shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,379
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Post by shaxper on Feb 28, 2022 22:59:25 GMT -5
Clearly not getting any more tonight. Barely more than 1/3 of January. I’m suffering serious readers block with both comics and prose. Never force it, my good man. I don't make myself eat ice cream if I'm not hungry for it either. The sooner you stop treating it like work, the sooner the appetite will return
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Post by commond on Mar 31, 2022 6:22:46 GMT -5
My comic reading was down this month. I spent a lot of time job hunting and finishing up at my old job. I mainly read Fables, Captain America and Daredevil. I grew restless towards the end of the month and started sampling some new books. It's a bad habit of mine. I constantly want to start something new before finishing what I'm reading.
Fables has been okay. The final confrontation with Mr. Dark/The Dark Man was anticlimactic, not so much in the manner in which he was defeated, but in the way that it was paced. Captain America remains a strong book, but it does feel a bit drawn out at times. I like Bucky, but preferred it when Rogers was still alive, to be honest. I'm on record on this site of saying I don't like Steve Rogers, but I like Brubaker's Steve Rogers. Bendis' Daredevil has been good but not great. After the arc with another penciller, I came to appreciate Maleev more.
One pleasant surprise this month was Ms. Tree Quarterly #1, which was a strong return to form, and one of the better Ms. Tree stories after the initial arcs. Somewhat cynically, I thought Ms. Tree would be even worse after moving to DC, but the quarterly was a huge improvement over the tail end of the self-published run.
Of the new books I tried, Gotham Central was my favorite. Love the concept and digging the execution thus far. I'm actually enjoying it more than Criminal, which surprised me. Scalped has been good, but more so for the visceral violence than the storytelling. Much like 100 Bullets. Locke & Key I'm still getting a gauge on.
I really enjoyed the Kingdom tankobon I read this month, and some of the other regular books I'm reading like Chew.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 31, 2022 11:05:51 GMT -5
WOw, you got alot of different stuff on that list? It that up to curent on Vinlnad Saga? I really liked the first couple collections (AMAZING art) but the story kinda petered out to me.
Also, the Mr. Dark story of Fables is least good, for sure. THe next arc 'Cubs in Toyland' is one of the best, so hang in there!
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Post by commond on Mar 31, 2022 16:34:03 GMT -5
Yeah, it's the most recent chapter. In the current arc, Thorfinn has finally reached Vinland and is struggling to start a settlement there. The manga was much more exciting when Thorfinn was part of Askeladd's band, but he's a great character and that alone makes it worth reading.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2022 17:05:43 GMT -5
Wrapping up March, wound up reading the exact same amount as February. Started slow, read a bunch in the last few days. Spent a lot of time reading other stuff than comics early in the month and writing game materials.
Highlights, Usagi as always and Erekose: The Sword of Heaven: the Flowers of Hel. Read a lot of Red Sonja, the complete Gail Simone run, which was good but not great, and started on the earliest Dynamite stuff by Mike Avon Oeming and Mike Carey, which was also good but not great. Sampled a bunch of other stuff but didn't really dive into any other long runs.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 1, 2022 10:49:04 GMT -5
63 1/2 for March. A bit ahead of Feb, but still not a lot. Still not finding any comics that just really gel for me right now.
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Post by berkley on Apr 1, 2022 16:22:49 GMT -5
Read some great comics so far this year but they've all been old things from the 1950s or 1980s, though much of it was new to me.
Finally read the first 12 issues of American Flagg! tried the first 3 issues a few years ago, liked them, but got bogged down with other stuff and never got back to it until now. I started over at the beginning, which was a good decision, as the there's a larger story arc that encompasses the individual 3-issue stories. I thnk this series can easily staand with the best of its time. I'm only sorry that I stopped at 12 - I think I had the idea that Chaykin stopped doing the artwork at that point but now that I check, it was only a couple issues and then he was back both drwing and writing until around #27, so I'll definitely be looking for those next 12 or 15 issues.
Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales was a re-read but a long overdue one - I don't think I've read it since the 1990s. I'd forgotten how it ended right smack in the middle of a big story-line that shook up the status quo of the whole series up to that point and also hinted at important revelations regarding one of the main characters (Hannah): so disappointing that Schultz has never found time to get back to this creation - or indeed, back to drawing any comics at all (I thnk he spends most of his creative time and energy on writing now).
Mister X was also a re-read for the first 4 issues, but everything else - with the exception of one early Seth-drawn issue that I remembered having also read before - was new to me. I talked about this in the "What classic comics have you read lately"so no need to go into detail here. I absolutely loved the Hernandezes' run and recommend it to everyone, no matter what your previous opinion of their work. The rest of the series was less successful, but always fun and entertaining and featured some beautiful artwork from Seth, quite different in some ways to the black & white, minimalist style familiar from his later solo work.
I'll comment on the other things I've been reading later on.
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Post by commond on Apr 30, 2022 18:16:20 GMT -5
I sampled a lot of new books this month thanks to Trevor's thread. I read some fantastic stuff like Kubert's Tarzan, Alex Toth's Bravo for Adventure, Wrightson's Poe adaptation in Creepy, and the Chaykin/Garcia-Lopez gem, Twilight. Plus plenty of other stuff that opened my eyes to the wider world of comics. Fables is drawing to an end. It's had its ups and downs as any series lasting 150 issues would, but it's consistently entertained me over the past few months. Brubaker's Captain America has dipped in quality since they switched back to the original series numbering. The art has fallen by the wayside as well. That made me realize that Epting was a huge part of the run. Bendis' Daredevil has now leapfrogged Brubaker's Cap in terms of my level of enjoyment.
Chew #30 bummed me out like no comic has in a long time. That was a shock. Acme Novelty Library #1 is one of the best comics I've ever read. Just a masterpiece of cartooning. Tyrant is utterly brilliant. It's a story chronicling the life of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from birth to death. Bissette never finished it, but what a brilliant piece of work. Elfquest and Nexus continue to be old favorites and extremely comforting.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2022 19:39:54 GMT -5
April was my smallest reading total of the year. Most of my reading time was spent with prose not comics, and I read less than 50 comics on the month, fewer than half I had read any other month.
Highlights included revisiting the earliest issues of Astro City and the new Reckless OGN (The Ghost in You). I just started dipping back into Books of Magic, but only got the first 2 Gaiman issues read, and I checked out a the Ablaze Conan adaptation of Beyond the Black River which was decent. I also started the 2005 adaptation of the Dragonlance saga done by Devil's Due (later reprinted by IDW) just yesterday and only got the first 3 issues read. I started but haven't finished the Death of Doctor Strange mini and tie-ins (I dug it so far but was waiting for some of the tie-ins to become available on Unlimited but then got too busy to pick it back up when they did, I will get back to them soon) and the X-Lives and Deaths of Wolverine by Ben Percy, who I've enjoyed his Green Arrow stuff and a couple of his novels, but I wasn't feeling this as much-but then I am not up to speed with the whole Krakatoa status quo or anything that happened after the initial House/Power minis and this was steeped in it. I'll get around to finishing those soon as well. I read the first volume of Antares, but didn't realize it was the third book in a sci-fi trilogy of series, so I am going to go back and read Alderban and Betelguese before I continue on with it. I love that a large chunk of the Cinebook stuff is available to me via Hoopla, I just need to make a point of sampling more of it. I am also enjoying Gene Luen Yang's current Shang Chi series via Unlimited, and read the most recent issue made available on that platform this month. If I had to pick a lowlight, it was Alice Ever After, the new series from BOOM! Someone hereabouts mentioned liking it a lot in the modern comics thread, so I gave it a go on Hoopla, but it just didn't resonate with me. I might give it another issue or two since its free on Hoopla, just depends if I use my borrows on stuff I want to read more. So I didn't read as much this month, but I did enjoy most of what I read. We'll see what May brings. My prose to read stack is pretty big and been calling to me more than my comics to read stack, but that may change as the month proceeds.
