What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

Ugh, let's not get into another Vaughan debate. We all know where everybody stands. But I will interject and say I like The Escapists best out of BKV's stuff. It spins off of Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay though.

So I picked up Fables Vol. 17 Inherit the Wind last month ... and I still haven't finished it. I think the series has finally run its course for me. It's really stuck in it's 3 pages of this storyline and now back to this 3 pages of another storyline and nothing is really happening in any of it. Does it get better? I'm sad because I really love Fables.

After that Y: the Last Man the other night, my BKV hate is finally at the point where I don't think I can put stock in the opinions/taste of anyone who praises his comics. I was going to say that earlier, but I know there are BKV fans around here and I didn't want to effectively tell them "your opinion means nothing to me any more".

I just don't get it. It doesn't take a genius to see how much he sucks. I'm not an English/Lit major. I've just read a lot of comics, read a decent amount of books, watched a lot of movies, watched a little TV, taken a few literature courses, read a lot of criticism. And it seems transparent to me. And yet you can find people with Ph.D.s in literature, PROFESSORS, who like Y. You find CRITICS, who write about comics all the time, and sometimes even about good comics, who like Y. What part of the brain are they missing?

After reading, I flipped back through the book just to scan to see whether there had been any action setups or any resolutions that had not been egregiously cliche. Nope. If it worked in a movie, it goes into Y.

"You're a cunt hair away from being shot," jesus.

I don't see why there *is* a debate about BKV.

Speaking of comic conventions, I'll be at the San Diego Comic Con next week either on Saturday or Sunday, haven't decided which yet, in case anyone else is going.

Edit: Sorry, talking about being missing parts of the brain sounds mean, but I just can't understand how intelligent people can like him.

Jeb's right, "par for the course with other comics" is right, but that's freaking awful.

Shellhead wrote: I enjoyed Y the Last Man for about the 1/2 of the series, and then I think that the writing lost focus, as Vaughn began to attention from both Marvel and Hollywood. But the last few issues bring the series to a satisfying close, and the last issue in particular is one of the finest comics that I've ever read, though it relies on knowledge of the series and doesn't stand on its own. This is also the series that got my girlfriend into comics. I handed her a stack of the first 56 issues of Y, figuring that she might read it over the course of the next few days. Instead, she stayed up til 5 AM that night, reading them all in one swoop. The next day, she wanted to know where issue #57 was, and I had to tell her that it hadn't been published yet. The next few months were tough for her, as it took Vertigo six months to publish the last four issues of the series.

Y: THE LAST MAN is a cool idea that the series fails to deliver on. The library had the whole set and I blew through them. It doesn't do well in this format. I don't know anything about Vaughn. His writing seems about par-for-the-course with other comics to me. Nothing special either way.

I read BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN and yikes does that thing lose the thread.

I re-read SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR and still liked it. If you have been reading comics for 30+ years you should track this down. Shit is so meta I don't even.

I read SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT. Yep. Superman is an alien. And so forth. He sends emails now.

dragonstout wrote: "You're a cunt hair away from being shot," jesus.

I don't see why there *is* a debate about BKV.

If all it takes is one lousy line of dialogue to end the debate about BKV, why do people praise Grant Morrison whose entire final omnibus on New X-Men is so awful. The whole Magneto run was just pure garbage.

I learned a long time ago that there is no causation, let alone correlation, between taste and intelligence.

That's a pretty astute obsveration about Superman: Birthright, Jeb...I just read half of that again. It's pleasing in a way, but mediocre. Waid can do much better.

As for Y, I love how Planet of the Apes happens but instead it's women and not apes that take over. And even in a world without men EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING goes back to those wacky differences between men and women. What the fuck, instead of saying "well shit, there are no more men...let's carry on" it's like ALL THAT MATTERS ANYMORE is gender differences. Over and over and over and over again.

The thing about Y is that mainstreamers that don't read comics assume that any comic book that isn't about a superhero and has adult language and adult issues is automatically great, has literary value, and is worth reading. This is clearly not the case. Y is a big fat bamboozle, pulling the wool over the eyes of folks who haven't read REALLY adult, sophisticated comics like Black Hole or whatever. It seriously reads like something a 17 year old boy would write- dialogue, situations, everything.

If you put that shit in a film, it'd get laughed off the screen. It's kind of like video games...make an attempt at ANY kind of theme or subtext, and you're halfway to greatness in the eyes of undiscerning critics and those who aren't more aware of the richer, deeper areas of the medium.

Y is absolute garbage, I actually kind of felt embarassed when I went to trade them in at the Book Nook, their comics guy is always commenting on what I buy and how good my taste is, he saw these and he was like "so you liked these?" and I had to wave my hands frantically and pubically disavow them I felt like I should trade them in for some fucking Evil Ernie books just to balance that shit out.

Saga is a complete embarassment for the reasons just stated above, you might as well erase all of the lettering and just write "Nyah nyah, I'm so arch, here are some smarmy asides and pandering sarcasm for you to read, you suckers that like this shit".

Also, you should never let a writer that writes with the voice of a 17 year old boy write ANYTHING that a pregnant or postpartum mother says.

Fuck Brian Vaughn. I'm with Andy on this. Seriously, if you love comics you'd be better served picking up a couple of random Deadpool issues than reading anything this man has crapped out, aside from Runaways which is written in the voice of a 17 year old boy...and SHOULD be.

