2014 what are you reading thread

Started Harvest by Jim Crace. The opening does not bode well for me -- really heavy on "voice" and labored "beautiful" prose imo. The narrator does not sound like a person. Opening to a random page:

"Still, there was essential work to finish yesterday, whatever our distractions. If we hoped for sufficient grain to last the year, we'd have to deserve it with some sweat. This summer's yield was not yet good enough. Plenty, here, has wed itself to Leanness. At the lower, shaded limits by the dell and on the more neglected stony slopes our plants have proven miserly." It's fine writing, and yet it's so fucking CRAFTED that I almost can't take it.

BAAHHHH goddamnit, wrong reading thread

I'm mostly reading the old Marvel comics.

Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four vol.6 (up to #56 - beginning of Dr. Doom/Inhumans/Silver Surfer epic, which I think is where Doom steals the power cosmic. Never read this one.)
Essential Amazing Spider-man Vol. 9 (up to #191 in Marv Wolfman's run which is Jonah going after Spider-man again after thinking he killed John and hooking up w/ Smythe and the Spider-slayers again who is out to kill them both as the radiology from the slayers has given him cancer. I read this as a teenager and it's a pretty decent run of Spidey.)
Essential Marvel Team Up Vol. 4 (up to #81 which is a Spidey/Dr. Strange/Clea & Satana storyline during Chris Claremont's run as writer. His run is really good and a few of the issues with John Byrne in vol.3 are ace.)
Essential Peter Parker Vol. 2 (starting this one. This is in Bill Mantlo's run on the comic and just finished his tie to the original clone saga, which had good guest appearance with Daredevil including art by Frank Miller on 2 issues. Solid.)
Essential Hulk Vol. 2- (I'm up to #115 which has the Leader show up again for the first time in a while.)
Marvel Masterworks Warlock Vol. 2- (I'm up to Strange Tales #180. I read these a long time ago and have read the later Thanos arc, but this is the first time reading these classic Starlin issues since I was a kid. It's some of my favorite Marvel comics.)

My monthly pull list is mostly Image comics - East of West, Black Science, Lazarus & Five Ghosts. I've got a couple of the Avengers titles on mail subscription and also get Daredevil and Hulk via my pull list.

hey robert, i meant to reply earlier but thanks for your take on Berzerk. it's a series i was always kind of interested in, but i'm always intimidated by the length

Óscar Martínez - The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail. Just heartbreaking. And admirable in scope and execution.

Oops. Wrong thread. Apologies.

Nhex- thanks. It is kind of a tough one to decide on for all the reasons I listed above. But it sure is by far preferable to most comics.

I've been less engaged by comics recently.
I liked some things in Mould Map 3 but I didnt understand all the hype. Been buying the Corben/Poe stuff and it is so-so/nice enough but I wish Corben would do something more ambitious. That recent Alex Nino book Molly Doves was disappointing and I wont bother with further issues.

On a more positive note, I'm very intrigued by Kerascoet, Maester and the recent Foligatto book.
Looking forward to the Fantagraphics Graham Ingels book even though I'm sure I have most of that stuff.

It bewilders and depresses me that everyone I see who reads Marvel and DC comics treats it like a dirty habit that they cant give up. There are plenty of other comics and things that desarve your time more.

I just read volume 1 of Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I read and enjoy Marvel stuff. DC not at all, and I don't imagine buying (or even t0rrenting) anything by them until the next Grant Morrison whatever-it-is comes out.

reading Batman Inc Demon Star - pretty good, usually GMoz silliness

Finally decide to tackle Tezuka's Buddha. Read the first couple of volumes and I'm hooked.

oh yeah, it's all time

I read the first volume when the reprints started but never followed through on the rest. A friend found a cheap used set so he's passing them along as he reads them.

concur wrt Buddha, good shit

i'd seriously be interested in a retelling of The Bible with that kind of fun/pizazz

crumb's genesis has its own appeal but hoping for another tezuka is a long shot

Just finished Binet's 'HHhH'

Townscapes by Christin and Bilal
Crossing the Empty Quarter and other stories by Carol Swain
Complete Eddy Current by Ted McKeever

all very cheap in forbidden planet glasgow

Was in Forbidden Planet Glasgow today, bought the Ingels EC compilation Sucker Bait. Also the Beautiful Darkness Kerascoet book, I just flipped through it an hour ago and one page really fucked me up like nothing in Berserk ever did, really not a kids book unless films like Watership Down and Plague Dogs dont bother your kids.

