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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 28, 2018 22:04:29 GMT -5
Read: Yep.
Oh God, listen, I'm not a nostalgia guy so greatest generation nostalgia played with total earnestness is ... not my least favorite thing, which is '60s nostalgia played with total earnestness, but my second least favorite thing.
It's beautiful to look at, but I am not a fan.
Ooh! Best Martian Manhunter ever, though!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 28, 2018 22:00:08 GMT -5
Read: I don't think I read FF 206-213 or maybe the 1974 Thor stuff.
The original Galactus story in FF 48-50 was the second best thing in superhero comics (behind FF 51!) but there were definite diminishing returns every time Galactus showed up.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 28, 2018 3:53:45 GMT -5
I thought Morrison only wrote JLA #1-17, 22-26, 28-31, 34, 36-41 & 1,000,000. I've not got around to reading any of those issues yet because I found Howard Porter's artwork so unappealing. Porter's art is pretty tough to handle. I've said before and I'll say again, I never understood the hoopla about Morrison's JLA. It was just fine, solid stories with below average art. But it wasn't anything overly special. I truly believe that it was, in part, such a big deal because the Justice League had been so very very dire for so long before Morrison took it on. On a formal writing level it was structured and paced differently than any comic before it. It was plot driven (in contrast to the X-men style soap operas of the time, and Image style stories as excuse for action sequences) and the stories moved faster with very short, almost MTV speed-cut style scenes that contained a lot of information. And the threats were bigger, with a sense of being uncomfortably unfamiliar - rare in shared universe storytelling 30 years in - and actually "JLA worthy" in scope. Len Wein and Steve Englehart were good at writing villains that worked on that level, but I don't think that any other writers before Morrison really got it. Both of these proved to be hugely influential and Morrison's storytelling innovations spread quite quickly throughout superhero comics. It was new, and interesting, and for a couple years everyone writing a team book was borrowing storytelling ideas - The Authority, the Ultimates, and a lot of Busiek's Avengers responded to and incorporated the storytelling ideas from Morrison's JLA. And I even think that Porter was often a formally interesting and highly creative storyteller, with a keen sense of overall, holistic page design. Edit: I mean, yeah, his strength wasn't the actual DRAWING, but I'm always primarily concerned with the formalistic aspects of comic storytelling. Edit2: And Morrison's JLA was a prelude to the Mark Waid/Brian Hitch "Heaven's Ladder" my favorite JLA story ever.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 27, 2018 19:10:36 GMT -5
20. Astro City by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross
Read: Up to # 12 of the most recent series.
This works for me, oddly, even though completely self-serious Alan Brennert style nostalgia is soooo not my thing. I'm a little behind but I might actually enjoy the recent Vertigo issues most of all... They're a little funnier, a little weirder, a little less full of themselves.
19. Swamp Thing (Alan Moore Reinterpretation) by Alan Moore and others
Read: Yeah
Moves from an updated checklist of horror tropes (ala the original Swamp Thing run) to the best use of shared-universe continuity in mainstream comics, ever - effortlessly. It annoys me that nobody was good enough to copy this effectively.
18. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
Read: Oh yeah.
Just spectacularly good, the most thoroughly researched continuity fan-wank (errr... I mean heartfelt tribute to past creators) in comics history that works perfectly and impeccably and does so 98% as well for an audience unaware of the material referenced. The only reason made-up historical biography isn't a thing in comics is that Life and Times set the bar impossibly high.
And one of the top 5 books you need to read to understand how mainstrream comics work.
17. Daredevil: The Elektra Saga by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson
Read: Yeah
Maybe a little exaggerated in it's impact (Daredevil had been a relatively dark superhero book for YEARS before Miller came along) and kind of inconsequential when compared to what Miller was gonna do in a couple years. And the tone is jerky and all-over-the-place when you read a bunch of issues one after another... but this still has some staggerringly effective cartooning.. Miller might be the first guy in American comics who was looking at (and borrowing from) Moebius and Manga simultaneously.
16. Will Eisner's Saga of Understanding by Will Eisner
Read: At least 80% of those listed, almost certainly not all of them, and it's been 10 years on any of them. I'm pretty sure I never read a Family Matter or the Neighborhood.
Yeah, I'm a fan but there's not much here that really, really stuck with me through the decades. I've read a LOT of slice-of-life comics, and Chester Brown/Seth style "quiet and subtle" or Allison Bechdel-esque "arch and intellectual" work better for me than Eisner's full-on melodrama. Eisner's probably the best drawing artist to work in this general comics area, but I think memoir (or pseudo-memoir) has evolved a lot in the writing.
15. Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini
Read: Maybe 100 pages, ever.
I like the art. I'll probably get around to it someday.
14. Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross
Read: Yeah
A little overwrought and pissy for my taste, tonally. But it still mostly works for me. Around # 7 or # 8 on my list of favorite Mark Waid things.
12 (tie). Warlock: The Magus Saga by Jim Starlin, Steve Leialoha, and Al Milgrom
originally published in: Strange Tales 178-181, and Warlock 9-11 (1975-1976)
Read: Yes.
