What COMICS have you been reading? ARCHIVE

Have mostly ignored comics the last couple years (other than The Walking Dead), so been re-reading a bunch of stuff I accumulated over the years.

Tezuka is the shit, and horribly underappreciated in western anime fandom. Honestly, it's mostly only older comics guys I've met who even know who the fuck he is. Been reading Metropolis and the few Phoenix books my brother has. Phoenix is awesome, need to get the rest of the books. Damn shame he never finished them.

Been reading some Marvel Essentials, Spider-Man and X-Men. It's just so nice seeing super heroes doig the rediculous shit the concept of men in their PJs fighting crime lends itself to. Too many modern superhero books I've read try way too hard to be like, totaly super serious it's laughable. I just want zany bullshit in my superhero comics. Like when Magneto mind controls Iceman's parents. How? Magnetism bitches!

Just picked up some Showcase Presents Jonah Hex and House of Mystery. Never really payed any attention to DC growing up, so had always passed the Showcase Presents section in my comic store. Both of these are pretty much what you'd expect from western/horror anthology comics but pretty entertaining.

What actually got me into rereading so many damned comics recently was the news that Viz is trying to catch up with the Japanese release of the One Piece manga. I watched the anime back in high school, but beeing 300 some odd episodes behind, I wasn't going to bother that route. Still have like 20 volumes to go, but I can tear through those pretty quickly. Might just be nostalgia, but I fucking love this series. Pirates rock.

Also started the Battle Royale manga. Still early in it, but man there's some twisted stuff in here. Honestly, I'm surprised I found the first few volumes in Barnes and Noble back in the day withouth the parental advisory sticker/plastic wrap later volumes had. All the characters are supposed to be in 9th grade, but there are a few flashbacks of Mitsuko getting railed out by some older dude. Not to mention the violence. Some of the high school-y stuff like who's got crushes on who is a little cheesey, especially since I'm not in HS myself any more.

My girlfriend got me hooked on a shoju (or will it turn out to be yori?) manga called Nana. Turns out that it's the best-selling shoju manga of all time. It's definitely not my usual kind of thing, but it's very well done, so I'm enjoying it. It's about two young women named Nana who become roommates. One is in a punk rock band, and the other is an adorable girlie-girl who has gone boy-crazy. It's really fun, until a surprising and serious plot twist changes everything. I'm only half-way through Nana, and I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

So I've been wondering why this hasn't been created, so I'll start. I know there has to be some AT'ers that read comic books.

Earp: Saints and Sinners #1: The world has had a financial collapes after 30 months of recession. Riots and crime has run amok, and military and police can no longer be funded. To keep law and order duels become legal and the new age of the gunfighters arise. In this new road warrior world, a group of law men that happen to go by the "Wyatt Earp and his brothers" go against a new type of glory looking criminal, the train robber. Why because the internet has become absolete, and plains have become targets...so the rail has returned. The biggest criminal of all? You guess it, Jesse James. It's a cool start to a interesting premise that I would suggest reading if you get the chance. Definitely a series I'll be getting into.

Avatar: Supergod by Warren Ellis #1 and #2: The world has been destroyed. But how? Well it seems that every country during history has secretly had a eugenics program to create a "super human". The Indians created Krisna, a blue super cyborg that decides the way to save India from extinction is to kill half the population...and that of the world. The first two episodes goes through how each country came to having these supermen, and each is as original as the other. Also a cool premise that I'm looking forward to where they will take it. I love Ellis, so it's a now brainer for me.

Singularity 7: A comet has come from space bring with it a race of nanobots that annihilate earth and it inhabitants by un-assembling them. In their place come new creatures created by the the nanobots used to hunt down the last of the survivors who now live in underground bunkers. They aliens are run by a single creature that was human called the nexus. Some of the survivors instead of being destroyed by the nanobots, instead are changed into superhumans with special abilities. They band together do purge the earth of these alien invaders once and for all.

Astonishing X-Men dragged a bit to start, but is really kicking in in the third compilation. I love that they've given Kitty Pryde some attention. She has about the coolest special power there is.

S.

Rogue Trooper Nu Earth books 1 and 2.

So far, it's not as awesome as I remember from my youth.

