What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

Since you mentioned Conan, I preordered the four volume set of The Cimmerian graphic novels. Also a French comic, these books are collections of the REH stories, with each story accompanied by a comic version. So you get both the written original and then a drawn version. I think the stories are done by different artists.

I’m looking forward to seeing how they are.

I have the first four full-color, softcover reprint trades of the Marvel Comics version of Conan from the early '70s. Lovely artwork from Barry Smith on quality paper, and fine adaptations of the Howard stories by Roy Thomas. Even though these were Marvel issues, these reprints were published by Dark Horse Comics while they held the Conan license. One of these volumes includes a two-part team-up between Conan and Elric. Now Titan Comics has the Conan license.

Brian Clevinger’s Atomic Robo is just fun. There are shades of humor from his classic webcomic 8-Bit Theater, but Robo has a light touch that makes fighting Lovecraftian horrors and Nazi genetic monstrosities and super tanks fun without fully losing their threat. Cameos by Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking are fun. Would make a great series on any streaming service.

Vanish is my first miss by Donny Cates. There’s a hint of something interesting in a Harry Potter-type chosen one living a dissolute life years after killing the great villain and trying to get his mojo back when the henchmen return, but it gets lost in the Image Comics ultra violence.

Juni Ba’s Djeliya was a surprise delight, especially for a first release. With a gorgeous and expressive art reminiscent of woodblock prints, Djeliya draws on west African folklore in a cyberpunk setting where no one blinks at the warthog wizard and the royal storyteller is a DJ. Storytelling and themes are more subtle and interesting thanI expected, too. Absolute winner I’d recommend to anyone, and a writer I’ll be watching out for.

I am reading the original Iron Man run, mostly for the first time. I first became a fan in the mid-'70s, but Iron Man has been around since 1963. I skipped over his early run in Tales of Suspense for now, because I usually don't enjoy Marvel comics written before the late '60s. There was a time in the late '70s and early '80s where I was making steady money from a paper route and some part-time gigs, and I spent a fair amount of that money on back issues. At the time, new comics cost maybe $0.30 an issue, and some pretty good back issues were selling for just $0.75 or $1.00. But I wasn't buying back issues of Iron Man, because so many of the covers depicted weird or lame villains that never appeared again. So I was surprised at the quality of the writing by Archie Goodwin on these early issues. Decent melodrama and action, good character development, and relevant issues of the day, including pollution and violent protests.

I just finished a large Joker collection called Death of the Family. Joker attempts to kill all of Batman's sidekicks, helpers, etc.

It took me forever, mainly because it is dull. It also has shockingly little Batman in it. Joker had, at a point before this book started, cut his own face off, and then stapled it back on, so he looks horrific through the whole book.

Not recommended, even for die hard Joker fans.

mezike wrote: Rebellion currently have a Humble Bundle deal on - complete arcs for Slaine, Brink, Niklai Dante, Devlin Waugh, Caballistics/Absalom, along with a sprinkling of Dredd.
Humble Bundle - Rebellion

The deal is worth it alone for all five books of Brink ("true detective in space") which is one of the best things I've read in a long time and gets the highest recommendation from me, so the cheaper $10 bundle with Caballistics, Absalom and Waugh is an absolute steal.

I started Brink and it is quite good!

I'm reading Invincible Compendium One. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's light fun, but it feels sort of like a diluted Planetary. I don't know that I'm going to read the other compendia.

I am still reading old Iron Man comics, and am currently right in the middle of the highly-regarded Demon in a Bottle storyline. As far as I know, this remains the single best Iron Man story arc in his entire history. Sad to think that the character may have peaked in 1979. The writing is excellent compared to other comics of that era, smoothly and steadily foreshadowing Stark's alcoholism. Unfortunately, subsequent writers became obsessed with the topic, leading to several years of stories with Stark repeatedly hitting rock bottom while his friend takes over the Iron Man mantle.

