Rolling comic books 2021

Lol @ this Steve Ditko quote on the back of this Star Wars card. pic.twitter.com/PcjVSlZd5n

— The Mole Man (@KingMoleMan) December 19, 2020

It already came out in 2019, but I only recently found about Liz Suburbia's Egg Cream, bought it and read it. Most of it consists of the first part of the sequel to her Sacred Heart book. It's really more of an epilogue, exploring what the plot twist in the very last panel of SH really meant. As such it's kinda superfluous, but it's also intriguing because it illuminates many of the cryptic background references in SH, which you could never get without reading this sequel. So apparently she put a lot of effort into creating a whole backstory of SH even though almost none of it was revealed there, which I think is cool.

Going through a Crepax volume. Insane that he sent Louise Brooks some of his porn Valentina books with the info that she was the inspiration for them and instead of going "wtf gross" she was befuddled but flattered and they started corresponding on the regular.

I dunno, the woman who said of Pabst's Pandora's Box “the movie should have ended with the knife in the vagina" could probably handle Crepax's softcore psych.

https://www.factualopinion.com/the_factual_opinion/2021/01/the-richard-corben-cast.html
Found this podcast enjoyable, haven't listened to it in ages. And I didn't know this Slow Death revival was a thing
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/45689/last-gasp-plans-50th-anniversary-slow-death

Laughed a bit at Tucker talking about Peter David coming back to Hulk after Bruce Jones.

Corben did so much and so much of it is impossible to find. The guy had a truly amazing imagination. I was re-reading the Dark Horse Conan run and Corben did a flashback sequence in a Tim Truman story about Conan's grandfather Connacht. It's really good.

One of my plague of 2020 things has been reading the Hulk and Daredevil from the start. I'm up to the early 70s in both series. I kinda think the Hulk is one of the better reads of the early Marvel series, I love that pretty much EVERY issue is a big cliffhanger (AKA to be HULKTINUED).

I think I probably got into Corben at a good time, I was able to get most of his books online in mid to late 00s. The guys in that podcast enthuse about the few I didn't bother with (Punisher: The End, Hellblazer: Hard Time and Cage Max), I read a bit of the Conan stuff but there just weren't enough of his pages, I did love that line "come closer so I can kill you".
There's so many bits and bobs never collected. Would like the full version of Bloodstar too because it apparently never came out in intended book form. Sad to hear that Creepy Presents Corben never stayed in print, I assumed it would have.

I liked the original Hulk miniseries well enough but the early Tales To Astonish era was unreadable for me.

reading the Hulk and Daredevil from the start

I think I've read all of Daredevil from the early 00s Bendis stuff onwards and imo it's one of the most consistently good long-running comics. I am curious to know if the rest of it stands up as well. I should probably make time for the Frank Miller run, right?

yeah. it's dated in a lot of ways, but some really classic moments throughout. make sure you remember to get to the Elektra minis too

Nocenti run is fun and weird

Worst Ann Nocenti Asides/Monologues/Dialogue

the Elektra minis

You know, I absolutely love Elektra: Assassin, but I never bothered to see if there were more things like it. It's Bill Sienkiewicz that makes it though imo. I forgot about the Nocenti stuff, I had been meaning to get around to that too. Thanks!

euro album format Love & War by Miller and Billy is the other Sienkiewicz thing u need

Aw, bummer - with Disney closing Blue Sky Studios, the Nimona movie in production got cancelled.
https://deadline.com/2021/02/blue-sky-studios-closing-disney-ice-age-franchise-animation-1234690310/

aw that's bullshit. Maybe she can take it to netflix?

Wow, I had no idea there even was a Nimona movie in production! Though I can't imagine Disney could even do faithful adaptation with all the violence and queer stuff in it... I guess Netflix could, they did let Stevenson make She-Ra into the queerest American kids' cartoon ever.

David Britton died recently. I think he mostly wrote novels but probably more people have seen his comics. Savoy co-founder, Lord Horror, Reverbstorm.

Read House Of X for a comic discussion group, that was quite bonkers and fun! Artwise I enjoyed the Lisa Frank vibes in the background. Also struck me this stuff would be unreadable on an issue-by-issue basis, which has been my eXperience with Hickman - cancelled my subscription to East Of West after many a month of reading an issue and realising I had no idea what happened in the last one.

