The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

Also the Joker character talk above is reminding me that I actually liked Sam Kieth's Batman/Joker mini from this year a lot.

Same trade that has RH/Jason Todd telling the Joker his madness is overstated to insulate himself from his crimes.

ihttp://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=48250&zoom=4

(184 points)

http://www.philosophiste.com/images/cerebus_gold.jpg

Cerebus seems to work as a short furry Alexander the Great in his book's plot, cutting Gordian Knots in any of the complicated and delicate situtation he barges into. Seeing how he resists all attempts to take the action to a higher metaphysical level, and how far he can avoid this, is one of the main motors of the book.

Cerebus is an anchor. The epic scope and cosmic inclinations of Sim's storytelling could have gotten tiresome much sooner than they did without the earth-pig born there to provide his own brand of unique rugged pragmatism. Cerebus can be awed, it's true, he can be phased and devastated: but before long, he'll have taken the new facts, no matter how mind boggling, into consideration and determined how and if they can be used for his own ends – which almost invariably consist of battle, wealth and ale (what happens when they cannot be used for such purposes, and as such are irrelevant and/or bothersome to Cerebus, accounts for a great deal of the comic's best humor.) There is a Cerebus quote to go with every state of drunkenness – "Cerebus would kill a yak for you!" has even served me well in times of heartbroken inebriation. (Daniel Reifferscheid)

Best Moment - Throwing the baby (which was stolen from a Giles cartoon in the Daily Express) (David Simpson)

Anyway, I can read stuff that I don't agree with, I've read a lot of Miller for example (and I like some of his stuff regardless of his opinions). Still, I can't see why objectionable views couldn't be a perfectly valid reason for shying away from a certain piece of art. There's enough stuff to read anyway, you gotta choose on some basis.

qft

Still, Tuomas, since you're so politically involved, you might want to try giving "High Society" a go.

The High Society recommendation works well, because you don't really need to read the first volume and High Society comes next. I think you'd like Church & State, Jaka's Story, the Mothers & Daughters books and Guys a whole lot.

And yes, I've just spotted the irony here that we're all trying to encourage Tuomas to read an indie book here.

xpost- Jaka's Story and Melmoth and Going Home have written sections as well!

But yes, basically, you have a few thousand pages before you get to all-text, and many of them are fantastic.

Then, if you pick up High Society, you're going to want to read the rest anyway -- though I'd quit after "Melmoth" and maybe pickup "Guys."

I think Mothers & Daughters is excellent if you skip the text sections in Reads. Guys is way too long and self indulgent. Some good gags, some interesting stuff with Joanna at the very end, that great bit where he punches himself in the face, that's about it.

Actually High Society has a couple of tiny text bits too: the rules for Diamondback and some of Suenteus Po's book on "The Six Crises." But they shouldn't interfere with your reading pleasure.

I'd actually _rather_ read good art that's opposed to my politics than good art that's in concord with my politics, which was kind of the point of that long article about Cerebus I wrote a while ago.

I don't remember your article well enough - maybe you said that.

Not much actual discussion of Cerebus the character here. Is it possible to divorce him from Cerebus the comic drawn by crazy person Dave Sim?

I thought Reads was a bunch of shit and Minds was a Howard the Duck rip.

http://www.geocities.com/marvel_villain/galactus/galactus_watcher.jpg

(185 points)

The finest product of Jack Kirby's fevered imagination, Galactus wasn't a villain at all – in fact, he doesn't behave any worse than the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who would have thought nothing of
annihilating humanity if it were required to keep himself afloat. Galactus is above morality; when the Fantastic Four set out to stop him, they're not doing anything so petty as battling evil, but fighting for self-preservation, just as he is. And it's all brought
to life in Kirby's breathtaking art; if Winsor McCay was the master of larger-than-life landscapes, Kirby was the master of overscaled action. (Justyn Dillingham)

He's a HUGE GUY with a SILLY HELMET and he EATS PLANETS! Plus he has a NAKED GUY ON A SURFBOARD as a herald. One hell of a crowd-pleaser when you're drunkenly telling your non-initiated friends about comic book lore (Daniel Reifferscheid)

Greatest moment: His first appearance. Nobody knew how far Stan and Jack could and would go - UNTIL GALACTUS. (Vic Fluro)

I remember reading some story where Galactus was revealed to be Reed Richard's son... What the hell was that?