2013 what are you reading thread

Went to the London comic convention this weekend and bought Mark Waid's LOSH run for minus three pounds. It's really good!

Also comic conventions are depressing.

Got the print version of Faith Erin Hicks' Superhero Girl, which is a nice little comic. The strips works better when read in a row than as individual gags, because she's subtly building larger themes there.

Hicks' Friends with Boys is also worth checkin out, it's sorta like a comic book version of a teen movie like Saved!, except with less stereotypes and more humanism.

will check that out

Still mostly reading quarter comics. Occasionally posting fun bits of them to my tumblr. Have a slim stack of current stuff that I really am not all that interested in. Much more excited for the artist-driven EC collections. And still MULTIPLE WARHEADS, though there's not story there so much as there's comix.

Working my way through Hellboy, has been on the to do lust for a while, really enjoying it.

Lust? List! Fat hands, small phone.

I've tried to read Hellboy a few times, but it has always felt to me that the art is better than the scripts? Pretty much all the stories I've read have been recycled versions of Lovecraft and other pulp horror; enjoyable, I guess, but nothing particularly clever or innovative about them.

Yeah, it is the artwork that is the best thing for me, I can stare at a page for hours, which is a good measure of success for a graphic novel. I've never been much of a horror/lovecraft fan, so I guess I don't see the re-hash of stories. What I love is the quirky folklore stuff mixed in with Nazis and an action hero!

Hellboy reads much better in collected form, imo. The later issues are more plot-heavy and B.P.R.D. is a lot more interesting than I'd originally thought.

When Mignola draws Hellboy, I love Hellboy. Otherwise, I have abso zero interest. It's not that I don't LIKE his writing, more that it is inextricable from the way he draws for me. I'd rather have one 24 pager from him every two years than a dozen scripts drawn by his 'school'.

what were we reading in 1993?

I was not reading any of this shit, that's for sure.

well I guess I shouldn't lie, I had those Sandman and Eightball issues, and that is probably still my favorite single issue of Chris Ware's.

pretty sure i have owned/own/read every one of those books but the sonic

so you do have SOME standards

no

it's funny how so many of these covers convey absolutely no information about the story contained therein, just static pics of the titular characters

I had all the Vertigo stuff, Eightball and The Maxx. I don't think I've read any of those superhero books.

Out of those titles, I was reading Sandman/Death and The Maxx. Had pretty much given up superheroes, because they'd turned to grim'n'gritty Leifeldian shit, which I hated. I wasn't really into DC back then, but I was aware of the Knightfall and Death of Superman stories, though I've never actually read them. I remember reading Spawn for a while, because I was interested what this new company was doing, but it turned out to be just more of the same shit Marvel was pushing too. I guess the same thing happened to me as to many other superhero comic readers who remembered the more innocent Bronze Age stuff, in that the grim & gritty era drove me away from them, and into Vertigo and smaller publishers, and didn't return to superheroes until the early 00s, when they'd become more optimistic again, with less thigh pouches and grimaces in the art.

Obviously I was also reading Euro comics too, which thankfully didn't take such a grim turn in the 90s. And wasn't this the time manga titles started to get translated in larger amounts? I remember really liking Ranma 1/2 back then, it felt cool and fresh to me, because I wasn't yet familiar with the conventions and cliches of shonen manga.

that list was the very tail end of my first comics phase, i remember most of those covers

didn't know Jimmy Corrigan was around then - also surprised (if not... shocked) that i never saw that Static #1

Wasn't this also the time when the first Sin City book came out? That shit felt so groundbreaking and fresh back then, the chiaroscuro art especially was unlike anything I'd seen in American comics. Who would've guessed it was the last time a Frank Miller could be described as "groundbreaking and fresh"?

ha, funny you should say that. i was so into that book, while i'd give up reading superhero books right around that time, i would make trips to the comic store a couple times a year just for Sin City

Miller/Darrow also did the Big Guy and Rusty the Robot around the same time, which was the last time I cared about anything Frank Miller has done. really can't stand to even look at his stuff anymore. apart from Ronin lol.

Sin City started in Dark Horse Presents' 5th anniversary issue so 1990-91 I reckon. Big Guy & Rusty was mid-90s, and terrible - would have been 300x better without Miller's hamfisted dialogue slapped all over it.

of the list, I bought Death and Sandman and Acme Novelty Library at the time. Read Eightball in the shop but didn't buy it.

