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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 31, 2024 16:40:20 GMT -5
G.O.D.S. #6 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia
What Happened Before: Wynn is a mage working for The Powers that Be, the Principal of Magic. His ex-wife Aiko is a scientist working for its countrpart: The Natural Order of Things, the Principal of Science. The Centivars, agents of the Natural Order of Things, have suffered heavy losses recently, fighting against a rogue Mage and to fill those spots, Aiko recently recruited the young mage Mia, but Wynn has told Mia that by doing so, Mia's growth as a mage will be stifled.
Plot: Aiko feels guilty for changing Mia's fate without her knowledge and wants to reverse her actions is willing to go up to the Living Tribunal itself to make amends, but the paths of magic are treacherous and prices must be paid.
Art: Most of the characters and designs in this one have been seen before in this series. New is the Preordained, an agent for both Oblivion and the Living Tribunal (which is kinda weird as I'd see the Living Tribunal as outside of the Universal Principals like Eternity, Death, Chaos, Order etc.) Their design does not really appeal to me for a being of that much power as she fits more into a regular superhero or villain type design (though the mechanical, golden snake-like companion she has is an interesting design). I'm also not sold on this new design for the Living Tribunal.
Writing: I do enjoy the writing on this issue (though some things are spelled out a bit too much for my taste, so a reader does not need to draw their own conclusions). Aiko is offered choices at various points how she'll pay for services of several beings and it is a nice myth-like story where seemingly simple stories have huge consequences. Aiko is revealed to be a mostly good person; when choices are offered that harm either her or others during the trip, she'll take the choice that would harm her rather than risking an innocent. I also am interested in Wynn and Aiko both getting fed up with them having to pay for the actions of their godlike masters.
For new readers: It's a bit cryptic at some times, but in basis this is another story that most new readers should be capable to follow. Aiko feels guilty for her actions towards Mia and wants to make amends and is set on magical quest , visiting various magical entities that are not to be trusted
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 31, 2024 9:21:58 GMT -5
I've bought volume 1 of Gentlemind by Juan Díaz Canales (writer on Blacksad and the recent Corto Maltese), Teresa Valero (who I have never read anything else by) and Antonio Lapone (Greenwhich Village) Set in the 1940s, Navit is a young, beautiful woman who is in a relationship with artist Arch Parker. Sketches of her draw the attention of Parker's boss, Powell, who begins an affair with Navit. After his death, she inherits Powell's Men's Magazine "Gentlemind". It took a while for me to get into it, but I really enjoyed this first issue. The work has been out in the US and other countries for a few years so the dutch translation is pretty late, but I'm eagerly awaiting issue #2 coming in a month or 2.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 31, 2024 9:03:14 GMT -5
X-Men Red Volume 4 and Coda Volume 1 (I actually thought this was the collection of the new Coda mini-series (which actually will come out in a month or 2) because it was on the New Releases stand, but it was a collection of the first series volume 1, which I had in singles. Oh well). Immortal X-Men volume 4 should have come out, but they didn't have it yet.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 26, 2024 16:16:02 GMT -5
Some of the covers of the various adaptions, below. Paquet has done 9 Poirots, 2 Miss Marples and a few others. Then there were 5 adaptions in the 90s by Frank Leclercq.
In the 2000s publisher Emmanuel Proust, reprinted those 5 (I believe they reprinted all) and also published about 20 other Agatha Christie adaptions. Some of which had been translated to English by Harper Collins. And Dellcourt one-shot 7 Detectives and it's spin-off Detectives had Miss Crumble and Ernest Patisson which both were basically tributes to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.
Nice looking covers on some of those, might have to check them out. A lot would depend on the interior artwork, for me.
It's a very mixed bunch of artists, between them we have like 25 artists on maybe a total of 40 issues, some of them I really don't like, some of them acquired tastes and some of them are pretty good. And most of them I don't know at all. Upside is that it's very rare over here to have different cover artists from the interior art and for most of them you can find easily some interior sampples on these titles.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 26, 2024 2:58:44 GMT -5
Speaking of whom, has Poirot or any other Agatha Christie character ever been adapted to comics?
There are 9 Poirot GN published by Paquet beginning in 2017. They are in French and I am not sure if they're available in English translation or in the North American market. In the US market Harper Collins has done a GN adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express published in 2023. They had previously published Five Little Pigs in 2010, Murder in Mesopotamia in 2008 and handful of others. (Mystery of the Blue Train '07, Big Four '07, Hallowe'en Party '08, Dumb Witness '10, Dead Man's Folly '12, Murder on the Links '12, Cards on the Table '10, a different version of Orient Express in '07, Death on the Nile '07, Murder of Roger Ackroyd '07) I can track down the exact issues, but Poirot has also been parodied in both Mad and Cracked. There have been other adaptations done as part of mystery comics anthologies, in other foreign editions, etc. So yes, quite a bit, just not by publishers whose main distribution is the American direct market. -M Some of the covers of the various adaptions, below.
Paquet has done 9 Poirots, 2 Miss Marples and a few others. Then there were 5 adaptions in the 90s by Frank Leclercq.
In the 2000s publisher Emmanuel Proust, reprinted those 5 (I believe they reprinted all) and also published about 20 other Agatha Christie adaptions. Some of which had been translated to English by Harper Collins.
