2014 what are you reading thread

- It confuses me why so many fans get antsy about comics not coming out monthly or being delayed a bit. I could imagine why if you only followed a couple of titles but some comic nuts get livid about delays despite there being so much else to occupy them.
If there was only graphic novels (or "big thick comics" as my preferred term, although some are only 40 pages) I wonder if that would turn some people away. Maybe some people who cant afford many comics per month (especially younger readers) wouldn't like it.

Personally I'd like it a lot. About 85% of monthly comics look unfinished to me; I see a lot of collected editions where the first issue looks great and the rest look hurried. I think this would be less frequent if only GNs were made.
Even if there was regular series of GNs, they would probably have a much better overall quality. I think some creators like Steve Niles makes comics that seem too brief individually and are obviously created with graphic novel posterity in mind.

One of the things that bothers me most about individual issues is that they seem like a waste of precious paper to me. I hate seeing stacks of issues nobody bought because they were waiting for the collected edition. It seems that collected editions are more often pre-decided now, when they used to depend on strong sales of individual issues.

I cant remember if there is a returns policy for direct market comics. I recall complaints about there not being a returns option or there only being limited options. It would explain all the stacks of unsold issues that nobody wants anymore.

- I used to hear the words "flood the market" quite a lot but that term doesn't seem to pop up as often. The biggest publishers being accused of creating more titles just to keep smaller publishers off the stands. I don't know if Diamond has encouraged this but I've heard some people partly blaming them for it. That most shops are obliged to sell all DC and Marvel titles before they think about stocking anyone else's titles.
I heard one comic shop employee bitterly grumbling that diamond stopped offering titles that did well (better selling than the minor DC and Marvel stuff) to make more room for comics, toys/merchandise from the bigger companies. That's really shitty.

- I used to see a lot of discussion about it being difficult to know what really sells well and about the numbers possibly being guarded (but why would anyone?). Between direct market, book stores, online shops and digital sales it's really difficult to accurately tell what is truly the most popular. I don't know how much library loaning enters the picture but illegal scan blogs, forums and file sharing are extremely popular. Some people just want to keep up with the latest storylines more than enjoying the comics as whole.

- To illustrate my discontent with the American/British/Canadian (anyone else share roughly the same direct market?) comics shops, I say imagine music shops overwhelmingly stocked tribute bands and covers bands (some people would says this is already true, but I'd say that is excessively reductive even though there are grains of truth in it) all based on the songs of a relative minority or bands. A large part of the store selling toys and merchandise of the most popular musicians. Toys of George Martin, Tony Visconti and famous groupies are more important than stocking cult bands.
Or imagine book shops sold mostly sequels/remakes of Charles Dickens, Tolkien and a few other writers and a large amount of the shop was James Bond, Tolstoy and Conan toys.

These kind of comparisons never work entirely but I think it still makes my point.

- Part of the frustrating thing about comics for me is that compared to other things they are extremely easy to make. People often say that any film being completed is a miracle because it's such a complicated process with so many people involved. With the internet it's easier than ever and I'm surprised that I don't see more interesting stuff. There is thousands of bad/mediocre webcomics and thousands of great artists/illustrators but very few notable online comics. Since it is so easy, why aren't there hundreds of great comics on blogs and tumblrs?

Speaking of Mould Map 3 above, even though I really admire the drawings of a lot of new alternative comics artists, I find most of them don't really communicate that much. I'm fine with vague obscurity but they don't often draw me in or seem potent enough. I'm sure none of these guys make a living from their work and I see a lot of promise in their way of doing things but I want a lot more from them in terms of power.

I cant remember if there is a returns policy for direct market comics.

That most shops are obliged to sell all DC and Marvel titles before they think about stocking anyone else's titles.

Thanks.

I got Verbeek's Upsidedowns collection (Sunday Press) in the mail today and it is amazing. Collects Quite a lot of his other strips but probably none of them to completion. I'd love a complete Terror Of The Tiny Tads collection but I'm sure I saved them all as jpegs years ago from some comic strip archive. There's something amazing about the morphing uncertainty (for lack of a better word) in his linework that is wonderful. I was dissing newspaper strips a little bit above but seeing these surrealist comics from this era makes me wonder how much more of this stuff there might be. Sunday Press actually doesn't publish much but they are pretty ambitious books.

Diamond didn't gain a monopoly until the mid 90s; when I started self publishing True Swamp in 94 it was still Diamond and Capitol City as the two big distributors with iirc three smaller but not negligible other companies (like if diamond and Capitol ordered 800 each the littler ones were ordering 100).

