The Comic Book Thread

[MekaGojira3k]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

Well there's no Doctor Dinosaur in the third, though it IS a great story.

[lhb412]

^Ugh, in the last few hours I've read the free comics on the Atomic Robo site and they're soooo good.

Add to my pull-list or trade wait? Hmmm...

----

Trade wait. It comes out often enough and my pull-list has swelled to unprecedented proportions of like $27 per-month.

... yeah, I'm a lightweight.

[mr.negativity]

From BC:

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

Apparently IDW has a habit of doing ongoing monthly series of reprint material. They do it for old Doctor Who comics and colorized issues of '80s TMNT comics.

Now, you guys know how much I love Popeye, right? In IDW's August lineup there is, in addition to issue #4 of their Popeye ongoing, a listing for "Classic Popeye Ongoing #1."

and then my brain exploded.

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

I just picked up some Essential Marvel volumes at the used bookstore: Fantastic Four (vol. 4) and Spidey (vol. 4 & 5). The block of pages for both Spidey volumes immediately detached from the cardstock cover. Anyone know of a good book adhesive?

Also: holy hell, every Jack Kirby page looks like an explosion.



Right now I'm reading the classic indie comic Love and Rockets. The title is actually a kind of anthology for the work of two brothers: Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez. Both have their respective series and characters, and L&R is just the umbrella term. Gilbert does stories revolving around a Mexican village called Palomar (and later on characters who leave Palomar) and Jamie's stories revolve around Maggie and Hopey and theer group of punk friends in California.

I got the first Gilbert tpb and the second Jamie one and am reading them concurrently (one Gilbert story, one Jamie story, ect.). Both brothers excel in a kind of slice-of-life storytelling, capturing little moments between people. Often, whatever actual story there is takes a back seat to the character interaction. Jamie's stuff seems more placed in reality (though not always, apparently), while Gilbert's world is a place slightly removed from reality where fantastical things are seeping in just out of view.

Gilbert's stuff seems to be the most immediately impressive, what with this entire fully-realized little world he's created, but Jamie's characters are more immediately likable. Both seem great so far.

[kiryugoji04]

[lhb412]

^Which art style? Gilbert and Jamie both have very different styles.

Anyway, I just read Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness. It is, as Bender would say, fun on a bun. It's definitely in the Hellboy/Goon wheelhouse of "blue collar monster fighter," but much lighter and with sci-fi instead of horror.

Dr. Dinosaur controls both the ebb and the flow.

[mr.negativity]

[MekaGojira3k]

[mr.negativity]

[king_ghidorah]

Just read the first volume of Atomic Robo and it was excellent. Props to Jared for the reccomendation

[mr.negativity]

From CA:

[lhb412]

Hellboy returned last week in your local comic shop. It wasn't exactly a "Hellboy" comic, but BPRD: The Transformation of J.H. O'Donnell is a wonderfully creepy flashback one-shot that shows just what happened to Prof. O'Donnell, an established BPRD side character, that drove him mad and filled up his brain with so much knowledge of the Lovecraftian beasties that hang over the Mignolaverse. As it turns out, the professor was on a seemingly mundane investigation with Helboy to hunt down some rare occult books. Naturally, things go very wrong and Hellboy fights a minotaur mummy and lots of other creepy stuff happens.

It was a great issue, and I think a great intro to the Mignolaverse for a newbie because it doesn't really require prior knowledge of either BPRD or Hellboy, but serves as an example of both - like a BPRD and Hellboy story going on at the same time.

The latest issue of Dark Horse Presents (#12) was really good. There was a great chapter of Finder in it, and revivals of two '80s indie comic series: Mr. X and Nexus. Nexus, which features the original writer/artist team, was especially neat. I may have to check out the reprints of the original series. Also, Evan Dorkin continues his regular contributions to the anthology with a particularly eviscerating dissection of nerd culture with a Eltingville Club installment. I love Dorkin's Beasts of Burden series, but find the pitch black humor of most of his stuff totally depressing.

Speaking of the Beasts of Burden, here's an awesome commercial advertising the series is France:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... TiE_ceQOx8

[lhb412]

Neato.

http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/20 ... on-coming/

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, now in paperback! I've been wanting this for years, but the price of the hardcovers, the fact that they're so damn heavy, as well as complaints about the binding, had me hold off. I've had the entire series in various collections since I was 10 years old... but those Sunday strips from Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Snow Goons were never printed in color! And I never got the first omnibus, only the original two paperbacks, so I'm also missing the first two years of Sundays in color!

Yeah, I'm rationalizing, but I don't care! I want this!

[The Shadow]

The binding issue is part of what caused me to hold off on buying the Complete Calvin & Hobbes. I've bought all the other releases over the years, but I've wanted to get the complete release as well.

With the complete collection out in paperback I guess I'll be actively considering it again, though it would have been nice to get it in hardback.

[lhb412]

^I like how they've split it up into four volumes instead of three - which is of course much better for the binding (the hardcover basically used paperback style binding for such gigantic, oversized books) in this new release. That means these new books will be only moderately larger in page count then the omnibuses ("The Essential," "The Authoritative," ect.).

[The Real McCoy]

I bought mine used, and I haven't had any issues with the binding yet. As for the size and weight, I feel the pain. I expressed interest in a bookshelf to my Grandma, so I could get the darn thing off my dresser. She had one stored away that she wanted to get rid of, and they won't fit! I'm not going to buy another bookshelf, but the point is yes, they are a tad bit over-sized.

[MekaGojira3k]

[MekaGojira3k]