2014 what are you reading thread

I think in hindsight, it's one of the best things Frank Miller ever did.

I'd go as far as to say it IS the best thing he ever did, certainly my favorite.

Thanks for hipping me to the Kerascoet, had never heard of - preordering the NBM now

miss don't touch me is A+ stuff

I'll snag that too when NBM represses it (they say they are) - vol. 1 is in $$ ebay hell right now

Kerascoet's Beautiful Darkness came out a while ago and it is gorgeous.

More people should check out Cecil's Quest by Skala, as you can see I hipped McCulloch to it...
http://www.tcj.com/this-week-in-comics-8713-real-dolls/

Hi all. A friend of mine just launched a kickstarter surrounding the second issue of his self-published comic book Bright Spiral. I haven't read the first issue yet, but have been checking in occasionally on his tumblr (http://brightspiral.tumblr.com) and have always loved his art. I'll probably back this too so I'm just throwing this out at y'all in case it piques your interest.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1094383965/bright-spiral-issue-1-and-issue-2-printing

Just found out Al Feldstein died recently. I'm quite a fan of his art, in fact I think it's a shame he didn't produce more horror and crime stories throughout his life, there was something compelling about that stiff style, a cold stillness or something. There was a book dedicated to him not long ago.

http://imgur.com/a/EeNpT

^def one of the greatest comic strips ever

whoah!

Reading quite a few of the Feldstein articles on Comics Journal site, a bit of talk about trends that come and go, how teen humour was not a safe bet for very long sales wise. Then it struck me: how has Archie survived to this day?
I occasionally see a few copies in the comics shops, I once saw two teen girls asking a shop keeper for Archie comics a few years ago but I never knew anyone who ever read them. I guess in America the franchise seems like a bigger phenomenon (still sold in newsagents?), but how has it stayed alive? It doesn't seem like something that would appeal to most young people and it doesn't seem like it has the sort of geeky canonical worship that supports Superman. I've never seen it in Diamond's top 100 sales.
I'm sure there is a logical explanation but right now I'm enjoying the idea that some supernatural power has kept something alive that seems like it should have ended in the early fifties.

I actually never knew that Feldstein worked an important role at Mad for so long. Mad is another thing that seems to be a way bigger phenomenon in America than it is with the worldwide fandom of American comics. I think I've read maybe one or two issues of it.

Archie doesn't sell much through Diamond. MAD was huge in many other countries.

3/4 of the way through the flamethrowers. i don't know if i like it or not yet. i think the stuff about the italian futurist motorcycle gang and The Motherfuckers are great but reno is just such a cipher. i can't help but feeling i'd rather read a book narrated by ronnie.

I should maybe point out that I didn't intend to compare Mad to Archie in terms of its success being a mystery. That sort of parody has never died down in fashion (understandably), the constant new parodies keep it connected to the wider culture. Mad has had loads of great artists, many of the early ones worked in all sorts of genres and are considered giants of the medium.

Yeah, Feldstein was justifiably irked that Kurtzman gets the credit for Mad, when the magazine as it's best known was all Feldstein's doing. It's pretty clear that without Feldstein's work as both writer and editor EC would not have thrived as it did, nor would Mad had survived, Kurtzman or not.

I've been thinking about Wally Wood recently because of that recent Cannon reprint. I quite like Wood, but like most people I find his early work way better. I heard good things about his work like Wizard King but as with a lot of his later work, I found it kind of lifeless looking. If only he had done fantasy epics in the more lavish manner of his fifties work.

http://wallywood.tumblr.com/post/51656754836

This looks like a parody.

afaict Archie sort of sits apart from the rest of the comics industry in terms of distro/audience

Archie's one of those comics I read hungrily as a child, but am amazed that kids still read it these days

well there's been some developments
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=52012

my daughter's been interested enough to buy a few issues

ugh guys the new bendis miles morales spiderman #1 is so lovely

For a few seconds I thought that was a joke article, then I saw the artwork. With all those superhero artists doing covers it looks like a typical example of making a cartoon character way more serious than they probably should.

Another thing about Archie comics that interests me is the number of titles and number of pages for much cheaper than most thick comics.

Archie has gone super mainstream lately and gotten great press for it. I certainly can't imagine reading the comics but they're not aiming at me anyway.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/03/04/lena-dunham-archie-comics/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/archies-afterlife-ties-up-emotional-701717
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/business/media/archie-comic-picks-film-and-tv-writer-for-top-creative-post.html
http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/afterlife-with-archie-comic-Roberto-Aguirre-Sacasa-interview.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpz8KWpbEA0

xp some of the archie titles are digest sized and it's in that form that you'll see them in non-comics stores. more pages but less content per page. also, they have much lower quality paper than regular comics these days.

it's kind of amazing that archie have been publishing a sonic the hedgehog comic (and spinoffs) regularly since 1992.

i won't rep for archie these days but at its best it produced some of the best kids' comics ever -- the '60s era jughead comics in particular are great.

At CBBD the other week they had an "autopsy" of Canicule by Baru. Effectively a 'making of' deconstruction over the whole mezzanine floor, I couldn't help buying it despite not having that much French. But DAMN is it good.

xp i wish that stuff was getting reprinted in "essentials" style books... the collections archie puts out are crappy and scattershot and at the other extreme dark horse are publishing $50 glossy archive collections.