True - thankfully House/Powers of X was published weekly. Reading his monthly X-Men has been plodding by comparison.
I'm still on board with his titles and Marauders, dropped all the remaining X books though, of which there seems to be a new series almost every month.

I was a bit underwhelmed by HoX/PoX. I appreciate the gargantuan effort of it all (as I wrote in a separate comics forum, the fact that someone like Goldballs has a purpose in this universe is testament to the consideration Hickman has given to how this new mutant society is supposed to work) but I like X-Men best when it focuses more on smaller teams, which as a more expository/setup piece Hoxpox doesn't do as much. Maybe some of the many offshoot series will deliver eventually; I read a few issues and wasn't compelled, but I'm willing to try again when this whole iteration of X-Men wraps up and it's clearer which series/arcs are worthwhile.

Side note, someone in that comics forum shared this article, which I found interesting: From Jerusalem To Krakoa: House Of X & The State Of Israel

Gold... Balls...?

GOLDBALLS, baby. Love it or leave it!

I loved hoxpox but the regular series’s pandemic release schedule/crossovers/confusing reading orders/crappy side titles, mixed with having a toddler, have somewhat stalled my interest. Marauders seems ok though.

Enjoying Zdarsky’s Stillwater, which is basically “The Walking Alive”, but like a lot of his comics, it’s missing a bit of personality (his)

Al Ewing’s new Boom series is not for me, sadly - nice art and story concept, but it’s impossible to follow what’s going on, which I guess is part of the point, but it’s taking too long to coalesce for me

I immediatley thought of the Israel paralell re: HoX and think Hickman explicitly introduces an Israeli character early on to avoid that reading - it would be a terrible metaphor because, y'know, no Palestinians.

xp Tuomas: your mention of Sacred Heart got me to check it out. Pretty good stuff, like a punk rock cousin of Black Hole. Still trying to piece together what it was all about, exactly, besides the plot. Def interested in a followup, but knowing that Egg Cream is only part 1 makes me want to wait for a full sequel.

Billionaire Island by Russell and Pugh - funny, not angry enough, but a good effort.

Def interested in a followup, but knowing that Egg Cream is only part 1 makes me want to wait for a full sequel.

It's technically part 1 of a sequel, but really it's more of an epilogue taking place years after the events of Sacred Heart, explaining most of the odd stuff that happened in the first story. There's some hints of where the story might go in future installments, but if you liked Sacred Heart I think you can easily read it now, cos it's not like it even starts a proper new plot.

Always loved this cover.
https://www.comics.org/issue/5609/cover/4/

Fiction House is the fucking best imo

I'm not sure if I've read much of their stuff. Thought of getting the big compilation.

a lot is available for free i think.
hang on.

https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=16
^requires a login but worth it

*cough* librarygenesis

yow that's a find

giving credit to ilxor dean intercom

Just discovered 2020 documentary "For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close" on Kanopy (movie streaming service free for library card holders in US and .au and elsewhere) - I would have been happy if it mentioned Wasteland at all, but it leans HEAVILY on it in the early parts, including recreated scenes of writing sessions with James Urbaniak as Close, Matt Walsh as Mike Gold, and Josh Fadem (Twin Peaks / Better Call Saul) as John Ostrander.

Had no idea he wrote comics, is it any good/worth looking for?

Wasteland is pretty classic as i remember it, Bill Loebs / David Lloyd / Dandy Don Simpson on the art for the most part
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Wasteland-1987

Thanks! I remember the cover design so vividly but never read it

Just looking at Lovern Kindzierski's garish-but-amazing colouring is instantly transporting

For some reason I only just realised he was a guy

Feels like this thread is slower than usual. Because of covid? Do you buy less comics when you can't browse around shops? For years I haven't been reading much comics other than little online quickies. I seen that Barry Windsor Smith's Monsters (35 years in the making) is coming very soon and I just want to flip through it quickly, I truly respect the dedication but I don't think it's something I want to read much, will be interested to hear reactions.

i'm reading a lot of digital comics and could talk about them but they're really all over the place.

