What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

No, I did, someone (I thought it was you, actually) mentioned Orc Stain.

Book is AWESOME, you've gotta read it. Probably the best art of last year...if you like Godzilla at all, you'll love it. I think it's the best Godzilla story there's ever been.

Saga sucks. I tried it again. I hate myself for doing so. Six issues of faux-Joss Whedon audience pandering, all cutesy-poo dialogue and whatnot.

Read Prophet instead, because it RULES.

Michael Barnes wrote: No, I did, someone (I thought it was you, actually) mentioned Orc Stain.

Book is AWESOME, you've gotta read it. Probably the best art of last year...if you like Godzilla at all, you'll love it. I think it's the best Godzilla story there's ever been.

Saga sucks. I tried it again. I hate myself for doing so. Six issues of faux-Joss Whedon audience pandering, all cutesy-poo dialogue and whatnot.

Read Prophet instead, because it RULES.

Ha! Show's how much attention I pay to myself! I plan on giving Saga a shot at some point, and I'll probably enjoy it. Pander to me! I liked the first issue of Prophet I read. Also, Comixology had the first issues of the new and old Valiant stuff. I read those, too. Liked X-O Manowar. Though I prefered the original alien design from the old series. What happened to Magnus Robot Fighter and Solaar? Dark Horse has those rights?

Try Archer & Armstrong- I think you'll really like it. Harbinger too. X-O Manowar is one of the better ones IMO, the only one that isn't that great is Shadowman, but it's only three issues in. It may get better.

The old Valiant stuff is badly dated...the new books are great, total reboots. They're about to get into a big crossover though, Harbinger Wars.

Peter Panzerfaust...how did I miss what it's about, it's right there in the title.

Oh yeah, I read the others. Except Bloodshot, haven't read that one yet. I did like the others, just XO Manowar more.

I thought Bloodshot was going to be the bad one...looked too Weapon X, hardass 1990s. But it's surprisingly good. I guess that's pretty much the operative for all of them, surprisingly good.

Recently my buddy Repoman was surprised to hear that I had never read any CEREBUS comics and he lent me about 75 pounds of the "phonebook" sized volumes. I finally found some time to jump in and I must say I'm enjoying them immensely. Of course, I won't have time to read ANYTHING else for a while, but that's OK. I like comics.

Reading 2000AD from the beginning as you were all talking about Judge Dredd the other day. Am enjoying it immensely.

Brings me back to the good ole days before crack cocaine, fighting the fascists in London with the Anti Nazi League, dancing to One Step Beyond, buying a black and white check ska jacket, watching Grease at the pictures, listening to Rattus Norvegicus, This Year's Model and, strangely, Rick Wakeman.

That's awesome that they have 2000AD in the library at the old folks home!

I just downloaded scans of the entire Judge Dredd run. Gigs and gigs. I have a couple of the ComPlete case files, trying to sort out which other ones are worth buying.

Dredd for me is 1986, skateboarding, and listening to Anthrax and S.O.D..

Michael Barnes wrote: That's awesome that they have 2000AD in the library at the old folks home!

I just downloaded scans of the entire Judge Dredd run. Gigs and gigs. I have a couple of the ComPlete case files, trying to sort out which other ones are worth buying.

Dredd for me is 1986, skateboarding, and listening to Anthrax and S.O.D..

2000AD for me is 1981, cold war tension and punk rock. Which is to say that 2000AD was this strange and threatening thing lurking at the edge of my awareness, this discordant element amid the familiar DC and Marvel fare at my comic shop. I didn't get into punk until later in the '80s, and I didn't actually start reading any Judge Dredd until '89. I think a friend loaned me the Judge Dredd's Crime File reprint run.

I read Seven Soldiers vol. 3 and the first Animal Man omnibus this week. Next up, Legend of Grimjack.

Man, the art in Animal Man is pretty bad. Apparently Chas Truog thought it was still the 1970s with Buddy wearing daisy dukes and his son's bully wears a vest and rides a banana seat bike. I also couldn't get over the ridiculousness of Buddy's wife and daughter's reaction to almost getting raped and killed only to see their perpetrator's head getting blow off by his friend, what do they do? They rush off to try and save a kitten. Maybe the dying kitten represents a loss of innocence, but nobody thinks to call the police? Or even freak out a little? It's funny to see Buddy's family's response to going vegetarian. But that's how people used to react. We've come a long way where being vegan, vegetarian, glutten-free, organic only or local food is really common place. Martian Manhunter's appearance was pretty funny, and I liked that they include Animal Man in Justice League Europe due to his non-mainstream American ideals, but shouldn't Buddy live a little closer to Europe? Isn't he in California?

So far Animal Man feels very much like a young, talented writer cutting his teeth. There's also this sense of an egomaniac with allusions to artists and creators as gods and martyrs. I'm curious to read more as I want to see Animal Man develop more fully into an animal rights crusader. He talks a lot about animal causes, but most of the stories really don't have anything to do with that.

