Rolling SERIOUS GRAPHIC LITERATURE Thread for Comics in 2016

been reading stuff on comixology unlimited, really enjoyed Chew and Fuse!

Forgot about Uber, too - just put vols. 3 - 5 on library hold.

Chew's a fun book. Going through library trades on that. Would've loved to see that TV series adaptation happen starring Miles from Lost

http://www.tcj.com/interview-with-jason-shiga/

While I’m in Angoulême I’m going to work on my most ambitious project to date. It will be another choose-your-own-adventure comic, like Meanwhile, except that Meanwhile was only seventy pages, whereas this one is going to be five hundred pages. It’s going to be split into two books, and the two books will be joined together along a third spine. The pages of the book will be facing each other so that you can essentially open the book from the middle. It’ll use the same tab system that Meanwhile uses, except that in addition to tubes taking you to different pages, that is, different tabbed pages within one book, tubes will also cross the middle spine into the second book. The most exciting part is that when you’re reading one book, the pages in the book that you’re not reading can basically store states, meaning you could be reading the same panel in one book, but depending on the page that the other book is flipped to in the book that you’re not reading, the next panel in the sequence could be totally different. The long and short of it is the book you’re not reading will be able to store memory, almost like a computer. The story that you are reading will be able to access the memory in the other book and feed you sequences of panels depending on what’s in the memory.

That's nuts, would love to see how it all works

he admits it might be unpublishable at the end of the interview

liked the shiga interview

second issue of coates' black panther is pretty dire.

Agreed. It's a bit boring, isn't it? There's potential though.

the dialogue is clunky, the pacing is bad. it's just not good comics; there's a connection lacking between story and image.
http://i.imgur.com/4g70hi6.png
http://i.imgur.com/6kObvOW.png
http://i.imgur.com/ZXs4ilh.png
i said it already: it's a fool's game to try to judge a story by the first two paragraphs. but this is not encouraging.

lol at how reflective everything is

It reads like the comic book adaptation of a novelisation of a TV show. There's too much plot, too early - only two issues and it already feels portentous and grand statement-y, without a single non-cipher character. Perhaps he would have been better of starting with a rinkydink 4-parter. Perhaps he should've been paired with a reliable old hack like Priest or DeMatteis or Simone to make it more "comic-y". But (on Twitter at least) he claims to be getting better, and it's stil curious enough to that I'd give him 2-3 more issues. It's not Kevin Smith.

i'll certainly give him room to figure it out; he's a bright guy and a comic nerd so there's that
but yeah, he seems unclear about how the medium works.

Smith's first two or three comics were good, though you could see a huge disparity between the first being drawn by a great, multidisciplined cartoonist, and the next couple by a ...less-skilled self-promoter.

The Jay & Silent Bob mini was really good, and a strong case for Fegredo working in b&w more often. But then he just started writing bad superhero comics with hundreds of word balloons.

he's a bright guy and a comic nerd so there's that

I think the problem with him vs how the medium works is that he isn't a comic nerd; he's someone who read superheroes as a kid and has never thought about the medium per se

maybe. he's written a few pieces ABOUT comics but they're mostly about story and not medium.
http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/ta-nehisi-coates-superhero-comics.html
^ this suggests he reads adults as an adult btw

That explicitly says that he thinks of comics as only being superheroes, and only from Marvel & DC.

"Adults as an adult" = "Comics as an adult" natch

I got that; but he literally only reads the kind of comics he read as a kid, and mostly in search of the same experience he got as a kid.

Because you’re somebody who publicly talks about how much you love comics, people come to you and say, “Where should I start?” What do you usually tell them?

Lately, I’ve been telling people that Iron Man run during “Dark Reign.” [Iron Man] has to slowly erase his brain. That’s such a mind-fuck. It’s great for anybody. “Kraven’s Last Hunt,”  if [the reader is] old enough. These are just really good, well-told stories.

There are only two good places to start reading comics, but you have to be old enough to handle the Spider-Man one.

