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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 26, 2023 11:58:57 GMT -5
I bought the original tpb. It does nothing for me. I don’t think there’s a plot to these stories. I've tried to get into the book multiple times and it just doesn't work for me at all. So, yeah, I don't get it. Well, not everything's for everybody. I like it a lot (though I still have to catch up with a lot of stuff from after the original run). It really is very well done on a technical level, and, especially when it came out originally, one of the few thing that didn't seem to be trying to be--or even more importantly, trying not to be--something that already existed. You called it. L&R isn't a comic I'd recommend to everyone, necessarily. And certainly a reader who prefers a plot, as opposed to a meandering slice of life, it's not for them!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 18, 2023 12:07:00 GMT -5
I love a 'G-good Lord! >choke<' I try to quote it in my own writing when I have opportunity.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 15, 2023 13:18:11 GMT -5
I know the Armless Tiger Man appeared in an issue of Pak/Van Lente's Hercules (not a big part). I expect several others to have similar appearances. ARMLESS TIGER MAN!! He’s awesome! I want to do a story in which he encounters a Cockney detective who says: " 'E's 'ardly 'armless!"
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 15, 2023 13:13:50 GMT -5
Is John Cassaday just a bad cartoonist? Is that why I don’t like Planetary? The drawing is pretty good but from the samples here there’s not much sense of kinetic motion or panels flowing into each other. If, say, Steve Dillon had drawn the doll throwing scene above it woulda been hilarious! It may be that this is such a writer-dominated series; but it might also be that Cassaday is another of those who looks at comic storytelling as storyboarding a movie. I loved Cassaday's art on Planetary, it seemed to fit the subject matter perfectly. However (to my surprise) when I've seen anything by him since then ... I've found his style really boring.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 13, 2023 12:36:27 GMT -5
This was a fast moving story. But there's a lot of depth here. The first overall arc of Planetary explored the 20th Century through what would be to us its popular culture. It only makes sense that Ellis and Cassaday would look at what came before and that exploration would focus on the archetypes of the genres that grew out of 19th Century literature, science fiction (Frankenstein), the detective novel (Holmes) and horror (Dracula). While those never went away, the 20th century saw different, but related cultural artifacts that had been previously explored in the series. Interestingly, Frankenstein's monster appears on the cover but not the actual issue. Some of the Wold Newton folks have postulated that the story in which Bulldog Denny gathers together a force to battle the monster is actually a disguised prelude to this issue, with Elijah Snow = Dr Frost, etc etc.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 13, 2023 12:29:54 GMT -5
I’m afraid to buy this book.
Mine comes in 3 books actually, in a boxed set in a slipcase. It was a present from someone who heard the name Alan Moore but didn't exactly know what it was.
That's actually kind of hilarious. I wasn't bothered by the use of the characters ... once the authors are long dead and the material has passed into public domain, anything goes so far as I'm concerned. But in this case it was a visually lovely, intellectually overwrought mess.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 12, 2023 12:20:34 GMT -5
*cough* I usually don't see eye-to-eyebag with Alan Moore...who's always in a rage when you use his Watchmen characters while he helps himself to Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan and turns them into a bunch of raging nymphomaniacs. And that's coming from someone who likes a generous helping of ribaldry in her comics....but I digress... I have some ambivalence about the series. Moore was trying to do literary pornography, and to my it was poor literature and ... poor pornography although granted everyone's tastes are different. On the other hand, I think the artwork is stunningly gorgeous. And the writing does show a lot of care ... Moore clearly considered this one of his major works and the psychological investment is quite evident.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 12, 2023 12:16:14 GMT -5
Artwork aside, I thought the Avengers/JLA crossover was pretty dire. Definitely not Kurt Busiek's finest moment as a writer. It made me really wish we'd gotten to see the original planned story years earlier. This felt like a muddled, fan service mess ... that Busiek had tried to fit in every single 'cool' scene and interaction he could, to the detriment of narrative coherence.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 8, 2023 12:24:42 GMT -5
Since you've brought up the Legion ...
I want to see a kids' intro math book, hosted by Triplicate Girl and Arm-Fall-Off Boy, titled MULTIPLY AND DIVIDE
Also a kids' intro chemistry book, with Ferro Lad, Chemistry Kid, Element Boy, whomever else qualifies.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 6, 2023 12:37:13 GMT -5
Razorback a.k.a. truck driver Buford Hollis was a very minor super-hero appearing in early issues of Spectacular Spider-Man. I would write his adventures totally tongue-in-cheek, like "Smokey and the Bandit" in a pig costume. Stingray I'd do straight. I can't see the characters functioning as a team, but maybe that's a failure of imagination on my part. Cei-U! I summon the unlikely duo!
Stingray I see working for a global security organization, possibly with an aquatic mandate. I see high tech subs, underwater bases....perhaps a self-contained city complex that can be lowered underground, by massive hydraulics. He would encounter aquatic humanoid lifeforms, some of whom might join in his adventures. I also imagine a really cool theme song. I believe Stingray once joined in a mob of characters trying to join the Defenders, and I believe he was briefly in a group of underwater characters that Marvel put together, probably in a Namor title. He has always been high on my list, both because of his elegant costume, but also because of what Cody's implicitly picked up on ... I think he works best when he's NOT a superhero. After all, he designed the costume not to fight crime, but to help with underwater research ... it just so happens that it gives him super-strength, and because he's a mensch, he helps out other superheroes when the need arises. So I want to see a series about him being an underwater explorer, primarily. The one character that I'm amazed hasn't had a solo series yet is BATROC. Written by Jean-Marc Lofficier (possibly in conjunction with Jeff Parker or Gail Simone), fighting outrageous Gallic villains from the MU or from French literature.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 27, 2023 12:25:55 GMT -5
I loved this storyline, being basically Moore's tribute to the old JLA/JSA crossovers. I also appreciated the way he took care to revive a single 'universe' of characters rather than just a melange of 40s characters he happens to like.
Doc Strange couldn't fly in the 40s, and having him literally RUN across the universe has this marvelously folkloric, larger than life quality to it.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 27, 2023 12:09:42 GMT -5
I knew about Bruce Bravelle. I understand Roy's affection for reusing forgotten 40s names, but I think reusing names of Timely heroes for new characters set during the same time period, was unnecessarily complicated.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 15, 2023 12:43:46 GMT -5
Axis debuted in the Invaders Annual, a couple of months before; a spy who is a gestalt entity, composed of three Axis agents. The basic premise is taken from Theodore Sturgeon's novel, More Than Human, about a gestalt entity, comprised of 6 beings. In the novel, they combine their minds; but, here, Roy combines the physical beings of the three agents. Curiously, he was previously a DC Comics character (at least for visual inspiration). Agent Axis
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 13, 2023 12:09:40 GMT -5
It's nice to have my intuition proven right!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Nov 10, 2023 13:17:48 GMT -5
I discovered after the fact that Desert Peach is the name of a color. I've since wondered whether Donna Barr was at a paint store with some friends, saw 'desert peach,' and someone made a joke about it's being the Desert Fox's pretty younger brother, and she took it on from there.
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