2014 what are you reading thread

Do buy the Pax Americana issue of Multiversity, it's splendid

Hoos: Marshall Law is very diminishing returns after the first series; if you're buying a big mostly-complete hardcover, the second half of it will be fairly tired and repetitive team-ups with other people's characters.

I gotta say, as groundbreaking as Marshall Law felt was back in the day, I reread it when the omnibus came out, and even the first story felt awfully dated now, partly because of all the "so 80s" cultural and political signifiers, and because of how many other series have used its ideas since then. The second story actually reads better now than the first one, because it has less of the political stuff, mostly it's just a funny and over-the-top violent parody of popular Marvel superheroes. The other stories (which I'd never read when they originally came out) are all pretty meh, as people have said in this thread, and even O'Neill's art seems to get progressively lazier.

If you want to read the actually really good comic Mills and O'Neill did together, check out Nemesis the Warlock, that one still feels much fresher than ML.

mm. will probably be buying said hardcover.

gonna use a gift card on the gillen/mckelvie young avengers omnibus that just came out

ordering a patch from The Humans, which is so gross and offensive but i enjoy it

Bitch Planet, predictably, is awesome.

i'll look up nemisis & the warlock, thx tuomas.

Nemesis is glorious

I think Marshall Law has suffered pretty much the same fate as The Dark Knight Returns: the ideas that made you go "whoa!" back in the day have become so commonplace that it's much easier to see the flaws in the writing, now that you aren't blinded by the whole "superhero comics have grown up" thing.

(xpost)

If you want to read a more contemporary take on those ideas that doesn't feel as dated, check out The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It owes a lot to ML, the main concept being pretty much the same (the protagonists are superhero hunters keeping the immoral and/or crazy superheroes in check), but the storytelling is a bit more conventional (the protagonists are mostly likable, whereas ML is almost as awful as the superheroes he fights), which I think is a plus. Ennis's criticism of superheroes is almost as witty and poignant as Mills's, and he's better at characterization and plotting, so it's mostly a good read. (Except for the few occasions where he tries to write "black" slang and fails at it even worse than most European comic writers.)

i've read the boys and warning note to anyone who hasn't: super gross, vulgar, misogynistic, homophobic, etc basically an ennis comic book i don't know why it needed a warning note now that i think about it

I dunno, IMO The Boys is notably less sexist and homophobic than some of Ennis' earlier works, such as Preacher. It's true that the series starts pretty horrifically with Starlight, the main female protagonist, being forced to perform oral sex on one of the superhero villains, and at first it felt like Ennis was treating this mostly as ultra-black comedy to depict how horrible the superheroes are, and I was almost ready to quit reading there and then, but Ennis does actually take the rape issue seriously and, despite all the expectations, manages to make Starlight into a sympathetic three-dimensional character instead of just a throwaway victim, which I thought was actually quite impressive.

Maybe I'm giving Ennis more leeway than I would with another writer, but in both The Boys and Crossed it felt like he was taking the criticism aimed at his earlier work seriously, so the stuff he has been rightfully criticized for (sexism, general macho attitude, treating all queer character as depraved, etc) gets deconstructed, or at least toned down a lot in these comics. It's true that they still are vulgar and gross and gory, that's part and parcel with Ennis.

i guess i kinda feel the opposite. preacher was vulgar but it was obv concerned w/ other things too and the vulgarity was a kind of plain spoken vernacular in which he was telling this larger narrative about -- i guess faith and loss? lol. but then boys + crossed was just like diving into his own moral abyss like what horrific thing can he dream up next oh i know raping zombies raping ppl's faces to death that'll shock them. (also i seem to remember a lot of homophobia in the boys... 3rd arc i want to say? where he has to infiltrate that teen titans type org?) i don't know where to stick punisher max or hitman here bc i like both of them and i think they both benefit from working within a tighter structure (and presumably w/ more editorial objections than crossed ever got)

crossed was just like diving into his own moral abyss like what horrific thing can he dream up next oh i know raping zombies raping ppl's faces to death that'll shock them.

I'm not sure if you've probably read Crossed? Sure, the zombies are there doing all the horrible things (though unless I totally misremember it, they don't actually rape any of the human characters in the comic, just each other), but considering what someone with the imagination of Ennis could've done with the concept, it's actually fairly subdued. Anyway, the whole point of the comic is that the absolute amorality/social nihilism the zombies represent is used as contrast to the very hard moral choices the human survivors have to make. So Crossed is all about morality and what makes us human, it's actually more serious and far less indulgent than many other Ennis comics (including The Boys).

i have read crossed

And yeah, obviously the zombie/human contrast is at the heart of most zombie apocalypse stories, but I think Crossed actually puts an interesting twist into it, because Ennis's zombies aren't mindless flesh-eaters, they still have their wits, they've just utterly amoral and totally hedonistic. So it doesn't become your typical survival of the fittest parable, where the zombies are equated with animals/nature, it's more about what morality means in a world where it's become almost extinct.

