2012 what are you reading thread

i think most 'general' readers would be hard pressed to distinguish, from pictures alone, a page of donald drawn by barks from a contemporaneous page not drawn by barks.

wow, really can't disagree enough here.

Yeah. Ward, I'm not sure if you know this, but back in the day Disney comic artists were anonymous (the only credit the comics had was a signature of Walt Disney), and the only reason Barks become famous in the first place was because readers started to recognize his work regardless of the anonymity, which lead to some fans tracking down the "good Duck artist".

ward, past conversations on here suggest that you're really super astute as regards comix but I'm wondering how much disney reading you do? Like are you into rosa or murray or gottfredson or jippes or any of the top tier guys?

EZ, I've never been able to read GODLAND as every time I looked at, I just got angrier and angrier. Does it actually do anything other than riff off Kirby?

GODLAND starts with Kirby, obviously, and the art doesn't really push past Kirby cosmic (though Scioli does discover his own bent on it as the series progressed); however, Casey is doing some sort of weird metaphysical Hunter Thompson thing with the scripting and stories that consistently has me doing double takes, laughing out loud, and re-reading pages in a desperate attempt to figure out what the hell is going on. Easily my favorite comic of the recent past.

But I completely understand if you can't get past the Kirby pastiche & homage part of the enterprise. It's pivotal to the whole thing but it's put off a bunch of people I know and respect.

Don't look at Godland as a Kirby ripoff, it's turning what Kirby does into it's own genre. That said, it's also about the big cosmic kind of comics that Steranko and later Jim Starlin did.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQfeVLnZ9do/Tu_FXOEiJnI/AAAAAAAALxc/4X0FsaxvhrQ/s1600/INT_Godland_2.jpeg

If anything, I think the big two need to channel MORE Kirby and get rid of all of this sad sack aping TV scripting B.S.

that art makes it look like a pretty faithful rip tbf

I wouldn't say it is more druggy read, as Jack's stuff is plenty trippy, but Godland is more than just a homage.

Either way, it's not like the King is making new comics.

I'd figure fans of Morrison's more trippy super hero stuff would like Godland, as it is in the same vein (although with an artist that is definitely channeling the King).

Scoli is at least as good if not better than Howard Porter.

Then again, I am a big Joe Casey fan. That guy is way better than most of these dolts doing super hero comics and for some reason never caught on as a popular writer at the big two.

I'm starting into Christopher Priest's take on Black Panther and She-Hulk by Dan Slott. Those are some fun comics at least so far. I read the first 12 issue run by Slott on She-Hulk and it is great, one of the most enjoyable super hero runs I have read in a while.

Certainly in total agreement as to channeling more of the crazy creativity of The King, but not his style necessarily (not that you were.) I just wish both the writing and the art hadn't hammered on that point repeatedly in the first arc that I read. Perhaps I'll give it another try, but I may just be predisposed to be irritated by Mr. Scioli's art (his AMERICAN BARBARIAN makes me want to tear my hair out -- THUNDARR wasn't The King's finest moment, yet even that is being mined.)

aww the post-madbomb issues of captain america featuring THE SWINE are amongst my all-time favourite kirby komiks - this sequence, where the swine overfeeds a starving prisoner, has stuck in my mind for thirty years (nice giacoia inking, too)!

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Captain_America206-05.jpg

^sorry if that's huge!

oh and thank you tuomas, but yes i did know about the anonymity of disney cartoonists and barks' reputation as 'the good duck artist' - but, as you say, that was a title bestowed by a small group of american comic book fans (some of whom, like mike barrier, were also experts on animation) who, I would argue, were eager to construct (or, more charitably, 'discover') a heroic individualist auteur working deep within the the disney machine.

forks, i have to confess that american funny animal comics are not my 'specialist subject' but i've nothing against them, especially - just give me King Leonardo and his Short Subjects over Donald bloody Duck any day!

someone explain to me why I keep expecting Ulitmate X-Men to get better

I mean, the most recent issue was actually kind of interesting but not interesting enough to justify the three issues before it

In other news, X-Factor remains awesome

Ward, some of this is likely narcissism of childhood preferences but I will ride or die for Barks 4eva

forks did you ever get those issues of Fukitor...?

