroes" run. I used to own the first half, which I'd read, and when the single volume came out, I traded it off with the idea I'd eventually get the new one.

Now I'd read the first half years ago. I was pretty dated, but how groundbreaking these stories were when the came out wasn't lost on me. Re-reading though...man. I knew it was some heavy handed stuff, but it seems completely ludicrous now. Yet it's the stories that aren't about social commentary that seem completely and utterly nuts. There's the story about Green Arrow and Black Canary being attacked by harpies so they send a telegram to Hal Jordan. There's the story about Black Canary becoming a school teacher and GL and GA need to save her from the school's chef who uses the help of a little girl with psychic powers to keep everyone in line. Really wild stuff.

Still, I can't stop reading the damned thing. No matter how nonsensical it gets, I'm compelled to go on. There's certainly things you can't take away from it, either. I still adore Neal Adams, and the characterizations of GL and GA being what they were at the time, with Hal being so strictly by the books and Ollie being almost eager to go above the law, there really were not two characters better suited to tell these stories with. My next issue is the infamous "My ward, Speedy, is a Junkie!" one.

In other news, I found a comic book/used book shop in the town next to me this week. I've lived here all my life, never knew it was there (and it's been open since 1980). Kinda surreal, it's located underneath the town post office. A really sweet old lady owns the place. LOTS of cool stuff to be found in there. I picked up the entire run of 52 in single issues for an insanely low price and an issue of Legends of the Dark Knight written by none other than "Megafauna/Grumpy" Dan Raspler. I'm pretty thrilled with the spoils, bu there really isn't much cooler than finding places like that.

I was curious if Sandman was worth reading? Any thoughts, anybody?

Space Ghost wrote: I was curious if Sandman was worth reading? Any thoughts, anybody?

If you're a goth, Sandman is mandatory required reading. Otherwise, Sandman is pretty good, but a bit overrated. It's still worthwhile for any given comic fan to try, to see if it resonates. A diehard superhero fan probably won't like it, but a fan who enjoys Vertigo comics will almost certainly like Sandman.

I jumped on board with issue #2, and then picked up #1 the very next time I was at the comic shop. Then I stayed with Sandman all the way to the end of the series, even through a tough year in my life when I sold off half my collection and couldn't really afford new comics. I even stuck with Sandman even after I stopped buying comics completely for a few years in the '90s. Neil Gaiman is a fine writer, and he worked with a lot of interesting characters and concepts during Sandman. There is an individual issue that includes a cameo by Samuel Clemens that remains one of my favorite single issues of a comic. And there is a wonderfully whimsical character inspired by Gaiman's friend, Tori Amos.

Now for the bad stuff. The first few issues are interesting, but stand apart from the rest of the series somewhat in terms of tone and style. Sometime just after issue #50, it seemed like Gaiman had become bored with the central character of the series, and uses the comic simply as a platform for whatever short story he has recently written. And while various minor characters come back to the series from time to time, the irregular rotation of stylized artists makes it difficult to recognize some of these characters without paying close attention to the writing. The final storyline feels like it was dragged out over too many issues, just to reach a pre-designated final issue number.

If you're going to give Sandman a series try, read the first two trade paperback volumes. The first introduces the character and the second sets the tone for the rest of the series. If you don't enjoy those issues, then you're not likely to enjoy the rest of the series. My favorite storyline was A Game of You, issues #32-37.

EDIT: Alternatively, you could try the standalone volume: The Sandman: the Dream Hunters. It's an excellent blend of Sandman and Japanese folklore, and better than most of the Sandman series.

Josh, I got into the Hard-Traveling Heroes run thanks to the high quality Baxter paper reprints of those issues in the late '80s. Like you, I love the Neal Adams artwork, and the over the top relevant stories by Deny Cowan were a blast. Sure, they lacked subtlety, but then most superhero comics lack subtlety and also focus on a bunch of meaningless action and weirdness. The Hard Traveling Heroes stories were at least thought-provoking. And the dynamic between firebrand liberal Ollie and uptight moderate Hal was great.

Shellhead wrote:
If you're a goth, Sandman is mandatory required reading. Otherwise, Sandman is pretty good, but a bit overrated.

+1. I'm not kidding when I say that my favorite thing about Sandman is the way the first book comes back up in Kevin Smith's Green Arrow.

