The Comic Book Thread

[Dr Kain]

I got these over the last few months:











It was a blast rediscovering X-Men and I'm currently halfway through the first Spider-Man volume.

[lhb412]

^That Ditko/Lee Dr. Strange omnibus looks awesome! Need to pick that up; some of Ditko's best art!

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

My favorite Ditko drawings of Spidey are when he's in the distance and he's just a really simplified red and blue figure that gets the point across. Ditko's lifework is just so great.

[mr.negativity]

DC Superheroes Will Team Up With Hanna-Barbera Characters Next Year

[lhb412]

This is The Deep Comics and Games. This is my comic book store! I know the guys in this video! Thankfully, everyone's okay and the shop is already reopened.


http://io9.gizmodo.com/brave-hero-saves ... 1790933388

[Dr Kain]

WTF? I know some comics have specialty covers that you have to be like the first one there to get, but that was ridiculous.

[lhb412]

^Still don't know the status of the guy in the SUV who had a seizure, but I went to the shop today and everything looks pretty good (aside from the plywood where the window used to be, a pile of debris out front, and the shopping carts full of damaged merch... pretty much all boardgames and Warhammer/game figurine stuff). Apparently there were a few customers there at the time, even though it was early in morning. Luckily they were in other areas of the building (it's a pretty dang big shop).

Bought my usual stuff from my subscription box, as well as two '90s Spider-Man tpbs I've been eyeing: the 'Alien Costume' and early Venom collection.

PS - The guy the io9 story labels as the "hero saving his comics" is actually a guy he works there. He was saving the product!

[mr.negativity]

[Dr Kain]

I finished Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Volume 1 last night and overall it was... amazing.

The stories were well written and a blast to look at. My favorite panel in the book is probably the one towards the end in the return of the Molten Man issue where Spidey is in MM's room with the lights out. The way that panel is drawn and colored is so bad ass. Nevertheless, there was a lot of great artwork to be found here and it was interesting to finally read the issue with the infamous flooding scene. That was kind of cool how the panels kept getting bigger and bigger as the struggle progressed. I'm not sure which story I would say is my favorite though, as there are a lot ot choose from. It would probably be a toss up between the Annual that introduces the Sinister Six, the "Master Planner" trilogy (as they called it in the essays), and the 3 parter where Peter gave up being Spider-Man for the first time Aunt May was sick (17-19 I believe).

Another thing I love is how the identity of Green Goblin has yet to be revealed and that Norman was not even introduced officially until like issue 37 despite seeing him at Jameson's country club. I wonder if Stan Lee thought of Norman beforehand or if he just decided to make him GG on the fly. Either way, it was cleverly done.

The only issues I didn't really enjoy were the one with Mysterio pretending to be a psychologist and the one with a guy who gets his powers frm a meteor. Not only that, but he called himself The Looter.

It's kind of sad that Ditko is gone from this point, but that's okay because Romita was a great successor (and my favorite Spider-Man artist from the issues I read years ago), so I'm looking forward to this. Getting to read this many issues in order is so enjoyable.

[lhb412]

^ Romita's experience in romance comics really served him well, as he'd make the romantic side of the Spidey story (the Peter/Gwen/MJ/Harry stuff) iconic. Good stuff, but I don't think anyone can beat the nervous energy of Ditko's storytelling.

[sentaison]

I've been reading Marvel's The Master of Kung Fu omnibus's. Volumes 1 and 2 are out and I've almost finished with 2. This was a title I liked, but in the days before I was a regular visitor to a dedicated comics shop, it was a hit or miss find on the rack at 7-11. (mostly miss) So as a result, I missed out on the earliest adventures, and only had bit's and pieces of most of the stories I did have. Doug Moench's writing on this is really fantastic, and both Paul Gulacy and Mick Zeck bring those stories into vivid life. These stories are very much super spy tales in the vein of Nick Fury and the Agents of SHIELD, but the main protagonist is the son of one of the worlds vilest villains. There is intrigue as well as action, and the characters are as well developed as the possibly could be, given the medium. For a title that was created to make hay out the martial arts movie craze of the 70's, MOKF stands on it's own as a top comic of the era.