Ah, but see, you just decribed part of why Animal Man is so exciting...it is pretty raw, especially at that point in Morrison's career and when the books were coming out. There's a lot of tenativeness in it.

The animal rights/vegetarian stuff is actually handled really well, most of it is implied or even off-page. There are a couple of moments though...just wait for the dolphin issue, both barrels blazings.

I love the Martian Manhunter stuff, I love the family dynamic...it's funny you say that about the 70s, because in the new Animal Man book Travel Foreman draws them like they're still in the 80s. Kid still has a rat tail, FFS.

Art in Animal Man sucks, no doubt.

metalface13 wrote: So far Animal Man feels very much like a young, talented writer cutting his teeth. There's also this sense of an egomaniac with allusions to artists and creators as gods and martyrs. I'm curious to read more as I want to see Animal Man develop more fully into an animal rights crusader. He talks a lot about animal causes, but most of the stories really don't have anything to do with that.

There's also no doubt that Morrison is an egomaniac (see: MorrisonCon), but then most creative people either tend towards over-arrogance or over-self-doubt.

I have no clue what you're talking about with "artists and creators as MARTYRS". The artist-as-God thing is not so unique to Morrison; however, the way Morrison approaches it, from the OPPOSITE angle, is much more unique (and recurs in the vast majority of his comics): if we're going to see comics creators as being like gods, then shouldn't we view their creations as being real, living things? Don't they have rights and deserve to be treated kindly, just like animals?

If you're hoping to delve more deeply into Animal Man as animal rights crusader, I think you'll be disappointed; the first four issues are by far the most heavy-handed animal rights-focused issues; I can only think of one issue, the dolphin issue, that returns as strongly to the animal rights topic. Those four issues were actually originally intended as a limited series; when he got the go-ahead to turn it into a continuing series, he wrote Coyote Gospel and set the tone for the rest of the series.

Michael Barnes wrote: The animal rights/vegetarian stuff is actually handled really well, most of it is implied or even off-page. There are a couple of moments though...just wait for the dolphin issue, both barrels blazings.

In the first arc, I thought it was pretty heavy handed. Scientists throwing cans at monkeys in cages? I don't think scientists who conduct research on animals are sadistic bastards, they're just cold people who think the value of their research (and science in general) is more important than the suffering they cause. And then the hunters are totally over the top. While I know most hunters don't act that way and would be appalled to be portrayed as such, I also know there are sadistic a-holes who just like killing things for fun.

dragonstout wrote: I have no clue what you're talking abotu with "artists and creators as MARTYRS". The artist-as-God thing is not so unique to Morrison; however, the way Morrison approaches it, from the OPPOSITE angle, is much more unique (and recurs in the vast majority of his comics): if we're going to see comics creators as being like gods, then shouldn't we view their creations as being real, living things? Don't they have rights and deserve to be treated kindly, just like animals?

The martyrs thing is from the Invasion crossover tie-in. The Hawkman race of aliens sends a devastation artist guy to artfully blow up the Earth. It's a cool idea in that his bomb which will make a massive earthquake and the devastation of the planet is an artform we just can't understand and in during the destruction everybody is going to see his life flash before their eyes. Anyways, big reference to artist as martyr giving all to a work that claims his life.

dragonstout wrote: The artist-as-God thing is not so unique to Morrison; however, the way Morrison approaches it, from the OPPOSITE angle, is much more unique (and recurs in the vast majority of his comics): if we're going to see comics creators as being like gods, then shouldn't we view their creations as being real, living things? Don't they have rights and deserve to be treated kindly, just like animals?

Yeah, Flann O'Brien did it long, long before (1939) and way better in At Swim Two Birds.. and just once. The relationships he created between creator and character were fascinating and he explored in great depth the issue of being born with full memories and no experiences to account for them. Morrison does it in almost every book, never as deeply, and it was only cool because it was in a comic instead of a piece of literature... so such a high concept felt novel at the time. I still like the way Morrison handles it and I like the books he's used it in but it doesn't feel cutting edge or anything. Just fun. I tend to find his writing a lot less cutting edge then people say it is. I enjoy reading him like I enjoy reading any genre writer.

Even Alan Moore really. I think he once said something like: "Comics were all two dimensional before I came along so when I decided to try and make the people real the critics were amazed but really we were just catching up to what actual literature had been doing for ages." - NOT verbatim but close. He may have just been playing his modesty card but I think he means it and anyone who has a good working knowledge of literature knows exactly what he's talking about... and if you read his novel you have an even better idea.

The thing is I love the medium so much and the inclusion of art really helps too because that's where I see the real progress being made is in how the two of them meet (which is why Ware is so fucking good). The writing and idea's themselves almost always have superior precedents in literature.

Even in a raw form if that's your thing.