I've actually gotten more into comics during the pandemic, especially once my LCS opened back up (although they were doing curbside pickup almost immediately and actually implemented a delivery van as well!). I used to just wait until tpbs came out of the stuff I was interested in, but now I'm subscribed to a bunch of comics. I just don't participate because I feel like I don't have the depth of knowledge about comics shit that most everybody else on here has. Shit I've read lately:

True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: National Anthem (great series; wasn't thrilled by the ending)
You Look Like Death
We Only Find Them When They're Dead (have all the issues, but I'm not fully caught up on reading)
Something Is Killing the Children (and lots of other James Tynion-involved stuff: Razorblades, Department of Truth...)
Redfork (by Alex Paknadel on TKO, whose Giga I'm also following, although I'm not totally into it yet)
All the little TKO Shorts books
Bitter Root, which is really beautifully colored
Just got the first issues of both Nocterra and Stray Dogs, which are both promising in very different ways.

I bought four paper comics last year (one miniseries) and read the last two of them this week

Am enjoying Something is Killing the Children. Reading that via Hoopla from library, which has the first two graphic novels (1-5, 6-10) and single issues of 11-15. Waiting for the next collection to finish it in one borrow.

Red Mother looked interesting - any opinions?

I think it's in the current Boom Humble Bundle - might grab that, lots of new stuff in there
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/best-year-of-boom-studios-books

^^ I came here to post this! I've been off comics since around September in favour of other hobbies and because libraries (where I get a lot of my books) are closed, but this bundle looks like some fun weekend reading

Physical comics stuff I have bought this year, mostly from online sources

Morbius Epic Collection 1 by Gerber, Moench, Gulacy et al
Crashpad by Gary Panter
New Yorker cartoons issue
Trigan Empire Vol 2 by Butterworth and Lawrence
The Steel Claw: Invisible Man by Bulmer, Tully and Blasco
A 'facsimile edition' of Black Knight 1 (1955) by Lee and Maneely

I've been bulk reading piles of manga and had to stop reading Berserk because it was starting to giving me nightmares
http://i.imgur.com/Nzcp13Q.png

Here's a review I wrote of Blutch's Total Jazz album:

https://theslingsandarrows.com/total-jazz/

Thanks

both worth a read imo

I remember Border Worlds was excellent back in the 80s, but I was out of comics when he later finished the story. Same thing with Puma Blues, which I think they later finished off at some point.

Indie comics is always a sad dead letter office of series that never finished.

i am rummaging through a digital stash of image comics of the 90's and wow are there ever a lot of unfinished and abbreviated series.

The factors that ended 1990s Image series are very different to the ones that ended Puma Blues.

not unrelated tho

Steve Geppi bought TOO many copies of Wetworks?

I think Dover put out a complete Puma Blues a few years ago.

That’s what earl’s referring to.

Yeah, I always intend to find a copy of that one but never have.

Don Simpson was from Michigan was was at a bunch of cons I went to as a teen back in the late 80s like in places like South Bend and Grand Rapids. He was a funny dude.

Jim Starlin was also a regular another Michigander that would show up at those cons too. I used to have a boodle of stuff signed by him. Loved some Dreadstar!

he dated an aunt of mine and my family name showed up on the nametag of a murdered soldier in Breed

Fuuck that is kinda weird, but it's comic dudes they are a strange lot.

i think it was friendly!

lol at “too many copies of Wetworks”

I think it was the Wizard/Image thing of the time but it was like.. this is… the series

and it never happened, then a pretty well-illustrated issue came out, and I think between corporate and personal issues, it was clear this was never going to happen in any conceivable way, and the speculators were trying to sell issues everyone had five copies of for a premium

Whilce Portacio is a pretty ok ilustrator but hey

(the story of image)

You never know though with comic dudes, it's not unusual for an artist in a dead body scene to draw their friends into a scene as a joke but from the line you stated about your aunt's dating him, it could be in fun or a creepy way. We are talking about comic artists, not exactly the most emotionally mature/stable group of humans on the planet.

I was hoping it was he was not a freak as Starlin was pretty cool when I met him as a teenager.

Then again, the only time I met Harlan Ellison he was amazingly nice and cool and seemed to really enjoy talking to me. But hey I was also running a booth at a comic con and was had a copy of the Deathbird stories with me.

Same con, I pissed off Julius Schwartz asking a question about him being a literary agent for HP Lovecraft (and got death glares galore from comic nurds of a couple generations at the 50th anniversary Superman con).

My recollection is Julie saying "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT DRUG FIEND!".

