What COMIC BOOKS have you been reading?

Some comics I've been enjoying lately...

Wicked + The Divine: Every 90 years or so (I forget) 12 randos are selected to be gods such as Lucifer, Persephone, etc.. In the modern day, these 12 enjoy their status by being followed on social media and putting on performances that are instantly sold out. They get everything they want but only live another 2 years. Through the run, I've seen the comic as an interesting meditation on where our priorities currently lie as a culture. At the same time, there is the question of why the cycle keeps repeating itself and why only 2 years. The comic is 6 or 7 issues from it's end at the moment and I cannot recommend it enough.


Paradiso: So this one is only 7 issues in... The premise seems to be that God created man, and then humanity worked and worked and worked to make a new God in the form of technology and AI. Humanity succeeded and the world went to shit. Now, I might be pretty dense on my interpretation, but I think that this new God ended up having some sort of internal conflict where it divided into two and those two are at odds with ear other. Where all the different characters (included some really weird golems of a sort) fall into this is not clear to me and, for now, I am enjoying that mystery. My fear is that not enough are following the monthly and the team won't get to see this all the way through.

There was a site that I followed called Comic Bastards that I found to be a fairly reliable site for pointing out the noteworthy indie (aka not Marvel or DC) comics. They've shut down. If by chance anyone knows of a similar forum with a similar focus I'd love to hear about it.

I just finished the 60 issue run of Brian K. Vaughn's "Y: The Last Man." Our school library had it, and I kept picking up random issues and looking at them, and then one day it disappeared. Our city library has the super huge omnibuses, but the first volume was gone. They have the 2nd version of the trades, but the first two volumes were checked out. So I torrented what I thought were volumes one and two, but they were the first series of trades, and each volume contained fewer issues than the library trades, so I had to go back and read some stuff that I had missed when I was about 50 percent of the way through the entire series.

I'm not a sophisticated comic reader or critic, but man I loved this series. The story arc was sweeping, entertaining, and had a satisfying conclusion that I will not speak of except to say that I cried at least three times. I hope they don't ruin the tv show.

I read Y the Last Man back in the day. I jumped on board in the second year, frantically buying up back issues to get caught up. I got my girlfriend hooked around the time issue #56 came out. She wasn't even interested in comics at all, but she stayed up all night reading the first 56 issues. The next morning, she was hassling me about issue #57, and I had to tell her that it hadn't been published yet. To make matters worse, two of the final four issues were delayed, so it was like six months before she got to read the final issue.

Like you, I cried while reading the final issue. There were some powerful moments, perfect cinematic transitions, and a fitting end. I haven't re-read Y ever, and I re-read all my comics. I still have the whole run, and will get back to it at some point.

Read the Century collection of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1910, 1969, 2009). It’s just off. The pacing is a mess. The League spends all three volumes trying to prevent the birth of the Antichrist, but there’s minimal pressure as that plot literally spans a century, and other characters take care of most of the work.

I still appreciate the balls of the work and sweep, but the lead characters are thinly drawn and superfluous, there is little movement in the plot and nothing matters.

But let’s talk about the Antichrist and what Moore is trying to say.

I was never a big fan of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though I loved the concept and I am a fan of most of Moore's work from that time. I did try 1910 and 1969, and found them underwhelming. It was like Moore was just going through the motions and didn't really care about the quality.

Alan Moore has done some brilliant work that elevated the entire comic book industry. Watchmen was the first comic that I ever saw in a public library, back in 1992. But in hindsight, most of his work seems to include at least one rape or attempted rape. Maybe that's a fair reflection of the world we live in, or maybe it is a particular obsession of his, or possibly both. It's a shame that DC can't stop trolling Moore, because Moore was writing some interesting comics until DC took over ABC comics. I don't think I've read anything good by Moore since that happened in 2008, and his subsequent work on Neonomicon was an abomination.

Read the first few issues of Black Hammer and really enjoying it so far. Group of Golden Age-style heroes trapped on a farm together. Not even sure if they succeeded in saving the world or how to get back to it.

Gave up halfway through the fourth volume of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ run on Black Panther. I have a soft spot for royal superheroes like Panther and Aquaman as a sort of anti-thesis of Spider-man. Even if they weren’t heroes, they’d still have all these responsibilities and carry the lives of millions on their backs.

Coates, despite this being his first comic writing gig, seemed like a good fit for the character as he’s very concerned with political power. The setup is strong. Revolution is brewing in Wakanda as the people are sick of their absentee king and regular invasions by Namor and Thanos, two members of the Dora Milaje have gone rogue in protest of unjust laws and an invading army is forming on the border of Wakanda’s poor neighbor.

But it’s just flat. The characters lack strong voices. The only one that stands out is a university professor, and everyone else feels likes a watered down version of him, just constant, weightless conversations of justice and right and power, except Shuri who learns a lot of ancient stories while in a coma. And then comes back to have the same bloodless talks.

My comic buying is at an all-time low.

The comics I get monthly/bi-weekly are: Batman, Detective Comics, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. I occassionally pick up Star Wars or Darth Vader or a random first issue here or there or an infrequently published series like the Pitiful Human Lizard or Headlopper, but that's mostly it.

I stopped buying single issue comics about eight years ago. $4.00 is too much to pay for such brief entertainment. Since then, I have only bought trade paperbacks or hard cover collections of comics, and only a few each year. Except in 2012, when I bought a pile of back issues of Grimjack and Master of Kung Fu to round out my collections of those titles. I mistakenly thought that the Sax Rohmer estate would never allow reprints of Master of Kung Fu, so when Marvel did the hardcover reprints of the entire run, I bought those too.

