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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 6, 2022 16:14:26 GMT -5
I know poor Kurt is sick, but I'm struggling with a few things -- what about criminal families, alien races, inter-dimensional creatures, enemy races or countries, supernatural entities, etc? Villains that didn't team up per se but are inherently evil or the main antagonists of a series? I suppose what I'm asking is whether the emphasis is on teams or groups. As I understand it, the matter comes down to whether there are distinct individual baddies joining forces. Two or three distinct family members with their own identities should work, whereas say The Beagle Boys would not. And they should be working together in some fashion. I suppose they could work together inadvertently/unknowingly so long as you can explain why that arrangement impressed you. Sorry. I don't presume to be Kurt, but I also know he's not up to his usual snuff right now, so I'm hoping to save him some work here. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !!!!! My rationale is they ARE all individually numbered thus distinguishing them from AIM/HYDRA goons
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on May 16, 2022 17:03:38 GMT -5
You guys should track down Johnny Red by Ennis and Burns. His take on the Battle Weekly strip about a Hurricane pilot fighting alongside the Russians during WW2. Published by titan a couple of years back, and IMHO up there with the best war comics ever. Mind you the british comics were never heavily influenced by superheroes as much as American books seem to have been.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 19, 2021 5:34:12 GMT -5
U.K. has Marmite. U.S. .......... doesn't. Of course Australia has Vegemite which was immortalized in a song by Men At Work. You could not pay me enough to even have a 1/4 teaspoon of either . My Aussie uncle swore by it though Its all in the amount, if you lather it on like peanut butter its way too strong, just a small amount spread over your whole piece of toast. Much nicer than Vegemite too. Out of curiosity, since it cropped up at the start of the thread, what do Americans associate with the term Wanker? cos Im pretty sure it cant be the same connotation as here, and we sure as shit wouldnt be wearing no Baseball cap professing our love for it.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 10, 2021 23:42:36 GMT -5
A gut punch as someone else said a few posts back. I first discovered him with Avengers 141 and/or 142. I was 11 or 12 and distribution here was poor, but my best friend at school had an uncle who dropped off cartons of comics which we devoured. No order to them, so it was a real lottery, but I always remembered him for his take on the western heroes(so 142 more than 141 I guess).
Jump forward a couple years and I start to collect. My first issue is 170 and Im an immediate fan. Over the next year or so I manage to find most of the Nefaria and GOTG stories and become an utter Avengers fool. They are my team, and they are handled by what I still consider to be the best team in their run, the Shooter/Perez combination. When they had both gone just after 200 I felt the book never really recovered.
I got to eventually see those amazing JLA covers and was there for most of his Titans work. He is simply an icon. Who could look at that cover for the Crisis collection and not be stunned. Just how many people did he draw on ONE single cover?
He is the first comicbook artist whose work I actively sought, much like Frazetta was the first artist I looked for, and I hold them both in the highest regard.
I am truly saddened by the news, the world will be...lesser
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 9, 2021 0:10:32 GMT -5
I would have to vote Iron Man 3 and most of 2 as the worst, which surprised me because of how much I like RDJ's Stark. Civil War was poor, a bunch of friends having a punch-up is just a BBQ not a freaking war. Shang-Chi was pointless, without finding a way of channeling the work Doug Moench put into the philosophical journey of the character, battling the machinations of his father. They did what every writer since has done, missed the key to what made a kung fu comic work. Sure they made a funky kung fu film with shiny splody stuff, but not the character I used to read. GOTG2 suffered from the same thing wonder woman did. I think they were forced to write a movie that matched SFX/CGI that had been in development for years. Same with a bunch of Spider-Man movies, and most of the X-Stuff too. Winter Soldier is the coolest for me, the Thanos movies are pretty cool, and Thor 3 is awesome cos Taita is a Kiwi, and thats how we roll
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jun 1, 2021 4:46:21 GMT -5
So what decent alternatives are there to Mile High or mycomicshop. Mile High was the first I ever dealt with, but it looks like the website hasnt moved on in 20 years, and Ive struggled to find stuff I like at mycomicshop(this is Lone Star isnt it?). Finding those that will ship down under can narrow the field.
