Rolling comic book thread 2018

Read The End of the Fucking World, after enjoying the TV show. I mean, it's not a *terrible* comic, but every single adaptation and addition for the TV show was an improvement.

But generally I think I'm done with indies written by male borderline sociopaths

I definitely don’t think Forsman is that, the merits of the work aside.

yeah, that's a really gross thing to say absent any context

Ok let’s downgrade it to “a bleak outlook that dwells on uncomfortable violence” if that helps. But, er, having read indies for twenty years or so I don’t think I’m diagnosing a hot new trend here

Welp, I did the math, make that closer to 30

But generally I think I'm done with indies written by male borderline sociopaths

― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, February 3, 2018 8:07 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. I don't know what end of the fucking world is, but I decided a long time ago that if a comic features the male protaganist masturbating, ugly crying, or masturbating while ugly crying, I'm out.

This probably goes without saying, but entire comics devoted to mooning over ex-girlfriends are part of this category!

I've only read a few of his comics, so can't speak to the ugly crying, but here is everything I know about Chuck Forsman:

- a prolific creator with a strong work ethic
- started Oily in order to be able to expose other artists to the tiny platform he had
- moved to the middle of nowhere in order to be able to afford to publish others while also maintaining his and Mendes' own creative output
- admiring and supportive of Mendes as a fellow artist, a publisher, and a partner
- so appreciative of his CCS experience that he continues to give back to the school as a fellow, a guest lecturer, and providing internships to at least once student
- frequently uses any attention he is given to shine light on both artistic forebears and peers
- wilfully changes his approach, writing and drawing from project to project

There's uncomfortable violence in two of the Forsman works I've read, but not in others. I'll get some more from the library so I can see if the balance shifts, but him writing stories where young people are scared by the world around them isn't currently tipping me towards assuming all the facts above are a cover-up for his true personality.

Happy for you to make your case in the meantime, Dan!

Dan doesn't need to make a case for why he's not reading something.

He doesn't have to make a case for why it's cool to cheer on calling a real-life person a borderline sociopath, you mean.

(it's true, he doesn't! but that's the context.)

imo the problem is what works get adapted and what work gets covered in non-comics media, both of which tend to concentrate disproportionately on the violent and misanthropic because the image of these loner male creators fits a narrative

either that or I’m subconsciously seeking out the work and coverage that tends toward those subjects, hard to say

haha wait does this comic that i haven't read actually involve masturbating, ugly crying, or mooning over ex girlfriends? Cause my complaint with indie comic dudes actually isn't about 'sociopathy' so much as whatever those scenarios intimate. Sad-bastardism?

xpost You're not wrong. I mean, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single comics creator (besides Kirby, pedants) whose work has been adapted to filmed entertainment more than Mark Millar.

if you go by number of filmed hours and we’re assuming non-superhero comics, The Walking Dead is probably the longest contemporary adaptation? or at least it’s up there

if you toss out superheroes, zombies, vampires, future cops, and spies you narrow the field a lot

I just meant the number of discrete works that had been adapted. People keep dipping into that Millar well for reasons that could probably be generalized as 'because edginess!!!'

and because maybe, people tend to like 'em? even Wanted

Presumably, but not really germane wrt the point I was trying to make. I mean, people like lots of comics by other creators which don't get turned into movies.

if you go by number of filmed hours and we’re assuming non-superhero comics, The Walking Dead is probably the longest contemporary adaptation? or at least it’s up there

One Piece has over 800 episodes and 13 feature films

I have been sufficiently chastised for having a myopic western outlook

On a completely different tact, going by the local shops around here, it seems that one thing that seems to be catching on is back issues. I think for the first time in a long time, some shops seem to be moving lots of stuff in dollar bins. They are the cheap way into comics, especially with the cover prices so high.

It was almost to the point the big store was phasing them out, but then the flipped it around and started doing more dollar boxes and they have kinda taken off. And it's all sorts of stuff that are selling out of them.

I mean, if something starts out at $3-$4 and is now a buck or you can buy a bundle of issues at or even below the TPB price, why not?