I do kind of genuinely love when some well-respected, prominent thinker is asked about, say, their favorite music and it's just some total junk that clearly indicates the minimal role that music plays in their life and their thinking. Except that that isn't usually followed up by the person in question recording an album.

Dunno, though, I still haven't read the Coates Panther so I can't make an assessment myself.

I hate people conflating "comics" with "superhero comics" as much as any lover of the medium, but Coates isn't wrong in that the Dark Reign Iron Man run and Kraven's Last Hunt are both excellent comics within the superhero genre. Whether they're good starting points is another question, IMO both of those stories depend way to much on earlier stories to make sense. Fraction's run is essentially a corrective to how Civil War ruined Iron Man, and it doesn't make much sense if you haven't read Civil War before it... And KLH requires you to know who Kraven is and where Peter and Mary Jane's relationship is at that point for its punches to really hit, though I guess most of that can be deduced from the story itself.

Yeah, I didn't mean to indicate that those particular stories were junk. Although they are peculiar choices as entry-level suggestions.

Ehh, I think both are pretty simple for new readers. With Iron Man it's just, "The Government is bad now and it's after me!" and with Spider-Man it's "Didya know I wear black now?"

I remember looking at a friend's Kraven's Last Hunt issues at school (I was probably 9?) and thinking it looked so fucking cool compared to the TV cartoons.

I don't think there's any doubt from reading TNC's Twitter/Blogs that he isn't a supreme Marvel nerd. Seem to remember him praising some dubiously "edgy" stuff like Azzarello (or someone like that), but, hey, taste is taste.

Ehh, I think both are pretty simple for new readers. With Iron Man it's just, "The Government is bad now and it's after me!" and with Spider-Man it's "Didya know I wear black now?"

These are being suggested for people who have never read a comic before, regardless of their taste. Not for "an introduction to the Marvel universe."

But be careful: once you've read Iron Man Deletes His Brain, then gone on to Rory Hayes and Josh Simmons and From Hell and Epileptic and Diary Of A Teenage Girl and Uncle Bob's Midlife Crisis and Bottomless Bellybutton and Weasel and Psychiatric Tales and Druuna and Kampung Boy and Nicky Minus, you've gotta be careful that you're old enough to read Spider-Man Fistfights A Guy In Leopardskin Underpants!

Kraven The Punter

Kraven is bascially a 1980s action movie. If you're an adult, you'd probably think "eh, this isn't for kids". If you're ten years old, you'd probably think "This was made FOR ME". Both opinions are correct!

We know a 12-yr-old who loves Ms Marvel and From Hell (!) - she is super discerning but the high/low divide between the two isn't a concern for her.

I mean, From Hell is a high-minded historical extrapolation of a real slasher mystery. Looking down on people who love slasher films and clutching your thick black and white comic with copious footnotes is a bad look imo.

We know a 12-yr-old who loves Ms Marvel and From Hell (!) - she is super discerning but the high/low divide between the two isn't a concern for her.

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, June 27, 2016 9:34 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Twelve-year-olds done right! High/low divide is a mirage and a distraction.

On a related note, I read a couple Ed Brubaker series over the weekend that were on that comixology unlimited business. No batpeople, but pretty similar in tone!

I nearly forgot to post about this: A couple weeks ago when I was in Toronto, I overheard a couple guys talking about comics. One was telling his friend, "Yeah, before he wrote those comics for Marvel, he used to do these super-gritty underground crime comics!"

It took me a minute and a couple more details to realize they were talking about Bendis. I giggled.

I posted it in the horror comics thread that hasn't seen a new post in three years, but there's a complete collection of the Pat Mills Misty stories solicited for September. Also the first of the Dark Horse Moebius collections is coming in August, I believe.

Dark Horse Moebius collections

!

those are straight reprints of the Epic editions or...?

Oh, speaking of fancy Euro scifi comics, I finished ANTARES, the third of the Worlds of Aldebaraan series - loved the first two, this one was kind of a drag.

yeah, it sorta spun out to nowhere but a good lead in for NEXT TIME IN SEXY FEMINIST FIRST CONTACT FUTURE STORIES

Dark Horse is proud to announce that the library of Mœbius, one of the most influential and respected artists in the history of comics and cartooning, will arrive on store shelves in a gorgeous series of hardcover volumes available for the first time in nearly 20 years.

