Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art, & you

currently having another go at Grant Morrison’s Flex Mentallo mini-series

still don’t understand the appeal of Frank Quitely’s art, if I’m being honest, but maybe it will grow on me?

i think his effects like explosions and dust clouds and such are amazing.

his faces are horrible and ruin everything he draws though

I’m really into Grant Morrison but Flex Mentallo didn’t do it for me. I like his meta-mode but that’s too insular to fiction and comics where Invisibles and The Filth can hit at wider scopes and make me believe it’s ok to die, even if just for a short time.

I love his earnest mode like All-Star Superman, too. It’s simple robust construction but he’s being furiously clever in the margins and they support each other well.

I loved Flex Mentallo because it feels like a complete history of capes comics in 4 issues

I also love Frank Quitely’s art and always have. Those ludicrously ugly faces are half the appeal for me, they have so much… volume. Everything about his art has depth, it feels like a photograph taking in a non-photorealistic universe.

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If all else fails, just read WE3.

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good rule of thumb in general tbh

Oh God, the CIA guy no less.

https://twitter.com/DCComics/status/1283386230101737478

DC proudly presents a new 12-issue maxiseries debuting this October by Tom King ( Mister Miracle ) and Jorge Fornés ( Batman ), together delivering a new vision of one of the most riveting characters from Watchmen —a figure in a fedora and a trench coat, loved by some, reviled by others— Rorschach .

It’s been 35 years since Ozymandias was exposed for dropping a giant telepathic squid on New York City, killing thousands and ending the public’s trust in heroes once and for all. The Minutemen are gone; only their memory lives on. Especially the infamy of Rorschach, who has become a cultural icon since Dr. Manhattan turned him to dust.

Rorschach may have spoken truth, but he wasn’t a hero.

"Like the HBO Watchmen show and very much like the original ‘86 Watchmen , this is a very political work.” said King. “It’s an angry work. We’re so angry all the time now. We have to do something with that anger. It’s called Rorschach not because of the character Rorschach, but because what you see in these characters tells you more about yourself than about them.”

So what does it mean when Rorschach reappears as part of a pair of assassins trying to kill the first candidate to oppose President Robert Redford in decades? Follow one determined detective as he walks backward in time, uncovering the identities and motives of the would-be killers, taking him deep into a dark conspiracy of alien invasions, disgraced do-gooders, mystical visions, and yes, comic books.

Writer Tom King joins forces with artist Jorge Fornés to explore the mythic qualities of one of the most compelling characters from the bestselling graphic novel of all time, Watchmen .

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read tintin & alph-art (the last, unfinished one) after seeing it mentioned on here - or i guess what was actually someone else’s attempt to complete the story, using what was there of the original plus many tracings etc. it was ok, the only really memorable thing to me was the one thing i already knew would be in there (one particular gruesome art-related death trap). i did think it was very funny that they ended up giving tintin a potential love interest (as the fans demand??), which i believe would bring the total volume of named women in the series up to “two”.

it did make me go back and reread some of the earlier ones, which are somehow even more racist than i remember but do have a kind of crazed paranoid energy about them that i greatly enjoy. the version of “america” is populated entirely by grinning murderers, or police who are mostly unveiled as more grinning murderers, whose plans are only ever halted by miraculous happenstance. “cigars of the pharaoh” not only has a universally ubiquitous heroin smuggling organization identified by a cryptic symbol - they also appear to work out of a pyramid and own an underground lair where they all hang out in hooded cultist robes. every single room has a trapdoor and nearly every secondary character is either secretly corrupt or will soon be brainwashed into a murderer. i know at least part of this is the serial format, but having it all presented in this crisp kinetic style heightens the effect into something even eerier than early Dick Tracy.


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Well I’m glad they made sure I didnt do something stupid and think about reading this by going mask off in the tag line and saying “actually the fascist spoke the truth”

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I’ve heard a bunch of folks say King hates white supremacy and it’s so hard for me to believe because he’s proud of having been in the CIA.

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i think people who participate actively and eagerly in big time neoliberal white supremacy are get anxious about less “subtle” but more limited in scope blatant predatory racism because it forces them to wonder if their ideologies share the same foundation, and critical thinking is hard

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on the academic side of things, it’s actually incredible that so many blatant racists have doubled down on the ‘the enlightenment was an unequivocal benefit to world civilization’ angle, it makes it so much easier to feel fine about never giving a shit about kant or whatever

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nah dude the character Rorschach is right there on the cover

you can’t trick me, CIA Man!

alternately jo motion emoji

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Well, let’s see what the DCU is up to, hey wait a minute…



The Jokerest Trick…


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I’m convinced at this rate, Alan Moore is going to swim across the Atlantic himself and Suplex the dc offices into the ground out of pure, unrestrained, uncut rage.

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i get the sense he’d be too busy doing hermetic rituals or like, thinking about runes and shit

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He’s rapping

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Alan Moore is an extremely talented writer but even I never imagined that he’d add “ironic fascist mandrill dictator” to his repertoire of characters

Man between this and that Cosmic Ghost Rider who’s actually Frank Castle it’s like, I guess weird mashups are all that’s left at DC and Marvel now

(I’ll admit this is an uninformed take)