Just read Sexcastle - dumb fun, if you want a comic book version of Roadhouse/Escape from NY.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/02/05/comicspro-2018-shadowman-doughnut/
"Retailers at ComicsPRO 2018 to Receive Preview of Shadowman #1 in Doughnut Form"
http://www.bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dd-600x254.jpg

I swear that at some point I cancelled Comixology Unlimited but apparently not

Now this is appearing below new digital releases:
"Includes 15% Unlimited discount"

One Piece has over 800 episodes and 13 feature films
― Haribo Hancock (sic), Monday, February 5, 2018 5:25 AM

I have been sufficiently chastised for having a myopic western outlook
― mh, Monday, February 5, 2018 1:42 PM

I wouldn't count anime, a bewildering array of manga that people would never imagine being adapted into anything get an anime version.

do they all get 800 episodes, 13 feature films and nigh-annual TV specials though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sazae-san#Anime_series

They might want to consider renaming it Greater Than One Piece.

You know what has nearly 500 episodes, five feature films (and one animated one) and had multiple live action tours that I didn't think of? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of all things.

Probably just about the longest-running (WESTERN) non-Big Two title at this point, too, if you count its varied incarnations as a single run.

(checks watch, awaits hardsonning by sic)

Wasn't there a really long running anime of that kid who gets his ass out all the time?

Trying to think of other contemporaneous indie titles that are still being produced in one form or another... Love and Rockets, Groo, Usagi Yojimbo, Elfquest...what else?

for some reason Robert's post just struck me as the funniest thing in the world

robert, you gotta be thinking of shin chan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyDAj9q9mkw

Yes, 940 episodes.

yeah, you can't count TMNT as a single run, if the metric is "currently longest running"

L&R tank that by the five or nine or w/e years they spent not being called L&R, but they'd beat Elfquest either way. Usagi just renumbered afaik? Would have to look at its breaks vs the Bros, but it's probably in with a chance

aragones, los bros and sakai are total monsters; we don't deserve creators this prolific

Groo also takes years and years between series, and still has the bulk of its run as Big Two

honestly when I said "contemporary" earlier I meant "comics adapted in the last 10 - 15 years" but we're old so I guess my entire life is contemporary

Oh man, the Aragones reference makes me think of MAD magazine. I wish I still had, and wonder where they went, a couple paperback collections of MAD comics that were sitting at my grandparents' house when I was a kid.

I kind of always figured they were from some later time and as a kid wondered how MAD, which I had gotten into, would have had paperbacks that my dad or uncle would have bought because I was a kid and didn't conceive as something still so relevant as long-running

"Son of MAD" apparently was published in 1959!

longest-running (WESTERN) non-Big Two title at this point, too

2000AD started in 1977 and has run uninterrupted.

The Australian edition of The Phantom started in 1948 and has published continuously, although is almost entirely US or Danish reprints.

The Beano started in 1938 and has run uninterrupted.

I think Mad is down to a bi-monthly book, but it is still going, no?

yep. it's actually got lots of good artists on board! also, DC owned these days.

these days

Mad was indie for less than ten years and has had the same owner as DC for five decades

The longetivity of TMNT as a “property” is kind of astounding to me; it’s one of those things that you never could have predicted or expected, or believed if someone had told you it would happen (back in the early Eastman & Laird days).

Yeah, I should've specified that I was thinking of 'properties' rather than titles per se. Like, even when there weren't technically TMNT or L+R titles being published, the characters never really went away.

i somehow knew it was you posting that list long before hitting the bottom, forks
badge of honor!

i'm a media guy

Had no idea Mike Allred was working on a Dick Tracy thing! Was The Hidden the plot with the secret christians?

Really need to get on that Lisa Hanawalt, her podcast is always great.

The Dick Tracy book is with Rich Tommaso doing art and they're an excellent match for each other's styles:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/exclusive-preview-artist-rich-tommaso-on-idws-new-dick-tracy-dead-or-alive

Yep, that's the story for Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden. It's an interesting storyline with a dollop of little-known historical truth but the reason to get absolutely anything by Sakai is his utter mastery of the form. Even at this stage in his career and when his stories feel a bit overworked, he's one of the best pure comic creators in America.

Hanawalt is always a joy. While I'm glad she's found Hollywood success, I'm secretly stupidly selfishly annoyed she isn't able to devote all her time to comics anymore. It'll likely even out in that she has a good paycheck and the makings of a lifetime career.

