|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 16, 2020 14:44:52 GMT -5
Kurt was definitely not the only one to have run-ins with David at CBR and other online arenas. He’s nothing if not full of himself. I never did because I’ve honestly never read more than a handful of his books.
I think the only creator I ever got in a tussle with was Marty Pasko.
|
|
|
Post by Duragizer on Feb 16, 2020 17:08:16 GMT -5
Read the first nine issues of the '90s Superboy series. Though I'm a pretty huge fan of Tom Grummett, I never read more than a couple issues at the time they were coming out. Truth be told, I disliked the character; he reminded me too much of the bullies who picked on me in school, so there wasn't much incentive for me to become a regular reader though I was already a Superman fan. Almost thirty years later, I figured enough time had passed for me to evaluate the character more objectively, so I decided to check the series out properly. I love Grummett's art, needless to say. A lot of his women have same-ish faces, but that's a problem many comic illustrators have, even the best ones, so I'm able to forgive it due to the top-notch quality of every other aspect of his work. Karl Kesel's writing's fair — nothing groundbreaking or deep, but enjoyable. It is pretty noisome how after only five issues, the title gets disrupted with intertitle crossovers. Frikkin' annoying. If this is a regular occurrence, I don't see myself reading too far into the series.
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Feb 16, 2020 17:34:29 GMT -5
Truth be told, I disliked the character; he reminded me too much of the bullies who picked on me in school, so there wasn't much incentive for me to become a regular reader Interesting, that's how the new Superboy struck me too (ouch). I have the Matrix/Supergirl mini and looked at getting some of this to go with it but he just seemed like kind of a jerk version of the Superboy I remembered from earlier... a blob Supergirl and a bully Superboy. Maybe they shouldn't have bothered. Strangely though I liked the Amalgam Spider-Boy mash-up in the two titles he appeared in.
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Feb 16, 2020 19:04:26 GMT -5
Well, I broke yesterday. At my daughter's swim meet, I took some books to read between her events, one of which was Showcase Presents: Wonder Woman, just to give it one more try. Issue #125 was harmless enough, although it was pretty much straight garbage, but issue #126 swore me off of the rest of the book.
That issue "starred" Wonder Tot and Mister Genie, who she rescues from a treasure chest where he's been trapped for 1,000 years and they go on some stupid adventure to find a star to make into a hair clip for her; I tuned it out about half-way through. It's absolutely one of the worst things I've ever read. Who the hell thought that people picking up a book about Wonder Woman wanted to read a story starring a four-year old with a giant genie for a sidekick? And the way Wonder Tot spoke, with crap like "This good time for Wonder Tot to practice gliding. Mommy be so proud to see me now. Swimming in air currents. Like a little fish in the sky (giggle, giggle)!" was absolutely excruciating to try to get past.
Done with it. Will be putting it aside, then taking it to Half-Price Books next time I make a run. Thankfully it only cost me $5 initially, but that was probably $6 too much.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Feb 16, 2020 21:45:26 GMT -5
I always thought of Peter David as an above average writer in a medium where that's nothing to brag about.
|
|
|
Post by Duragizer on Feb 17, 2020 17:09:40 GMT -5
Well, I broke yesterday. At my daughter's swim meet, I took some books to read between her events, one of which was Showcase Presents: Wonder Woman, just to give it one more try. Issue #125 was harmless enough, although it was pretty much straight garbage, but issue #126 swore me off of the rest of the book. That issue "starred" Wonder Tot and Mister Genie, who she rescues from a treasure chest where he's been trapped for 1,000 years and they go on some stupid adventure to find a star to make into a hair clip for her; I tuned it out about half-way through. It's absolutely one of the worst things I've ever read. Who the hell thought that people picking up a book about Wonder Woman wanted to read a story starring a four-year old with a giant genie for a sidekick? And the way Wonder Tot spoke, with crap like "This good time for Wonder Tot to practice gliding. Mommy be so proud to see me now. Swimming in air currents. Like a little fish in the sky (giggle, giggle)!" was absolutely excruciating to try to get past. Done with it. Will be putting it aside, then taking it to Half-Price Books next time I make a run. Thankfully it only cost me $5 initially, but that was probably $6 too much. When I read "Wonder Tot", I imagine a living tater tot with super powers. Now, why isn't that a concept?