[Dr Kain]

These finally arrived today:



I sold off my individual Rebirth comics (well most of them) so I could get the Omnibus, which is far superior to the single issues. I also never bought quite a few of the issues that are found here, so that should be interesting.

Secondly, I felt the Hobgoblin book might make a nice supplement to read once I eventually get to the Stern Omnibus I picked up this past summer. I wish it was in hardcover, but at least it was only like $10.

[Dr Kain]

I finished reading my Doctor Strange Omnibus and it was good. This was the first time I've really read stand alone Strange stories since everything I read with him when growing up when him teamed up with other characters. He's actually quite badass and the series was far more stroy driven than I ever could have imainged (even moreso than Spider-Man). I'm quite impressed. I also love that he didn't start out with the Cloak of Levitation or his round amulet, although it was weird for him not to have them right away. My only complaint is that the final issue felt rushed as if they had to cram a multipart story into one issue. I mean, Strange is in the hospital at the end of 145, in 144 Dormammu said he was going to have to carefully plan a way to get revenge, but then 146 starts out with Dormmamu tired of waiting and tricks Strange into Eternity's dimension evn though that is not what Dormmamu was going to do. Plus, the end just has the girl found without any true struggle. WTF?

Nevertheless, this was an excellent book and now I've become a bigger Strange fan than I was before. Ditko's art continued to impress, especially whenever Eternity was on the page. There were some truly great use of lighting and shadows to be found here too. Good stuff all around. On to Amazing Volume 2!

EDIT: It took forever to get this damn book, but I finally got it!

[Dr Kain]

This arrived today:



It's cool but Amazon didn't ship it with any padding so the upper corners have been smushed, which has also bent the first 80 pages and last 50 pages to the comics themselves. Worse of all, Amazon can't exchange it for me, I can only return it for a refund.

[lhb412]

I've been letting my comics pile up for a while now, but now I am finally making way through my multiple stacks and as soon as I do I resolve to read my comics when I buy them (let's see how long that'll last!). I've been reading the last year and a half of BPRD and Abe Sapien in publication order (i.e. jumping between the two issue to issue), which has been a pretty neat experience. Also:



I've been digging Leiji Matsumoto's work for years, but it always bugged me that I was just getting his material second hand: via the animated series and movies based off his work instead of seeing his concepts, stories, and designs where they originated: on the comics' page! Hopefully this release spurs the release of other classics like Galaxy Express 999 and Captain Harlock, which are sadly in the domain of other publishers than this one (Kodansha USA, who do a bang-up job with this release). This story is dealing with a lot of the same stuff as 999 and Harlock: all melodrama with that insane Matsumoto style, unrestrained by logic or anything else that would impede Matsumoto's characters' obsession with codes of honor, freedom, and anachronistic tastes in clothing and interior decorating.

[klen7]

[lhb412]

My 'floppy' pull-list:

Usagi Yojimbo (maybe my all time favorite comic, still writen and drawn by Stan Sakai and just as good as it's ever been in its 30+ years of publication)
Hellboy/Hellboy universe books (love Hellboy, quality for all these books is consistently great.)
Dark Horse Presents (the anthology is a good bang for your buck. Carla Speed McNeil's Finder has regular installments and that's one of my all time favorites. Introduced me to new favorites like Age of Reptiles and Sabertooth Swordsman)
Love and Rockets (loved this series for years, but it had transitioned to being an annual 100 page graphic novel for the last decade. Now it's back to being magazine-sized single issues)
BOOM's Adventure Time and Steven Universe books (love the animated shows, comics are consistently fun and a great way to sample the work of a wide variety of indie and webcomic talent - from legendary pros to up-and-comers)
Classic Popeye (Popeye comics from the '50s reprinted. Popeye is awesome, and these comics are by Bud Sagendorf, the second greatest Popeye cartoonist of all time - apprentice to the first greatest: creator E.C. Segar)
IDW's Disney Books (Of course I go with Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck, as I'm a big Carl Barks/Don Rosa fan, but I also read Mickey Mouse because the stories are usually by a fantastic Italian writer/cartoonist called Casty, who does wild modern adventure stories with a ton of Golden Age influences).

