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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jul 28, 2020 23:49:05 GMT -5
I've been feeling really blah about ALL of Marvel and DC outputs of late, except maybe Batman and Thor. Thank goodness for Image and BOOM. Outer Darkness, Once & Future, and Something Is Killing the Children have been shining lights in a vacuum of mediocrity. Dan Mora on Once & Future is a superstar in the waiting. Haven't read Outer Darkness, but both Something is Killing the Children and Once & Future made my list of best comics read in the last year. -M Outer Darkness is kinda like Star Trek meets X-Files or Stranger Things. Get past the quirky art and it's one heck of a ride. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2020 23:59:33 GMT -5
Outer Darkness is kinda like Star Trek meets X-Files or Stranger Things. Get past the quirky art and it's one heck of a ride. I'll keep an eye out for it on hoopla and give it a try. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2020 0:07:35 GMT -5
Outer Darkness is kinda like Star Trek meets X-Files or Stranger Things. Get past the quirky art and it's one heck of a ride. I'll keep an eye out for it on hoopla and give it a try. -M It was the end of the month and I had five borrows left, and they had vol. 1 and 2 of Outer Darkness, so I borrowed both. I will try to give it a read sometime in the next week or so, probably on my day off next week. -M |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 2, 2020 23:58:02 GMT -5
Discovered this book through Goodreads recommendations based on other stuff I read and borrowed a copy of the trade through Hoopla... The story starts out as a hardnosed tales of investigative journalism set in '72 Detroit replete with racial tensions and Abbot taking flack for a story she published spotlighting police brutality and the beating death of a 14 year old black boy by the police, but we slowly learn of her past and her deceased husband who was an African mystic as she gets assigned to cover/investigate a series of brutal murders, which have occult overtones that she discovers. It transforms into an occult detective story of sorts, as Elena discovers her destiny and what her former husband was trying to teach her and protect her from. There are plenty of plot twists and lots of likable characters in the supporting cast as well as Elena Abbott herself, and it does capture the zeitgeist of the early 70s fairly well, but as will most goof genre literature still has something to say about the world around us as well. -M Got a chance to read this last night... good historical piece and excellent art, but I think I could have done without the mystical/occult stuff. I agree the characters were great, and I certainly would read another story with them. Also, it was kinda fun that the Mystery Machine was following her around in the background  |
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Post by Duragizer on Aug 16, 2020 14:41:11 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2020 20:52:00 GMT -5
My lcs got shorted the week this came out, and my copy just came in, and I picked it up this afternoon and read it this evening...   I'll start by saying it's not my favorite Brubaker/Phillips work, but it is a Brubaker/Phillips work and that makes it head shoulders above a lot of things out there on the market right now. It's good. Real good. But they've done stuff I like better. Max is a down on his luck pulp writer in 1930s NYC, but his secret is that the western outlaw he writes is a slightly fictionalized account of his own exploits as the Red Rock Kid. However, age has caught u with him, and facing his own mortality, he is recruited for one last job, by the former Pinkerton agent who hunted him in his outlaw days. Their mark...the NY chapter of the Nazi Bund. IT really is a strong, tight story, with engaging characters, a strong plot and great action sequences both those set in the past during his outlaw days, and in the present on the new job. Well worth checking out if you like westerns, crime comics, pulp stories or Brubaker/Phillips, and there's a shout out to Robert E. Howard in there as well. -M |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 22, 2020 7:44:25 GMT -5
Eight Million Ways to DieAdaptation of Lawrence Block’s 1982 novel by John K. Snyder III, 2018  During a recent reading binge in which I cleared quite a few books from my ‘to read’ pile (a.k.a. ‘the shelf of shame’) I also scratched off a few of the digital comics taking up space on my virtual shelf. This is one of them. It features Block’s long-running character Matthew Scudder, the recovering alcoholic ex-cop who now takes on investigations in a rather informal way (he’s not a licensed PI). Here, Scudder helps a prostitute get out of her profession by breaking the news to her pimp in her stead. The latter agrees that she’s free to go, but then not long afterward she’s found brutally murdered – slashed to death with a machete. Suspicion initially falls on said pimp, but he has a rock-solid alibi, and no real reason to perpetrate such a gory killing. And then the pimp, who calls himself Chance, hires Scudder to find the actual killer. If you like Lawrence Block’s writing or crime thrillers in general, you’ll definitely like this one. Snyder’s comic adaptation is very well done. His art style is perfectly suited for the story, as he uses a lot of blacks/shadows and a muted color palette to capture the somber noir mood. I wouldn’t mind seeing more adaptations of crime novels (not just by Block) done by him.  
