I really liked Gillen and McKelvie’s Phonogram when it first came out all those years ago so I was pretty stoked to finally read The Wicked + The Divine.
Man I dunno, I guess the ensuing ~8/9 years or whatever have destroyed any patience I had with shallow, privileged, magical club snots as protagonists.
…
I feel like I should re-read Transmetropolitan as a comfort during this, the worst of all election years.
Good call on Transmet.
I’ve been reading some Prez Wonder Woman, finished up Justice (alex ross) and a few other things. Also I just got back from Rose City CC. So many comic thoughts too many to type.
hey I was at rose city last weekend too. We could’ve met up.
damn!
OK I read volume 1 of the BLAME! rerelease y’all can release the second one now.
I have been pirating random bits from Bendis’ Ultimate Spiderman. Some observations:
-Ultimate Spiderman does reveal some discernable features of Bendis’ writing beyond wanting to bring snappy lingo to everyone in the Marvel UNiverse from Jarvis to fucken galactus. One of these is trying to set up some sort of little guy vs the military industrial complex theme, most obviously flagged by putting (already established Spidey nemesis) Norman Osbourne and his evil science corporation up front from the beginning. I mean I think he’s trying to go for like entrenched power and its malign influence on ‘just us normal folks’ like you and me. When he tries to push this theme by putting a 4-issue Kingpin storyline early on in the run it works quite well, with Peter railing at the world weariness of the grownups at school and the Bugle in the face of Fisk’s getting away with murder due to ‘the System’. Then he brings down the kingpin by using spidey powers to steal incriminating evidence and posting it to a Bugle reporter. It’s pithy and shows off the thematic potential of a young Peter Parker.
Elsewhere it sort of misses the mark. Sam Jackson Nick Fury, the Ultimates, and other SHIELD people such as Carol Danvers and the sociopoltiical power that they represent are a sporadic presence throughout the run. But they sort of function as weird psuedo mentors/big daddies that are constantly promising to induct Parker into the good old boys metahuman frat club when he’s old enough to share dirty jokes with . Importantly, Peter never tells them to just fuck off. Not putting Ultimate Spidey into explicit conflict, ideological or otherwise with them was a missed opportunity to echo the traditional diversity and broadness of classic Marvel.
So, Parker does have a problem with Fury until Fury and him come to an understanding. It’s not an all out brawl, but there is conflict.
I don’t know what era of Marvel you’re talking about where they only brought in 3 big writers, but yes Bendis was pulled in, and clearly not the ‘strongest’ of the 3, but the highlights of his career were mostly from the early Marvel days, Alias, Daredevil, and Ultimate Spider-Man. I mean also prior Torso, Goldfish,and Powers. He stuck around because he became a company man. Certainly Morrison never would, and Millar would never be a company man, true for other creators like Fraction or Remender. I think the only other guy they’ve kept around for a super long point (writer wise anyways) is Slott.
Torso is a really good comic, but has a couple of weird little anachronisms that nobody that didn’t live in Cleveland in the 1980’s will notice. Some of them are necessary (the area where the first body was found is now completely different, for example), but some are just little Cleveland related shoutouts. I’m OK with it, but it’s a little jarring in context.
So the new Humble Bundle of comics has The Eternaut, and is basically the biggest reason to pick it up. It also gives me hope that one day Mort Cinder will be translated to English and I will be able to recommend it to death.
Torso takes place in the 1930s. So are you saying locals were updated to what it was in the 80’s?
No, not that, just that there are references in it to Cleveland local ads from the 80s/early 90s (though the company is still around, so). Specifically, at one point a character calls the police station, but the phone number he uses is from an old local window company that had a ridiculously catchy jingle that was their phone number (Garfield 1! 23! 23!). Little local references like that that are completely not from the 30’s, but serve as little shout outs to Cleveland.
Also the location of the first murder is no longer really there (it was demolished long before the comic was written), so he relocated it to a park that is in my old neighborhood. Not really noticeable if you aren’t from the area, and he openly acknowledged doing it, so no harm or anything, but it was pretty strange when I first read it.
There was a bit of a resurgence in interest in the case in the 80s/90s, as I recall, that probably prompted the book though, yeah.
Have you read Tezuka’s Phoenix? It’s supposed to be his best work. I think it is 12 volumes long. I am on volume 10. He mixes mythology and science fiction in some very philosophical stories.
My sister got me BLAME! 1 for my birthday and for the very first time in my many readings of this series, I spotted this plug on the far right of this panel.
Keeping my eyes peeled for the Quake logo to pop up next.
I am all caught up with Shinichi Sakamoto’s Innocent, the life of France’s premier executioner in the run up to and during the Revolution
It is ultratrash and it is to taste
I am digging through 100 bullets, it is a gem.
At first I was flipping out about how cool this would be, but I don’t know how well Aliens + neon gradients is going to work
Though I’m definitely going to find out
Today I bought two Gilbert Hernandez books and almost every page had a boner on it, further cementing Beto’s position as greatest living cartoonist.
I also bought Soft City by Pushwagner, and it is a gorgeous, gorgeous book.
The best comic I’ve read all year is Sir Alfred #3. I’ve read like…6 new comics this year, but over my entire lifetime I’ve read a whole lotta comics so believe me, this opinion’s worth something.
