2013 what are you reading thread

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

The state of comic books in 1946.

haha i totally bought that issue of sonic when it came out, would've been right after i first played the game. even then i think i knew deep down that sonic was basically a shitty character and the comics weren't a patch on those weird mario comics they used to publish in nintendo power.

the translated Mario/Zelda comics in Nintendo Power were totally awesome

the great brit comic artist mick mcmahon did some of his last strip work on the uk sonic comic...which says everything abt the british comics 'industry', really

http://tuggingyourcoat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/bones.jpg?w=350&h=496

Any of you guys in Los Angeles? I'm going to be arriving in town on April 10th and was thinking I might try and see Ben Katchor. Would love some company:

http://www.skirball.org/programs/ben-katchor

I think I read 4 or 5 titles on that list. SANDMAN and THE MAXX and one other thing. And like a few others, that was about the time I stopped reading comics but for SANDMAN and the HELLBOY minis that came out. There was other good stuff, but it was just so depressing to go into a comic store and see what was being offered (remember--not ever shop gets everything) that dropping out seemed like the smartest course of action.

I came back for THE INVISIBLES for the first couple of issues (believe that was 1994). But it was more a once every couple months thing and not once a week.

Marvel Unlimited is opening up a lot of different series for me.
Doing Avengers Academy at the moment. Surprisingly decent for nth retread teen team drama.

AA was quite good, though sadly it suffered from being forcibly mixed in various crossovers that had little to do with its own plots. Also, the ending felt a bit rushed, and Cage didn't manage to tie some plot threads together (the stuff involving the future versions of AA members was never really resolved) before it was cancelled. But for the most part it was good, a nice mixture of old school optimistic teen superhero stuff and more current issues, such as gay superheroes coming out of the closet.

Can't imagine dropping out of floppy direct market comics in the early 90s, P. Bagge's Hate may be my favourite serial-buying comic experience ever

yeah that was an amazing 2-year (at least?) stretch

Saga is a fun read. I got a few issues and didn't read the whole batch until the last couple of weeks. I was afraid it might be too 'twee' from the looks of it and it kinda is but it is fun enough for me to get by it. I'll give BKV some credit, it's really written well for the actual comic book format as he keeps being able to pull off great issue endings each time.

I also can't decide yet if I like the first trade of Jonathan Hickman's "The Manhattan Projects", but it's so totally batshit weird and I'm going back and reading it now again month later.

yeah that was an amazing 2-year (at least?) stretch

I didn't start buying until late 91 (bought #5 and 6 on a school excursion, along with the OG Vortex Ed The Happy Clown TPB) but I reckon it stayed great til 1998. The penultimate issue, where Buddy goes on the blind date, is amazing. B&W run ended in 94 if that's where you're drawing the line though

Manhattan Projects has a bum issue here and there but, I hope, is building to something

Age of Ultron - it's surprisingly good! Made me think I was under-appreciating Bendis, but then I read the new Powers, which was just the worst.

I enjoy the whole run of Hate, altho felt like his art started to get a bit lazy by the end. agree about the blind date issue

ha, he went from 3 tiers to 4 just in case ppl felt he was being lazy by drawing for colour

a friend of mine is apparently friends with Marc Guggenheim and gave me a bunch of his stuff to read... this is the first time I'd looked at a modern Spider-Man comic in oh 10 years. oof.

bendis = best avengers writer since roy thomas, official. also looking forward to reading his x-men 'reboot'. i 'heard' there's a twist at the end of age of ultron (to be written by neil gaiman???) but i don't know what it is.

i enjoy a slott spiderman when one comes my way - dude always puts a lot into his scripts, never cheats the reader - but the art is p horrible most of the time.

i'm old enough to have bought neat stuff on the reg, so at first i was a little wary of hate, but was quickly won round. pathetic i know, but i MUCH prefer the issues that bagge inked himself (the colour was fine, but the art seemed to lose a bit of its energy when he was only penciling it.) must've been quite a while when you could buy new issues of love and rockets, hate, yummy fur and eightball p much every cpl of months, truly we were spoilt...

SPECULATIVE SPOILER: Twist is going to be Marvelman coming to Marvel universe.

And Hickman's Avengers smokes Bendis, in my opinion.

must've been quite a while when you could buy new issues of love and rockets, hate, yummy fur and eightball p much every cpl of months, truly we were spoilt

yes this was an amazing time. whatever "underground" stuff comes out nowadays on the regular, it hasn't grabbed me like that stuff did

tbf, the market has changed where it makes more sense for people to release trades rather than floppies

yep

of course that means Joe Matt really will never finish anything ever again :(

bendis = best avengers writer since roy thomas, official.

Best ever, imo. I really like what Hickman's doing on his two Avengers books right now, but I think it's too early to say it beats Bendis.

Also, Age of Ultron continues to be awesome. I really like that they banked the pages, especially Hitch's issues, so they could bring this out quickly. The pace of the story is really helped by quick publication.

tbf, the market has changed where it makes more sense for people to release trades rather than floppies

the best shit is coming out in floppies right now, but thanks to insane US postage increases, I don't get to read any of it anymore

like what? i ask

eg deforge, rilly, huizenga, hanawalt, fiffe, koyama in general

I can't believe people think Bendis is the best Avengers writer since Thomas... He pretty much tore apart everything that was unique about Avengers, brought in his pet characters, most of whom had little to do with the team's history, and wrote every character as if they were in gritty cop show and not a superhero comic. (Seriously, when it came to characterization, pretty much every character was interchangeable with someone else.) Which meant no more grandiose cosmic adventures and stuff like that, which had previously been the Avengers' forte, because they didn't fit Bendis' "realistic" vision. Sure, there were some good individual storylines, but the crossovers were increasingly bad, culminating with Siege which was just one massive fight with no rhyme or reason.

Even though it had some hacky moments and misfires (mostly the attempt to deal with racial and religious issues, which was a noble failure), in my opinion Busiek's Avengers run has been the best extended run of the title since Thomas' days. He knew what made the Avengers special, instead of writing it like a generic superhero book with interchangeable members, like Bendis did.

That said, I have been enjoying Bendis' current X-Men run so far. Seems like the gimmick of the old, more innocent X-Men time-traveling to the present day has toned down the gritty/hard-boiled tendencies of his writing, which is a refreshing change.

brought in his pet characters, most of whom had little to do with the team's history

ie exactly what roy thomas and steve englehart did! every new avengers writer has a mandate - duty! - to reinvent the team according to their own tastes and fancies.

Busiek's run basically is roy thomas revisited - i prefer the illusion of change under bendis.

brought in his pet characters, most of whom had little to do with the team's history

ie exactly what roy thomas and steve englehart did! every new avengers writer has a mandate - duty! - to reinvent the team according to their own tastes and fancies.

Well sure, but AFAIK those characters weren't popular ones with a lot of baggage (like Spider-Man or Wolverine) or writer's pets (like Luke Cage). Even if earlier writers introduced new team members, they still managed to do "Avengers style" stories with them, whereas Bendis simply took characters he liked, or characters that sell titles, and did stories that have little to do with previous Avengers legacy. I guess if you don't care that much about this "Avengers style" and like Bendis' particular set of tropes, this isn't a problem, but for me he was ill-fitted for the title.

I think if he tore down the old version, that was the point though?