There is Wolverton's Bible but I didnt think it was anything special aside from the revelation images at the end.

What the hell

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20140220/PC1603/140229919

There is a lot of comics collections I resisted for a long time because of the good art/poor writing thing and also that I'm familiar with a lot of the stuff already but the temptation is rising again. I try to resist them unless they look amazing but just the quality of the drawing/linework has drawn me back to the idea of getting this stuff again, even if the individual images arent as powerful as I would often want.
All this stuff is going to cost about 250 pounds if I really want it all. Ditko, Mort Meskin, Simon+Kirby, Joe Kubert, Nicolas De Crecy and Bastien Vives.

I cut and paste my response to this topic...
www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/02/most-overratedmost-underrated-comic-strip/

The appeal of newspaper strips and webcomics in this style has always mystified me. I dont count Eisner’s The Spirit and similar comics because it feels just like a regular comic book.

It is a total mystery to me why so many people prize this form for creativity. Monthly comics is a bad idea for a very large percentage of creators, but weeklies and dailies sounds insane. It’s like standup comedy in that there are so many factors against you that you have to be a truly special type of freak to make it work.
It makes me think of crazy ideas for professions; like a chef who wants to have rocks thrown at him and a bull chasing him around a kitchen while he tries to work.
Deadlines aside, creating humor or any other type of amusement in the form time after time seems extremely tough to me too.

I think the only comic strips I’m a proper fan of are Gustave Verbeek’s visual trickery.

Even if I like the drawings in some strips, I never feel drawn or compelled by the content of 99% of them. I’ve been tempted to buy a Krazy Kat (because it is often called the best comic ever) or Thimble Theatre (because Domingos liked something that had a pop culture phenomenon in it) book before but there is just isnt enough allure in what I have seen. When I was a teen I assumed someday I would read Terry And The Pirates, Steve Canyon, Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Peanuts but I have pretty much no interest now. When I’m tempted I think the desire is to be totally enveloped in a world that you get to spend a very long time in.

From what little I seen of CC Beck’s critical writing, I always found it a bit unconvincing but it was kind of weird and funny. I always remember him saying “newspaper strips are boring because people who read newspapers are boring”; I found that funny in how sweeping a statement he made.
A lot of the strips in newspapers I’m familiar with seem almost invisible, because it taken me years to consciously notice/think about them, even though I’d seen them for so long. They seem like sleepwalking cartoons; you wonder who reads them. Some were unbelievably banal.

The only collections I’ve had are Windsor Mccay ones. Nemo is amazing in terms of the visual trickery but in general I found it a real heavy chore to read. At first it has quite a lot of unnecessary text but even when it cuts down there is still too much and the formula gets really stale even if the images and ideas are still excellent.
I just couldnt read a strip collection daily or weekly. I cant think of many things I’d want to read that regularly over one year let alone many years (decades in some cases).

Just looked at Nicolas De Crecy's blog, that guy draws like a motherfucker.

just read black hole for the first time and liked it enough to check out x'ed - which i much preferred! fantastic stuff.

I loved Black Hole; X'd has great work too, but I'm kind of hoping it all ends somewhere well, it was starting to feel like super-indulgent Clowes stuff where I left off.

My newspaper strip love honestly largely comes from having read them every week as a kid, so I'm very familiar with the form, gobbling up collected editions from my libraries and bookstores throughout my life. This extended to daily webcomics as well by the end of the '90s. But I have a harder time getting into the old 30s/40s/50s material.

Monthly comics is a bad idea for a very large percentage of creators, but weeklies and dailies sounds insane. It’s like standup comedy in that there are so many factors against you that you have to be a truly special type of freak to make it work.

For anyone interested in this I highly recommend R.C. Harvey's biography of Milton Caniff. That guy was superhuman.

I heard the acclaim for that. Wasnt there two books?

Even reading about people who couldnt do it is interesting. I think it was Frank Thorne(?) who basically had no life doing his strip and drew on public transport and had his wife drive him to deliver the work while he slept in the car from exhaustion.