Not a fan. Honestly, I think 17 page bi-monthly comics were a little too constraining for what Starlin was trying to do here. The story needed some room to breathe (and to develop Warlock as a character) and there was just no room for that at '70s Marvel
12 (tie). The Thanos Saga by Jim Starlin and others
Read: Yes.
Contra-wise, I really like almost all of this. A little less ambitious and character focused than the Magus stuff - and very, very sad at the end there. *Sniffle*
11. Avengers: The Kree/Skrull War by Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer
Read: Yup
What I remember: Neal Adam's visuals - Triton emerging from the ocean, ant-man on Crosby Stills and Nash inside the Vision, "Cows Shot Me Down." What I don't remember: The basic structure of the plot, except that it ends with Rick Jones )as an avatar for Roy Thomas' annoying fanboy tendencies) saving the world through... nah, what I have in my head can't be right because it doesn't make sense at all. Roy's ACTUAL best Avengers stories are all less than 40 pages, so they don't count I guess.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 26, 2018 0:17:42 GMT -5
Unsurprising alternate choice!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 25, 2018 14:20:54 GMT -5
Oh. it does say "someone."
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 25, 2018 14:01:49 GMT -5
WHY IS THERE NOT A COVER OF HERBIE CARRYING THE GREAT PYRAMID AROUND OR SOMETHING?!? I was sure that was a thing that probably existed.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 25, 2018 13:47:13 GMT -5
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 25, 2018 13:42:48 GMT -5
I mean, Ghost World.
The '90s were the peak for independent adult floppy comics-that-kind-of-worked-as-art-objects-unto-themselves, especially from Fantagraphics. Now everything is 25 dollar graphic novels, 'an I miss actual comic comics.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 25, 2018 4:58:48 GMT -5
Did... did it just tell us the whole plot of the movie?
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 24, 2018 23:12:02 GMT -5
Maybe the big one for me -
So mainstream comics are limited in story structure and construction (eg: This is a superhero comic so there has to be a fight scene in every issue) limited in terms of pages, and I never get the sense that most of the audience *cares* if they're any good. (Oddly, the last part doesn't seem to change as the audience gets older.)
But people still manage to do challenging, personal, smart, and layered work in a creative climate that doesn't reward those things. Like I look at the breadth and depth of, say, Steve Gerber's work and how it transcended the medium... there's something really inspirational and life-affirming about that.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 24, 2018 22:15:47 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't remember that much about the Filth now - It felt like a simplified and disgusting-a-fied version of the Invisibles (and I quite like the Invisibles!)
Yeah, I'm generally a huge Morrison fan but it's been a while since he's released anything I've really liked.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 24, 2018 2:54:43 GMT -5
Hate Deadpool so much but FINE I laughed at "You're in."
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 24, 2018 2:31:03 GMT -5
Honestly, I don't see much quality difference between Morrison's corporate superhero and creator owned work. WE3 is my favorite of his projects, but I never responded much to Kill Your Boyfriend, Klaus, Joe the Barbarian, and I thought the Filth was nigh-unreadable. Conversely I honestly mildly like-to-love all his long form superhero work, and I'd rate Seven Soldiers # 0 and the silent issue of New X_men up there with any Grant Morrison comic (and any American superhero comic as well.)
There are some folks who's independent work is at a much higher level than there corporate work for hire stuff (Kurt Busiek, and Gail Simone being my top two) but I think Morrison is more interesting because that isn't true.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 21, 2018 4:43:12 GMT -5
Watched the very first episode from last year:
1) THere are a lot of superhero tv shows that I want to watch, but it takes me a long time to watch TV Shows now that I am single. I chose this one because it had Aubrey Plaza (from Parks and Recreation) in it.
2) It looks beautiful. The cinematography and camera work is amazing. The spoilers death of a major character was shocking and terrible and it was all carried by the directing, not the acting. I really, really liked how it used fashions and touchstones from different eras to come off as dislocated in time to disorient the audience.
3) The opening montage to "Happy Jack" was spectacular, very funny, very sad, amazingly well directed.
4) Everything after wasn't as good as the opening montage. It was a little too serious for my superhero tastes = the opening montage was the the last decent funny scene in the whole thing - it dropped the psychadelic nature-of-reality story about halfway through for generic "The guvment is out to gET YOU" paranoia. This episode was LONG and it kept getting worse.
5) I quite liked the government interrogator guy being awkward and socially inept rather than menacing.
6) Aubrey Plaza ia a much better comedic actress than dramatic. At least so far. Other female lead = kind of boring.
7) I dunno... Reality is a construct that functions on multiple levels and there is no objective truth to our perceived experiences is, like, my jam fiction-wise. So I"ll probably keep watching. Still, ten minutes in I was convinced this would be the greatest show ever, and I left disappointed.
8) No other X-men, no connections to Marvel continuity so far. I dunno... I am both annoyed at and empowered by Marvel Easter Egg fan pandering, but I kind of missed it here.
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