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Post by The Cheat on Dec 16, 2021 13:51:50 GMT -5
I finished the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon Punisher mini-series. I guess Ennis' take on the Punisher character wasn't bad, and Dillon's art was all right, but the sophomoric attempts at black humour were too much for me. I enjoyed the Marvel Knights series, but yeah, it pales in comparison to Ennis' MAX stuff, which has a far more serious tone for the most part.
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Post by The Cheat on Nov 25, 2021 13:51:24 GMT -5
Trying to fill in some of the holes in my comic reading, and a big one is Japanese manga. I've only read a couple volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub, the Tanabe Gou's adaptation of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, and a couple of volumes of the Vinland Saga. So I decided to hit some of the key classics, starting with Akira. I am currently 2 volumes into my read through (600 pages). It certainly reads faster than western comics I am used to, I read the entire 300 page second volume in one sitting in under 90 minutes (volume 1-363 pages, took a couple of sittings to get through but that was due to not having time for a longer reading session not because of the material). I have enjoyed the first two volumes quite a bit, and look forward to reading the rest. Other things on my radar are reading deeper into Lone Wolf, Ghost in the Shell, and maybe one of two others. Definitely the Batmanga stuff as well. I may check out the anime after I have read the manga as well, not sure. Definitely will for Akira, not sure on some of the others. Aside from Battle of the Planets as a kid, I never really got into anima or manga, but I have enjoyed what little of it I have read, so it's time to broaden the horizons a bit. -M I started delving into Manga last year and highly recommend Naoki Urasawa's stuff (20th Century Boys, Monster, Pluto). I started with Akira, and enjoyed it, but it was 20th Century Boys that really sent me down the Manga rabbit hole to see what other gold I could unearth.
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Post by The Cheat on Nov 3, 2021 13:56:54 GMT -5
I didn't have any issues with the politics. My issue was that every single character acted like a drooling crap-flinging moron at almost every turn. And I don't mean just Ampersand. It honestly felt like Vaughan sat down and said..."Okay. I've got the characters in this situation. What's the dumbest thing they could do? Nah...that's maybe a bit too dumb. What's the second dumbest thing they could do? Yeah...that's the ticket." Yeah, I re-read it recently and found Yorick insufferably annoying.
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 24, 2021 12:58:31 GMT -5
Always liked this one from Morrison's 1234 mini-series. Sums up everything I love about Reed perfectly.
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 20, 2021 13:00:14 GMT -5
The cover of Amazing Spider-Man #1 isnt that good: If not for the logo, this looks more like an issue of the Fantastic Four (with them cornering him), and showing the hero in peril on the cover of the very first issue isnt a very good look (and yeah, I know the use of the FF was likely to attract customers). The very first time I saw that cover I thought Spidey had gotten himself stuck in the revolving doors at the front of the Baxter Building. What a clutz. Have never been able to shake that initial impression.
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 16, 2021 13:12:06 GMT -5
It wasn't sloppy. To me, their connection makes it more interesting. And Betty and She-Hulk's stories are currently unfolding in other books, Defenders and Avengers respectively. And Walter is Sasquatch, not Wendigo. To each their own, when everything becomes too interconnected it just feels flat and overly-contrived to me. Agree entirely, the MU is so incestous these days, it's beyond parody. Last I checked, it was Tony Stark sabotaging the gamma bomb that created the Hulk. Is this retconned now?
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 15, 2021 13:12:38 GMT -5
Previously mentioned in the thread but not posted. A lousy debut cover. I love this cover. There's something about the Four in the foreground with the night-time sky and the sense of eerie quiet (before the storm?) it evokes that really gets me. FF 29 is an even better example of this.
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 14, 2021 12:54:26 GMT -5
I didn't like the bomber jackets at the time because they were very much part of Bob Harras's determined attempts to make Avengers as much like X-Men as possible, which I found really annoying. When did the X-Men wear bomber jackets?
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 10, 2021 12:54:48 GMT -5
Digital's great in some situations. Paper is nice in others. I'm just grateful that we live in a time where we've got the option to choose. I don't get people who just point blank refuse to try it, as if they're afraid their paper collection is suddenly going to disappear in a puff of smoke the minute they load up their first page on a tablet. No, but the service could disappear in a puff of smoke at any time. Or the selection it offers. (Same with movies, music, etc.) That's why you make offline copies of everything you buy. Storage space is dirt cheap. I'm sure it's probably technically against the terms of service, but morally, if I've paid for it, downloading a copy for offline viewing isn't going to trouble my conscience any.
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Post by The Cheat on Oct 9, 2021 12:57:42 GMT -5
Digital's great in some situations. Paper is nice in others. I'm just grateful that we live in a time where we've got the option to choose. I don't get people who just point blank refuse to try it, as if they're afraid their paper collection is suddenly going to disappear in a puff of smoke the minute they load up their first page on a tablet.
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Post by The Cheat on Sept 22, 2021 13:17:46 GMT -5
Yeah, you never get anything anywhere near that much dialog in a modern comic.
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Post by The Cheat on Sept 7, 2021 13:13:56 GMT -5
But something like Dark Beast sounds ludicrous. I guess ludicrous is in the ear of the beholder. I mean, "Dr Doom"? Really?
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Post by The Cheat on Aug 31, 2021 13:18:22 GMT -5
I recently finished a read through of Mignola and Golden's Baltimore series. I started with the prose novel, then read the first 4 trades (I won 1-3 as singles, had to use hoopla for vol. 4) and then the second omnibus volume (which collects trade vols. 5-8), which I picked up at the last con I went to. I enjoyed the series quite a bit. Perhaps not as much as the Hellboy/BPRD stuff-it is a different mythos though similar. The difference I think comes down to cast-I like the characters in Hellboy/BPRD more, but I really enjoyed delving into the world of Baltimore. While Hellboy pulls form a lot of pulp horror and adventure material with a heavy dose of folklore and mythology mixed in, Baltimore pulls more from Gothic and Victorian horror (Stoker, Poe, Chambers, et. al) they both fall in the same horror adventure broad genre label. I do feel the first half of Baltimore, focused on Lord Baltimore's quest for vengeance on the elder vampire he encountered on the battlefields of WWI was stronger than the second half, which dealt with the quest tot stop the King in Red, the entity behind the vampires and such, I did enjoy the second half. It was just a case of feeling the story could have ended at the culmination of the first half and stood just fine. The second part was very good, and Mignola and Golden did a good job of figuring out what happens next after the quest is completed, but a part of me still felt it was superfluous and wasn't needed to tell Baltimore's story itself. In a sense was the second half was a victim of Baltimore's success as it only happened because Baltimore had managed to establish an audience and demand for new material. In all a mixed blessing of sorts. But if you like the genre or Mignola stuff, well worth checking out if you haven't. -M I felt the same. I didn't regret reading the second omnibus, but I can't imagine going back and re-reading it in the future, unlike the first which I put on the same shelf as his Hellboy stuff.
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Post by The Cheat on Aug 31, 2021 13:10:34 GMT -5
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Post by The Cheat on Aug 28, 2021 13:21:12 GMT -5
No super-heroes in Ennis' Punisher MAX, so I'd stick that in my list somewhere.
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