The lives of many japanese comic artists sound terrifying; although I dont know what is the general standard of living/creating. Why would anyone want a bestseller series when your trade your entire life for it and dont have the time to make it of any real quality? No wonder there is so much cliched crap with no signs of new elements when you have zombies who basically do nothing but create comics.

I think it was Frank Thorne(?) who basically had no life doing his strip and drew on public transport and had his wife drive him to deliver the work while he slept in the car from exhaustion.

Thorne never had a newspaper strip of his own, only drew them briefly when he was young.

newspaper strip similar to a sonnet - a minature mode of expression with tightly bounded formal rules/properties. it is a quite different experience from the novelistic comic book/graphic novel, but imho no less pleasurable once you accept the limitations of the form.

The great newspaper strip creators worked worked long and hard over many years, but the most successful of them could afford to hire assistants to do quite a lot of the heavy lifting (eg Dick Rockwell pencilling and Shel Dorf lettering Steve Canyon for something like 30 years).

Just finished Buddha. I'm a little dumbstruck. What an amazing work.

Just starting "Ubik"

Also reading "The Fighting Temeraire"

Then on to "Unfinished Tales" from Tolkien, Hamiltons "Reality Dysfunction"
Whilst dipping into from time to tome, lovecraft collection and the science fiction megapacks

argh, wrong board

As for comics, just got hold of "The Art of Denis McLoughlin"

heh - for 2015 make sure to put COMICS in the thread topic

Was reading one of the latest House of 1000 Manga posts by Jason Thompson. A manga was mentioned called Tuna Empire with a woman trying to spread peace in afghanistan using a mass orgy. Bush jr and Hussein end up having sex and Bin Laden makes an appearance too. Sounds funny.

oh jeez i remember that one

it's very silly

I walked around my nearest comic shop picking up things in a dilemma of buying them or resisting them. Mostly 40s-50s Simon/Kirby, Mort Meskin and Ditko. I spent about an hour and a half changing my mind because it was all going to cost so much money. In the end I just bought Polina by Bastien Vives (his linework is gorgeous).

Even after leaving the shop I was still extremely conflicted over getting them someday. Part of the dilemma is that I'm already very familiar with that era of Simon/Kirby, Meskin and Ditko. I feel like I've been there and done it when I had a big phase in my late teens/early 20s. So it's hard to pull out my money so fast when the excitement is mostly gone. I envy people who are just getting into this stuff right now, with all these comprehensive collections coming out finally. If all this was out a decade ago I would have attempted to get all the PS Publishing 50s horror reprints, Warren reprints, Fantagraphics EC reprints; the Kirby, Ditko, Meskin, Everett, Krigstein, Kubert, Bob Powell, Jack Cole and Toth collections. Too bad most of the scripts aren't too good.

But the compositions of Ditko are often really impressive even when the drawings are a bit lacking (he was churning out a lot at that time) and there are so many beautiful touches.

I love the chunky, rubbery, doughy look of old Kirby art, especially the faces he draws on thugs and kids, they look like you could knead their faces; the panel/page compositions also look great (even if they aren't always smooth to read).

I don't think the Meskin compilation has the best selection sadly.

A couple of days ago I ordered the Ditko books and Kirby's Sandman.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someday Marvel and DC will offer Meskin, Kirby, Ditko, Heath and Everett collections with decent scans. It's horrible how much they put into those expensive Masterworks and Archives collections and the art reproduction is terrible.

Can someone tell me which Tezuka books are unflipped? I read one volume of Phoenix and it was great but the flipped aspect bothered me (they are becoming very expensive too. I think that eventually (presuming the planet is in decent shape) all manga will be unflipped and I'm willing to wait a few decades to read Otomo's Akira and a lot of Tezuka.

black jack and dororo are unflipped.

Thanks.

Creature Commandos is batshit and poignant. Fred Carrillo very underrated imo.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/02/28/star-wars-comics-will-never-be-the-real-thing-eric-stephenson-publisher-of-image-comics-talks-to-comicspro/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

It's very nice to hear a big guy in the industry clearly state so many of the problems of the industry. Quite a few things I always feel like saying, especially about nostalgia for old IPs.