(xpost)

Sorry about the typo, I meant to write "properly read", not "probably read". Anyway, I don't want to sound condescending or anything, but if all you remember of the comic is "moral abyss" and "gross zombies", then you probably didn't quite get what it was all about.

lol just to be sure i opened up the first issue of the entire run and on the second to last page, just as i remembered it...

trigger warning

i mean, this certainly read for me at the time as just vileness for its own sake (which tbh i really shouldn't be complaining about since i've been enjoying my copy of fukitor) and not w/out a lot of nuance unless u have a specific semiotic reading of this panel that i am missing

I dunno, obviously Crossed is still quite extreme, but I think there is a fine line between illustrating your point and being indulgent. Yeah, I guess Ennis and Burrows could've toned that scene down, but like I said, they want to paint a picture of utter loss of morality. And that scene is limited to the one panel you posted. Compare it to Alan Moore's Neonomicon (also drawn by Burrows) which has a disgusting mass rape scene that goes on for several pages. Now, horrific violence and rape are part of both of these stories, you can't really tell them without it, but Ennis most certainly doesn't indulge on it the way Moore does. Of course your opinion may vary whether Crossed still shows too much of it, I can certainly understand that opinion... Ultimately it's a question of how much vileness you really need to show to get the "horror" part across... I know it's a fine line to walk, but I still feel Ennis and Burrows mostly stay on the "justified" side, rather than the "indulgent" side.

trigger warning

jesus christ sometimes I hate comics

I dunno, IMO The Boys is notably less sexist and homophobic than some of Ennis' earlier works, such as Preacher. It's true that the series starts pretty horrifically with Starlight, the main female protagonist, being forced to perform oral sex on one of the superhero villains, and at first it felt like Ennis was treating this mostly as ultra-black comedy to depict how horrible the superheroes are, and I was almost ready to quit reading there and then, but Ennis does actually take the rape issue seriously and, despite all the expectations, manages to make Starlight into a sympathetic three-dimensional character instead of just a throwaway victim, which I thought was actually quite impressive.

I'll go a step further and say I still have a lot of love for Preacher, even with its flaws

Vileness for its own sake, indulgence, lack of nuance -- I think those things are selling points for Ennis. Why question assumptions about race, gender, sexuality etc. when you can just flay a child in the back corner of a comics panel? He probably think he's very open-minded.

buncha comix just came in the mail for giftmas and such

Random issues of Nemo magazine
complete run of Manga Vizion
final book of dungeon (i am rereading the whole series)
the Don Rosa slipcase Uncle Scrooge books
the Richard Thompson art book
Won Ton Soup by stokoe

i will be buying Here shortly.

so idk who's been reading "the wicked & the divine" as uh religiously as i have, but the new issue of sex criminals includes an extended riff on a porn movie called 'the lick-ed and the divine' starring two wicdiv character lookalikes, had me roaring on the bus

Havent gotten the fukitor collection yet but now I kinda want it

in some ways it's better just bc it's so insane - it clearly understands that it is pulpy pornographic cartoon violence and it delivers gleeful thrills on every page. ennis takes himself too seriously and so his violence + grossness are such intense downers.

Lol of course yr here :)

Meant to link this is previous post

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/10/the-feminist-phantasmagoria-of-fukitor/

The TCJ review gave me pause initially, but ultimately it felt at odds with the bits I've seen.

from the aforementioned "ahem" forum: the complete Miss Don't Touch Me with at least two chapters of not-yet-released-in-America material
I have the first two US books (and will buy the others when they are released here) but getting them now on digital is a great giftmas treat.

Pretty sure that is the collection that just came out from nbm.

Well, the new book is the page count of the combined first two volumes. If the story is still going after that, why did NBM call it complete?

Wish NBM had wider distribution, I rarely see their books, even in specialist stores. Probably doesn't help that so much of their output has so much extreme content, even the stuff that looks all-ages friendly.

Wish nbm would do a completist Rick Geary compendium. There's soooo much magazine and anthology stuff that was never collected.

Wish NBM had wider distribution,

They have broader distribution than DC Comics to comic book stores, and the same UK bookstore distribution as Marvel, Archie, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Legendary, Humanoids, Knockabout, Blank Slate, Panini and Toon Books, not to mention Bantam, Doubleday, National Geographic, Putnam and Moleskine notebooks.

Jon - They've got some Geary books coming. Just saw them in the upcoming section.

Sic - I'm a little surprised by that. I do see some and have bought a few in recent times, but somehow I never see Dungeon in Forbidden Planet or Waterstones.

okay, so wrt Miss Don't Touch Me: It seems their "complete" edition adds about 30 to 50 pages of new material. They are "sold out" of volume one and are selling volume two for $3 on their website and there is no volume three to be purchased. This is one of those cases where i feel well justified, having bought the first two volumes at retail, to download the unpublished finale. Very disappointing way to treat a reader/customer imo.

Wolf Hall by Mantel. Next: Wolf's Hour by McCammon.

got all excited for half a second about a graphic novel adaptation of wolf hall

seems like it would be well suited for an adaptation

meaning TV or film

was hella confused until i realized calstars doesn't know this is the comics thread

it's a new year, someone remember to put COMIX ED. in the next one

lol sorry dudes!

i was thinking if someone was doing robert r mccammon comic adaptations i was gonna hafta go get those.

they are doing a tv adap of wolf hall xp hbo iirc?

it's a new year, someone remember to put COMIX ED. in the next one

No!

ILC was here first, the ILB folks should put "BOOKS WITH JUST TEXT AND NO PICS ED." to their thread.

it's just too much to ask these "books" people to know what board they're on

But I enjoy our usual cycle of "mistaken post about Thomas Paine biography" followed by passive-aggressive rebuttal of comics' worth

ILC was here first, the ILB folks should put "BOOKS WITH JUST TEXT AND NO PICS ED." to their thread.

― Tuomas, Monday, 29 December 2014

That would probably rule out a lot of books, especially nonfiction.

sigh

"what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

http://media.giphy.com/media/6ZHUmnZdVQB9K/giphy.gif

Been stuck at home sick for the past week so got into Blacksad and The Wake

I was really put off by the whole furry connotations of Blacksad but it is a gorgeous piece of work

The Wake begins as a stereotypical Eurocomix thing but keeps building the moral ambiguity and craft until by the fifth or sixth vol it's totally cranking