Finished Richard Reeves' good 2007 bio of John Stuart Mill and am almost finished w/Thurston Clarke's JFK's Last Hundred Days.

yes but how is the artwork

an archie dbl digest, w/ plenty of Dan DeCarlo a/work, is always a v relaxing and pleasurable reading experience imho

when i was in florida five or six years ago i was impressed by the way that i would often see archie comics racked next to the check-outs in big chain supermarkets - much better distribution than marvel or dc

yeah you still see it in big chain supermarkets out here - are they distributed by the same folks that distribute People and Weekly World News or something?

ugh guys the new bendis miles morales spiderman #1 is so lovely

― purposely lend impetus to my HOOS (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver),

So OTM! I was thinking about this a bit today -- David Marquez and Sara Pichelli have been essential to Ultimate Spidey's excellence because they're so good at facial expressions and body language. Bendis' books are so conversation-heavy, a lot rests on that.

I'm kicking myself because I forgotten the artist who claimed he gave W Gaines the basic ideas to do horror comics. It was this site that had a bio + interview of the artist, he said Gaines taken the ideas without paying him and told the artist he had no proof to tell anyone this really happened. I think it was one of the guys who worked on Avon's Eerie (first horror anthology comic ever), maybe Fred Kida, but I can't find anything from search engine.

Thread regulars, there has been discussion regarding this thread's title going on over here:

Request thread title change

lol
fault lies on both the threadstarter and the non-topic reading posters
too lazy to care about the thread as it already exists though

http://www.jimzub.com/creator-owned-sales-over-the-long-haul/

so this fascinates the fuck out of me

ha, I remember The Makeshift Miracle! cool to see that guy went full pro

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/aya-of-yop-city

i didn't even know this got made! Looks great!

apology for thread title change

I've been continuity to read 2000 AD related series including both some classic series and newer stories.

Strontium Dog Agency Files Vol. 1 - I'm a couple progs past the time travel story where Johnny, Wulf and Gronk capture Hitler.
Judge Dredd Case Files Vol. 3 - I'm about 1/2 way through this collection.
Slaine "Time Killer" - This was a delightfully weird and lunacy filled comic. Sections of it reminds me of the Archon parts of the Invisibles at the end of Vol. 3. I'm not sure the story really made a whole lot of sense, but it looked cool and was really fun.

Shakara "The Avenger" - I've read the first story now twice. Henry Flint's artwork is really great.
Judge Dredd "America", "Origins", "Mutants in Mega City One" & "Tour of Duty: Mega City Justice" - I've been on a run trying to catch up with more current Judge Dredd titles, so I started with these collections as while a couple of them are older stories, they do tie in with what has developed over the past couple years. I thought they were all really good. I'm going to follow through on the Tour of Duty, Day of Chaos and Trifecta collections next.

Other than that I am up to date on East of West, Lazarus and Black Science from Image.

I'd also like to try some of those Alejandro Jodorowsky/Moebius comics but am unsure really where to start, especially since The Incal looks to be out of print

What would be a reading order for The Incal, Metabarons & Techopriests? I've been trying to figure out some kind of reading order without having the stories ruined, but from what I understand they are all inter-related correct?

Incal is first

I haven't read them yet but I guess reading them in published order shouldn't spoil anything.

The UK version of Incal published by Self Made Hero is still readily available and just as good as any other version (although it is regular comic sized pages and the Humanoids version is probably magazine sized). I even saw it at Waterstones book shop last week.
Imported copies may be more expensive but just checking on the American version of Amazon, it is still far cheaper than the Humanoids version. I'd say it was a better cover too.

Humanoids put out the Incal series in a couple of different sizes. The regular hard cover is pretty much the same at least size and page count as the UK version.

Before the Incal is pretty cheap if you get the Wildstorm issues, which are like a buck each used at mycomicshop.

Received my copy of Madwoman Of The Sacred Heart and it is also not the Humanoids version, but another UK publisher, Sloth.

For those of you reading comix on tablets, here's something I didn't know:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=astro%20boy%20AND%20collection%3Aadditional_collections
https://archive.org/search.php?query=alita%20AND%20collection%3Aadditional_collections
https://archive.org/search.php?query=royale%20AND%20collection%3Aadditional_collections
https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28collection%3Amanga_library%20OR%20mediatype%3Amanga_library%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection%20AND%20title%3A%22%20century%20boys%22
https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28collection%3Amanga_library%20OR%20mediatype%3Amanga_library%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection%20AND%20title%3A%22adolf%22

and lots more but none of it really organized

something tells me this stuff shouldn't actually be on archive.org

the dark horse copyright was my tip off

Robert Stanley Martin has been doing extensively researched articles mainly about 70s-80s Marvel and trying to be more impartial about the people involved. Some people have been annoyed at him because they think he's anti-creator but I'd say whether he is right or wrong, I don't think he wants to flatter anyone.

I had never heard anything good about Jim Shooter for years and R S Martin managed an incredibly impressive defence of him that seems to have impressed even a lot people who were previously content to view him as a bad guy.
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/01/jim-shooter-a-second-opinion-part-one-the-best-job-he-can/
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/10/jim-shooter-a-second-opinion-part-two-romper-room-on-crystal-meth-installment-1/

His piece on Steve Gerber and the Howard The Duck controversies, second link is all the official documents.
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/05/all-quacked-up-steve-gerber-marvel-comics-and-howard-the-duck/
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/05/the-howard-the-duck-documents/