Josh Look wrote:

Shellhead wrote:
If you're a goth, Sandman is mandatory required reading. Otherwise, Sandman is pretty good, but a bit overrated.

+1. I'm not kidding when I say that my favorite thing about Sandman is the way the first book comes back up in Kevin Smith's Green Arrow.

Ah, don't believe these damn naysayers. I've never been a goth, nor has my wife and we both love Sandman. I've read it multiple times and enjoyed it thoroughly every time. It is a great comic no matter who you are, so go for it.

Did anybody read the new Ms. Marvel last week? I'm not usually a Marvel guy, but this book was very good. I am definitely intrigued and will be keeping up with it for now.

I've been gone for a while, so maybe you already talked about it, but how about the return of Stray Bullets? I am so fucking excited for this, I cannot wait. I'll definitely be digging out my old issues to reread this favorite of mine.

The GL/GA stuff rules. It is so hopelessly dated, so very 1970s "issues, man" it's not even funny. Ollie quoting Dylan, Speedy's heroin use (TIMELY!), GL acting like The Man...but yes, it was pretty progressive for the time. Back then, mainstream superhero books weren't regarded as something that could address social problems or any kind of mature themes. But I think they did OK, and they were actually pretty pioneering.

Sandman..I don't know, I think it's the kind of thing that was WAY better in the 1990s than it is now. It's a book that DEFINITELY had a time and context. I've tried to go back and read the trades again, but I wander off and lose interest. In a sense, they're really as hopelessly dated as those GL/GA books, so trapped in the 1990s. It's not even so much about the goth thing, it's that the art, style, storytelling, characters, and topics all feel very 1990s.

The first Sandman trade is the best IMO..it's more along the lines of DC's other quasi- weird horror stuff (Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, etc.)...much less Shakespeare and all that stuff tailor-made to appeal to high school kids that like literature.

Read the heroin GL/GA story. Fucking OUTSTANDING. It's just as dated and heavy handed as anything else in the run, but parts of it a downright powerful. The part where Ollie gets shot with a crossbow and people on the street pass him by, saying, "It's better to not get involved?" Holy shit. Great stuff.

The first appearance of John Stewart was pretty great, too, as well as the GA story about the riot in the street.

Space Ghost wrote: I was curious if Sandman was worth reading? Any thoughts, anybody?

I'm probably way too late on this, but: yes it's worth reading, and try it out for yourself by BUYING THE FIRST TWO PAPERBACKS from me at a 50% off discount! That's right: $20 shipped for the first two paperbacks!

It is "overrated", though. By whom? I dunno, no one that I read, but when polls are held: ho-lee shit:

Best comic run of all time?

Or even 22nd best comic of all time?

Nah. But it's very good and rereadable.

Anyway.

BUY MY BOOKS!

I started reading Preacher last night. Have never read it before because boy do I don't like Garth Ennis (his run on Hellblazer is when I finally dropped it). Have no idea why I'm attempting to read it now because it's delivering exactly what I anticipated, but enough people whose opinions I respect like the thing, so I'll push through it.

I gave up on The Preacher about three volumes into it. Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy are all cool characters, but the level of absurdity breached my tolerance levels with the introduction of Arseface. After that, the book would have needed to be really funny to sustain my interest, but instead the silliness just undermined the quality characters at the center of the story.

Legomancer wrote: I started reading Preacher last night. Have never read it before because boy do I don't like Garth Ennis (his run on Hellblazer is when I finally dropped it). Have no idea why I'm attempting to read it now because it's delivering exactly what I anticipated, but enough people whose opinions I respect like the thing, so I'll push through it.

I love Preacher, but I love Ennis. If you don't like Ennis, you're not going to like Preacher, because it certainly displays all of his more annoying tics; it's the most archetypically Ennis comic he ever did. The most "Ennis for Ennis-haters" comics he's done are WAR STORIES and PUNISHER MAX, primarily because they're missing most of his goofy scatological humor; there is still humor, but not as much, and it's mostly darker and more natural.

It also might help to just allow that there's going to be shit that annoys you and focus on the positive. I'm ever-so-slowly reading THE BOYS, but I'm pretty conflicted about it. The "superheroes are dumb and are all sexual perverts" humor is really, really, really annoying, even to someone who loves Ennis like me: it is exactly what makes me haaaaaaaaaaaate the stuff he doesn't give a shit about. Lots of jokes about huge penises, small penises and gophers in the butt. BUT: in among all the frat-boy humor there's a lot of GREAT character work and dialogue, and the overall themes emerging are dark and very personal. So I'm sticking with it.