|
|
|
Post by Batflunkie on Feb 17, 2020 18:21:58 GMT -5
When I read "Wonder Tot", I imagine a living tater tot with super powers. Now, why isn't that a concept? And with her sidekick, Wonder Nugget, they fight the ongoing battle of global hunger!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 2:08:20 GMT -5
The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemire So I can't believe this one is old enough to now qualify as a classic rather than a modern comics, but the three part of the trilogy were released over the two year period of 2008-2009, and the first collected edition was released in 2009. I'll start with my review for it on Goodreads, which I framed to be accessible to non-comic fans who might not be familiar with Lemire and his body of work as well and some further thoughts & comments... This is the work that brought Lemire to prominence winning the Shuster Award for Canadian cartoonists and the the Harvey for Best New talent for it in 2008. I've said many times that I like Lemire's creator-owned work much better than his work-for-hire stuff (and I like a lot of his work-for-hire stuff just fine), especially when he is creating as a cartoonist and not just a writer collaborating wit other artists. His art style is distinctive and highly stylized (though Essex County is in b&w, so the highly recognizable color palette of some of his other work is not present here). This book is no exception to that. I've only read this once, but will revisit it, and it has the potential to join the list of books I keep returning to because it's so good that we are discussing on another thread hereabouts. There three books comprising the trilogy of Essex County. The first, Tales from the Farm, tell the story of a young boy, Lester, in rural Canada struggling to cope with the lose of his mom to cancer and living on a farm with his uncle because his father was never a part of his life. The boy's two loves in life are comic books and hockey, and the dominate his life as he tries to adjust to his new situation and find some kind of relationship with his uncle, who is also struggling with the transitions in his life. Book Two, Ghost Stories, tells the story of two brothers, Vince and Lou, (related to some of the characters in Tales from the Farm) who played semi-pro hockey together in Toronto in the 1950s, and then became estranged. It is told in two eras, the present (where one of the brothers is reliving his memories of the past as he struggles with being placed in a nursing home), and the past beginning in the 50s experienced through flashbacks of the old man. Book Three, Country Nurse, centers on Anne, a nurse who was taking care of the elder Lou in the previous story, and follows her as she travels checking on on other patients (including Lester, his uncle and others from the previous stories), as well as telling a tale set in the past of Essex County centered on an orphanage where Annie's ancestor also cared for people and expanding on some of the intertwined lineages of the several of the characters in these stories. The stories are heartfelt, and sometimes heart-wrenching, but have heartwarming moments as well. Lemire is very good at conveying character emotion in his visuals, as his cartooning is very expressive, taking advantage of his stylized impressionistic renderings as his character's facial expressions, eyes and body language do a lot of the heavy lifting, a case where the more cartoony style achieves things a more photo-realistic style would struggle with. There are echoes of Eisner-esque exaggerations there that display an intimate familiarity with the principles of Eisner's Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative (some of the same principles are echoed by Scott McCloud in his trilogy of comics about comics). The Collected Edition includes a pair of short stories not part of the original but produced by Lemire as mini-comics to promote Essex County on the convention trail as it was being released. Neither is essential to the story (in fact one was essentially a sequence that was edited out of the third book to make it's narrative tighter and more focused), but they do offer a broader glimpse of life in Essex County and add depth to the setting of these stories. All in all, I was really impressed by this one. -M
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Feb 21, 2020 3:38:46 GMT -5
Just read Book 1 of the collected Essex County myself. Yeah, it's better than just good, but I didn't find myself quite as engaged as I'd hoped. That could be a problem with me or perhaps I just don't have ideal chemistry with Lemire as a writer. I'll certainly keep reading Essex County to the end. Beccabear mentioned peter David's Captain Marvel: I can't recall which issue I came in at but I think this was the first ongoing Marvel/DC series I started reading back in the early 2000s after 15-20 years of being more or less unaware of what they were doing - and as far as I recall it was because I somehow came across the message-board for the series and was drawn into a discussion about something.