x-post

as on old british left-winger, i'm certain that some of my anti-barks antipathy stems from a reading, many years ago, of dorfman and matellart's how to read donald duck, which is a crude but stirring dismantling of a certain kind of cultural imperialism - still worth a read, imho

Everybody has an uncle or nephew, everybody is a cousin of someone, but nobody has fathers or sons. The only mother shown on regular basis is Beagle Boys's mother, who lives outside the law and who almost never shows affection to her offspring. This non-parental reality creates horizontal levels in society, where there is no hierarchic order, except the one given by the amount of money and wealth possessed by each, and where there is almost no solidarity among those of the same level, creating a situation where the only thing left is crude competition.

this is totally true but at the same time kind of admirable for its ingenuity and subtlety

i've read some anti-disney/donald/barks stuff along those same lines but it's worth noting that by the time you and I got on the scene, Donald was already a discarded icon and barks had negotiated special dispensation to make and sell fine art renditions of the ducks without paying the beast. They were indisputably and forever HIS CHARACTERS (check the taliaferro comparison) and if disney ate off his back it wasn't any more so than Marvel did to Kirby
but point me at yr specific article and i'll give it a go.
there are other mother characters in the donaldverse btw: daisy, grandma, glittering goldie, etc. but there's something to be said for the "it takes a village" young boys adventure story world that Barks created where, by and large, the pecking order between donald and his prepubescent nephews is roughly equal and where dewey is often wiser and more on top of things than scrooge

and yes i DID get those issues of FUKITOR and they were fucking AWESOME
though the print/paper quality was a tetch squalid. Stories and art were top notch s.clay wilson steez
i should and will buy the rest of the issues and i recommend giving it a shot yourself if you dig that kinda WAY over the top thing

btw, i just finished the first two books of joe daly's dungeon quest and they are really really great, can't wait to rip into his other work. he's a real find!

When I discovered fandom in 1976, prices for Barks duck oils were in the low four figures, iirc. I don't remember what prints went for, but it had to be peanuts. If I ever get hold of a time machine, I'm going to make my zillions on comic books, original comic art and Apple stock.

barks' oils = what if thomas kincaide painted ducks

forks, this is the bk i was talking abt, still in print:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3199/3119096290_a9d0dab171_z.jpg?zz=1

damn, did not know that his original oil paintings were selling in the six figure range
i'm not gonna stan for his "fine art renditions" they're nice enough but more collector bait
they kept him in coin though so i'm all in favor
i'm a fan of rosa's (i think right) interp of the scrooge story: that every coin matters as a concrete reminder of his history/legacy, not as genuine filthy lucre

haven't read that book but if we're talking about thoughtless imperialism herge is about a billion times worse an offender than barks -- 'tintin au congo' is easily the most nauseating comic i've ever read.

also worth noting that barks worked for western publishing, not 'disney,' and received zero feedback or attention from the disney studio in 20+ years of drawing his comics.

Lucky for him in the long run.

interesting memoir by the dude who translated that book into english: http://nafsk.se/pipermail/dcml/1995-June/004368.html

Did anyone read a 1995 Paradox series called Family Man by Jerome Charyn & Joe Staton? Longshot, I know.

sorry. That was my comic dark age when I was far too poor to buy any comics.

i read family man when it came out, can't really remember a damm thing abt it, other than it was far less satisfying than the two graphic novels that charyn created with francois boucq (simply a much finer artist than joe 'functional' staton.) the magician's wife in particular is superb.

I know it has some fans on comic sites but I do not remember if anyone's discussed the Prophet "relaunch" of the last few months.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/03/19/prophet-23-preview-brandon-graham-simon-roy-richard-ballerman/

It's been pretty good so far. I may have... more thoughts when I'm not in an 83 degree room.

completely missed it. Never read any Prophet whatsoever.

That's a plus! It's a "continuation" in the loosest, loosest use of the word. It's a whole new comic where the first issue is #21 and the character has the same name as an Image character from the 90s.

Oh, so it actually is (a new iteration of) the Prophet I'm thinking of:

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/229/91590-18185-106491-1-prophet_large.jpg

aah. Read the word "Liefeld" in that link and quickly averted my eyes.

It's linked from the URL I posted, but this intro article to the first issue is a good summing-up:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/01/17/prophet-comic-brandon-graham/

This basically came out of nowhere, as far as I can tell, and has been a lot of fun. Weird aliens with biological technology, a guy who has just come out of stasis and snaps into being a warrior of sorts, and some half-remembered quest.