With Preacher, personally my focus is on the Custer-Cassidy friendship; nearly every single Ennis series focuses on close male friendships (except for Punisher Max), but this one hits particularly close to home.

God help me, I'm reading a Bendis comic. I picked up POWERS vol. 3 at a used bookstore for cheap. And, okay, for an entire issue (which translates to a chapter of the book), he decided to do an experiment where, instead of a normal comic, it'd look like a People-esque magazine from the Powers world, with fake ads and everything.

Problem is, whatever else you thought Bendis was bad at: Bendis is ASTOUNDINGLY bad at writing magazine articles, apparently. ASTOUNDINGLY. Like, bad high school student. So bad that I'm actually going to type out bits of it. The prose is unbelievable. Everything that follows is warts and all, i.e. I'm not correcting his NUMEROUS typos. I guess there was NO editor? It reads like there was no editor. It's just clunky as fuck, too; there is no life whatsoever to the prose, it's ungodly boring. Like, look at this dumbass intro:

EDITORIAL NOTE: This interview was conducted two days before the sudden and tragic death of the man known as Olympia. We were going to run an edited version of this interview, but be-cause we believe that this is the last interview he ever gave, we have decided to run it in its entirety. We think this shows a rare glimpse into a man many admired, but few knew nothing about.

Also, legally, we are required to tell you that this rare interview was granted to our magazine in return for us not releasing information that fell into our possession about the man publicly known as Olympia. We will be honoring that agreement.

WHAT A BUNCH OF BORING WORDS FOR NO REASON. At least the sentences are competent, though...but get a load of the first paragraph of the article:

Olympia. Even his name conjures images of such heroism and selflessness that immediately fills one's heart with good will towards man, he first came into our lives seven years ago, during the Denver Airport hostage situation--a situation that saved the lives of the President of Mexico and over four hundred civilians.

Holy shit, that sentence is actually the worst sentence I've read in a comic that wasn't translated from another language. In fact, the whole issue reads like it was written by a non-native speaker.

Olympia then went on to join The Golden Ones, a small band of self-proclaimed heroes that, singly and in groups, have successfully saved the world and mankind from plagues and perils only before imagined in the works of science fiction.

"Singly and in groups"? "SUCCESSFULLY saved the world AND MANKIND"? "IN THE WORKS of science fiction"? Why is this verbal garbage in this sentence?

But in recent years, stories have started floating about Olympia alleged sexual transgressions.

Fuck it, it's just so fucking bad. Okay, let's cut to Bendis's specialty: back-and-forth dialogue. Note how this reads NOTHING like any other magazine interview you've ever read in your life:

POWERS: Did you read the book by Julia Garrison?
OLYMPIA: "Wow, you get right to it, don't you?"
Thought you'd appreciate that.
"And I suppose I do."
And?
"And, no, I didn't read it."
But you heard of it?
"Sure, I have a TV. I saw the press."
You have a TV?
(Laughs) "Yes, a big world exclusive. I have a TV."
So you know of the book.
"Sure."
Never even curious about what it said?
"I'll wait for the movie."
That isn't what I asked.
Good for you. Yes, I was curious, but friends of mine have read certain passages to me. It's a funny book."
Is she talking about you in the book?
"I have no idea."
Really?
"Sure. How do I know what she's doing?"
So it could be you? You know her?
"The entire book could all be fiction for all we know. She could be having all kinds of fun making up stuff about all kinds of thoughts she's had."
So you never met her.
"I never said that."
So you did?
"I didn't say that, either.
Well, either you did or you didn't.

I can't go on. But believe me, IT goes on and on and on and on without making a point. It is the world's most boring gossip magazine.

Ugh. The issue ends with something entirely unrelatedly clumsy and obnoxious: a 2-page long, silent, 6-panel slow "zoom in" on a woman's wedding ring, as a big reveal. The thing is: this isn't film. We can see the wedding ring clearly in the third panel, so the following three panels serve no purpose whatsoever, except to say: "See the wedding ring? SEE THE WEDDING RING? SEEEEEEEE THE WEDDDDDDING RINGGGG?!?!?!?!!?!!!!?" The final panel is actually an entire splash page, zoomed in on the wedding ring.