Rolling comic books 2021

It seems to usually be DC pulling these shenanigans, IME. Just looking at the shelf next to me, there's one volume each of the LOSH Showcase collections, the Kirby Fourth World Omnibi, and the Batman Adventures trades which feature that shit-ass peeling DC logo. They somehow managed consistent trade dress across all of the other volumes in each of these series.

It's a major, major problem. Major.

past time we were demanding infrastructure money to be allocated, call your senator now

I think if it as more of a Marvel problem, but I probably haven't bought a DC book since Morrison finished on Batman - Marvel did a switch from red logo in white on the spines to vice versa that fucked up three separate books I was getting.

Fix the abysmal recoloring of comics reprints before anything else.

Don't know why I never gave a second thought to Stan Lee nicknaming himself "The Man". Quite funny, I wonder if he was at all joking about the negative meaning it could have?

Blue Giant, Vol.1.&2 - Bought on a whim manga about a high schooler who, like many a manga protagonist, wants to become the best there is at something - here it's jazz, and the scenes with him playing are a delight, dramatic lines everywhere, pained facial expressions, every other character stunned into submission commenting on how his kung-fu sax playing is the most powerful they've ever seen. Hilarious scenes of Japanese yoofs discussing jazz, including someone telling the protagonist that jazz is so "hip - it's sophisticated and they stock it next to classical music in the record stores". Rockist a f, especially in its treatment of dumb GIRLS who don't get serious serious jazz music. But kinda too goofy to get angry at. I had a good time.

Pulp - Serviceable Brubaker. Subplot about dude not getting authorial rights interesting in view of Brub's current resentment over not getting to see much of that MCU $$$.

First Knife - Grody post-climate apocalypse Mad Maxish thing with different tribes (whose characteristics are all mixed elements of different existing cultures - climate refugees having migrated) fighting it out, including a slave owning peoples who worship space aliens and a latinoish population that mistakes an awoken NATO mecha for "Hesuscrixto" or something of the sort. No side is particularly "good", it's a nasty world and while the world building is quite elaborate, it's also mostly there to lead you to the murder and mayhem. Nice grody art, very maximalist and at the same time quite detailed as well. tiyl James Stokoe.

Ah I said grody twice. Well, it is.

What is Mark Millar’s rep in the biz / among fans? I don’t really have a sense of it.

i've always thought of him as the poor man's garth ennis? I like the jupiter books well enough i suppose. a lot of his work is brutality as character development and is relentlessly mean spirited and juvenile.

Agreed, more or less. It's a shame his shitty books can overshadow the decent ones

moore > morrison > ennis > millar > late era f miller is how i break it down to an extent

I enjoy his work on Swamp Thing (partially co-written by Morrison, who has long been suspected of ghost writing more than the four issues he was credited on) and Superman Adventures (the tie-in comic related to Superman: the Animated Series). Maybe a couple other random things from early in his career.

It's frustrating because, like Ennis, he isn't untalented but he's way too eager to let his inner tween edgelord overshadow what talent he possesses.

I like his SA comics, his Flash run w/Morrison, prefer his Authority run to Ellis's, and the first two Ultimates series were a genuine breath of fresh air when they came out. In retrospect the Ultimates looks majorly edgelordy, but at the time, reading it month-to-month, felt pretty exciting.

Everything else seems obnoxious/overly tropey/sub-Ennis/Ellis. I enjoyed how Hickman built his incredible Fantastic Four run on the back of Millar's terrible run.

He appears to have better business acumen than 99% of all comics creators, and that's okay.

It's weird how all the second wave British Invasion have turned out to be wankers who had one or two pretty good ideas/writing gigs then descended into self-parody and circle jerks with acolytes (allow yourself to decide the literalness of that).

