reading more dick tracy. a funny thing is that they’re full of what i can only call reverse cliffhangers: when the grotesque criminal villain of the week, on the run from the cops and (in the chester gould cosmology) society as a whole, decides to take temporary refuge in some obviously bad place - hiding inside a grain harvester in a farm, or inside a “waterproof coffin” which is just about to be chained up and left at the bottom of an ice cold pool of water for a week. and then they get out again without incident and the plot keeps moving. were these draft death ideas suspended by gould at the last minute when he had another weird idea to keep things moving? or acknowledement of the terrifying universe of impersonal punishment the audience was reading, hoping to see?
I finished that 1200+ page G.I. Joe comic collection. And that’s just the first volume. I’d be more motivated to jump right into volume 2 if things hadn’t kind of taken a turn into silliness with characters getting more and more gimmicky (especially Serpentor). But I’ll probably continue after I read some other things.
I found it interesting that they get into how Cobra started and even occasionally touch on what it’s like to be a member of Cobra. While it’s kind of difficult to do that in a way that’s not far-fetched, I appreciated the effort. And I liked how Cobra leadership always has so much internal tension.
And while it had to take a back seat to the action, I also liked the occasional glimpses of G.I. Joe characters as people beyond their job roles. Not to mention the incidental teaching moments that Hama throws in.
God I love the gi Joe comics I gotta go read them again
Read Miracleman The Silver Age. It continues on from Golden Age and does a pretty good job of setting up why a utopian dictatorship would fail, particularly due to its own goals. They try a little bit too hard to suggest world religions like Christianity being mass supplanted by Miracleman’s own mythology in like 20 years with almost no pushback. There’s some nice culture clash with Young Miracleman effectively still being mentally in 1950s UK now being forcibly resurrected in alt-timeline 2003 with a hypermodernised world government. The original plan for this series, that’s now being helmed by Gaiman, was to progress through Golden-Silver-Dark age and so it feels like it can’t help reading like foreshadowing every step of the way, existing only to justify the next and final chapter. In the original Moore run they do a fairly gruesome superhero battle in London and it’s hard not to imagine the same will happen in whatever comes next.
I’m surprised Miracleman isn’t more retroactively popular what with all the Invincible, The Boys, and even Watchmen fans. I guess it’d require way too much CG to make a direct-to-streaming adaptation and an animated version would have to sanitise a lot.
I think the series being out of print for so long hurt its rep. Also miracleman’s stupid haircut
I’ve been reading Lone Wolf and Cub for the first time. I like the art and the stories, though the protagonist sometimes falls into superhero territory in how quickly and flawlessly he defeats everyone (at least so far).
LWaC was always in the comic shops when I was a kid but it didn’t grab me somehow. Now though the art looks amazing to me. I picked up the first volume digitally recently, haven’t started on it yet.
It didn’t hit me as hard s other Koike. I much preferred Samurai Executioner and Lady Snowblood. And don’t even get me started about how much I love the sleazier modern stuff…don’t get me started on Mad Bull…or Wounded Man…has anyone translated AEIOU Boy or whatever the hell it’s called yet…or his golf manga…God he’s so cool…
I started Blood of the Virgin. I had read an excerpt a year ago in Kramers Ergot. It’s hitting harder now. I almost cried, which was surprising. I usually don’t do that with media. It’s not even sad, sad. I don’t know.
There’s a brand new edition of Lone Wolf and Cub but I swore I’d finish reading Fist of the North Star before I started picking it up. At least I waited til my local store clearanced out the rest of FotNS that I hadn’t already bought.
Dang, I hope more of them come out digitally. Samurai Executioner and Path of the Assassin are out, I’ve got the first volumes of those to read too.
Interesting! I only knew Lone Wolf, Samurai Executioner and Lady Snowblood (my least favourite). Do you know if Mad Bull has ever been published in English?
I read fan translations of Mad Bull 34 ages ago. Don’t think there’s an official release. The anime got one though.
Nearly every content warning possible on that thing though. It is a very rude comic book. But that’s the kind I like…!! Drown me in filth!!
mad bull slaps
Mad Bull having criminals as the villains in early chapters before moving to other police officers as koike learned how corrupt the LAPD was is a good bit.
falling in love with haida koukou’s drawings, i think i’d want to get a copy of haikaburi no tenshi if it gets officially localized
thinking about whatever tagging error led this pirate site to assert alternative comics artist Jason once worked on an issue of Zombie Tramp, and how i’ll always feel a little sad now that it isn’t true. picturing how rueful and understated an issue of Zombie Tramp can get.