BTW, I'm sorry because I know we've been to the BKV well CRAZY often in these forums, and it's been kicked to death. But there just keeps being more to kick!

Metalface - I didn't intend the "cunt hair" line to end the debate on BKV, that was an unfortunate juxtaposition; in fact I didn't intend to end the debate at all, I just wonder why there is a debate.

Case in point, re: the gender differences thing. In the Y I read the other night, there is a page in which this nonsense happens:
- Alison, who's been traveling with Yorick for months, asks about when the last time was that he washed his hair
- Yorick comments that he has no shampoo because "your people" raided all the shampoo from everywhere, even taking shampoo over food
- Alison points out that this is because the cosmetic industry is run by men, so shampoo has become a valuable and rare collector's item
- The topic is then dropped

Take a moment to think about this exchange.

Okay, so first of all: does Alison have shampoo or not? The first comment obviously implies that she does. If she does, why is Yorick complaining that he can't get ahold of shampoo, because can't he just use hers? Also, if she does, how did she get ahold of this valuable collector's item? Regardless, if she knows how rare and valuable shampoo is, why does she start giving Yorick a hard time in the first place?

The conversation does not make any sense as a conversation they'd have. It also doesn't go anywhere in terms of revealing anything about their character. It's very, very obvious what the whole point of the conversation is: for Vaughan to reveal a factoid he learned about how the cosmetic industry is run by men. That's it.

Loved your Evil Ernie reference, Barnes, btw.

You see, it's all because men and women are DIFFERENT and there has been implicit sexism in society! STOP THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESSES! Or start them, and start printing purile junk like Y to LET EVERYBODY KNOW!

I would seriously rather buy some kind of god damned Evil Ernie Xtreme in your face Omnibus INCLUDING all of the Lady Death issues and be forced to read it in one sitting than read any more Y...or Saga. At least that is shit that wears its shittiness with pride instead of trying to be all sophistimicated by talking about *gasp* GENDER ISSUES. SERRYIS COMIX y'all.

The last new comic I read was Irredeemable. I'd heard good buzz about it, picked up a couple of TPBs, and ended up collecting the entire series. Apart from the premise- godlike superbeing turns bad and becomes a genocidal maniac, what I liked was its mix of Silver and Iron age themes. What I mean by this is that the world before the superhero turns bad is a classic 'goodies in tights' kind of world; and after he turns bad the horror is very modern. Yet the story stays true to its Silver age style right to the end rather than becoming some kind of Iron age gorefest, or whatever. That balancing act impressed me. I'm still not sure about the ending though.

jeb wrote: I re-read SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR and still liked it. If you have been reading comics for 30+ years you should track this down. Shit is so meta I don't even.

Bought. Goddam Amazon!

JMcL63 wrote: The last new comic I read was Irredeemable. I'd heard good buzz about it, picked up a couple of TPBs, and ended up collecting the entire series. Apart from the premise- godlike superbeing turns bad and becomes a genocidal maniac, what I liked was its mix of Silver and Iron age themes. What I mean by this is that the world before the superhero turns bad is a classic 'goodies in tights' kind of world; and after he turns bad the horror is very modern. Yet the story stays true to its Silver age style right to the end rather than becoming some kind of Iron age gorefest, or whatever. That balancing act impressed me. I'm still not sure about the ending though.

If you enjoyed Irredeemable, you should also read Incorruptible. Same setting, several overlapping characters, same time frame. Where Irredeemable is about a hero gone bad, Incorruptible is about a villain who tries to become a hero. The stories are somewhat connected, so reading Incorruptible may increase your appreciation for Irredeemable.

I read the first trade of Y: The Last Man a few years ago. It reminded me of books at the launch of Vertigo, which isn't a compliment. Say what you will about current Vertigo, at launch it was a lot of cack. Pretty much every book was exploring gender politics or just plain politics, usually in the most hamfisted, introduction-to-sociology, brute force way. A lot of the titles that moved to Vertigo -- Shade, Doom Patrol, Animal Man -- were at unbearable low points (Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol especially) and many of the new titles -- Black Orchid, Kid Eternity -- straight up started out bad. Y reminded me of this era a lot as a book that talked non-stop about sex and gender but had nothing interesting to say. Brian Wood's stuff reminds me of this as well, for the record.

Alright, you guys win. I read Y: The Last Man six years ago and enjoyed it. I haven't looked at it since. I will hereby renounce all my previous liking of stuff. I'll pick up some Evil Ernie instead. Because it's better that 17-year-old boys jerk off to Lady Death than be exposed to gender issues 101.

JMcL63 wrote:

jeb wrote: I re-read SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR and still liked it. If you have been reading comics for 30+ years you should track this down. Shit is so meta I don't even.

Bought. Goddam Amazon!

If anyone wants the second half of Moore's Supreme run, Supreme: The Return, I'll sell it to you for $8 or whatever. It has actually literally never been read (I have the hardcover and had the individual issues).

Obviously, BKV's being a bit tongue-in-cheek/self-deprecating here, but at least he's aware of his failings:

AVC: With Ultimate X-Men and Runaways, you deal with a lot of teen characters. Do you have a process for getting inside the heads of teens?
BKV: I genuinely am sort of an emotionally stunted man-child, so if I just write to the top of my intelligence, it sounds like a teenager.

2005 Brian K. Vaughan interview