With a vast array of work showcasing his mastery of realist drawing, Jean Giraud—better known as Mœbius—is one of the most influential bandes dessinées cartoonists in history, with work that helped to define the landscape of science fiction and fantasy comics. His expertise was also showcased on work in film, with credits including Alien, Tron, The Fifth Element and more.

“As a true visionary in the comics medium, it is a pleasure to once again publish collections of Mœbius’ work,” said Dark Horse president and publisher Mike Richardson. “His influence on contemporary comics is undeniable, and it’s a true honor to be working with Isabelle Giraud, his wife and partner, to help ensure that his legacy will continue to live on for a new generation of readers.”

More information on The Mœbius Library will be available soon.

First volume, World of Edena, available in (sorry) November:

Working closely with Moebius Productions in France, Dark Horse is putting the work of a master storyteller back in print--with some material in English for the first time!

Stel and Atan are interstellar investigators trying to find a lost space station and its crew. When they discover the mythical paradise planet Edena, their lives are changed forever. The long out-of-print Edena Cycle from Moebius gets a deluxe hardcover treatment! Moebius's World of Edena story arc is comprised of five chapters--Upon a Star, Gardens of Edena, The Goddess, Stel, and Sra--which are all collected here.

if they reprint the Airtight Garage stuff that I somehow have still never set my hands on, I'm going to be happy

NEXT TIME IN SEXY FEMINIST FIRST CONTACT FUTURE STORIES

All the sexy boob stuff kind of made me wince, but my partner, who has a doctorate in feminist history, said she found it fun and super sex-positive, so I guess it's fine!

https://www.gofundme.com/2azb8mk

A “comixcast” is a live feed of political comics and YouTube videos, in this case live from the Republican National Convention here in Cleveland by people who detest everything Donald Trump stands for. Yup, activists with pens and brushes mightier than his decayed sound bites.
I’m Joyce Brabner. I am Harvey Pekar's widow (American Splendor), but also someone who pioneered the whole comics as journalism thing. My first comic book was hauled into Federal Court in Atlanta because the Dept. of Defense thought it was a threat to national security. We won then and we’ll win here.
For this project, I work like Harvey did, and my own illustrator is a Muslim woman living in Albania named Gerta Oparaku, who would like to come live here with her sister, who is a citizen. Confirmed as I post now are Jennifer Camper, Junco Canche, Tim Fielder, Ted Rall, Paul Mavrides, Tony Puryear, Vishavjit Singh, Seth Tobacman and Mark Zingarelli-- with other names to be announced in the next few days.

https://www.comicblitz.com/
^ another all you can eat streaming comics service. $10 a month is reasonable if you got something decent attached but sadly they're limited by the participating publishers. Dynamite and Valiant are about as prominent as it gets.

apart from that being less prominent than Dynamite or Valiant doesn't mean you're unworthy of reading, as those two are turd factories, I'd say Abrams is more prominent

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155068960767178&set=a.54015427177.78958.539812177&type=3

Al Davison's recent encounter with bigots after the referendum. He did The Spiral Cage but I'm not otherwise familiar.

He has spina bifida. People are horrifying and vile.

I learned about him in Talbot's Naked Comic Book Artist and I read Spiral Cage after that.

xp Abrams is a red herring; their selection is limited to 11 books and only five of those are actually comics!
several of valiant's current relaunch series aren't half bad for capes and tights books and dynamite has a (very) few things to recommend it: the new Ellis Bond book, Bob's Burgers, Kirby Genesis (kinda?)... but yeah, as I was implying, this does not a usable service make

I think I've threatened to make a Valiant thread, but I have no impulse to read the 90s stuff and have fallen behind on the newer ones

Following this 4001AD crossover thing, though

I got my new Saga tpb in the mail the other day. It's as if Brian K. Vaughan heard all my particular concerns and moved the story in that direction! Still loving that little seal dude.

Create a Marc Bell mural in the Macdonell St Parking Lot