Schwartz known to be a serial sexual harasser, so bit rich of him to take the moral high ground:

https://www.comicsbeat.com/how-a-toxic-history-of-harassment-has-damaged-the-comics-industry/

Oh yeah, I don't doubt it as I said on some comic people kinda in general and not that HP Lovecraft was a nice person or anything.

At that point being like 18, I don't know that I had been in that situation of pissing off that many people at once. I usually reserve that for a one on one situation. I just thought it was a more curious thing to me in his career than the same question on the Legion or some Superman question.

I should have asked him why the Superman comics mostly sucked for the last 25 years of his career and went from a top seller to who cares, it make more money in t-shirts and lunch boxes.

Alan Moore asked him all about his Lovecraft connection but he was a star writer at the time

I read a bit about FJ Ackerman sexually harrassing someone who worked with him and it was horrible

I ran across this video of Ann Nocenti talking about Steve Ditko and found it entertaining, so I thought I’d share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvQtwceDILI

pretty sure the comment on the video mentioning that she’s probably thinking of a Daredevil issue he illustrated is correct

I seen Ditko's nephew say something about his uncle being disappointed that comics hadn't become more educational. Maybe that sums up what I don't like about the direction he taken for what ended up being the majority of his career. And maybe that's why despite loving fancy costumes, super powers and fights, I don't care for the amount of superhero stories that are about right and wrong, good and evil, heroism etc. It's a problem with martial arts films too.

pretty sure the comment on the video mentioning that she’s probably thinking of a Daredevil issue he illustrated is correct

Yep, when Ditko returned to Marvel he was adamant he wouldn't draw Spider-Man or Dr Strange ever again, not even in cameo appearances etc.

I recently read through most of Nocenti’s run on Daredevil. The “babies in bags” thing she mentions made it in, but if it was a metaphor for socialism (lol) she omitted that part or Ditko did not exactly explain how to convey that bit

The idea of Steve Ditko wandering into your office and rambling about his philosophy is pretty funny.

A friend of mine, who organised comic conventions in the UK, met Ditko up at the American Marvel offices in the early 1980s. Rather cheekily, my pal asked Ditko if he would like to come over to the UK as a comic con guest. Ditko just said, "No, I did one of those in 1964".

All Time Comics vol 1

This seems is mostly modelled on 80s and 90s superhero comics but I thought there was a lot of golden age in there too. I didn't like the stories much, it felt something like a reverential parody, embracing the clichés too much. It improves a little bit after the first couple of issues but never stopped feeling a bit restrained to me despite the outlaw attitude. There are some funny bits, but overall it's pretty staid. I know some artists find collaboration fun but as with the mainstream comics they're paying tribute, the pencillers and inkers rarely shine brightest when working together.

I mostly bought this because I wanted to see Josh Bayer's drawing and he doesn't have that many pages but writes most of it. He has a wonderfully sludgy drawing style so the writing kind of perplexes me because it's so straight forward. I quite like the stiff tensity of Benjamin Marra's best drawing and the work by the 4 colorists is really nice and warm, the most consistently good thing here. Herb Trimpe doing some of his last work. There's a ton of pinups and covers by a lot of artists and the several Das Pastoras pictures are why I'm keeping this book.

I have the second volume and it looks more energetic so I'm still looking forward to it.

"No, I did one of those in 1964".

👑

George Pérez is leaving us.

To all my fans, friends and extended family,

It’s rather hard to believe that it’s been almost three years since I formally announced my retirement from producing comics due to my failing vision and other infirmities brought on primarily by my diabetes. At the time I was flattered and humbled by the number of tributes and testimonials given me by my fans and peers. The kind words spoken on those occasions were so heartwarming that I used to quip that “the only thing missing from those events was me lying in a box.”

It was amusing at the time, I thought.

Now, not so much. On November 29th I received confirmation that, after undergoing surgery for a blockage in my liver, I have Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer. It is surgically inoperable and my estimated life expectancy is between 6 months to a year. I have been given the option of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy, but after weighing all the variables and assessing just how much of my remaining days would be eaten up by doctor visits, treatments, hospital stays and dealing with the often stressful and frustrating bureaucracy of the medical system, I’ve opted to just let nature take its course and I will enjoy whatever time I have left as fully as possible with my beautiful wife of over 40 years, my family, friends and my fans.

Since I received my diagnosis and prognosis, those in my inner circle have given me so much love, support and help, both practical and emotional. They’ve given me peace.