Paul
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on May 31, 2021 12:06:50 GMT -5
Gene Day man, that guy would have been the new Steranko. By the time of his passing Gene Day already had more comic work created and IMO was already surpassing and evolving what Steranko had done earlier. Sure he had more output, albeit a lot of inking jobs, but I think Steranko was a huge influence on his style (probably on that of Gulacy as well). Like Steranko I think he would have been a huge influence on others too. Then theres the What If? of him being a modern day artist. How much influence could his cinematic style have been on things like the MCU? Or what if those Image creators had been stylistically inspired by him? The 90's would have been a lot prettier.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on May 30, 2021 16:03:40 GMT -5
Gene Day man, that guy would have been the new Steranko.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jan 13, 2021 16:08:15 GMT -5
Jim Aparo from The Brave & the Bold #186 Flicking through the page I was like..."what a cool Kubert Hawk...hey wait a sec". Awesome shot,
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jan 13, 2021 16:04:12 GMT -5
Ive been reading through Mike Grell's Warlord. Finished the first dozen or so and really getting the bug. I read quite a few back in the day, probably from about 40 up sporadically. the distribution here was spotty, and it wasnt long after this that he left the book to the Kubert school grads like Tex, Randall, Duurseema etc with Dan Jurgens taking over too. I was always struck by the high quality of the covers for a long period. Storywise I keep finding the "done in one" can be bloody annoying. Part of this seems like DC may have gone to the low page count at this time, meaning Grell had to wrap things up too quickly. Well this or his penchant for splashes and double page spreads ate up the count. Visually the book is beautiful, even making allowances for some inconsistencies or weaknesses in his art, with awkward poses and anatomy. But that was Grell from the start. Id love for some of these early stories to have had some time to breathe and to be expanded a little, Thomas got the balance right at Marvel on Conan, though he wasnt writing AND drawing. Overall Im looking forward to seeing where these guys go...and Grell sure does draw some purdy gals.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 24, 2020 15:35:59 GMT -5
1. Garth Ennis Preacher, Punisher.Its just occurred to me that with the love Ennis has for the old British war comics(Im assuming the strips and digest size books), which would hopefully extend to the adventure titles(like Action), he would make the ideal writer for a re-imagined Spinball, that would explode my(still 12 year old) mind. I really enjoy his writing for a number of genres, with his War Stories stuff being a fine example, though it seems odd that a genre(War) which is in itself ultra-violent, it is here he seems to be most restrained, almost in reverance to what the armed forces encountered on a day to day basis. Its been well documented how good his Punisher is and the joys of Preacher. I have to confess that there are plenty of his books that dont work for me. The Boys is far superior onscreen than on the page, and too many of his other titles leave me cold(Im looking at you Hitman). Ennis is here primarily because of Preacher, the book that affected me the most in the 90's, and that stuck with me through the lean times when I fell away from the faith.(comics, not the other...)I was late to the book of course, low finances, buying Star Trek CCG cards and Heroes Return seemed better options until I convinced myself to get an issue, something like #38 or 40. Instant addiction, scraping together money to buy the few back issues, the first 3 trades, anything man just gimme a shotttttaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!! The other unforgotten favor I owe Ennis is his letter columns introduced me to the writing of Stephen Hunter, my favorite Thriller writer of all time. THAT right there gets you the life-time pass, the heavyweight title belt. I had a picture picked, and a big write up done for his Johnny Red book, until I realised its only 4 - 5 years old butbut go find it, its freaking awesome.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 23, 2020 15:45:25 GMT -5
2. Ed Brubaker
Captain America V5
I wasnt even reading comics when this came out(#25 let alone #1), I had fallen away in the late 90's due to lack of money and also the LCS had closed and bookstores here stocked little other than Phantom and Commando comics with the odd place getting 2000AD. I remember a piece coming on the news saying Marvel had killed Captain America, on the news, here. I was literally shocked, almost like you should react for a real person. Sure, I should have known better, we all know it never lasts, the only ones they will never bring back are Uncle Ben and Bucky right. They're sacrosanct. Wait, what??? I cant even remember how I managed to track the story down, it must have been Comixology or some such, but finally getting to read this, the introduction of Winter Soldier, the revelation, Crossbones and Sin, Faustus, Lukin, Death, Rebirth, and the ever present Falcon and Agent 13 all wrapped up with the Red Skull. This is one of my favorite runs in comics, it explores what makes Rogers the greatest hero, what it means to be heroic, how to stand up for right, how to fight wrongs, and what love can look like in these settings. Ive read it almost annually since, finally have it in nice shiny collections, and will continue to bore my friends about it for years to come. O yeah, he wrote a couple pretty cool little crime comics...something bout a Sleepy Criminal in Gotham Central or some such.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2020 20:36:11 GMT -5
10. Warren Ellis Planetary, The Authority, and Nextwave
If Id written this 10 years ago, my clear winning choice would have been the Authority(with the last of Stormwatch thrown in for good measure). It is the book that introduced me to Ellis, the one that blew my mind, and the one I stayed with the longest(at this time young family, shit job, little disposable income). I have and will always have a love of alternate earth stories, and parts of this reminded me of the Captain Britain strips I'd seen. The totally new take on those archetype characters, the "Widescreen", it all appealed in a massive way to me. Heroes Return and Batman/Bane and Clones were all fresh, and the utter lack of anything to read was disheartening. Planetary then was a close second, with its fresh take on capes and pulp heroes, but in the last decade or so this book has come to mean a lot more to me. I guess the ability to binge the whole series at once makes this better as a whole, while Authority eventually got watered down. Finally Nextwave, sheer delight. Take a bunch of has beens and just have fun with them
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 22, 2020 5:10:14 GMT -5
4. Alan Moore Take yer Swamp-Thing, put it in yer Watchamacclem, mix it with yer MiracleMarvelManBoy and youse don even com close to the coolness that is D.R.& Quinch the adventures of 2 wholesome, misunderstood, clean-cut, responsible, and just downright nice schoolboys, going forth and spreading goodwill and cheer and thermonuclear bombs. S'Alright Man.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 20, 2020 20:39:38 GMT -5
And just when 2020 is almost over... Mt. Ruapehu(a volcano), 90 km from here has decided to maybe join in. This is about a year since another active volcano killed about 20 people(a couple hundred km further north from this one).
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