As for IDW's Godzilla series? I go with what looks interesting. I skipped Oblivion and bought Rage Across Time monthly because it just looked cooler. The rest of my comics buying is tpbs and graphic novels. Notice that a lot of my pull-list has high page counts or supplemental short stories and stuff. Monthly books are pricey, so I gotta feel like they're worth the money.

[lhb412]

Just got back for a convention and my favorite part was the few hours spent perusing the never-ending hall of back issues! As is often the case, the bargain bins were the best: found a few Uncle Scrooge comics from the late '80s (my favorite period, when the first iteration of the Gladstone company was publishing it) and I also came upon this treasure!



It's the second half of a two issue adaptation. Kali's name is even more misspelled inside (as 'Caro'!), and if you thought the griffin wasn't much help in the movie - the comic skips him entirely!

--- edit ---

Went to the local shop seeing if they had part one of Golden Yoyage (Worlds Unknown #7). They did not... but they did have this!



The interior artwork is actually less 'Marvel house-style' (like the cover) and more detailed and closer to the movie's visuals with certain differences: the cyclops is on-model and the dragon is mostly different, the heroes look pretty close to their movie counterparts but Sokurah looks completely different! I mean, movie Sokurah is bald and clean-shaven while in this comic he has a turban, beard, and mustache (like Koura in Golden Voyage). You'll notice that Golden Voyage got two issues while this is done in one: to help compress the story occasionally it turns to prose to cover parts they skip over, with a few paragraphs flanked by drawings storybook style.

[mr.negativity]

Marvel's Newest Event Miniseries Is Pretty Much 'But What if Everyone Was Venom?'

[lhb412]

After reading those Sinbad adaptations from Marvel and looking up a bit about the history of movie adaptation comics it now seems kinda weird that no Godzilla or other kaiju movies were adapted into one-shot or two-parter comics back in the day, as it seems almost every genre film was.

Anyway, I'm now on the lookout for Gold Key's King Kong adaptation from '68!

[Dr Kain]

I finished the second Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus today and except for Mary Jane's horrid hair style they gave her in the last few issues, it was... well amazing. Just like with the first volume, it was a blast to read all of the stories in order and I love how halfway through they became nothing but multi-part adventures. It's a shame this is it until May, but at least I can keep myself occupied with the Roger Stern Omnibus (even though I'm jumping like 150 issues).

Romita's artwork was just outstanding to stare at and I love how colorful he is. His action scenes of top notch too. And then of course the quips Spidey made remained a highlight. Great stuff all around.

[lhb412]

The incomporable Bernie Wrightson has passed away:

http://nerdist.com/rip-bernie-wrightson ... amp-thing/

In addition to being an incredible cartoonist and illustrator, he was by all accounts a real nice guy.

[lhb412]

Woooooweee... I just thumbed through what must have been several hundreds of thousands of comics at a quite bigger than I thought it was gonna be local convention. My fingers ache! Got a bunch of old Uncle Scrooge, Hellboy, and Usagi Yojimbo. Really early Usagi, too: I've now got the first entirely Usagi comic. It's before it became an ongoing series, when Fantagraphics first became the publisher and did a one-shot that compiled all the Usagi short stories that had been published previously in anthologies by another publisher. I've bought my first (classic) Famous Monsters of Filmland. It's from '75 and has Harryhausen's Cyclops as the cover, despite the fact that the cover story is 20 Million Miles to Earth, not 7th Voyage!

[Dr Kain]

This just arrived even though it is Sunday:



Sucks about Wrightson. I was hoping to someday meet him and Len Wein.