I’m not sure what to think of Alan Moore’s Miracleman. It’s not as good as Watchmen or most of his later works. The storytelling isn’t as tight and a few characters are introduced to do nothing. But it’s also so much darker than anything in Watchmen. I’m not even talking the obvious stuff, the battle in London or the rape. All awful, of course, but not cutting to the core of humanity like Michael Moran’s arc. Reading Miracleman is to read Dr. Manhattan’s disassociation with humanity over two hundred pages instead of a single chapter. And then he wins, completely and totally.

On the other end of the spectrum Ryan North’s Squirrel Girl is straight fun. Sometimes she wins with punches and sometimes she wins with conversation, but she always wins. And you want her to win. An easy character to cheer for. Erica Henderson’s art is gorgeous and energetic and a great fit for the stories.

The Blackest Night saga by Geoff Johns is the inspiration for the second DC Deck-Building Game crisis expansion, so my eldest got curious. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever read. It cashes in on the zombie craze of the time by introducing them to DC as Black Lanterns, but the book absolutely fails in terms of storytelling, theme and general good taste. A secondary villain commits on-panel suicide to gain his powers. The lead villain is pissed at how many heroes have died and resurrected only to be defeated by heroes choosing to live. You can see the seams of characters and teams showing up for a page only to justify a tie-in during their ongoing. Nothing redeeming about any of it, but it was such an event that DC has to keep reusing art and characters. Gross.

Donny Cates’ Cosmic Ghost Rider is really more of a Thanos series. It does a lot to craft a compelling character out of the villain without making him the least bit sympathetic. Just wish it had gone harder, which is strange to say about a book that includes a panel of a cannon-toting Galactus and Frank Castle imbued with the Power Cosmic and strength of the Ghost Rider charging down Thanos.

Started Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. Perfect melding of folk horror, blue-collar heroism and simple chiaroscuro art. Remarkable how complete and well-realized it feels from the jump.

Charles Soule’s She-Hulk was the peak of this latest read, though. It avoids the smashing and fourth-wall breaks she’s best known for to focus on her law practice. Fun storylines about Dr. Doom’s son seeking asylum and Captain America facing murder charges. There’s even an overarching mystery that uses the convoluted history of Marvel to its advantage. Top stuff.

Last year, I read the whole Geoff Johns run on Green Lantern leading up to and including Blackest Night and also Brightest Day. It was like reading fast food. Lots of stuff happened and it was moderately entertaining but completely forgettable.

Early Hellboy is great, but I found the series somewhat less enjoyable once a big change hits the overall setting. Spin-off titles like Abe Sapien and especially B.P.R.D. do a better job of telling that epic storyline, as Hellboy himself was always a better fit for short stories.

DarthJoJo wrote: I’m not sure what to think of Alan Moore’s Miracleman.
On the other end of the spectrum Ryan North’s Squirrel Girl is straight fun. Sometimes she wins with punches and sometimes she wins with conversation, but she always wins. And you want her to win. An easy character to cheer for. Erica Henderson’s art is gorgeous and energetic and a great fit for the stories.

I picked up an almost complete set at the surplus library sale for fifty cents a book. Still need to read it. I am short two volumes

It avoids the smashing and fourth-wall breaks she’s best known for to focus on her law practice.

I love this image.

I took a break from long read through the whole Iron Man series and checked out Green River Killer: a True Detective Story from the public library. It's not my usual kind of comic: all black and white visuals, firmly based in reality, and showing a bunch of civilians in normal clothes. And yet it was a compelling read that I had to finish in a single sitting. It is the true story of the notorious Green River serial killer from near Seattle, as written by the son of the lead detective on the case. Both the writing and the art are low-key but effective, and the story is interesting if you like the true crime stories. The lead suspect finally decided to cooperate with the police, but many years had passed and he was reluctant to completely face the details of what he had done. The suspect ended up voluntarily staying at the police station for six months and submitting to endless interviews and occasional field trips to look for bodies that the authorities hadn't found yet.