-M
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,379
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Post by shaxper on May 1, 2022 7:32:48 GMT -5
If the amount of time I spend reading comics is any indication of how well my life is going, then things are looking sunnier for me these days. Four months into the year, I'm averaging more than one comic a day which is something I haven't done since before my ex-wife left me in 2017 and my world came crashing down. A lot of good has happened to me since then, but also a lot of chaos and struggle. But I made the goal to look after my emotional health and also take more time for comics this year, and here I am, reading more and feeling GOOD for the first time in a long while.
I practically devoured Peter David's Incredible Hulk in April, having blown through almost 40 issues (which is A LOT for me in one month, even if it isn't for most!). Unfortunately, I've been so into it that I took less time to read late Bronze Age Batman with Amber, nor to attend to my reviews this month, but I'm not complaining. It's been a GREAT month for reading and a GREAT month in general.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 1, 2022 8:31:37 GMT -5
I didn’t even realize the month had ended. 61.5 for the month which seems to be where I’m at.
Mostly dribs and drabs off things, anchored by a re-read of Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptations and some of Mark Russell’s books.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 1, 2022 8:35:58 GMT -5
If the amount of time I spend reading comics is any indication of how well my life is going, then things are looking sunnier for me these days. Four months into the year, I'm averaging more than one comic a day which is something I haven't done since before my ex-wife left me in 2017 and my world came crashing down. A lot of good has happened to me since then, but also a lot of chaos and struggle. But I made the goal to look after my emotional health and also take more time for comics this year, and here I am, reading more and feeling GOOD for the first time in a long while. I practically devoured Peter David's Incredible Hulk in April, having blown through almost 40 issues (which is A LOT for me in one month, even if it isn't for most!). Unfortunately, I've been so into it that I took less time to read late Bronze Age Batman with Amber, nor to attend to my reviews this month, but I'm not complaining. It's been a GREAT month for reading and a GREAT month in general. PADs Hulk (especially the 'Professor Hulk' part) is great... It's really too bad no one else ever did anything with the Pantheon.
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Post by commond on May 1, 2022 8:55:02 GMT -5
I feel like Peter David's Hulk run is strangely underrated. Folks who've read it know how great it is, but it isn't spoken about with the type of reverence that other comic runs inspire. I'm not sure if that's because of the character or the writer. Pretty much everyone knows that it's good, but you don't hear people talk about it with the respect that they give Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, to give you an example. It was such a long run, too, and went through so many phases. It felt, to me, like Claremont's X-Men, but I could be totally wrong.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2022 20:36:32 GMT -5
Don't think I will get anything else read tonight. so time to wrap up May. Back up over 100 for the month after a slow month in April. A lot of it was sampling stuff from FCBD. Highlights included revisiting Astro City, the new Arrowsmith mini, and the Death of Dr. Strange series. Slightly disappointing was Books of Magic. I love the Gaiman mini, but I had only ever read the first arc of the ongoing, but since our local library got the omnibus in, I wanted to give it a shot. It's not bad, but Tim is completely unlikable in a lot of the early stories, just whiney and annoying, on top of being mostly ineffectual as he tries to get a handle on his powers. The adversaries and supporting cast are far more interesting than Hunter himself at this point. A couple of the arcs were just slogs, others were readable but nothing special. Not sure yet if I am going to push through the rest of the omnibus, but a couple of the minis featuring Molly are included, so I will likely check those out.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 1, 2022 12:54:14 GMT -5
At 38 this was the lowest month in a long time. Tons of time working and just a general reader's block for comics did me in. I did finish a longish strip reprint book in Gasoline Alley, so that was nice.
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