I have never read an Image comic but that's a great speech

also kind of self-serving on his part

"SEX CRIMINALS, LAZARUS, VELVET, PRETTY DEADLY, ROCKET GIRL, and RAT QUEENS"
all of those titles added up, were they to magically release in the same month, would equal one low middle-tier DC title (Catwoman or Green Arrow, maybe) in sales at my shops.

The graphic novel format and the tendency for indie titles to seem like they're just being produced for the inevitable trade paper collection is actually not very good for comic shops, IMO - I sell a lot of Saga TPBs, sure (though roughly half as many as an event DC release like Joker: Death of the Family), but not that many single issues and I make more money on single issues than I do on trades. Batman readers come in multiple times per month (because they know their titles will be released in a timely manner, unlike a lot of Image titles that can go months between releases), meaning they see the superhero merch and GNs I've gotten in from week to week, they buy a vinyl Batman figure or a poster.

Saga readers don't have any of those ancillary benefits and often can't be seen other than to pick up the latest collection - which also makes them far more likely to ditch me for Amazon.

Also, this is some catty shit, because IDW (who produce the Transformers/GI Joe/My Little Pony/etc.) recently passed Image in dollar market share and are right on their heels in simple comics sold.

Because they want the real thing.

TRANSFORMERS comics will never be the real thing.

GI JOE comics will never be the real thing.

If he wants to prop up Saga as a model for new comic books I can't complain about that at all. And honestly he's right; the women's audience always feels under-served.

The question that comes up every few years, is that hardcore Batman audience that comes into the shop every month always going to be around? It has for the last twenty years or so for the direct market, but as he alludes to, there's a lot of people like me, with the disposable income to buy comics, older, who has no interest in going to these shops every week. What keeps me coming back is this stuff. Build that larger audience that might only buy a few books a year.

You're right though - it's tough to resist the siren call of Amazon when it's so much cheaper than retail.

(And come on, Transformers and GI Joe comics are generally awful.)

The IDW titles aren't great, IMO, but it's not like every Image title is Saga, either. There's no shortage of women in refrigerators, ultra-violence and craptastic spinoffs (this week's Tales of Honor looks like videogame art) in the Image catalogue.

"SEX CRIMINALS, LAZARUS, VELVET, PRETTY DEADLY, ROCKET GIRL, and RAT QUEENS"
all of those titles added up, were they to magically release in the same month, would equal one low middle-tier DC title (Catwoman or Green Arrow, maybe) in sales at my shops.

Sex Criminals #1 is into its fifth printing. Pretty Deadly had a first-issue run of 57,000 and sold out before release.

Milo, your comments here suggest that a Beto or Seth or Kelly reader would not feel welcome in your store, and thus they have no impetus to come in, rather than going to Amazon.

trigger warning

jesus christ sometimes I hate comics

I dunno, IMO The Boys is notably less sexist and homophobic than some of Ennis' earlier works, such as Preacher. It's true that the series starts pretty horrifically with Starlight, the main female protagonist, being forced to perform oral sex on one of the superhero villains, and at first it felt like Ennis was treating this mostly as ultra-black comedy to depict how horrible the superheroes are, and I was almost ready to quit reading there and then, but Ennis does actually take the rape issue seriously and, despite all the expectations, manages to make Starlight into a sympathetic three-dimensional character instead of just a throwaway victim, which I thought was actually quite impressive.

I'll go a step further and say I still have a lot of love for Preacher, even with its flaws

Vileness for its own sake, indulgence, lack of nuance -- I think those things are selling points for Ennis. Why question assumptions about race, gender, sexuality etc. when you can just flay a child in the back corner of a comics panel? He probably think he's very open-minded.

buncha comix just came in the mail for giftmas and such

Random issues of Nemo magazine
complete run of Manga Vizion
final book of dungeon (i am rereading the whole series)
the Don Rosa slipcase Uncle Scrooge books
the Richard Thompson art book
Won Ton Soup by stokoe

i will be buying Here shortly.

so idk who's been reading "the wicked & the divine" as uh religiously as i have, but the new issue of sex criminals includes an extended riff on a porn movie called 'the lick-ed and the divine' starring two wicdiv character lookalikes, had me roaring on the bus

Havent gotten the fukitor collection yet but now I kinda want it

in some ways it's better just bc it's so insane - it clearly understands that it is pulpy pornographic cartoon violence and it delivers gleeful thrills on every page. ennis takes himself too seriously and so his violence + grossness are such intense downers.

