Rolling 2015 Reading Funnybooks Thread

there's a lot of one off "read on browser" or comics museum sites offering dribs and drabs; i'd like a bundle if possible.

They're a tad expensive (though cheaper and better reproduced than a lot of similar hardcover collections) but PS Publishing have collections of Sheena and Planet Comics.

Thanks to whoever recommended Miss Dont Touch Me in a previous thread - picked up a library copy and read today. It's very good, even if the second set of stories is a lot weaker.

i hunted down a pile of fight comics and ghost comics from fiction house... holy shit these are amazing.

Did you try DC++, forks? There's shockingly little I haven't been able to find there.

not familiar with it honestly. i just broke down and grabbed em one at a time from the digital comic museum

Two things I'm hoping to buy this week..

Junji Ito - Fragments Of Horror
Graham Ingels - Grave Business (never even knew this was coming out this year)

As good a place as any I suppose: Kieron Gillen on why comparing sales vs sales across indie vs big two is bullshit: http://kierongillen.tumblr.com/post/121756273497/market-maven-is-the-wicked-the-divine-in

Fragments Of Horror has a really fancy dustjacket with another image embossed into the main one. The stories look crazy.

so THIS is interesting: All Negro Comics #1 from 1947
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=22625
http://www.tomchristopher.com/?op=home%2FComic+History%2FOrrin+C.+Evans+and+The+Story+of+All+Negro+Comics
http://www.tomchristopher.com/home/Comic%20History/Orrin%20C.%20Evans%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20All%20Negro%20Comics/images/image002.jpg
http://www.tomchristopher.com/home/Comic%20History/Orrin%20C.%20Evans%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20All%20Negro%20Comics/images/image001.jpg
http://www.tomchristopher.com/home/Comic%20History/Orrin%20C.%20Evans%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20All%20Negro%20Comics/images/image008.jpg
http://www.tomchristopher.com/home/Comic%20History/Orrin%20C.%20Evans%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20All%20Negro%20Comics/images/image009.jpg

Race and economics have always been emotionally charged rallying points and from this date we can only look to the model of history and judge for ourselves. Surely the mainstream publishers had an interest in cultivating the black market. Parent’s Magazine published two issues of Negro Heroes, dated Spring 1947 and Summer 1948, featuring reprints from their Calling All Girls, Real Heroes and True Comics. Fawcett published three issues of Negro Romance, the second issue being reprinted by Charlton as Negro Romances number four, dated June through October 1950 and May 1955 respectively, as well as a series of sports hero comics about 1950 that included short runs of books starring Jackie Robinson and Joe Lewis. White companies also designed and distributed tabloid sized inserts of comics and general interest material to be inserted into black newspapers, but All Negro Comics was not only the first comic of original material to be marketed to blacks, it was the only comic book produced by blacks, and the only comic book featuring black characters in lead heroic roles. After this, with the very obvious exception of several anti-racist EC stories, blacks disappeared from comics except for background in the jungle books, where the day was always saved by white jungle kings. Blacks were never seen in street scenes, never anguished over lost romances or romped in teen aged innocence. Probably the next time a black appeared in a comic book was Spiderman 18, November 1964, where a black cop is depicted. There were exceptions to prove the rule: some romance comics with photo covers used occasional pictures of relatively darker girls, but with straight hair and generally caucasian features, and there’s a solitary black on a mid 1950s Charlton cover about the time they reprinted Negro Romances. Gabe Jones of Sgt Fury’s Howling Commandos debuted with a May 1963 cover date, but in true comic book fashion, the series depicts integration of the armed services at a time when there was none, while comics in general made no mention of a contemporary issue. Blacks were never seen in their true percentage of the population until after this first appearance in Spiderman. The first silver age black hero, the Black Panther was created by Lee and Kirby and debuted in Fantastic Four 52, July 1966. A series of black history comics were released under the general title of Golden Legacy, between 1966 and 1972. There were sixteen issues published with most titles reprinted in 1976, and again in 1983. The last American edition of Classics Illustrated, number 169 was Negro Americans The Early Years published in 1969. The second issue of All Negro was never published.

