2012 what are you reading thread

I have to buy a new printer tonight (power outage/surge fried my current one) and am going to toss the Margaret DVD/Blu and a couple of strip collections and/or graphic novels into my Amazon cart while I'm splashing money around. Quick! Give me recommendations. I'm thinking about a Roy Crane volume...what else?

What would be the first Lynda Barry book I should get?

did u get the dungeon quest books already?

No -- remind me what they are again?

OK, looked upthread. Looks interesting, but I may hold off until next order.

Did you get Pogo yet?

Don't have Pogo. This may make me an apostate among comics literati, but...I don't really like Pogo.

Oh. (Insert sad face)

o shit, krazy & ignatz

there you go!

I think I want to get those directly from Fantagraphics -- they have the 1st and 3rd of the enormous bricks (600 pp) of complete Sundays for $57 each.

No Lynda Barry recs?

Freddie Stories is my favorite Lynda.

So many choices. Also, Hignite's Art of Jaime Hernandez is on sale for $16.

What would be the first Lynda Barry book I should get?

If you just want to investigate her, The! Greatest! Of! Marlys! is a splendid introductiony best-of. If you know her already but want a self-contained fulfilling read, One! Hundred! Demons! is a great option. If you know you love her and want to start a major collection, D&Q's Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 Of Everything is super-early stuff plus the first few years of strips, I believe - the Girls & Boys era.

Picture This and What It Is are kind of motivational speakers in book form to encourage you to use your creativity - not recommended if you're after narrative.

I used to read Ernie Pook's Comeek and loved it. Just don't have any of her books. I wound up not putting any Barry in my cart, since I plan on making a big Krazy & Ignatz order from Fantagraphics as well.

....because you want to save the money? Fanta don't carry other non-tiny publishers anymore, if that's what you were planning

Because the 1916-1924 and 1935-1944 hardcover collections are available for $57 each, and they're only available for crazy dollars on Amazon. I'll fill in 1925-1934 with the 2-year softcover collections probably.

marlys or 100demons is worth it, i will ride or die for barry 4eva
i would also do cruddy; she's a great writer

when you pick up Cruddy and begin to read Cruddy you will not be able to stop reading Cruddy until Cruddy is over. It's that intense.

i approve of this message

Because the 1916-1924 and 1935-1944 hardcover collections are available for $57 each, and they're only available for crazy dollars on Amazon. I'll fill in 1925-1934 with the 2-year softcover collections probably.

I meant why no Barry

in your cart

yeah why no Barry
in your cart
in your cart

i mean

Oh fluck fluck I'm buying so many comics today

No Barry because I pretty much hit the spending limit I had in my head. I should have put some Barry in the cart anyway, yeah.

100 demons was not my bag... too freeform mishmash

I can see by what you carry that you've not been to Barrytown

started dungeon quest

it's like a fucked up earthbound

xp wasn't that a Ben Folds Five song?

dungeon quest vol. 1 was awesssss

instantly ordered vols. 2 & 3

any other tips for comics that are heavily inspired by games?

Ganges ish 2 yo

I got Dungeon Quest #1 and #2 today and decided to gift them, uh, after about 50 pages. Not for me, I'm afraid. But, they did remind me of how much I loved reading Marc Bell ten years ago

What didn't you like about them?

Ganges?

ish 2 yo

http://www.fantagraphics.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/ddcc5a78c83024b941008de3d11dd2ea.jpg

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5586486-ganges-vol-2

sounds interesting....

ganges is flatly amazing.
i would also be curious to hear what didn't click with you re: dquest owen. Too brosephy?

mourning star is very games influenced i think
it's sorta fist of the north star-y

i get how it's like Fist of the North Star, but what games influence?

i dunno exactly; it has a similar sort of gamelike narrative i guess

Dquest #2 quickly confronted me with the least funny page of "ur a faggot" I think I've ever read? I've been called a faggot on the street and it's been funnier and more tasteful and more meaningful.

Not that that was the only thing, but some of my best friends like Tim + Eric and that's OK!

I've been so out of the game in expressing negativity, I'm out of practice, I'm sure these Dungeon Quest comics will find a good home somewhere and I'm looking forward to gifting them

well if it's any sort of a mediating factor, the third book has more assplay and forest gnome masturbation than the average issue of x-men
i don't know what to make of this dude's attitudes toward homosexuality. he clearly is into drawing anuses and penises because those are a major part of the plot!
it's somehow not offensive to me but maybe that's because i was raised on a steady diet of Spain Rodriguez and Jack Jaxon and S. Clay Wilson and the like and this seems more of that lineage than anything else

the faggot stuff made me feel uncomfortable too

and yeah, that too

also that nerdgirl is this silent female character who remains sexless and without personality right up until the moment she is captured as a treasure.
TBH i am honestly chalking both of those up as teenage male power fantasies; I see the narrative as being spoken from the mind of a few fourteen year old boys playing tabletop games and the weird obsession with "winkys" and not being "faggots" and the abstraction of women into inscrutable tagalongs all plays into that

i was bothered by the 'faggot' stuff, and i think i chatted w/ forks a bit about the silent female character, but at this point i'm willing to believe that the author is trying to develop something and not just being a shithead. particularly because he has such mastery over his content that it doesn't seem like his Id escaping, and also bc like forks mentioned the homoerotic stuff keeps getting ramped up more and more. i guess it could turn out that he's a brilliant Sim-like creator whose interesting stuff + style is always pushing against the grain of his crazy. but i suspect that he's more interested in cultural ideas of masculinity, hetero + homosexuality. SPOILER like when the one character passes out and they insert the suppository capsule in his ass and first, the loving visual detail showing the suppository slowly being inserted, and then the whole discussion of whether the anus pulled it in, or if the suppository pushed itself in, etc. i mean, weird as fuck and totally bizarre, but hard to believe he's just being a homophobic jerk.

nb, if it bothers u, i don't have any problem with that and i think DQ probably isn't for most ppl, let alone everyone. but i also think it's incredibly compelling and i'd love to read some serious crit breaking down what daly is doing. maybe we should start a DQ thread tbh.

go for it