Rolling SERIOUS GRAPHIC LITERATURE Thread for Comics in 2016

Looks like Comixology/Amazon now has an unlimited subscription plan thing, with a handful of publishers contributing content.

The browsing is kind of half-assed on the web, which is true of most of the unlimited services (I've used Marvel Unlimited and some other service, maybe Scribd, for reading Valiant titles). It looks like some titles from Image/IDW/Valiant/Dark Horse/Fantagraphics (!)/Boom! Studios are on there now.

among other publishers, which I failed to notice on the first screen

on another note, going back to the conversation about the state of comic book retailers...

I had some errands to run near a comic/game store I don't usually frequent. Their comics section isn't bad these days! I have no idea why, but they decided to run with the business decision of stocking as many collections and graphic novels as possible, which is great. Unfortunately, when I got to the cash register, a gamer dude was breathlessly pontificating at the cashier about the balance of some game or another pending some new expansion. HE SMELLED SO BAD. Like, I usually brush off the stereotype of gamers as really awkward dudes who smell bad but GOOD GOD MAN

Probably v slow on the uptake here, but recently discovered the great comics of Kate Beaton, many of which are free to read here:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php

i am off to look into that comixology subscription, would love a better option than torrenting for casual reading

I've read many entertaining anecdotes about bad comic shop experiences. Often about shop workers insulting customers.

Here's a favourite I remember

Customer: Do you have any Creepy issues from Warren?
Comic Store Guy: Creepy is from Dark Horse, idiot!

Any of you guys have any memorably bad experiences?

While the range of titles is deep, however, the amount you can read from each title is relatively thin. Many comics are limited to just the first volume. Anything beyond that, well, you can pick up the collections from Comixology.

Apparently the service plans to cycle through the content being offered, much like Netflix does, with new and old series and issues being added but with no specific window announced yet.

Jesus christ, the idea of a digital comic service that's run like Netflix makes me want to die. Read issues 1-5, 7, 15, and 32 this month and then maybe two months from now they'll swap those out with like half the issues that were missing.

lol that's how i read elf quest as a kid - i went to the library and took out whichever of those oversized hard covers they had available. iirc i read the last volume first and had no idea who any of the characters were.

for $6 a month you can read the first twenty pages and then random chapters in all our novels! how can you lose!

honestly that's how pretty much all of the subscription ones are run right now afaik, with Marvel being the one that seems to delete few while continually adding more

I would love, and probably pay extra for, a service that was just "here's every available comic we're able to offer from this publisher" for a premium price, with the acknowledgement that people are going to subscribe for a couple months to binge everything from several series. But that doesn't keep people hanging on to their subscriptions. It looks like their compromise is a scattering of content for $6 per month. Which is a nice deal, but it's obviously meant as a taster to get you to buy more titles.

Marvel Unlimited seems to do pretty well with keeping the titles they have; never seen them remove much?

they usually only do it when they really screwed up their initial upload

like the ones where the exposition dialog boxes were in a different font and their digital comic creation process resulted in them just being ??? ????? ???

I have still seen a couple of those panels, though

oh yeah, i remember that being particularly bad with the avengers

I subscribed to Unlimited for about 18 months - it's terrific but the lo-res scan quality started to bug me, so I quit and I've mostly just been buying off the main app now, where everything's super high quality and (apologies) I genuinely enjoy reading via the panel-to-panel thing.

http://muthamagazine.com/2016/05/grief-struck-an-interview-with-tom-hart-on-rosalie-lightning/

MU is a fantastic value, had to drop it to cut stupid expenses. Might be best to subscribe once a year or something and catch up in a month on everything you missed.

Used it on desktop so I didn't really have the low-res scan problem, is that a mobile issue?

just read the 12 issue Omega Men series by Tom King; that's some great comics! I feel like it came up in the DC thread but highly recommended!

Tom King almost single-handedly keeping me reading the big two.

oh yeah; he's the vision guy too right? Both of those as good as any hero books I've read in a decade.
Anybody wanna rep Grayson?

not a clue. Concept sounded cheesy.

will report back.

i am just lovin the vision comic, didn't realise he had done so much else

Omega Men turned out great despite being cancelled (twice?) during its short tenure and the length changed at least once.

Grayson was never as good as it thought it was, however, if you stopped thinking of it as a spy book and more as a commentary on the male gaze and sexism in comics then it turns out just fine.

a bizarre recommendation! I am curious!

Been working my way through The Metabarons. Probably my favorite of the Jodorowsky collections so far. The story feels a lot more coherent and emotional than a lot of the others.

Basically where I'm coming with that comment on Grayson; the Spyral stuff is fine and functional, and it's actually a very good Huntress, but the fun comes from the fairly subtle homoeroticism between Dick and his partner(s) and the way that every time Dick does something athletic (particularly at the school) there are women staring at his butt and talking about what they'd do to it. Plus it was generally quite funny and for a DC book the art wasn't awful.