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 24, 2020 16:28:50 GMT -5
My lcs got shorted the week this came out, and my copy just came in, and I picked it up this afternoon and read it this evening... I'll start by saying it's not my favorite Brubaker/Phillips work, but it is a Brubaker/Phillips work and that makes it head shoulders above a lot of things out there on the market right now. It's good. Real good. But they've done stuff I like better. Max is a down on his luck pulp writer in 1930s NYC, but his secret is that the western outlaw he writes is a slightly fictionalized account of his own exploits as the Red Rock Kid. However, age has caught u with him, and facing his own mortality, he is recruited for one last job, by the former Pinkerton agent who hunted him in his outlaw days. Their mark...the NY chapter of the Nazi Bund. IT really is a strong, tight story, with engaging characters, a strong plot and great action sequences both those set in the past during his outlaw days, and in the present on the new job. Well worth checking out if you like westerns, crime comics, pulp stories or Brubaker/Phillips, and there's a shout out to Robert E. Howard in there as well. -M My copy finally came and I read it Saturday night after I got back from dropping Number Three Son off at college. I agree with your assessment. Brubaker/Phillips is easily my favorite comics team currently working. And I'll buy anything they do. This didn't work for me as well as The Fade-Out or their better work on Criminal. But it was still first rate comics. I found myself wanting to see the Adventures of the The Red Rock Kid, possibly a juxtaposition of the actual stories with the pulp writing. I wasn't sure that the ending totally worked for me, but as I've chewed on it, I think that it does and it's really a great shout-out to the elegiac "end of the west" genre that we saw with Ride The High Country, The Wild Bunch and The Shootist. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 25, 2020 3:39:36 GMT -5
Antar #1IDW, 2018   Recently, in a review of Nnedi Okorafor's Book of Phoenix, I mused that I would love to see a comic book illustrated by Eric Battle, who did the chapter heading illustrations in that book. Even more recently, while poking around at Okorafor’s official website (nnedi.com) I saw this book among her comic book credits, and that it is indeed illustrated by Battle. So after some web searching, I saw that the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of getting this was at Comixology. This story here is based on a real historical figure, a 6th-century Arab knight and poet named Antarah ibn Shaddad. It’s apparently supposed to be a 5-issue series, but so far only this first one, which covers a part of Antar’s childhood, has been published. That’s really unfortunate, because it seems like a good story, and – as I suspected – Battle’s art is simply gorgeous throughout. 
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2020 13:48:25 GMT -5
^ Looks fascinating. I will have to track down a copy, Shame the rest hasn't seen the light of day yet, and with the industry in contraction and especially with IDW's financial woes, I am not sure we will ever see the rest. I hope though that Okarafor holds the rights to this, not IDW and can take it elsewhere or crowdfund it if she wants to complete it.
-M
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Post by EdoBosnar on Aug 25, 2020 18:30:44 GMT -5
^ Looks fascinating. I will have to track down a copy, Shame the rest hasn't seen the light of day yet, and with the industry in contraction and especially with IDW's financial woes, I am not sure we will ever see the rest. I hope though that Okafor holds the rights to this, not IDW and can take it elsewhere or crowdfund it if she wants to complete it. Yeah, I hope it gets completed eventually. The first issue shows such promise. Don't know why the project stalled (the listing at Lone Star even has a few covers for the as-yet unpublished issues) - IDW's financial woes, artist's block or writer's block, although the latter is doubtful, since at about the same time or just afterward, Okorafor scripted a Black Panther story (Long Live the King), most of the 10-issue Shuri series and the Wakanda Forever annuals for Marvel, and the LaGuardia mini-series for Dark Horse. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2020 22:15:10 GMT -5
^ Looks fascinating. I will have to track down a copy, Shame the rest hasn't seen the light of day yet, and with the industry in contraction and especially with IDW's financial woes, I am not sure we will ever see the rest. I hope though that Okarafor holds the rights to this, not IDW and can take it elsewhere or crowdfund it if she wants to complete it. Yeah, I hope it gets completed eventually. The first issue shows such promise. Don't know why the project stalled (the listing at Lone Star even has a few covers for the as-yet unpublished issues) - IDW's financial woes, artist's block or writer's block, although the latter is doubtful, since at about the same time or just afterward, Okorafor scripted a Black Panther story (Long Live the King), most of the 10-issue Shuri series and the Wakanda Forever annuals for Marvel, and the LaGuardia mini-series for Dark Horse. IDW went through a lot of leadership changes (and several suits getting ousted for various things-some fraud related some Me Too related) the last few years, so it could be a case of the person within IDW who championed the series is gone and so no one is pushing for it to continue there, or Okarafor doesn't want to work with the new leadership. Which is why I hope she retained the rights to it as a creator-owned project, but IDW doesn't have the best record for that and attaches a lot of strings to their creator deals from what I understand (things like first and last refusal for media rights to properties, sharing copyrights, owning trademarks instead of creators, etc.). Hopefully Okorafor (or her agent) had enough clout and savvy to negotiate a better deal for herself. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2020 19:20:52 GMT -5
I have decided to drop single issues by the end of this year and switch to trades. I will "finish" titles on my pull list (like Hawkman) if they will be canceled and stuff like The Immortal Hulk I will switch at the end of an arc. The only single issues I am going to buy going forward are the anniversary issues like the recent 80 years of... issues at DC and any Marvel ones that will celebrate 60 years over the next few years.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2020 19:46:24 GMT -5
Plus I just picked up this series from 2013 in trade format for a few dollars:  Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness tell a summer movie styled story about Sam Alexander. A kid in a small town whose drunk father told ridiculous stories about a Nova Corps. Loeb can be hit or miss for me but this is one of his stories that made me smile. It was fun and I really enjoyed it. I also like McGuiness art style. |
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Post by brutalis on Aug 27, 2020 14:46:15 GMT -5
In the mailbox today a nice treat. Not a comic book but s magazine ABOUT comic books, Back Issue #121: all about Conan and the Barbarians! Pulpy goodness full of sweating muscles sword wielders from all across the comics universes. Had to read at least a little bit over lunch. Does a great job covering the likes of Conan, King Kull, Gulliver Jones, Arak all the way up through Dark Horses Conan runs.
Had totally forgotten I had preordered this from TwoMorrows earlier this year. Splendid summer treat indeed by CROM! Takes me way back for finding those few treasured BWS issues fresh and steaming hot there on the spinner racks in the 70's.
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