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Post by commond on Aug 31, 2024 20:00:41 GMT -5
I read a similar amount of books in August as I did in July, but I was quite satisfied. I dialed back on the Atlas/MC books a bit and instead focused on DC comics from the Direct Currents era. I rediscovered my love for Usagi Yojimbo and finished a few runs. Quite a productive month.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 31, 2024 21:24:45 GMT -5
I've been a little disappointed so far in my 'War that Time Forgot' showcase volume. The stories are all very much the same... I was hoping after the first few they might do something with the concept, but 18 issues in not yet. They have a couple character recur for a 2nd story, but that's about it. The last couple added a robot, which was super weird but a nice change up.. we'll see how it goes.
I got a couple Early Iron Man issues that I needed to, which was pretty exciting... good prices too! 11 more to go! (if 55 can keep dropping in price that would be lovely...)
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Aug 31, 2024 23:03:19 GMT -5
Wrapping up August, not as robust as July was but still read over 140 comics for the month. Classic highlights include the first handful of Golden Age Batman stories in Detective, the earliest Hal Jordan stories in Showcase and his own title, the first Plastic Man story in Police Comics #1, and the early part of the Messner-Loebs run of Flash and the early part of Nightwing's first solo series. Modern highlights include the wrap up of the Crow in Usagi by Stan Saka, the Heroic Signature/Titan Conan books (both the monthly and Savage Sword), the new Witchblade series, Gail Simone's Uncanny X-Men, the classic cartoon revivals of Gatchaman, Jonny Quest, and Space Ghost, and Oeming's William of Newbury.
I also read the entirety of the 28 issue run of Evanier's New Gods that launched post Cosmic Odyssey in the late 80s. There was some interesting stuff but it was largely uneven, especially later in the run. There were parts that felt rushed, parts that felt bloated, but lots of interesting ideas and characters throughout. It really felt like nobody knew how long it would last so nobody knew exactly how to pace it, which hurt it overall. While some of Jack's Fourth World stuff felt a product of its time with some of the cultural touchstones and references in it, this series felt entirely like a product of the late 80s zeitgeist, especially in how it treated the elements and touchstones in the Fourth World that were products of the early 70s, and reflected my experience with how people in that time felt about the early 70s counter-culture reflected in those books. But even with that, there were still some very Kirby concepts, ideas and themes being explored in the series.
-M
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197 
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Post by Confessor on Sept 1, 2024 5:47:28 GMT -5
August was a much better month for me, with 40 comics read this month -- which is more than any other month this year!
Much of that was down to re-reading so much early Amazing Spider-Man for jtrw2024's Spider-Man review thread. I also re-read some Elfquest, some Nemesis: The Warlock, and the Tales of the Jedi: The Freedon Nadd Uprising mini-series for wildfire2099's "Star Wars at Dark Horse" review thread.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 1, 2024 15:29:13 GMT -5
I really enjoyed Nemesis when I read it earlier in the year... I'm looking forward to the 2nd volume of the 'definitive edition' to read more
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 3, 2024 16:24:29 GMT -5
Eight books in August. I clearly did not set the world on fire funnybook-wise.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Sept 3, 2024 18:17:53 GMT -5
Eight books in August. I clearly did not set the world on fire funnybook-wise. At least you didn't set any funny books on fire... -M |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 3, 2024 19:36:16 GMT -5
Eight books in August. I clearly did not set the world on fire funnybook-wise. At least you didn't set any funny books on fire... -M I'm not sure we can say that for certain... it gets cold at night out in potato country. |
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Post by berkley on Sept 13, 2024 2:02:56 GMT -5
Very light comics-reading month for me in August, partly due to travel, since comics are harder to pack than books - and I did get through more books while I was away than I normally would in the same period of time. I think I've already read more comics pages in the first half of September than I did in the whole of August.
And September has started well: I'm getting back into the swing of the early Peanuts, which is not quite what came to be the classic strip but many of the most important elements are there right from the start. What's missing is perhaps that Charlie Brown's personality and appearance hasn't yet quite settled and not all of the classic characters have made their appearance. And Schulz hasn't yet begun to get into his more profound or deeply-felt vignettes - not a surprise for a young cartoonist in the first years of his professional career.
Steve Canyon has made a comeback too, mostly due to the departure (I think permament?) of Poteet: not that she was a terrible character, just that her teenage-based story-lines tended to take centre stage and pull the strip away from its core nature as a mixture of adventure and soap-opera.