I've been looking to get back into superhero books as of late. Matt Fraction just started writing Thor, so I think I'll be picking that up. He did a stand up job with Iron Man.

I'm about half way through Ignition City by Warren Ellis. I feel this is a return to form for him, since it's gotten away from his usual self as of late. He's back to writing obscene dialog in ways that no body would ever talk and having the artist show us things we never really wanted to see. And it's pretty damn good.

Sag, are you reading Whedon's Astonishing?

I thought there was a comic book thread?

I've just been reading Buffy Season 8 I'm still kind of going 'huh?' over the past few issues though. On the positive note, did you see that Dark Horse is picking the rights back up to the Angel series? I wonder if/how they'll tie the two universes back together after IDW's run. The Angel: After the Fall comics have been OK, not as good as the Buffy comics, but worth enough for fans. I haven't gotten to the ones by Fables writer Bill Willingham.

Amazon has the Scott Pilgrim books on sale for about $4 each right now, so I ordered the rest of the series. After watching the movie I can't wait to read the rest of the books.

I need to check out Austin's library system and get a library card. Looks like the system has lots of graphic novels. But I've forgotten what was on my "to read" list.

Just finished the 12th collection of Walking Dead earlier today. Man, I hope the miniseries doesn't suck.

metalface13 wrote:

Amazon has the Scott Pilgrim books on sale for about $4 each right now, so I ordered the rest of the series.

Link, pretty please? I just sold some stuff on eBay and I'm dying to get rid of all this money.

I got the first three HCs for Invincible. It's pretty good. The "deconstruction of superheroes" isn't a new thing anymore, but Invincible makes up for it with real enthusiasm and heart. It's funny though. Its mostly has a 1960s whitebread all-ages vibe to it, and then suddenly someone gets eviscerated on screen.

I'm looking to get into the now finished Spider-Girl series (the future daughter of Peter and MJ), but I looked at a few issues and the 2nd person narration got on my nerves. Anyone have an opinion on this one?

Here's a link to the other thread:

fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_kune...ew&catid=19&id=59748

I've just finished reading the whole Preacher series. Recommended.

Juniper wrote:

Here's a link to the other thread:

fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_kune...ew&catid=19&id=59748

I've just finished reading the whole Preacher series. Recommended.

I figured there was, but it must have been buried deep. I figured it would have been more active, but must have been forgotten. If Uba want to merge this one I'd be cool with that.

As for Preacher I also really liked the series so far. I am way behind through. I need to get up to date on that and the Dark Tower series. Need to get The Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill and start reading The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins. Also need to catch up on my DMZ reading.

I read through about 10-12 episodes of Waking Dead, but I think i am just burnt out on Zombies.

Josh Look wrote:

Sag, are you reading Whedon's Astonishing?

Yes, with Cassaday illustrating. Occasional glimpses of Whedon's dialogue shine through, though not as strongly as usual. Some of the art is simply excellent. Lately I've been more impressed with Larroca in Invincible Ironman that seems to be really strong frame after frame, but Cassaday has some great pieces in Astonishing X-Men and I'm warming up to it. Some frames appear to have been squeezed in at the last minute and don't have the attention to detail.

Whedon ends at Issue 4 but then Ellis picks up the thread and he's good too, so I'm going to continue with it.

S.

That Marvel Dark Tower series is great, I've recently read Battle of Jericho Hill. I wasn't expecting them to continue with adaptations of the novels, but there you go.

I'm also picking up the trades of the "new" Conan series from Dark Horse, mostly depicting the heroe's adventures in chronological order.

I've been reading Jonah Hex and Batman & Robin, but I finally decided to stop buying single issues. I can't just spending $4 for something that takes me less than 10 minutes to read. At least Jonah Hex usually offered a complete story in each issue. But from now on, I'm just buying trade paperbacks.

I've already been following Hellboy in trades, plus I recently picked up a hardcover collection of the three Blacksad stories. This collection was translated from the original French text and published in the US by Dark Horse. Blacksad is hardboiled detective adventures that also deal with serious social issues. The artwork is amazing, and features a combination of anthropomorphic animals and realistic backgrounds. The creators previously worked for Disney, and they have already picked up three Eisner nominations for best artwork for the first three Blacksad stories.