IGNORE WORD LIEFELD HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

like, a lot less than he had to do with the Alan Moore Supreme issues, even

okay, I'll keep an open mind

If you buy this, Liefeld will not need to derive as much of his income from "drawing" things. Buy this.

reading my old issues of Matt Wagner's "Mage"

life is so much easier if u don't think abt rob liefeld at all

only comic i've read recently is a gn translated from the french by the UK publisher Self Made Hero, called sand castle by frederik peeters (art) and pieree oscar levy (story). it has a terrific idea - group of rather obnoxious ppl find themselves trapped on a beach where they all begin to age terrifying quickly - but doesn't quite deliver as a fully satisfying narrative. some of it aspires to the kind of social horror/bourgeoisie scolding of a michael haneke film, but is too slacky characterised and constructed to match haneke; other parts are airily metaphorical (there's an interlude where we're told a fairy story about a king who barricades himself against encroaching death). the 'shocking' element is its treatment of young sexuality, which is a v v tricky thing to make work in any artform, and doesn't work at all, here, when combined w/ semi-grotesque cartooning that again is p inconsistent, in terms of care and attention and finish, even panel-to-panel. i'm being quite harsh - its not w/out merit, and i wld be interested to see what other ppl think of it.

This basically came out of nowhere, as far as I can tell,

it's Brandon Graham

prophet looks v v moebiusy

likin' the look of it! and hey, that Supreme run was pretty nice.

I'd rather read more KING CITY or the second MULTIPLE WARHEADS volume (which I think is largely done, or was at Stumptown last year).

Just finished JOE THE BARBARIAN and am torn. On one hand, it's a fairly slight adventure yarn with very nice art. On the other hand, does it really need to be anything more than that?

I was kinda disappointed with Joe the Barbarian... Yeah, it was okay as an adventure yarn, but the main novelty (that the rooms in the house provided the settings for the fantasy world) didn't really work; the connection between the fantasy kingdom and the real world was mostly arbitrary. Also, some of the more dramatic moments came were also kinda random (why the heck did those kids set the dog to Joe's house?), and the final revelation (relating to the dead father) came totally out of blue, plus it had nothing to do with Joe's adventure, so it felt like the happy ending wasn't earned.

It's the first GM book I haven't INSTANTLY read. Was waiting for the paperback trade. Art is lovely though.

Yeah, the sam

Yeah, the same for me. Was really excited about it first, since the premise seemed like a surefire road to Morrison goodness, but in the end he didn't really get anything new out of a story that's been told a million times. Basically it felt like Morrison didn't have the time/inspiration/whatever to do this properly, so he just produced a half-assed script because he wanted to showcase Sean Murphy's art anyway. And the art is gorgeous, of course, but this could've sooo much better with better writing. Hopefully Morrison and Murphy will collaborate on something else in the future.

<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/King-City-TP-Brandon-Graham/dp/160706510X/";>More (okay, not more) King City!</a>

Catching up on Morrison's ACTION and am now convinced that it could be a good comic if it were all actually on the page. I'm getting the exact same feeling reading that that I got when reading FINAL CRISIS, like I was reading every other panel of something that could be great.

BULLETPROOF COFFIN #2 was all kinds of crazy skull-munching action and dread. Last couple of THUNDERBOLTS have been good too. Hoping the book will continue to be good when it gets turned into DARK AVENGERS later this year.

Catching up on Morrison's ACTION and am now convinced that it could be a good comic if it were all actually on the page. I'm getting the exact same feeling reading that that I got when reading FINAL CRISIS, like I was reading every other panel of something that could be great.

yeah, this. at least in FC the time compression and fragmentation made sense. here it reduces a promising story to total rubbish. no character development, no sense of narrative flow, just this rush of half-developed happenings. especially disappointing after a very promising start.

also agree abt joe the barbarian being a minor disappointment. great set-up and wonderful art, but the real-world story wasn't anywhere near as well developed as its fantasy counterpart, so the whole thing kind of fell apart as it moved into the final act. also, it seems like grant set up a story wherein joe basically had to die, couldn't accept that, and lazily DEMed his way out. still nice to look at.

the plotting, monster designs and world-building on prophet have been fun, but i wish the art were more refined. or expressive or personal or just just something, anything but this formless, scrawly mess.