Rolling SERIOUS GRAPHIC LITERATURE Thread for Comics in 2016

I presume colouring books are a trend (or a "trend") because they're easy to market and produce and ridicule, and they take up less shelf space than jigsaws and knitting equipment. But I presume they are pretty good therapy for some people.

My sister likes them, finds it calming.

http://www.loiclocatelli.com/pocahontas

I think it's his first work in English. I've liked him for a few years just from his blog and he did say he was getting in English soon.

The Stardust Crusaders phase of Jojo is being reprinted soon. I ended up not reading the reprints of the first two phases ( I read them a decade ago) and if by the time the fourth phase comes along (probably 2018 at the earliest) I'm doubting I'll want to read it. Which is sad because I was desperately praying for it years ago but unless the repetitive story formulas go away I doubt I'll be able to enjoy all the crazy ideas as much as I'd like to.

Looks like Jojo is finally doing quite well. An animated version is on american tv, there's a bunch of videogames, Araki's "How To" book is getting an English release soon.

This cover is quite cool
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/jjba/images/b/be/Volume_108.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130519062516

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/forbidden-books-book-bundle
$15 gets you a lot!

sold!

woah, some really good selections in there. of the top tier i own rebel visions but don't know any of the others -worth getting?

You may have read The Love Bunglers before if you've kept up with the Love & Rockets annuals, but it's one of the most moving arcs in the series.

I've been wanting the Eternaut for a while, too. Although a couple of selections (Sunstone lesbian bondage deviantart nonsense; Bode tattoo book) look like filler.

The Love Bunglers inclusion just makes me feel more guilty that I haven't read anything since the super-giant hardbacks came out several years ago... have to finish the second half of "Collected L&R" before I even hit "New Stories".

love bunglers genuinely tore me up, the apex of that decade long storyline really pays off

Maybe this has been on another thread
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKUBysLg_bK/?taken-by=fantagraphics

a couple of weeks ago my wife asked me what I would do/feel if white supremacists and racist POSs appropriated Lenny the Frog as their icon and I couldn't even simulate it in my mind. I feel bad for matt furie.

I hope that pudding image gets around. I hope someone puts it on tumblr and reblogs the shit out of it.

https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2016/10/MCA-Store-Book-Signing-With-Emil-Ferris

This looks cool, don't know why I hadn't heard about it before.

Pissing image not pudding image.

the proof of the pissing is in the eating

love bunglers genuinely tore me up, the apex of that decade long storyline really pays off

yeah I bumped the L&R thread when I finished it recently, really incredible piece of work by a true master. I genuinely gasped out loud at one point, I can't remember the last time a comic made me do that.

is that storyline collected in one volume?

that "i love monsters" looks great!

a couple of weeks ago my wife asked me what I would do/feel if white supremacists and racist POSs appropriated Lenny the Frog as their icon and I couldn't even simulate it in my mind. I feel bad for matt furie.

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, September 27, 2016 10:24 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is like one of the worst things imo. I was listening to some casual discussion on the radio about the Pepe the Frog phenomenon and I was like, "why don't you maybe interview his creator and demonstrate what a violation something like this is?" Like...there's just no way to combat it. Something he created is being used by awful people for awful purposes and it's completely out of his control.

And, yes, Love Bunglers is available as a collection.

can't they use a nice public domain character like mickey mouse?
:)

I felt bad for Matt Furie (and posted as much), but then I read an interview with him (which I can't find now), where he was like "I don't give a shit, politics is boring" etc., which actually seems pretty characteristic of him. Though it might just be a calculated position in order to not attract the ire of the alt-right

To follow up on the Araki mention last week, Takashi Miike is making a live-action adaptation of "Diamond is Unbreakable," the Twin Peaks-like fourth arc of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's kind of an unlikely choice of projects, but given the example of Gozu, I could see Miike handling the source material's frequent and violent shifts in tone and general batshit atmosphere with verve:

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2016/09/27/jojos-bizarre-adventure-diamond-is-unbreakable-live-action-film-project-officially-confirmed

has anyone on here read The Private Eye? Is it any good?

I wonder how the Jojo film will look. A lot of these adaptations look quite cheap. Maybe they chosen an arc that's easier to film.

Well, the narrative mostly stays within the bounds of one small town, but that arc has a dizzying proliferation of Stands (or superpowers as presented through strange spectral avatars), so it would still pose a number of challenges to film.

Private Eye won't blow your socks off, but it's certainly enjoyable and worth reading. Go into it blind - it's very short and, plot-wise, the less you know, the better.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/oct/03/misty-the-girls-comic-returning-from-the-70s-to-a-new-age-of-children

Shadows on the Grave is an eight-issue mini anthology of bizarre horror stories told in Corben’s signature black-and-white style. Each issue of Shadows on the Grave features four tales of horror, including the ongoing saga of Denaeus, a Greco-Roman-era version of Corben’s Den from Heavy Metal

Starts December.