And Dellcourt one-shot 7 Detectives and it's spin-off Detectives had Miss Crumble and Ernest Patisson which both were basically tributes to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 19, 2024 5:26:34 GMT -5
If the X-Men were never revived in the 70s, some other superhero team would have been created where ancient comic fans can years later lament about.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 12, 2024 13:58:10 GMT -5
I really liked a lot of the comics in the Krakoan Age (especially the first issues of Duggan's Marauders, William's X-Factor, Ewing's S.W.O.R.D./X-Men Red, Spurrier's Way of X/Legion of X, Hickman's Inferno and New Mutants and Gillen's Immortal X-Men), but the moment they decided to wrap this up, my interest went with it. Yea I'm reading Marauders right now from 2019 been fun so far 😊
I think after issue #16 the series loses direction, but until then it was my favourite of the X-Men titles at the time.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 11, 2024 16:40:16 GMT -5
I really liked a lot of the comics in the Krakoan Age (especially the first issues of Duggan's Marauders, William's X-Factor, Ewing's S.W.O.R.D./X-Men Red, Spurrier's Way of X/Legion of X, Hickman's Inferno and New Mutants and Gillen's Immortal X-Men), but the moment they decided to wrap this up, my interest went with it.
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 5, 2024 10:25:42 GMT -5
Mm.. I didn't get any subscription or login on that page, but it may be geo-blocking. Can you open these: www.furoremagazine.com/author/piet/ (original article from 2020) otherwise, this is an example page from the link in my previous post:
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 5, 2024 5:40:27 GMT -5
Just a note, last week (28th of February) I am Their Silence - A Barcelona Murder Mystery by Jordi Lafebre was translated and published into English by Europe Comics. This was my favourite comic from 2023 (though YMMV).
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 5, 2024 5:27:47 GMT -5
Don't know if this is the right thread on this, but this was a recent article in the newspapers over here: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/02/29/plagiaat-vrijwel-heel-stripalbum-over-caesar-nagetekend-van-prince-valiant-strips-a4191573Back in 2020, Dutch comic artist Lucas Smeets wrote an article about Joe Orlando's plagiarism of Prince Valiant issues for his " Caesar's Conquests" in "Classics Illustrated" (1953). This was not news at the time as there were already incidents of this known at the time. Smeets has now published a book about it (available in English), "Prince Valiant meets Julius Caesar" where he took the time to source all the panels in the Classics Illustrated to the original panels in Prince Valiant and basically the entire Caesar's Conquests is redrawn Prince Valiant panels (Smeets said that for the few panels he couldn't source, they probably are still copied, but he hasn't found the original source yet).
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 1, 2024 18:22:10 GMT -5
G.O.D.S. #5 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia Plot: A mostly stand-alone issue: The Black Swans (Doom's minions from the Secret Wars series) have been abandoned by them and now are looking for a new purpose, which they try to find by sacrificing men. Wynn asks Mia to intercede on his behalf when the Swans overstep their bounds. Art: Schiti gets to stretch his talents again by drawing some pages in a fairy tale style (the story the older Swan tells to the younger ones how they seduce and kill men). Writing: I liked this one a lot as it set up the relationship between Wynn (the immortal mage) and Mia (who has recently discovered she is a mage) as well as explains why Wynn was so angry last issue wheen he found out that the Centivars had recruited Mia. The relationship between Wynn and Mia is interesting, you'd expect him to be her mentor as their powers are similar, and he kinda is, but also he's been distant from humanity recently and Mia and him don't really get along. I can't think of any comics I've read with quite this dynamic between two characters where they are both on the same side and are polite to each other, but also not really gelling with each other without being actually hostile and neither of them really understanding why (though Wynn's comment at the end may be the main reason). And it's a relationship I've seen a lot in real life.
For new readers: I think this is actually an issue a new reader could follow without having too much pre-story. You don't really need to know about the Black Swans and their previous master to understand them in this issue.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 28, 2024 10:21:27 GMT -5
Having not gone last week, my list this week is G.O.D.S. and Monstress (which is so close to the Bride of Frankenstein quote...)
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 20, 2024 9:56:48 GMT -5
Mister Miracle #12 (September 2018)[snip for readability] Celebrity Guests in the above page: Eight of the seventeen spotlighted faces have been identified; they are comedians and DC folks. Do you know any of the other nine? Bit late, but I looked around to find the other people on the image:
I think next to him is Clayton Cowles, the letterer on this issue.
In the bottom middle panel below Paul, Jason and June are Mitch Gerads and Tom King themselves. Behind Scott A. and A. Scott are probably Britanny Holzherr and Jamie S. Rich, the editors.
Speculation:
Next to Paul F. Thompkins is probably Lauren Lapkus, they've done a lot of things together.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 20, 2024 9:16:45 GMT -5
Bad casting is so very rarely the issue with movies and TV-series, I have difficulty to point at any movie or series that were ruined by bad casting and not bad editing, direction or writing (in that exact order).
Never cast based on looks, differences in appearance (and let's be honest, very few comic book characters have had only 1 specific face during their 50+ years career). By the time the movie comes around, make-up, training and costuming can make people look like the character (extreme example Colin Farrell as the Penguin). Make-up can't fix acting.
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