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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 17, 2024 15:21:30 GMT -5
Not a lot came out last month, but I got some new comics this month:
Brigantus by Yves H. and Hermann: Brigantus is a Roman legionnaire, but despised by his fellow soldiers because of he's of Pictish descent. As the small group is under attack by Picts, his loyalty is doubted by most, except for a young soldier who has seen Brigantus save them time and again. Historical Fiction. Part 1 of 2.
We recently had a thread about older artist that still create great artwork and Hermann at 86 years old, should have definitely be on that list.
And two Pecau's:
Arcana (issue #5) is an older series that only now gets translated into dutch, even though it strongly ties into the series Major Arcana and The Secret History (both series are repeatedly referenced in this issue, so I will need to reread all three series in order at some point to make sense of it all). Urban fantasy series. Mobius #2: With artist Igor Kordey, this is a much more focused as part 2 of a 3 issue story (I noticed that a lot of European series right now are going for shorter complete stories in 1-3 issues, see also Brigantus, and I quite like this development) Fantasy series where people who move to a different world whenever they die, but really don't think too hard about the mechanics of it (as people keep injuries they received shortly before dying). Kordey gets to create some weird creatures for this one (including basically a walking penis and a walking vagina monster, so definitely mature readers only, but it's Pecau, so you probably already were not sharing this with your kids).
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 17, 2024 15:01:00 GMT -5
I got the first trade of Image Comics (Top Cow) Antarctica by Simon Birks and Willi Roberts. One of the series I got because I really liked the covers on the individual comics.
Plot: Hannah Curtis life falls apart when her father disappears on a mission to Antarctica, years later after spending some time homeless, she gets her life back together with the help of a kindly dinner owner named Jim. After Jim's death, Hannah trains to be an engineer so she can be sent to Antarctica and investigate her father's disappearance.
Quite enjoying it so far, there is a mystery here, it's a sci-fi series and I really like the art, so those are all good points for me. I guess I need to see if they can stick the landing in the next trade before I recommend it to others.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 17, 2024 14:17:38 GMT -5
This wretched thing sported by Captain Britain (who'd been re-named Britannic for some reason) during the 90's. Given all the costumes he's had AND all the costume designs from his various interdimensional counterparts, surely they could have chosen something less uninspired and uninspiring than this. What the...? I am a big fan of Cap Brit, and I must have mercifully slept through enough of the 90's to miss that one! That is HO-RENDOUS.
I think he had that costume for less than 10 issues or so, so it would have been easy to miss. Lashley introduced the costume and Ellis had Brian retire as a superhero and the costume a few issues later when he took over. When Ellis returned Brian to a costume, artist Casey Jones used a costume that looked a lot like the original Alan Davis costume:
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 16, 2024 9:12:12 GMT -5
This is interesting in that DC and Hanna-Barbera are owned by the same company...yet they're farming it out to Dynamite.
Similar to Marvel being owned by Disney, but Disney comics are all over the place.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 14, 2024 7:50:36 GMT -5
I really wanted to see some design notes on that costume. There must be some idea behind it that I'm not getting. All the other Captain Britain costumes seem to make sense.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 8, 2024 11:14:06 GMT -5
Is there much fuss about him? He's OK, good on some titles, misplaced on others. I think his main claim to fame is setting up the backstory for the G.I. Joe franchise and writing it for 40 years (with some pauses between).
Overall he's pretty quiet on most things and does not seem to have a huge ego, unlike some of his colleagues, but I'm not that in touch with American comics so I may have missed some dirt slinging.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 7, 2024 11:35:14 GMT -5
A big loss, I haven't read Martin Mystere or his other series the Gentlemen, but I've read the sci-fi series Gigantik where he did some work on and his Lieutenant Blueberry stories.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 7, 2024 11:28:00 GMT -5
They had a ton of spin-offs, but that was after Van Hamme left and my interest with the series dropped a ton.
So just in case the big switches in Thorgal are
- issue #29 The Sacrifice (your issue #21): Last issue by Jean Van Hamme. (After that it goes fast through the writers: 5 issues by Yves van Sente, 1 issue by Xavier Dorison, 6 issues by Yann so far)
- issue #36 The Hermit of Skellingar: Last issue (interior) by Grzegorz Rosinski, (he still does covers till issue 40) at which point I dropped the series.
And spin-offs: some artbooks, 11 issues of young Thorgal, 8 issues of Kriss of Valnor and 7 issues of Wolf Cub.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 6, 2024 10:16:02 GMT -5
Thorgal was fun....like mrp, I missed a good chunk in the middle when Hoopla stopped carrying Cinebook, but decided to start picking up the 'new' releases. Battle for Asgard was really fun, it's always interesting to see a difference version of the Norse Gods. Thorgal seems to be looking for his youngest child (the one he had when he was brainwashed, I think), which is a minor part of the story. The title story is Jolan going to Asgard to get one of Idunn's apples.. he had apparently acquired Thor's shield in a previous adventure and fights Loki with an army of rag dolls that are imbued with souls of warriors that didn't quite make it to Valhalla... very fun story, I'm glad I got it even though the cost/page count ratio for Cinebook isn't great. I was trying to match the numbers you mention to my versions and I got confused at the issue number of 24, because the whole Asgard/Loki thing happens much later in my memory, then I looked at Cinebooks numberinig and they are weird.