All of which made it a real counterpoint to the Women In Refrigerator and Brokeback stuff elsewhere.

Hey Ulysses, I finally got around to reading Leo's Aldebaran, as mentioned above, and you're correct, it's super good.

I especially like how the lead guy (I'm on book 2) keeps getting called out for his shitty attitude - refreshing.

Ulysess isn't the only one who likes those Leo books, I've repping them on ILC years! But obviously it doesn't matter who told you about Aldebaran, it's always nice when new people discover them. :)

I'd totally forgotten there even was a "lead guy" in those initial books... You'll eventually find out who the real protagonist of the entire series is.

"I've been repping"

Anyway, IMO the Aldebaran series is the best sci-fi comic to have come out in many, many years. (And probably the second best long-running Euro sci-fi series in general, with only Valerian & Laureline surpassing it.) The sense of wonder you get from Leo's depiction of all those weird fauna and flora of other planets is really unique! And I think it helps that he has a fairly stiff and realistic art style; that combined with the way he tries to make all those creatures feel at least somewhat plausible and functional makes the comic feel less like outlandish fiction and more like some kind of otherworldly illustrated biology textbook, or a bestiary.

Sorry Tuomas!

Yeah the art is great - kind of reminds me of a Steve Dillon who can draw more than one face. The stiffness suits the story - I can see a similar version of this with better, more psychedelic art, that would be less fun to read.

I'm not super familiar with sci fi comics or books but the narrative approach - sort of feminist, young adult take on a "boy's own" narrative - and the episodic/unpredictable storyline all seem quite refreshing and original. It's so rare to pick something up and think "I haven't read a comic like this before".

I've read a bunch of (European and American) sci-if comics, and I still feel Aldebaran is fairly unique. It's kinda weird, considering that comics are a visual medium that allows you imagine other worlds any way you want to, without being limited by budget and commerciality the way movie and TV sci-fi is, there are suprisingly few comics that would try to imagine non-Earth planets in a way that is totally weird and alien to us, but still logical and functional within its own context. Valerian & Laureline is the obvious predecessor here, but that comic is much more cartoony than Aldebaran, so it doesn't really have the same uncanny valley/alienation effect Leo's art has.

And yeah, the feminist approach is surprisingly fresh, especially considering that Leo is a guy born in 1944.

Ok, must seek out aldebaran. Almost every scifi comic, especially if superhero, has staggeringly banal ideas about alien life and environments.

IMO (though Ulysess and Chuck might disagree?) that really is the strongest part of the series, and what makes it so compelling. Some other elements in it, particularly the dialogue, are kinda weak, but those freaky biologicial visions make up for such flaws.

Also, do note that the actual series called Aldebran is just the first of a larger, multi-series work called "Worlds of Aldebaran". My favourite one of those is the second series, Betelgeuse.

Almost every scifi comic, especially if superhero, has staggeringly banal ideas about alien life and environments.

You probably already know, but Brandon Graham's Prophet is really really great for this.

*waits for sic to show up and post "Rob Liefeld's Prophet" as a corrective

I strongly doubt that Rob Liefeld's Prophet did the interesting things with alien lifecycles and cultures that Graham's does

oh you

otm though

Clearly, all of Liefeld's aliens would be variations on marsupials.

Think about it.

https://img1.etsystatic.com/029/1/7211752/il_340x270.586998129_gb5u.jpg

Leo's book are excellent, glad you found them! I think a comparison to Graham's Prophet isn't completely off the mark.

Grayson was decent post-Ellis cloak and dagger stuff; the male gaze being flipped is a nice touch. The standout was an issue where each page is it's own miniature story with the page after taking place in the past and furthering the story... going back to the moment when The Flying Graysons death is being plotted. Bravura work there.

Better yet is 'Sheriff of Babylon' currently running with Image. It's great and dense and barely begun.

http://comicsalliance.com/tom-king-mitch-gerads-sheriff-of-babylon/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/30/mike-mignola-final-hellboy-comic-paint-watercolors

Didn't realise Hellboy was ending. Seems like a recent choice.

Probably statng the obvious here but WicDiv is on a bloody roll at the moment.

Also, just finished BETELGEUSE. So much fun. Even my partner, not a regular comic reader, binged the whole series with me.

Hah, this was the first WicDiv that had me rolling my eyes.

I haven't gotten into that series yet, I guess maybe I should?

I've been reading Saga and Lazarus in trades. Both seem a little meandery at the moment but I'm still in.

As far as serious comics lit goes, I browsed for a loooong time at the Drawn & Quarterly store and have a lot of ideas of stuff to pick up, but bought precious little since I'm traveling light and some of the books I wanted were quite large