I've started a new collection: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century a strip that started in 1929. I've been watching so many movies from the early 1930s lately that I conceived the desire to read some comics from that era as well. So far, lots of fun and very interesting from all sorts of perspectives. Artwork surprisingly crude compared to what we see from other creators of the same era, e.g. Raymond, Caniff, but not unattractive. The story off-putting in its racism (much ado about the evil Eastern Hordes - Mongols in this case - that have taken over "Peace-loving America" in the 25th Century) , but putting this aside, highly entertaining.
More September notes to follow as this month in comics continues ...
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Sept 30, 2024 22:55:28 GMT -5
September is drawing to a close so time to close the books on the month. A lot of my reading time and effort went to Howard prose this month for Cimmerian September, so it was my 2nd lowest monthly tally of the year (behind February) but still managed to read a little over 100 comics (106) and surpass 1200 for the year. A lot of what I read of comics was keeping up with the new stuff I was purchasing.
September highlights include both Titan Conan offerings-the new issue of the regular monthly and the start of the Battle of the Black Stone cross-over series, the Superman vs. Ali treasury facsimile edition, and the new Groo mini. There's lots of new stuff I am digging, but since this is a classic reading club I won't dwell on them, but if you haven't checked out William of Newbury (Oeming's anthropomorphic medieval occult detective mini), Helen of Wyndhorn (King & Evely fantasy series about the exploits of the fictional pulp writer's daughter and his sword & sorcery character, and the blurring of the line between fact and fiction) and The Hunger and the Dusk (epic/dark fantasy by G. Willow Wilson & Chris Wildgoose told mostly from the POV of an orc healer) I'd recommend taking a look.
Some lowlights-Akogun Brutalizer of the Gods-African flavored fantasy that I wanted to like but the visual storytelling of the art wasn't up to snuff in terms of clarity of story-telling. It was pretty but often did a poor job of conveying what was happening. Briar-had a very strong first arc, went on hiatus between arcs and the second arc did not live up to the promise of the first and it lost its charm for me. The new horror anthologies-Hello Darkness from BOOM! and the two EC revival series from Oni weren't bad, but not of the stories stood out and they wee all ultimately just forgettable fare and I am not sure I am going to continue with them.
Two books just starting out that I really liked (one surprisingly) are Cullen Bunn's new fantasy series The Autumn Kingdom-a fantasy author is struggling with his most recent novel and rents a cottage and takes his family there to enjoy the area while he works, but it is near a fey gate and his children are taken by the fey-this was all in the first issue this month, so we'll see where it goes but I dig the premise and the art so far, and the Witchblade relaunch form Top Cow/Image. I was definitely not a fan of the 90s series, feeling it wallowed in all the excesses I did not like about 90s comics, but I liked the basic premise of it, and was a fan of the short-lived TV show which took that premise and told stories with it without all those 90s comics excesses. The relaunch has been solid so far-it has some of the cheesecake inclinations of the 90s series, but has been doing a good job of using the premise I like to tell solid stories so far (it's 3 issues in, so we'll see, I'm giving it until issue 6 to make my final decision).
We'll see what October brings, looking to explore a little more horror and get back to some more back issues rather than just keeping up with new, but we'll see where the flow goes.
-M
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197
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Post by Confessor on Oct 2, 2024 18:53:02 GMT -5
I read 27 comics in September, which was down a fair bit from August. Most of what I read was late '60s issues of Amazing Spider-Man, but there was also an issue of the '80s Eagle comics Nemesis: The Warlock reprint series and the first issue of Star Wars: Dark Empire II. I also read three early '70s issues of Daredevil.
It was all good quality reading, but I should've read more books than that really.
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Post by berkley on Oct 2, 2024 22:52:03 GMT -5
After not getting much done in the way of comics in August I did a little better in September. My only disappointment was not reading more newer books, only getting through half of the 120 page Dieu un personne. Still, at least I did something relatively recent, which is more than I did in August.
Having been making decent progress through the 1990s and nearing the end of the first 50 issues or Volume I of Love and Rockets, I found myself wishing I had started at the beginning with #1 instead of in the middle, so finally I caved in and did just that, which is putting my 90s reading on hold. But that's OK since it'll allow me to get to a few other 80s things, I've been wanting to try, not only in comics but also other media, especially tv and movies. Am I finally developing some nostalgic feelings for that much-maligned decade? I certainly am surprised at how many things I've thought of recently that I want to look at.
