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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 10, 2017 11:53:59 GMT -5
My memories are vague, but it's light and amusing and not as trippy as the title suggests.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 9, 2017 11:51:16 GMT -5
I always considered this the pet of Grant Morrison's Sunshine Superman character, even though it wasn't published by DC.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 2, 2017 11:35:50 GMT -5
I think I had (or have) this issue, but I don't recall a single story, image or character from it.
I own all the HM's for the first several years, but certainly do not remember all these strips. Unfortunately they're a bit buried and difficult to review.
I will touch on Sunspot, as I was (and am) a huge Bode fan. I don't consider this his deepest work, but I'd not have had any access to it at all otherwise if not for this reprint, so was quite glad to see it included.
And since Den's manhood has been an issue, I do think Corben is one of the few artists who can draw naked men and make them seem natural and not lurid. I also remember watching the animated HM film and being so amused/annoyed at the care they took to give Den a loincloth.
I think they totally missed out by not having the original 'Neverwhere' short as a DVD extra on that.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 1, 2017 11:33:02 GMT -5
even though the premise is similar to the one from Alice in Wonderland or Conan, this is done as masterfully. it's never derivative, rather Corben was inspired by the idea to tell his own story. slow pacing, landscapes, creatures he meets along the way - what a journey! and what a strong start for HM, with Corben and Moebius as "household" names. Den was originally a film Corben made in college called Neverwhere. The original Den from that movie appears in this comic as Den's "uncle Den." I loved Den when it first started out. Apparently it was something Corben worked on between other projects as a sort of hobby, and that actually worked to the strip's benefit to my mind, creating an enjoyably meandering tour through this new land. I've always felt the strip actually suffered when Corben finally bore down and decided he needed a plot and stuff like that in order to properly finish it up, and I never much cared for the sequals.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 31, 2017 11:50:43 GMT -5
I really, really like the Morrison run. In terms of sheer volume of cool ideas it's the strongest mainstream comic I've ever read. He wasn't great at dialog (everyone basically has the same speech pattern) or working to the strengths of his artist yet - and his understanding of mental illness is pretty much 100% wrong - but writes like a smart guy with a really diverse set of interests and he'll come up with stuff I have never seen in comics before. I don't consider his dialog differential any worse than most writers; I never got his characters confused. I thought his treatment of MP/DID was pretty spot on. I loathed beyond words his incredibly racist treatment of Tempest, though.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 31, 2017 11:48:13 GMT -5
Bill Loebs published a short story in an underground comic about a crimefighting transvestite. He titled it, "Rex Mason, Boy Transvestite." I think the DC version is better at transforming, overall.
The underground Slow Death featured a poignant, wordless strip about the death if Blackhawk (which I've always assumed to be the canonical death of the Earth-X Blackhawk).
From another Bob Haney crossover with Batman and Black Canary: Batman hates cottage cheese!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 24, 2017 12:10:32 GMT -5
One thing I like about Rita so far (so Farr! Hahaha!) is her willingness to get stuck in and do what needs doing without being all helpless and hysterical and waiting for a man to tell her what to do (I'm looking at you, 1960s Susan Storm Richards!). Curiously, as much as Marvel was considered hipper than DC, Lee's heroines tended towards the fragile, fainting type (Marvel Girl, Invisible Girl, Scarlet Witch) while Fox's were more take-charge (Eliast-Girl, Zatanna, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman).
I'm fond of the original series and all its weirdness and disfunction. I think Morrison's run on the title is the best thing he has ever done.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 18, 2017 11:53:25 GMT -5
It could be I'm missing something: they used to call Eisner the Shakespeare of comics and, even accounting for hyperbole, there must have been some reason for that. Maybe I'm just not attuned to whatever is is he was doing. Or I haven't read enough - I've read more Flash than Spirit, though a fair bit of the latter too. Color me surprised as well; certainly some Spirit stories are better than others, but the best ones are among the peak of the form. However, I never liked Flash Gordon! Pretty to look at but the story never made much sense to me and I never really believed in Mongo. I mush preferred the more crudely drawn Buck Rogers strip, which had great characterisation and compelling plotlines.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 17, 2017 12:20:36 GMT -5
I've always been intrigued by the Lev Gleason line, particularly those done by Charles Biro, for the mix of costumed hero and realistic drama in the books. They do have their pecularities though:
Daredevil as presented by Jack Cole is absurdly skilled; in an early appearence he kills over a hundred of the Yellow Claw's henchmen with a single throw of his boomerang! Biro's Daredevil was a reasonable mentor for the Little Wise Guys but is one of the least competant superheroes I have ever seen, most notably in a scene in which his boomerang bounces off the head of an ordinary gangster while barely slowing him down.
Crimebuster is one of the most realistically presented teen heroes ever seen in comics, but I find them hard to look at as he has the ugliest costume imaginable (it's actually a hockey uniform).
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 17, 2017 11:51:44 GMT -5
I always thought that Nukla, Brain Boy, Dracula, Fleeta (Dracula's sidekick), Werewolf, and Frankenstein would have made a really intriguing comic if Alan Moore had opted to use them in Watchmen.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 14, 2017 11:52:50 GMT -5
Since nobody else has, I'd recommend the Culture novels by Iain M Banks. Consider Phlebus is the first. Player of Games probably my favorite.
For comics, if you ever find any issues of Albedo or Command Review, pick them up. They look like a 'funny animal' comic but they're the best (of not the only) genuinely hard SF comics ever produces in this country.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 10, 2017 11:52:18 GMT -5
I'm fascinated by a lot of these newspaper reprints but simply find them overwhelming - just one series would take up an entire bookshelf it seems like.
The one Kurtzman book of that lot I own is Goodman Beaver. Notable history, among other reasons, in the the Superman parody was a huge influence on Alan Moore.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 5, 2017 12:24:36 GMT -5
Kings in Disguise is a work of art, pure and simple. It began life as a play, called On the Ropes, by James Vance, who had been involved in theater. I didn't know about the stage background of the book. I never collected all of Vance's work in a dedicated manner, but this really was a lovely series. Worley's first few issues were melodramatic in a terribly awkward way, and she never had the easy flow of Waller's writing, but I was totally engaged in the storyline of this comic and consider it one of my favorites. It was also one of the few series my wife really loved. Hm, you know, I'm not sure I've read this or not. I enjoy both Robinson's and Elliot's work but none of this sounds familiar. On the other hand it sounds fairly low-key so maybe I've forgotten the details. I never saw the comic but picked up the book and loved it. It's surprising because it is so so different from more of Burns' other work, which is equally obsessed with mutation and body horror but rarely features such a recognisably human emotional core. I liked the HM story but a whole series featuring the characted felt like a bit much for me. Never interested me.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jun 28, 2017 11:39:28 GMT -5
I saw P Craig Russell at a con and he said he had no idea Alan Moore had named him as one of the artists who had worked on the fictional 'Promethea' strip. I showed him the issue! So my next would be Moore and Russell ideally on Promethea or ... maybe Russell could adapt Moore's unfinished opera about John Dee.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jun 28, 2017 11:35:55 GMT -5
I think I'm too old to be its target audience. It just looks 'obvious' and unfunny to me.
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