Finished the fourth and final volume of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips Kill or be Killed. Street-level violence with a touch of the fantastic? It’s so far up their wheelhouse Brubaker may have written it in his sleep, but that’s fine. There’s a certain high floor to the quality of their work together. Solid but not essential if you’ve read Fatale or Criminal or any of their other collaborations.

Also read Clue by Paul Allor and Nelson Daniel. It was fine but suffered from some real tonal problems. I was expecting more a madcap comedy in the vein of the film, which is mostly provided by a fourth-wall breaking butler, but the rest is played fairly straight. The (many) murders are more gruesome than fun. The macguffin is kind of lacking too. Cover gallery is good!

So a friend gave me a tablet set up with a cbr reader and a DC and Marvel scan archive for 1970-1990. I have my bookshelf set up like a newsstand and I just load a month at a time and go and pick up books like I did at the 7-11.

I chose 1977 as my starting point, the first book that I bought was Batman Family 100 page at the local super while visiting grandma. Having access to all kinds of stuff, I wanted to like go all omnivore, but after trying to sample the entire marvel month of January and the annuals, I was sadly reminded that stardust and nostalgia aside.....some of this is pretty bad. And there are a lot of reprints.

I'm 4 months into visiting the newstand. I'm surprised that I am consistantly looking forward to Weird Tales. Xmen is just getting good. I love everything John Byrne draws. Marvels best written books right now are the team ups and spidey. Thor in the Spell Jammer! Ms. Marvel and Nova are fun. First appearance Spider Woman. I read Defenders and Champions first every month. My least favorite stuff is Kirby Cap and Panther. I just can't dig it. D.C. mehhhhhh at the moment I rarely finish a book I open. EXPOSITION! I mean letterers earned their freaking paychecks.

Best gift ever.

Boothwah, I started reading comics in 1972, and agree that a lot of DC and Marvel was fairly meh in the '70s. I enjoyed them at the time, but they didn't age well. But there was some good stuff, and some of the best stuff still holds up well.

Kirby's return to Marvel was a big disappointment, with crappy Kirby covers showing up everywhere. His Black Panther run was downright goofy, and deservedly mocked many years later during the Priest run on BP. His Cap run was even more obnoxious. Cap mostly fought ordinary goons during the Kirby run, but the goons were all super muscular like they were eating steroids and washing them down with human growth hormone shakes. And Kirby Cap always looked wide-eyed and stunned, no matter what was going on.

I recommend that you go back to 1970, but give yourself permission to bail on anything that isn't grabbing you. some recommendations:

1. the long Steve Englehart run on Captain America & the Falcon.
2. Read every issue of Avengers from the '70s.
3. the Perez issues of Fantastic Four.
4. the annual JLA/JSA team-up issues in Justice League of America.
5. the original Swamp Thing series, for at least the first nine issues
6. the eight issues of Detective Comics that included the Manhunter backup feature, starting with #437.
7. the Brunner run on Dr. Strange
8. the Claremont/Byrne issues of Marvel Team-Up
9. Super-Villain Team-Up is short but fun.
10. Green Lantern #76 - #89, for the historically great Green Lantern/Green Arrow teamup issues.
11. Kamandi, for at least the first year or two, to see why Kirby is a legend.
12. Astonishing Tales #25-36, featuring Deathlok, for some very early cyberpunk
13. Amazing Adventures #18-39, featuring Killraven (it starts rough, but gets much better by #25 and soon becomes great.)
14. Amazing Spider-man #83 - #150
15. Tomb of Dracula
16. Master of Kung-Fu, starting shortly before issue #30.
17. the scattered adventures of Adam Warlock, in Strange Tales #178-181, Warlock #9-15, Marvel Team-Up #55, Avengers Annual #7, and finally Marvel Team-Up Annual #2.
18. Marvel Two-in-One #53-58 (Project Pegasus)
19. Jungle Action #6-18, featuring Black Panther (The excellent Panther's Rage story that inspired much of the Black Panther movie)
20. Daredevil, for the Frank Miller run starting with #157
21. Iron Man finally gets good around #115 or so, for the whole Michelinie/Layton run.

Still binging Ed Brubaker and Steve Phillips. Still good. This past week was the collected The Fade Out. For a change of pace it was not a noir with a touch of the fantastic. It was straight noir. Pretty great. Hollywood writer finds a starlet friend murdered in the room next to him after a night of blackout drinking and bolts. The next morning the newspapers report it as a suicide. And the mystery is on. Great setting; Hollywood in the late '40's with the Red Scare kicking into high gear, secrets and depravity everywhere. Solid cast of characters. Suffers from the Scott Pilgrim Problem, namely, why does every woman want to sleep with the lead character, but there are worse sins.

I enjoyed their Fatale, which has the opposite of the Scott Pilgrim problem.

I read Eisner's CONTRACT WITH GOD and THE JEW OF NEW YORK by Ben Katchor. Eisner's work seems pretty dated now, for the most part; but it was a revelation on release, bringing serious ideas to mainstream comic audiences. (It's the first work called a "graphic novel," per WHY COMICS). Even with that criticism, it opens with torrential rain falling on a tenement that just jumps off the page.

THE JEW OF NEW YORK is a weird wild work that weaves the stories of numerous characters in 1830s NY together, making it oddly compelling. It also seems like it has to have been based on true stories, but there's no way it actually is; it just possesses this crazy verisimilitude. It's not an easy read, very verbose, with just watercolor like drawings under the word balloons, but I thought it was great.