Morrison did the issue of Spawn after that one, didn't he? So close!

I didn't buy Maxx #1 at the time, but went back and caught up when Alan Moore wrote it a few years later.

I love Rusty, but mainly for Darrow. Sin City first hit trades in 1993.

The Miller ones I return to are Ronin and Hard Boiled, the latter for the Darrow art, mostly

sic, I think you mean Supreme? Sam Kieth wrote all of The Maxx

Hard Boiled is a beautiful mess. Reminds me I haven't read Give Me Liberty in years. Wonder if it's still enjoyable.

yeah i was gonna say; i'm a sam kieth stan
i have a lot of this stuff still around the house

Give Me Liberty issue #1 was good, Miller had gone off the rails by #4

sic, I think you mean Supreme? Sam Kieth wrote all of The Maxx

Moore wrote #21 and ...#27 iirc, I will now google to check

per GCD:

Wm Messner-Loebs scripted #1-15, #17-20, #22 and #23

Dave Feiss co-write and co-drew #30

Moore scripted #21. I recall him being credited on another issue but maybe it was via the letter column, not the inside front cover.

Was that the crappon inna hat issue?

1993 is almost exactly where I stopped reading comics for a decade. Sandman lost me after "Game of You" and too many turgid one-shots, Shade was direction-less, and the Batman/Superman titles were seriously off the rails after a more-or-less fault-free run since the Crisis reboot. Plus no ongoings for Grant Morrison, PAD's X-Factor was done, etc.

Looking at those covers, though, makes me think Batman has progressed more than Chris Ware in the past twenty years.

Also - thinking about it, I guess this means ILC is ten this year or next. Holy, etc.

I think this was the first ILC thread, so 10 years next January:

Wednesday Wrap-up

I was 13 in 1993, and I think I read all the superhero titles in that list apart from Avengers and lolBloodstrike. It appears I had substantially more money than sense back then :(

If I'd saved it, waited a few years and invested in tech stock I could be living on a private island somewhere tropical by now. Instead I'm having horrible flashbacks to being really excited about the shiny silver cover of Web of Spider-Man #100. I still have it somewhere at my parents' house...

That Web of Spider-Man cover is probably the goofiest of them all. What the heck was the "Spider-armor"?

I fail to recall the precise details which led to the donning of the armour (something to do with fighting a specific foe, I think), but I recall thinking even at the time that it was a bunch of bollocks...

oh god, we all remember this spider-armor cover

Here we go:

When the New Enforcers attacked New York using high caliber fire-arms, Spider-Man created a suit of "Spider-Armor". Composed of a pseudo-metallic compound Peter Parker developed at Empire State University, the suit slowed him down, but allowed him to be bullet proof. During battle, the suit was later destroyed by acid.

So, uh, I guess the spider-sense and superhuman agility which had allowed him to avoid speeding bullets countless times in the past were not sufficiently effective against the combined might of Plantman, Dragon Man and Blood Rose. Thus, he was forced to don Spider-Armour to defend himself against their 'high caliber fire-arms'.

Fuck you, The 90s.

iirc web of spider-man was generally the b-team of writers/artists using the b-team of villains or storylines. apologies to any good writers/artists I'm forgetting here, though

Big Guy & Rusty was mid-90s, and terrible - would have been 300x better without Miller's hamfisted dialogue slapped all over it.

yeah I don't disagree on that point, I was into it pretty much entirely because of Darrow

that cowboy samurai book he did was all kinds of fun

"1993 was the biggest-ever year for sales in the comics industry."

i don't think so. the direct market, maybe.

what year was xmen #1 and xfactor #1? That was the biggest direct market
but yeah, in the forties/fifties i believe sales for many titles were in the multiple hundred thousands, yes? somebody post a TCJ article and back me up here

Think you men x-force and not -factor

ah yes. the dumbass liefeld
there was the great multi-cover renaissance that destroyed the collector market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Lee#Rise_to_fame_at_Marvel_Comics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Liefeld#Early_career
4 million copies and every one a guaranteed investment

Never forget
http://thebrotherhoodofevilgeeks.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/o_xforce1.jpg

http://noneofthismatters.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/4393-4-1.jpg