Lol of course yr here :)

Meant to link this is previous post

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/10/the-feminist-phantasmagoria-of-fukitor/

The TCJ review gave me pause initially, but ultimately it felt at odds with the bits I've seen.

from the aforementioned "ahem" forum: the complete Miss Don't Touch Me with at least two chapters of not-yet-released-in-America material
I have the first two US books (and will buy the others when they are released here) but getting them now on digital is a great giftmas treat.

Pretty sure that is the collection that just came out from nbm.

Well, the new book is the page count of the combined first two volumes. If the story is still going after that, why did NBM call it complete?

Wish NBM had wider distribution, I rarely see their books, even in specialist stores. Probably doesn't help that so much of their output has so much extreme content, even the stuff that looks all-ages friendly.

Wish nbm would do a completist Rick Geary compendium. There's soooo much magazine and anthology stuff that was never collected.

Wish NBM had wider distribution,

They have broader distribution than DC Comics to comic book stores, and the same UK bookstore distribution as Marvel, Archie, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Legendary, Humanoids, Knockabout, Blank Slate, Panini and Toon Books, not to mention Bantam, Doubleday, National Geographic, Putnam and Moleskine notebooks.

Jon - They've got some Geary books coming. Just saw them in the upcoming section.

Sic - I'm a little surprised by that. I do see some and have bought a few in recent times, but somehow I never see Dungeon in Forbidden Planet or Waterstones.

okay, so wrt Miss Don't Touch Me: It seems their "complete" edition adds about 30 to 50 pages of new material. They are "sold out" of volume one and are selling volume two for $3 on their website and there is no volume three to be purchased. This is one of those cases where i feel well justified, having bought the first two volumes at retail, to download the unpublished finale. Very disappointing way to treat a reader/customer imo.

Wolf Hall by Mantel. Next: Wolf's Hour by McCammon.

got all excited for half a second about a graphic novel adaptation of wolf hall

seems like it would be well suited for an adaptation

meaning TV or film

was hella confused until i realized calstars doesn't know this is the comics thread

it's a new year, someone remember to put COMIX ED. in the next one

lol sorry dudes!

i was thinking if someone was doing robert r mccammon comic adaptations i was gonna hafta go get those.

they are doing a tv adap of wolf hall xp hbo iirc?

it's a new year, someone remember to put COMIX ED. in the next one

No!

ILC was here first, the ILB folks should put "BOOKS WITH JUST TEXT AND NO PICS ED." to their thread.

it's just too much to ask these "books" people to know what board they're on

But I enjoy our usual cycle of "mistaken post about Thomas Paine biography" followed by passive-aggressive rebuttal of comics' worth

ILC was here first, the ILB folks should put "BOOKS WITH JUST TEXT AND NO PICS ED." to their thread.

― Tuomas, Monday, 29 December 2014

That would probably rule out a lot of books, especially nonfiction.

sigh

"what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

http://media.giphy.com/media/6ZHUmnZdVQB9K/giphy.gif

Been stuck at home sick for the past week so got into Blacksad and The Wake

I was really put off by the whole furry connotations of Blacksad but it is a gorgeous piece of work

The Wake begins as a stereotypical Eurocomix thing but keeps building the moral ambiguity and craft until by the fifth or sixth vol it's totally cranking

Wake is pretty good, yes

Going to start a "What are you Watching" on the I Love Game Casting board.

Curious what youse thought about the end of the Wake (potential spoiler - I thought it was a daft cop-out and waste of potential)

First seven-eight issues are terrific tho'

Oh it ends? I'm only up to ... no. 11. They just announced no. 17, so I didn't think it was wrapping up. (Are we talking about the same book? I'm talking about the French one, 'Sillage')

Haha, I'm thinking of some trashy Vertigo comic. Yours sounds better.

http://www.eurocomics.info/wake.html

Someone's gotta name the new 2015 thread and I'm not going to screw it up.

I'll screw it up then.
Rolling 2015 Reading Funnybooks Thread