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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 1, 2020 8:58:14 GMT -5
I'm two more chapters into "Panther's Rage" (Jungle Action #10-11) and, man, is this great stuff! Billy Graham's art elevates the series to a whole 'nother level, aided immensely by Glynis Wein's vibrant yet sensitive colors. Don McGregor is really cooking now, setting up and resolving a murder mystery, adding depth to the characterizations of supporting players Taku and W'kabi, presenting an unblinking depiction of war and its costs, and giving us one of the greatest gross-out villains of all time, the repulsive King Cadaver. Graham's design for KC is disgusting enough, but McGregor cranks up the "eww" factor with his vivid descriptions of the pustules and sores the baddie is covered in. Note, too, that (except for the villain Venomm) the entire cast, good and bad, are black, something that had never happened in mainstream comics (aside from the one-shots All-Negro Comics and Negro Love in the late '40s). A revolutionary strip in multiple senses of the word. Next issue: Killmonger returns!
Cei-U! I summon the joy reading exceptional comics brings!
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 1, 2020 9:44:46 GMT -5
Jungle Action #17 was the comic book that hooked me into going to the drug store every Tuesday and becoming a huge comic-book fan. Panther’s Rage is a highlight of the Bronze Age.
I managed to get a hold of five or six other chapters of Panther’s Rage in the next few years, but it was 25 years later that I saw the whole epic offered for sale at a responsible price in CBG. It was very satisfying to finally read the whole thing.
It’s a bit wordy, so it’s not something I re-read every year, but I’ve re-visited it two or three times in the last 20 years.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,627
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Post by Confessor on Oct 1, 2020 10:08:46 GMT -5
As for Marvel Knights, I didn't read the particular issues Confessor posted but I did enjoy the Spiderman Marvel Knights series for as long as Millar and Dodson were on it. Very enjoyable series. (I haven't gotten the rest of the series yet.) Yeah, that was a great series. That first story arc in particular, the one invoving Aunt May and the Green Goblin, was excellent. But actually, the whole series was pretty enjoyable, I felt. But I told myself this was an okay exception since it seemed like an alternative timeline due to the Marvel Knights imprint. :-) ((emphisis mine))It wasn't, but yeah...OK.
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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 1, 2020 12:03:45 GMT -5
I have JA: Black Panther #9-12 in my 'to read' pile still. Always nice to read good things about something there before I've gotten to it! I used to just have #12 on it's own. I liked what I read of the 2000-2001 Panther run by Christopher Priest (nee Jim Owlsey) and it draws on that earlier McGregor and Graham run a fair bit I think (although I was never unable to follow things).
I read Spider-Girl #7-12 plus Annual 1 and #1/2... definitely enjoyable. I wish that whole MC-2 thing had've kept going, not just Spider-Girl though, Ron Lim and Ron Frenz were doing the best comics artwork I thought and yet their titles don't last while this one did. Al Williamson is a 'great' but as an inker mostly I find him very unremarkable. I'm glad he was getting work it just seems the ideal would be him doing the full art and sf-fantasy more than superheroes. I prefer the teen-aged Spider-Woman of 1999-2000 over this girl in a Spider-Man costume... especially after that one got a regular more original costume! Wild Thing and Stinger are not just girls wearing Wolverine and Ant-Man costumes, J2 not just a boy in a Juggernaut helmet, and okay, there are some unique details on Spider-Girl's outfit, but visually she just seems the most generic of all the MC-2 characters. They do try to give her a unique repelling power and spider-sense that looks different I guess.... too little too late... I don't get the success, but maybe it's that things are so simple and understandable for younger readers? I see Larry Hama is brought in as a second writer to Tom DeFalco, Hama is usually a fun 'hoo-ha' read as well. So on to the sadly short-lived Wild Thing and Fantastic Five #1-5, and when they get her, The Buzz and Darkdevil #1-3.
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Post by dbutler69 on Oct 1, 2020 13:52:12 GMT -5
I have to get into some more MC2. I've enjoyed the little I have read.