There will be some business matters to take care of before I go. I am already arranging with my art agent to refund the money paid for sketches that I can no longer finish. And, since, despite only having one working eye, I can still sign my name, I hope to coordinate one last mass book signing to help make my passing a bit easier. I also hope that I will be able to make one last public appearance wherein I can be photographed with as many of my fans as possible, with the proviso that I get to hug each and every one of them. I just want to be able to say goodbye with smiles as well as tears.

I know that many of you will have questions to ask or comments to make, and rather than fueling the fires of speculation and well-meaning but potentially harmful miscommunication, I will be returning to the arena of social media by starting a new Facebook account where fans and friends can communicate with me or my designated rep directly for updates and clarification.

Please search for @TheGeorgePerez on Facebook if you’d like to join the page to receive updates. For media and press inquiries, please use the contact information on the page as well. Please respect the privacy of my wife and family at this time and use the Facebook page rather than reaching out through other channels.
I may not be able to respond as quickly as I would like since I will be endeavoring to get as much outside pleasure as I can in the time allotted me, but I will do my best. Kind words would also be greatly appreciated. More details to follow once it’s up and running.

Well, that’s it for now. This is not a message I enjoyed writing, especially during the Holiday Season, but, oddly enough, I’m feeling the Christmas spirit more now than I have in many years. Maybe it’s because it will likely be my last. Or maybe because I am enveloped in the loving arms of so many who love me as much as I love them. It’s quite uplifting to be told that you’ve led a good life, that you’ve brought joy to so many lives and that you’ll be leaving this world a better place because you were part of it. To paraphrase Lou Gehrig: “Some people may think I got a bad break, but today, I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

Take care of yourselves—and thank you.

George Pérez
December 7th, 2021

I hope George has a great Christmas.

A real legend.

Eloquently written. Thanks for posting that.

https://www.ign.com/articles/huge-games-company-embracer-group-buys-dark-horse-comics

I was like, who the heck is Embracer Group? They're a renamed conglomerate pka Nordic Games that also owns Gearbox, Deep Silver, and dozens of other studios and media companies.

bbbut Mike Richardson said last Friday that reports they were looking to be acquired were untrue

we need a new thread but till then, i wanna recommend this guy:
https://www.instagram.com/derekmballard

I hit him up on IG and bought some originals. His shit is so good!

I saw that Zdarsky's DD run described as critically acclaimed and apparently Elektra is taking on the mantle and having gone through 4 trades I feel confident in saying this is low brow trying to pass itself off as mid brow.

that's zdarsky's specialty but I don't mind it

Zdarsky's DD run is one of the weaker ones imo - it's not bad! it's just DD is probably the most consistently good mainstream superhero comic (tends to get good writers on long runs) so there's a lot to live up to and I wasn't sure this one did. I thought it had too much repetition over the whole DD manslaughtering a guy thing. Or idk maybe I was just a bit fatigued bc I caned all of Soule + Zdarsky over Xmas break.

i'm curious too, but never started the run. one day i'll catch up with the last 20 years of Daredevil. someday...

https://treasuryofbritishcomics.com/between-the-historical-and-the-fantastical-on-don-lawrences-karl-the-viking/
Never seen this stuff before

rebellion is constantly pumping out old boy's comic collections that confound me.

Who knew about Marney the Fox for instance?
http://doomrocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/marneyTF_01.jpg

Didn't know about the Karl The Viking release so it is now on my buy list

Good artwork on both

we're not even gonna try for a 2022 thread?

Agreed that Rebellion are finally doing justice to the IPC library that they inherited, though there is still so much that has never been reprinted.

The Book Palace company have also been reprinting classic Brit comics for a number of years now. They're a small publisher, so their prices are not cheap, but I would especially recommend the Larrigan collection in their Fleetway Picture Library series, with great illustrative artwork by Arturo del Castillo:

https://bookpalace.com/bpb/Larriganpeek/26/index.html

Of course, the cream of Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid, Davey Law's etc work for DC Thomson's humour comics has never been reprinted in any kind of coherent fashion. Which makes this two-volume set of Reid's non-Thomson stuff especially essential:

https://www.brokenfrontier.com/frankie-stein-ken-reid-power-pack-jasper-grasper/

Rolling Comic Books 2022

I like how Marney the Fox thinks: "'Tis the stumbling approach of hated man!"

I do too!

the reference point is at least partially the original Bambi book