Millar's true nature probably got exposed by Trouble and it was all downhill from there although, as you say, he's monetised the model WE was using badly, quite successfully.

lol i totally forgot about Trouble! tbh i was fine with that level of silliness. it's not quite pointing at the reader and joyfully singing "you're garbage for loving comics" and the cheesy drama of it kinda fit the classic Marvel romance comics it was parodying/replicating

RIP John Paul Leon

https://www.cbr.com/john-paul-leon-dies-static-earth-x/

IMO Millar has some good ideas for stories, but his at his best when his writing stuff where the nature of the project and/or the editorial policy limits his edgelordy tendencies, which is why the best things his done are traditional superhero comics; Superman: Red Son and 1985 are both excellent "what if" type of superhero stories (even though the events of the latter apparently became canon with Marvels's 616 universe). But most of his indie comics, where there's no genre conventions or editors to rein him in, might have an interesting premise but end up being transgressive carbage. And yeah, he definitely feels like sub-Ennis in the sense that even Ennis's edgiest comics still have moments where his basic humanism shines through, whereas with Millar there's nothing but dumb nihilism.

xp Shame; I liked his work on Creature of the Night.

Genuinely wonder if Saga is ever coming back. It's always a puzzle when people have a hit series on their hands and they just abandon it. A much lower quality level applies to this example but that Riverdale zombie thing was the same.

I'm nearing the end of Steve Gerber's run on Daredevil. He definitely was a step ahead for early 70s comics in style. You got to know if Grant Morrison ever did a run of Daredevil, he would definitely have to use a couple of Gerber's psychedelic villains like Angar the Screamer and the Dark Messiah.

Angar the Screamer is awesome. I love how he looks like he could be a member of Grand Funk Railroad.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lt7UvMOveug/SI97jpYf9-I/AAAAAAAADmA/gnsZHj6rQ7k/s320/Daredevil+100+-+20.jpg

BKV in January: "And just to head off the comments, yes, Fiona and I are still hard at work on Saga, and we remain hugely appreciative of the four of you left who haven't completely lost patience with our extended intermission. Hard to believe as it may seem, I promise these new issues will be worth the wait."

"I think you'll be surprised at the new characters we've found for you to love, and us to kill

Vaughan does that pretty much in all of his comics, though, so I think people should be used to it by now.

I've not read Ex Machina and Pride of Baghdad, but it's not something I associate with Paper Girls, Runaways and Y: The Last Man? I'm aware I've already wandered into a spoiler minefield.

Ex Machina is by some measure the worst thing he's done, not counting Under the Dome, so lucky escape.

There's a random death at the end of Y The Last Man that's always struck me as a little dumb; killing Alex so quickly in Runaways seems like something he wouldn't get away (or choose to do) now

Anyway Saga's been fine and as long as he doesn't kill the adorable little seal who's obviously marked for death, I'm ok

Hard disagree on Ex Machina! Besides that I actually like it, you're ignoring all his (mostly passable) Marvel hack work.

That's true, I haven't read that stuff!

Ex Machina always felt a bit un-BKV-ish to me, like it's a weird Sorkin/Bendis mashup that happens to have BKV's name on. It's a bit too "I'm the dialogue guy!" for me

Yeah, Y: the Last Man is a prime example of him building up an interesting character throughout series, then killing them at the most tragic point imaginable, not because it fits the theme of the story or anything, but because he seems to think a story isn't good if a main character doesn't die.

prayers up for the little seal person

Vaughn's 'Logan' mini series with Russo was pretty cool. I've heard that Dr. Strange mini-series is a pretty good read too.

I read and liked Y the Last Man but I sold my issues of Saga cause they got going for stupid money and I never went back.

I'd pretty much read anything by Eduardo Risso. He's done some pretty weird stuff and I like some of those minis he has done like Spaceman (w/100 Bullets dude) & that bizarro Cain/exit of Eden comic he did with Jason Aaron. I think they got in that one and realized it was too crazy to go there for the cash payoff. I still haven't read that Lono mini-series yet, but 100 Bullets was one of those series I got hooked on trades. It was so long between issues!

I loved Risso's Batman. Love to see him do something with Ed Brubaker. That Werewolf/whiskey comic Moonshine I also really like. Azzarello has some stuff I did not get with...I read that western one but it was pretty forgettable.

After the Hellblazer issues where John Constantine talks like a Cheeky Cockney, I gave myself permission to never read him again. But I guess I could be missing something. David Lapham's patchy enough for me to want to read the Guy Who's Not Quite as Good as David Lapham.

Having never seen a photo of him, I was excited to discover Azzarello looks maybe 100% like I expected him to look

lol! that's totally the stereotypical '00s comics writer look

I went to a comic shop a number of years ago without realizing Jill Thompson was doing an in-store appearance and it took me way too long to realize that the sullen-looking dude sitting by himself off to the side was Azzarello. Didn't realize 'til just now that they've since divorced.