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Post by commond on Oct 3, 2024 8:38:43 GMT -5
I read a large amount of comics in September, mostly because I was laid up with a broken elbow, but also because I was trying to get a head start on my Halloween reading. The rest of my reading was a mix of pre-superhero Marvel comics, a few Bronze Age titles, some books from MRP's list, some Tom DeFalco era Marvel stuff, a lot of binge reading of Direct Currents era books, and a fair bit of manga. Not perfect, but a nice eclectic mix.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 3, 2024 9:38:52 GMT -5
49 in September, which was a significant uptick. Mostly due to reading the first 15 issues of Power of Shazam (and the graphic novel) and the Proto-Bone book by Jeff Smith.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Nov 1, 2024 2:27:01 GMT -5
October has come to a close. Despite spooky season, I didn't read (or watch) a lot of horror this month. I had plans to, but I just wasn't in a horror mood, so I turned to other things. And it worked out that October was my biggest comic reading month of the year, reading the equivalent of 240 comics (conversely it was my lowest prose reading month of the year, as I hit a prose slump post-Cimmerian September). I'm closing in on 1500 comics for the year (Just over 1450 read thus far this year.
October highlights included:
-early Golden Age Batman form the first omnibus volume
-the latest Brubaker/Phillips-Houses of the Unholy (ne of the few horror books I read)
-the Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze OGN (a psychadelic sci-fi adventure inspired by Jimi's lyrics)
-Brubaker's Catwoman as collected in the new Compact Edition: Trail of the Catwoman that collects Selnina's Big Score by Bru and Darwyn, the Slam Bradley back-ups form Detective by Bru and the first 9 issues of the 2002 Catwoman series, including the first four with art by Darwyn
-the current Conan stuff from Titan
-some other current stuff like Helen of Wyndhorn and The Hunger and the Dusk
I also the Great Darkness Saga for the first time. I'm not a big Legion guy, and I think the hype exceeded my actual enjoyment of the book. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it stands up well as a standalone story, and a lot of the characters are just plot puppets in this story if you are not already familiar with them and invested in their stories because you are a Legion fan or reader.
There's a few books I decided to drop from my pulls after their Sept/October issues, none of them were bad per se, just none of them were holding my interest enough to keep reading monthly. These included the 2 Oni EC anthology books (Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe)-some good stories some meh stories, not enough of the first to keep me going. I do plan to check out the first issue of the new fantasy themed EC title though, as fantasy is more my bag than either horror or sci-fi (though really it was sci-fi horror in those issues). Also dropping the Hello Darkness horror anthology from Dark Horse. Again anthology, mix fo good and meh stories and I think part of it was me just not feeling the horror genre recently, so I dropped it. I dropped the new Wichblade revival. First 2 issues were enjoyable and then the pacing just crashed and died and the panel to panel and page to page visual storytelling took a huge step back. Some of the pages in the new issue were nearly impossible to tell if you should read all of the left page first then the right page, or across the top of both pages and then across the bottom of both pages. Sometimes it was one way, other times the later, but even with reading the captions it was difficult to tell which way the eye should track the page and what order the captions should be read in, which lead to me dropping the book. The art looks nice, I love the concept, and I enjoyed the first 2 issues despite some problematic visual storytelling in those 2 as well, but the drop off was more than I cared to overlook after that decent start. I dropped Autumn Kingdom by Cullen Bunn, a new dark fantasy series featuring a nasty version of the fae as the antagonists. I like the premise, but the pacing was uneven and I think it will read better in trade, so I dropped the single issues and will check out the trades later. I made the same decision with Kelly Thompson's Black Cloak, another fantasy series-I read the first arc in singles, but the second arc was having pacing issues for me, so I dropped the single issues and will check in on it in trade.
I reread the first 4 Justice League of America issues from the trade as well (B&B 28-30, and #1). The initial tryout against Starro is a fun story, but man those other 3 were a bit of a slog to get through.
I also finally read Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Doomsday Clock (I got the hardcovers cheap at Ollie's). I am not the biggest Geoff Johns fan, and I definitely like his early stuff better than his later stuff, and I wasn't a real big fan of this series. I didn't like some of his storytelling choices, didn't like his characterization of some of the players, and it kind of felt like he was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do with the story very late in the series and it never quite came together for me. I think one of Johns tics is he seems to start with "wouldn't it be cool if..." as the premise of his stories, but never quite works out what to do with that premise or where to go with it before the series starts coming out, and loses his way as he tries to figure it out as the story is being released, and rarely sticks the landing with them. I think earlier in his career, when he worked with a lot of co-writers and there was a stronger editorial hand guiding his books, those tics and tendencies were minimized and ameliorated, but as he gained in popularity and was given more control, those types of tendencies grew more and more prominent. Overall it wasn't a terrible series, just wound up being meh, and not something I would likely ever revisit.
There were lots of other entertaining reads and other meh stuff, but nothing else especially stood out to me from the month.
-M
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