Vader and Aphra but not Star Wars seems a little perverse :)

I like the solo Star Wars comic! It's just gotten a little byzantine and overly self referential within their own sub-universe. The spin-off comics felt more contained, story-based and interesting to me this year.

https://www.cbr.com/dc-border-town-cancel-abuse-allegation-writer/
Border Town had good art and a story that felt like it might be going somewhere so it's is a qualified bummer that it got blown up, but i appreciate the principles of the co-creators to get out if they have reason to believe they would otherwise be supporting an abuser.

Did you guys talk about the Snagglepuss book on here this year? It's noteworthy and great.
http://www.comicsbeat.com/review-exit-stage-left-the-snagglepuss-chronicles-offers-heartbreaking-tenderness-within-the-satire/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-reviving-hanna-barberas-snagglepuss-as-gay-playwright-1048870

forks, u gonna have to hook me up with the fella from whom you buy your time in bulk. I don't know how you do it, my man.

i'm nervous and vaguely out of sorts all the time is the answer. but thanks! taking the past year off from ILX helped!

*scribbles furiously*

I have the 'nervous and vaguely out of sorts' part down but it could be that I'm putting the cart before the horse.

I've bought a ton of 2018 comics but (as is my slowpokey wont with respect to most media) I'm not sure if I have yet to read a single comic that was published in 2018.

oh man, i've got PILES of backlog to read myself! it's a never ending backlog for sure.

At the begining of this year I decided not to buy any new comics and to rearead my entire collection instead.

I'm still at the As -_-

It's the same conundrum I face every year: I've read a ton of stuff, watched a ton of movies, heard a ton of music, etc. but it's all pretty much exclusively from years prior to this one, so I can never participate in any of the fun year-end discussions.

xpost oh man Tommasso is an old friend and I am super psyched to learn about that gig w/Allred! Fuck yeah!

(you can see how good I am at keeping in touch with old friends)

the Snagglepuss book was great, like the Flintstones he did the year before

Russell is writing a few other things now, including a good looking Lone Ranger book

So here's an interesting thing I noticed about this week's new Marvel comics (and I say this with the caveat that I'm looking at these digitally and not in the store, though i'm inclined to believe this holds true for the physical books as well): all of the superhero series releases - though, notably, not the Star Wars books, kiddie books or the presumably earlier cover-finalized miniseries - have been redesigned in honor of Stan Lee's death so that the top of the cover is dominated by a simple, horizontal black band with Lee's years of birth and death. The book's title and issue number have been shunted to the lower left corner with (of course) the Marvel logo. Here's two sample covers so you can get a clear idea what I'm talking about:

http://i.imgur.com/w97POF3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Jq563d7.jpg

Two things jumped immediately to mind when I saw these:

1) - It's amazing how much cleaner and more effective this looks from a graphic design perspective. It also unifies and brands the books in a comprehensive and recognizable way that almost certainly will appeal to OCD weekly comic buyers (are there any other kind?) and people who want to see and clearly display the cover art. Modern comic covers are an unnecessary riot of clutter and extraneous detail; minimizing word balloons, indica, titles and blurbs greatly improves and modernizes them visually.

That said:

2) - For several years now, Marvel has pretty consistently put the names of a book's creative team on the cover, often (as Image generally does, but DC generally does not) including both the first and last names of the creators. I assume the rationale for making the call as to when full names or just last names are used is likely due to space considerations, contractual obligations, name recognition if it helps sell the book (so weird to me that DC just lists "MORRISON" on the front of the new Green Lantern, as if his name isn't the main reason many if not most new readers will buy it), or even (GASP! CHOKE!) editors recognizing that anyone who writes and draws a book deserves to have their complete names on the work they made. I don't really know for sure.

However, with the Death of Stan commemorative redesign, for the first time in a long time there are _no_ creator names on the covers. Just Stan's band, the cover image, the name and issue number, the indelible MARVEL logo and that's it. So there's the most immediate public way that Marvel chose to celebrate Lee's passing: by pulling the names of the people that write and draw their books off the cover.

Excelsior?

It stinks.

Seems especially sucky to have that band at the top of characters/titles that Stan did not co-create.

^ they're doing this again this week as well btw

Rereading Gail Simone's Atom, which I first got into due to this very forum. Representation in comics having come a long way since it was released (on the page at least) some parts now feel very clunky and outside-looking-in; a bigger problem for me this time around is John Byrne's art is absolutley garish, and the colours do it no favours. But I'm getting to the part where tiny aliens fight Cthulhu worshipping pilgrims, and that's still jolly good fun.

there's a 2019 thread