Oh, tangentially speaking of Jill Thompson, that reminds me that the new Beasts of Burden series is starting off really good, although she isn't involved with it this time around.

You know, I reacted badly after Jill [Thompson, co-creator of Beasts of Burden] left the book, and I still feel bad about taking that situation public. Jill and I are in touch now. We talk. I blew a gasket about the schedule of the book publicly, twice. At one point, I shot the book down. I was walking away from it. Things are okay now. Jill is doing a variant cover for us. I would like Jill to come back, but I understand if she might not want to. Maybe that experience is just not something she'd want to deal with again. But we co-own the series and we’re in touch when anything affects the series.

Misread that as "“I Consider Myself Very Lucky That I Don’t Really Have To Listen To A Conversation with Evan Dorkin".

His gasket-blowing was pretty fair at the time - she'd ghosted the book in the middle of an issue, and wasn't even replying to the editor as an intermediary anymore. By the time she agreed to let the replacement artist take over, the third issue of that miniseries came out over five years after the first, and they'd missed four Christmasses of hardcover collection sales = shoes and food for Evan and Sarah's kid.

Thanks for clarifying, sic!

Just read Sloane Leong's A Map to the Sun. Heavy adolescent drama. Extremely good and well-crafted.

On a whim, or compelled by Fantagraphics' Facebook ads, I bought Barry Windsor-Smith's Monsters. Looks fantastic, plenty of virtuosity on display, but he needed firmer editors than Gary Groth, Conrad Groth, and Mike Catron when it came to writing dialogue.

Oh man.
https://comicbook.com/anime/news/berserk-kentaro-miura-creator-dies-54/

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Beyond him just being too young, it leaves this mammoth unfinished work behind. Heartbreaking

Yeah, that's a heavy one. I'll need to read those remaining ones and Giganto Maxia.

I've been mostly lurking on and off here since the 2000s, aside from a few comments about Love & Rockets and Hellblazer. I've been feeling less blown away by comics lately, most likely from my becoming older and a parent and various larger factors (the mainstreaming of comics into YA/childrens lit, aging of the British invasion writers, not being that into most varieties of highly acclaimed comics of the present). So I thought I'd post, try to stir up some conversation and see if anyone else had read anything lately that seemed particularly stunning. Here are some recent picks from the library.

YELLOW NEGROES AND OTHER IMAGINARY CREATURES by Yvan Alagbé (NYRB) - This is probably the best comic I've read in the last year or two, a translation of short narratives by a Black French artist. There was a level of realism and social reality that I felt like put American comics to shame (something I weirdly felt also reading the much more picaresque Corto Maltese, a scene where he inquires about a character's illegitimate child). The book often touches on social issues without feeling self-conscious or discursive, (e.g., there's one a great page of a character jumping a turnstyle in a moment when NYC was criminalizing that).

KILLING AND DYING by Adrian Tomine (D&Q) - It's hard to imagine a more "well-crafted" version of what this is, but I was left wondering why the world needed another melancholic narrative about misanthropic middle aged dudes. This left me depressed about the imaginative narrowness of this generation of indie cartoonists.

AAMA by Frederik Peeters (Self Made Hero) - This is a four-part sci-fi series with a tinge of Fantastic Planet meets the trippy eco-horror Jeffrey Van Der Meer with a little bit Inkal messianism. The artwork has that hyperrealistic objective draftmanship that I've come to associate with French SF comics. Pretty enjoyable! I've started Lupus also by Peeters, a sort of stoner Y Tu Mama Tambien in space, but I'm finding the expressive brushwork difficult to get into.

ABBOTT by Saladin Ahmed - This is a urban horror comic set in 1970s Detroit that reminded me a lot of an early Vertigo comic, but I felt like the writer could have done more research on the period as the setting didn't feel very realized.

I liked Yellow Negroes too! Agreed on Abbott underachieving; there's a sequel that continues the Life on Mars vibe.

I feel that Adrian Tomine is actually a little younger than what I'd automatically consider that generation - he's only ("only") 47!

I missed that it was your first-ish post - it's a good one!