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Post by dbutler69 on Oct 1, 2020 16:19:31 GMT -5
I read Fantastic Four #113-116. This is a story arc featuring the debut of the Over-Mind. It's a pretty good story overall. They really build up the threat of the Over-Mind, a little like the classic Galactus story (obviously it's not nearly as good, though) though the ending is a bit of a let-down. The FF really are no match for the Over-Mind, even with Doctor Doom's help, and then the Stranger shows up and takes care of the Over-Mind no sweat. However, then the Watcher stops by (he's already violated his non-interference oath a couple of times in this arc, so what the hey) and tells them that if they hadn't make the Over-Mind expend so much energy by battling him so hard, then the Stranger (who'd been specially created to defeat the Over-Mind, we find out) would not have discovered the Over-Mind's presence until it was too late. The earth would have been in ruins and the Over-Mind would have built up so much power that even the Stranger might not have been able to stop him.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 0:42:25 GMT -5
Finished reading through Frank Frazetta's Johnny Comet... including all the daily and Sundays for both Johnny Comet and its short-lived successor Ace McCoy. I really liked the dailies. The early Sundays were good, but the stories weren't quite as interesting as those in the dailies, and later when the Sundays became one-off gag strips featuring Johnny's supporting cast, they became a bit of a slog to read despite Frazetta's art. I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but Johnny has a resemblance to pictures of a young Frank Frazetta I have seen. There are also a few ghost artists who chipped in from time to time, incluing a couple of Sundays by Wally Wood during the Ace McCoy period. For those not familiar with the premise, Johnny Comet is a race car driver, and most of the stories focus on racing at smaller circuit tracks in California. OFten there is some kind of plot against Johnny's race team or a friend of his that results in sabotage or attempted murder, that Johnny attempts to get to the bottom of. As the strip progresses, he is recruited to become a Hollywood star and stuntmen and takes the stage name Ace McCoy but the adventures continue is a similar fashion. The stories can be a bit samey if read in succession, but are well paced seat of the pants adventure thrillers filled with chills, spills and excitement, and if read at the rate they were released rather than in one giant binge, the feeling of sameness would be far less. Each has a call to adventure, a building of suspense, a dramatic reveal or plot twist and then races to a conclusion, which is a very effective structure for a daily strip. The Sundays are paced a little differently because of the nature of their frequency (the dailies and Sundays had different story continuities)but essentially follow a similar structure. Frazetta's art is gorgeous throughout, he action choreography is magnificent, and I love the broad diversity in his faces and body types for the supporting cast and extras in each strip. His visual storytelling is also very good. A few sample strips... A Frazetta action/suspense sequence... a racing action sequence... and some of the variety in body and facial types in the supporting cast... All in all, an enjoyable, if short-lived run of strips. -M
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Post by EdoBosnar on Oct 2, 2020 4:35:19 GMT -5
(...) I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but Johnny has a resemblance to pictures of a young Frank Frazetta I have seen. (...) I'd bet it's intentional. Frazetta was an incredibly handsome guy with an athletic build (it's one of those situations makes us ordinary mortals say, 'What? He was a super-talented artist AND he looked like Adonis?! No fair!!). I think he used himself as a model for a lot of the male figures in his various paintings, just as the modeled most of the women in his paintings after his wife (who was similarly gorgeous in this cute girl-next-door sort of way).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 9:58:15 GMT -5
(...) I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but Johnny has a resemblance to pictures of a young Frank Frazetta I have seen. (...) I'd bet it's intentional. Frazetta was an incredibly handsome guy with an athletic build (it's one of those situations makes us ordinary mortals say, 'What? He was a super-talented artist AND he looked like Adonis?! No fair!!). I think he used himself as a model for a lot of the male figures in his various paintings, just as the modeled most of the women in his paintings after his wife (who was similarly gorgeous in this cute girl-next-door sort of way). Don't forget he was also a super-talented baseball player who had offers to go pro as if being a talented artist and Adonis-like wasn't enough -M
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Oct 2, 2020 13:26:48 GMT -5
Emperor Doom came in the mail yesterday so I read it during my lunchtime. A good story all in all. It had a really nice setup to get Doom's plan moving. I found the "middle" with Doom's musings about his success a nice touch to the character and why he felt the emptiness he did. And Wonder Man being front and center was nice. I enjoyed his solo series that was some time after this story. The only minus to me, was the conclusion. It felt like first three quarters of the book were the setup and story, which was really well done and engrossing and not just a weak superhero plot. But the conclusion was almost like how you turn off a light. Just flip the switch. Almost like it was as easy as that. And Wonder Man being able to recruit help that easy seemed less believable. The way Doom used Namor to take out Machine Man, Vision and Ultron, it seemed that when Wonder Man woke up he would have went after them. Especially since he saw the incident with Vision. All he would of had to do is take the discs off of them and recruit them. To me a much more interesting team. If he could have convinced Ultron to help him just to overthrow Doom. In fact there was all that setup with Doom and Namor at the start and then once Doom won, they were forgotten.
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Post by dbutler69 on Oct 2, 2020 16:21:04 GMT -5
I read The Flash #54: "Nobody Dies" a classic little one and done story by Messner-Loebs/LaRocque/Marzan.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2020 14:18:14 GMT -5
Finished reading through Frank Frazetta's Johnny Comet... -M Is this book comprehensive or is it just the dailies?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2020 14:30:18 GMT -5
It's the dailies and Sundays of both Johnny Comet and AceMcoy. There are about a half dozen strips missing between dailies and Sundays as at the time it was published, they were unable to locate reproducible copies of those strips. The Sundays however, are in black and white.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2020 14:33:54 GMT -5
Do you know if reproducible copies of those were ever located and included in a later collection? I'm thinking of grabbing the one you posted, unless there's been a more complete release since.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2020 14:37:49 GMT -5
Do you know if reproducible copies of those were ever located and included in a later collection? I'm thinking of grabbing the one you posted, unless there's been a more complete release since. Not sure. I know Vanguard has done a couple of editions of Johnny Comet since then, and they had the cooperation of Frazetta and the Frazetta estate through David Spurlock, so you might look at those to see if they are more complete. But this is a very serviceable collection. -M
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