I sometimes like to push all the way outside my comfort zone. I despise the idea of needing close identification with a character, like I can only enjoy a work if it features a middle-aged, middle-class, Midwestern, white man. How small the world would seem if my only entertainment was wandering around the literary and cinematic equivalents of a hall of mirrors.

And so during a recent trip to the public library, I impulsively grabbed Good Girls Go to Hell, by Tohar Sherman-Friedman. Starting with some of her youngest memories, Tohar delivers an autobiography of her life as an Israeli settler in the West Bank of Israel, the youngest of seven siblings in an Orthodox family.

(I don't like what the Israeli settlers have been doing in the West Bank in recent decades. They are not as bad as Hamas, but there will not be peace in Israel as long as the settlers continue to abuse Palestinians. This book was published last November, and was therefore written before the current nightmare in Gaza.)

The black and white artwork is fine. Fairly realistic but with a slightly cartoonish exaggeration in places. The writing is decent. The subject matter couldn't interest me less, except that Tohar is actually describing the opposite of a spiritual journey. Despite being raised in a strict Orthodox community, Tohar gradually realizes that she is an atheist.

I suppose that I actually do appreciate some identification with a character, but I prefer to discover it through meeting the character in the work, not by some upfront shallow recognition that we look similar. Like Tohar, I too realized that I was an atheist at a young age. I wrestled with the same questions, and eventually reached a certain peace by breaking with all the old traditions surrounding a faith. My family was Catholic, but the area where I grew up was roughly 50/50 Christian and Jewish families, so I have some familiarity with Jewish customs.

Despite that common ground, Tohar and I remain very different people from very different cultures. Tohar helpfully provides a couple of pages of endnotes explaining various Hebrew words and concepts throughout this book, and I wouldn't have minded maybe two mores pages worth of endnotes.

Is it a good book? I enjoyed Good Girls Go to Hell, but I wouldn't recommend it to somebody who just likes violent superhero comics.

Been on a pretty great streak of books lately when Juan Gedeon and Daniel Warren Johnson's Jurassic League is the worst of the bunch. It's exactly what it sounds like. Rather than gods among men, the prehistoric Justice Leage are dinosaurs among cavemen in lush Mike Spicer colors. It's slight, but the Trimyscira (Wonder Woman is a triceratops) and Metraaaghpolis puns make me laugh.

The Hellboy short stories are really good. I enjoy the dread of a Rasputin return and chthonic monsters, but The Crooked Man and The Corpse shade the world. Crooked Man shows that evil isn't absolutely unrelenting but can be resisted and even defeated by common men and sinners, and Corpse shows off Hellboy's humor and humanity on a smaller scale.

Finished it with a double feature of Tom King, his Vision and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow limited series. The man has some of the best straight prose this side of Gaiman or Moore. You can see it in the contrast of these two books not just in the style but tone and voice. There is the bleak horror and doom of the narration in Vision alongside the stilted, precise speech of the synthezoid family. Ruthye is very formal and precise but in the way of someone trained to speak in a royal court rather than someone with merely impeccable grammar. Supergirl feels like that one panel of All-Star Superman, "You're much stronger than you think you are," blown up over eight issues. A woman of limitless power leaves her 21st birthday to accompany a girl on a mission of vengeance. Sometimes she punches her problems, sometimes she helps dig graves, sometimes she spoonfeeds an alien missing both arms. Along the way Kara takes red kryptonite pills to fight a space dragon and survives a day on a world with a green sun. Lots of good stuff.

I go back and forth on Vision. A horror story from the jump, it almost feels like character assassination (not that I've ever had an opinion on Ultron's creation, beside Paul Bettany's better than necessary performance). None of it is the sort of thing a hero should do. Maybe it would have been better with an original character, but then you lose the weight that decades of history and context provide without a ridiculous load of exposition and footnotes.