Wooooo! Looks like I'm gonna get to read Transformers vs. GI Joe.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/transformers-revolution-comic-book-bundle

it's really very good!

I've been wanting to read it for a while, seen a few pages but damn it looks crazy

What's up with IDW and their art book licensing? This Bill Sienkiewicz collection looks good but it's interesting that IDW has publication rights with Marvel branding all over it!

Read the first volume of James Robinson's Scarlet Witch. Not bad, not great, but I like the gimmick so far of having each issue done by a different artist representing the country the story takes place in.

Aja's cover art on Scarlet Witch is what drew me in, and I loved the Marco Rudy art in the second issue. Apparently I've come across his art before in Winter Soldier, but it strangely passed me by at the time. I suppose it's a look more suited to/more impactful in Scarlet Witch, like Emma Rios being a good fit for Doctor Strange. All swirly form-bending mystical type layouts.

But yeah the story itself was 'alright'.

Aja was awesome w/Brubaker & Fraction on the Iron Fist stuff

Wooooo! Looks like I'm gonna get to read Transformers vs. GI Joe.

I have the first 10 issues but couldn't afford to keep up much to my dismay. It is my favorite comic of recent years, no contest. looking forward to finally finishing the whole thing, the last issue looked insane.

My friend (whose Transformers hobby I've mentioned before) is heading to a convention again this month. I tagged along once and it was entertaining but definitely not my thing (although negotiating deals when he was away from his booth for hundreds of dollars worth of toys was something), but it looks like Bob Budiansky is a guest at the con this year. Kind of tempted to show up to see if I could get some Sleepwalker comics signed or something similarly silly.

Read the first Ariel Schrag collections, Awkward and Definition. The first book, done when she was 15, was honestly pretty hard to get through - like crudely drawn diary entries you'd expect from a teenage girl (I feel like a dick saying that). The second one was a massive improvement and it's awesome to see her storytelling and drawing skills improve in something like real-time, and I'm very interested to see how she progressed.

Knocked out King/Bagenda's The Omega Men. Never read anything by King, this was really good. Ostensibly a Green Lantern story, but Rayner had a small part - instead it was an well-crafted, interesting, extremely violent and morally grim Star Wars.

I haven't read Omega Men yet, but King's The Vision is just devastating.

Awkward and Definition. The first book, done when she was 15, was honestly pretty hard to get through ... very interested to see how she progressed.

Awkward does indeed look exactly like a 15-year old girl drew it - I'm sure it was perfectly suited as a folded-page minicomic, but it made sense for Slave Labor to do the reprint at magazine size so it could be racked with Definition.

Potential continues to show the same progress in her ability, only even more so - there are parts where she's having to tell the story in a style she's moved past, just for consistency; and there are sequences done in a far more accomplished style. I only read it in collection, and wondered if she'd actually completed the entire book before the first issue came out, so she could go back and work the fancier segements into the whole once her skill had developed.

Likewise I found frustrating, though - felt like she was trying to level up again, in a way which the content and her experience didn't warrant, and her skill now didn't meet.

hard to get through

that said, it's only, what, 40pp? 48?

just bought the first volume of shiga's DEMON, kinda excited to have a go at it

Recent roundup:
the gendy CAGE! is pretty lame in the final analysis but maybe a bit less racist than the promo art suggested
James Bond continues to be a fun read and easy to enter for anyone who'd like to jump in
the art for He-Man vs Thundercats is just spectacular; in a different (euro)style but the same auteuristic bent as GI Joe vs Transformers
Spidey is good fun in the Ultimate Bendis style; this Nathan Stockman guy looks like what happens when art adams meets manga
Paper Girls appears to have spun out of control at issue 8; I'm at a loss as to what the hell's going on
Langridge's Betty Boop (from Dynamite, natch) is excellent... reminds me of Neil the Horse

Based on the first issue, it looks like Gerard Way might actually do Doom Patrol justice. Suitably weird as fuck. I also have the second issue and the first issue of Shade the Changing Girl (featuring a backup strip by Beto Hernandez and his daughter!) awaiting me at home so I'll keep y'all abreast on how this Young Animal thing is going.

I had no idea Langridge was doing Betty Boop now! Have to check that out.

Paper Girls appears to have spun out of control at issue 8; I'm at a loss as to what the hell's going on

I've only read through the first trade; I can respect BKV's attempt to keep shifting the apparent stakes of the plot, but the characterization so far feels too sketchy to make me care about what is happening or why.

just bought the first volume of shiga's DEMON, kinda excited to have a go at it

Demon is amazing, you're going to be tortured knowing you have to wait for First Second's whim to get the next chunk

sic otm, Demon is spectacular. Everybody go buy it right now.