I found David mostly pretty decent in his behaviour on the board but as a general rule I prefer to avoid talking to creators as a reader or fan: it isn't fair to the creator to subject their work, especially a work in progress like a serial comic, to your off the cuff impressions, and it isn't good for the reader/fan to pursue what I fear often ends up a sycophantic relationship with an all-too-human person whose work you happen to admire, or at least enjoy. On the other hand, I did post on Steve Gerber's website for a couple years before he died and still feel glad that I did, so I make no claims to consistency.
|
|
|
Post by nerdygirl905 on Feb 21, 2020 8:13:16 GMT -5
Truth be told, I disliked the character; he reminded me too much of the bullies who picked on me in school, so there wasn't much incentive for me to become a regular reader Interesting, that's how the new Superboy struck me too (ouch). I have the Matrix/Supergirl mini and looked at getting some of this to go with it but he just seemed like kind of a jerk version of the Superboy I remembered from earlier... a blob Supergirl and a bully Superboy. Maybe they shouldn't have bothered. Strangely though I liked the Amalgam Spider-Boy mash-up in the two titles he appeared in. Oh, I read the Spider-Boy Team-Up comic yesterday. It was nice to see the two versions of the Legion of Galactic Guardians 2099. Seeing the roll-call and recognizing people there. Because no name is funnier than Paste-Eating-Pete.
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Feb 21, 2020 8:47:09 GMT -5
I just read the Nightcrawler miniseries from 1985. It was fun! Nothing too serious, just a good enjoyable read. Written and drawn by Dave Cockrum.
|
|
|
Post by Calidore on Feb 21, 2020 19:28:40 GMT -5
I just read the Nightcrawler miniseries from 1985. It was fun! Nothing too serious, just a good enjoyable read. Written and drawn by Dave Cockrum. That was actually a sequel to X-Men #153, "Kitty's Fairy Tale". Also recommended if you haven't already read it.
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Feb 22, 2020 9:28:16 GMT -5
I just read the Nightcrawler miniseries from 1985. It was fun! Nothing too serious, just a good enjoyable read. Written and drawn by Dave Cockrum. That was actually a sequel to X-Men #153, "Kitty's Fairy Tale". Also recommended if you haven't already read it. Oh yeah, I've read it. I bought it on the news-rack back in the day.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2020 17:10:50 GMT -5
I picked up a handful of Norm Breyfogle's later Batman work in the early '90s, and the stories were hit-and-miss enough that I didn't track down the rest at the time. But I liked his art well enough that I bought Legends Of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle v1 recently. I just started reading it. I liked the Max Allen Collins Penguin story reprinted from an annual, and loved the Scarface/Ventriloqusit two-parter from Detective (Scarface's first story?). Humor, detective work, a great villian, and '80s nostalgia (at least the super-dug and drug dealing/smuggling screams "80s!" to me). I didn't care for the Ratcatcher story, though. "Night People" is starting out pretty good.
|
|
|
Post by Calidore on Feb 22, 2020 17:26:03 GMT -5
I picked up a handful of Norm Breyfogle's later Batman work in the early '90s, and the stories were hit-and-miss enough that I didn't track down the rest at the time. But I liked his art well enough that I bought Legends Of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle v1 recently. I just started reading it. I liked the Max Allen Collins Penguin story reprinted from an annual, and loved the Scarface/Ventriloqusit two-parter from Detective (Scarface's first story?). Humor, detective work, a great villian, and '80s nostalgia (at least the super-dug and drug dealing/smuggling screams "80s!" to me). I didn't care for the Ratcatcher story, though. "Night People" is starting out pretty good. Alan Grant's solo writing could be hit or miss, but I'd still put his run with Breyfogle up with O'Neil/Adams and Englehart/Rogers as one of the all-time great creative teams.
|
|