Issue 0 is our issue 1 (fair enough), but issue 1 (The Star Child) is our issue 7. How many pages are each issue, because when I look at this (https://www.cinebook.co.uk/thorgal-c-141_146_215.html), so maybe they are double issues? But then our issues 15-32 all line up with Cinebooks 7-24, so if it were double issues, I'd expect those to have missing issues as well.
Any way the issues missing seem to be 2 The Island of the Frozen Seas, 4 The Black Galley, 6 The Fall of Brek Zarith, 8 Alinoe, 11 The Eyes of Tanatloc, 13 Between Earth and Light and 14 Aaricia and I know some of those were two-parters.
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 3, 2024 14:55:07 GMT -5
G.O.D.S. #4 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia
Plot: Last issue, Amelia Anderson, the current Cassandra (the last in a line of prophets that see the future, but are ignored by everybody they warn) decided to take matters into her own hands by shooting an A.I.M. scientist who has created an artifact that may spell the end of the creation, but in doing so may have triggered the event. So it's up to Strange and Wyn to prevent it.
Art: For a series that was focused on magic and cosmic entities, Schiti got very little to do in the previous issues, but is allowed to flex a little here with some Escher-like environments. Also I quite like his version of the In-betweener, which is more androgynous than their previous incarnations, but fits well with the concept behind the character in my opinion and Oblivion which is constantly shifting and changing when he reveals himself to others.
Writing: There is some backstory on Robert Forson, the A.I.M. scientist who is shot and he's been manipulated his whole life to end up here. Wyn and Strange see the link between Forson and the Archmage from issue #1 and together with Aiko and her people conclude that the same force as behind the both of them and apparently there only few forces that employ both magic and science... though I'd never have guessed that as techno/magic heroes and villains have been pretty popular in Marvel UK which I've been rereading recently (also various other characters, like Dr. Doom). Mia and Dimitri are the most human in behaviour of the various characters, because they are both new (Mia moreso than Dimitri) to the world of cosmic powers, while Wyn, Strange and Aiko have all been old hands at these kind of cosmic encounters and are therefore far removed from us.
For new readers: Still not a story for new readers. The plot expects you to know a bit about various Marvel mainstays like A.I.M., the In-Betweener and Oblivion (though some of them do get a short explanation).
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 31, 2024 6:13:48 GMT -5
The default S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. They are either a military or spy organisation, why would they be wearing skintight jumpsuits?
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 27, 2024 8:20:50 GMT -5
I'm now working my way through various Masters of the Universe comics over the years for a thread and I ran into something that has been confusing me since I was a kid.
In Star Comics (the Marvel comics imprint for licensed comics) Masters of the Universe #10 (1987), the heroes are attacked by two of Skeletor's minions: Blade and Saurod (both new characters that were created for the movie that was out at that time). But a few pages in, they are without any explanation switched with older minions Webstor and Kobra Khan and the story is written as the attack was done by those two all along with no mention of the original two and the whole change is never addressed in story either. I've seen before issues that were redrawn/rewritten to change other characters that could not be used due to various reasons before publication (I remember Nicieza's Cable&Deadpool had Rictor erased from panels due to the character being moved to X-Factor at that point, but they left a speach bubble in referring to him) or issues that were later retconned some characters into being other characters all along, but I can't remember it ever seen happening within a single issue. It's not a case of the artist drawing the wrong character as both sets of villains are referred to by the correct names in the speech bubbles. I read it in translation so maybe that something about it was said in the original American comics letter page about it?
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 27, 2024 8:06:34 GMT -5
Is there anything to "miss" regarding Union Jack's costume? As far as I can tell that is still the same costume he's wearing these days. I think the only time he wasn't wearing that costume was during Knights of Pendragon (both of which weren't good costumes, so kinda obvious that he went back to this one.)
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 17, 2024 5:54:30 GMT -5
Jacobs was doing European comics of Flash Gordon over here during WWII. During the occupation, American comics were banned, so he created The U-Ray as a replacement and I have the feeling that he crammed in everything that he had planned for Flash Gordon into it. I expect that the American version is based on the '74 remake by Jacobs as I think that the original '43 version has been never been collected.
There is one plot element in the story that I still find hilarious though: Dagon, the spy tries to sabotage the expedition, but triggers an alarm. The policy arrives, but he manages to escape, but he drops his Secret Service insignia (in the original I believe the police recognises his uniform as a member of the Secret Service). And the whole thing is "why would a spy ever wear or carry any items that identify him as a foreign spy"?
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 16, 2024 10:55:57 GMT -5
Miracleman, maybe the new Hellblazer (though I probably will wait for the trade on that one).
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