This series of books by the redoubtable Emmanuel Guibert are GREAT
http://www.amazon.com/Ariol-Just-Donkey-Graphic-Novels/dp/1597073997
plus there's cartoons!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndVXRuKYp6E

Finished Ito's Fragments Of Horror (the first time in ages I've read a book soon after buying), it's very good. I think his work is getting even more surreal. My favourite story was the one about the Blackbird woman. I feel that the story of the quirky author is referencing a trend in japan?

http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/11/8931399/2015-eisner-award-winners

lol at saga grabbing the eisner a year after jumping the shark. fiona staples is still killing it but gah.

i mean, were the 2013 and 2014 awards not enough?

shoulda gone to hawkeye on the merits imo but probably lost votes due to only putting out like 5 issues in the past 12 months

http://www.comicsresearch.org/entries/rebels.html
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/291149294?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

Comic Book Rebels by Wiater/Bissette, anyone?
Been curious about this book for a while. The review is discouraging.

It's pretty drastically dated now.

lol at saga grabbing the eisner a year after jumping the shark. fiona staples is still killing it but gah.

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Sunday, July 12, 2015 6:10 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i picked up the latest saga thinking i'd sufficiently kept up with it, but i was completely at a loss as to why anyone is doing anything anymore

and that's having stayed current

For those interested, a complete edition of Puma Blues is being solicited for release in September.

The only two titles I currently have any self-control about are Saga and Lazarus. Hopefully by the time the trade comes out an arc will have appeared out of Hoos's confusion.

commenter goes thermonuclear on the Eisners:

It’s been fascinating watching the comic industry have the least amount of black people represented in any creative field while its participants praise themselves constantly for diversity. What they really mean, as reflected by the Eisners, is that they are having more kinds of white people (homosexuals and women) win awards, and maybe 1 black person per year. And if you’re a white person CREATING a story about white women it’s a gold rush.

sick burn

def enjoying Lazarus more than Saga but that's not nec saying a whole lot right now

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/06/heavy-metal

Sounds interesting but really don't like the sound of more movie/tv franchises. And how are they going to establish a music label called Heavy Metal?

publishing full-color Lord of Light is cool, not sure I've ever seen those (iirc everything I've seen was b&w)

I always thought they were just black and white.

This week sees the debut of Islands, which is basically Image's own Heavy Metal. I'm not really grabbed by any of the previews but I'll be interested to see where it goes.

I keep forgetting to try to t0rren7 Epic Illustrated. I never really succumbed to HM as a tween but I was a huuuge epic illustrated fan

looks like I haven't been lax in reading and Brandon Graham's Prophet: Earth War is coming out next week

I might switch back to buying it monthly

Island, not Islands, and Brandon Graham's, not "Image's"

should I have said Rob Liefeld's?

the story is more Graham's, although the property sure isn't

Island is 100% commissioned by Graham

So he's effectively the editor as well as providing some words and some pictures?

oh hey I misread, never mind

time to check out Island

My library just picked it up (and it's a couple of years old) so I read Room For Love by ILYA. A small scale romantic drama between a middle aged divorced woman and a teen male prostitute. A little cliched in some ways, but a decent effort.

Anyone still buy back issues at all? I rarely do. I just bought a Bernie Wrightson sketchbook and the second issue of Grave Tales for a Tom Sutton story and I'm fairly sure I'll be disappointed for what I paid.
Last time I bought anything from an online back issue shop was like 3 or more years ago (Mile High or MyComicShop) getting anthologies.
Now with so many collections I just keep my fingers crossed everything I want will resurface in book form eventually. Getting old anthologies is just such a gamble for what you have to pay, although I still love tatty old Charlton comics and if I happened to see a Skywald thing in a charity shop by chance, I'd have to pick it up. Don't see Psycho, Nightmare and Scream getting reprints any time soon.

if I find a good quarterbox, sure

if I'm in America and finding things never distributed by Diamond

I found an excellnt glitch (I think it's a glitch) on the comixology iPad apps that allows you to get full width in portrait mode. Seems to work on the Marvel/DC apps too (but not Unlimited, sadly). Bascially:

1. Start reading a comic in portrait mode -- you should be able to see the whole page on one screen.
2. Turn to landscape, with the "full width" option enabled, so the image stretches out.
3. Click the little button on the top right of the ipad to lock the screen.
4. Turn the iPad back to portrait, then unlock it
5. Comixology should reopen with the portrait mode locked in full-width, like Comic Zeal allows you to do.

Kind of minor, but helps with the eyestrain for me.

I guess Island turns out to be maybe 63% commissioned and 85% put together by Graham

The Emma Rios story that opens #1 might be kind of bad? But the lettering hurts too much to re-read and figure out

Bought:

The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane - Druillet - first in a new series of Druillet reprints/translations from Titan Books - nice large-size European hardcover album format

The two hardcover reprint volumes dedicated to Alex Toth and Steve Ditko's strips for Eerie and Creepy magazines - good vfm collections of these artists' work for Warren - the bigger, slightly more expensive Corben collection in the same series, including his full colour work, also looked very tempting, too.

Really enjoying an Image series, Invisible Republic, by a husband-wife writing-art team I've never heard of before. It's being pitched as Breaking Bad meets Interstellar (or something) but it's better and less dumb than that sounds. The art is lovely, sort of Sean Murphy style, and the writing feels more like Eurocomix than the usual Image style (i.e. boy's own adventure gone gritty). Anyway - I've only read two issues and it's up to #5 now, so interesting to see if it keeps the quality up.

I'm also really digging Jason Aaron's run on Ghost Rider, via Marvel Unlimited. It's dumb but impeccably constructed (and therefore smart).

IR sounds interesting. Trade comes out in September
Never need an excuse to try Ghost Rider, but it seems like most writers don't do a good job

COWL unexpectedly ended! :/

Got the first in the Wrightson sketchbook series Creatures Featured (now I only need the second one). It's okay. Mostly designs for films like The Faculty and Galaxy Quest but also a bunch of Resident Evil drawings that some ComicArtFans pages says were for variant covers but somehow never used.
The Tom Sutton story in Grave Tales 2 looks pretty decent.

Has anyone seen Better Things, the Jeffrey Catherine Jones documentary? I've heard very good things about it. It's been around a while.

I have a semi-random, state-of-the-industry type question. The peak period of my regular comics buying coincided with the 80s/90s explosion in the "direct market", which suddenly meant there were a bunch of other publishers putting out regular (monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, whatever) issues of non-big two superhero comics. Fantagraphics, Dark Horse, Kitchen Sink, Drawn & Quarterly etc. Weirdo indie comics creators had their own regular books/series. Does this even exist anymore? It seems like a lot of the non-mainstream comics stuff has gravitated to just being put out as standalone books. Most of the individual creators I follow (which, granted, is not a lot) don't have regular series anymore (if they ever did in the first place). I assume the economics just became untenable at some point - no one's gonna buy monthly issues of Fart Party, for ex. Am I wrong about this or am I just overlooking stuff?

Those things seem to still exist, but only at conventions and printed by micropresses, rather than, like, Kitchen Sink or D&Q. And then it seems like a greater portion of the stuff printed by bigger publishers are art book things - like Marc Bell abstractions rather than Julie Doucet short stories (although, bad example, Doucet doesn't really do narrative stuff any more). But - yeah - I think more and more stuff is standalones - the idea being that regular bookstores would stock them as well as comic shops - but now those regular bookstores are mostly closed now too! I think the moral is: go into illustration or be Adrian Tomine.