No publisher was exclusive with any of these distros; you got orders from all of them.

Then this stupid, stupid mania happened where all the publishers started going exclusive with one or the other of Diamond and Capitol, with much trumpeting for each signing. Everyone had to take sides all of a sudden. This resulted in the failure of Capitol City and the smaller distros. I still shake my head over this, it really really sucked and was unnecessary and ended up making things permanently worse for everybody except Diamond.

Denis Kitchen and James Owen were admirable, demented, quixotic heroes

Lol

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/spiderman-only-on-the-web-if-the-superheros-adventures-go-digital-will-they-have-the-same-magic-as-the-original-comics-9179098.html?origin=internalSearch

This would be a pretty extreme step if they weren't going to even stick with printed collections. I've heard talk of digital single issues for quite a few years and think it would be a good idea.
Some businesses can afford to act as if everyone on the planet has a great internet connection but I don't think they are one of them or that they'd totally abandon it, I don't see how sales could rise. Maybe avoiding the cost of printing would benefit them enough to do something this drastic?

I haven't bought any of these digital comics. Is anyone offering digital copies of Marvel's 30s-60s output without all that Masterworks remastering ruining the art?

I hope digital comics makes more translated and obscure work possible to own.

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2014/03/marvel-unlimited-update-introduces-native-marvel-comics-reading-experience
testing this out now.
went by a shop for the first time in forever, bought book 2 of adventure time, trondheims approximate continuum comics and vance and burr's on the ropes

The Marvel Unlimited app is finally fullscreen on iPads, which is nice.

xps Diamond gained their monopoly in the 90s exactly because Marvel tried and failed at going it alone.

Marvel bought Heroes World to distribute themselves exclusively -> the other distributers scramble to get exclusive deals with other publishers -> smaller distros fail without full roster of publishers -> Marvel's efforts failed -> Diamond left as the only distro standing.

Also, Marvel's attempt at going it alone and the subsequent exclusive deals meant retailers had to order from distributers. Splitting their orders meant losing out on their previous deals for amount of stock ordered, increasing the cost for the same comics they'd always ordered. Marvel's move put literally thousands of shops out of business.

order from *multiple* distributers

Thanks for sorting those memories out for me. Prior to the Marvel buy, Heroes was one of those second tier but substantial players.

It's funny what a microcosm of nineties capital idiocy the whole thing was.

Yeah iirc it's because of Heroes World being a second-tier player with limited coverage that doomed Marvel's endeavor. (I'm remembering all this stuff from reading the Untold Story book a few months ago.)

it was doomed for more reasons than that, all around Marvel's blind overconfidence in itself.

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. ... 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.

i don't have much interest in the adventure comics (though i should check out terry one of these days), but it's important to remember that with very few exceptions the best strips either are relatively short-lived (barnaby, C&H, segar's popeye) or have a definite 'peak' period; it's very rare that a strip's creator manages to keep up quality for longer than about 10 years. krazy kat is the one exception i can think of, where you've got about three decades' worth of work and it's basically all great. but imo the best strips more than hold their own against anything else in the field.

terry and steve canyon are fun reads even now

Terry: Skip the first (IDW) book, where Caniff is still developing the premise and his art. Books two thru four are solid adventure yarns, the best of their kind but samey after a while. Towards the end of book four is where it starts to get really interesting, with the war taking over the story. The last two books, with Terry in the Air Force, are the essential stuff.

backed up, going to read a bunch when I fly on Monday:
Rover Red Charlie 2,3
Deadly Class 1,2
Night of the Living Deadpool 1-4
Royals Masters of War 1,2
Lobster Johnson, Get the Lobster 1,2
Empire of the Dead
Twilight Zone 2
Baltimore Chapel of Bones 2
new Dark Horse Presents

i dl'd the first six books of this, it's very good and easy enough to find cbrs if you wanna
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vanishing-Alone-Volume-1/dp/1849181969

That looks good! Always up for weirdo Spirou stuff.

http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/000000000000000003870846/scanlations/126
found this and kinda went nuts. worth exploring.

Some increasing interest about little known comic artist Ryuichiro Kutsuzawa, really really impressive stuff...
http://www.cheshirecatart.com/blog/?p=1482

Interesting, like if Masamune Shirow did work that wasn't sci-fi/porn

some good looking stuff there forks

Yeah i uh "got" about a hundred books and am reading them now.

http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/1/hark-a-vagrants-kate-beaton-on-comics-history-and-drawing-admiral-nelson

interview is great but i was curious -- "She is perhaps the only cartoonist ever to be published by both Marvel Comics and The New Yorker." Is this true? I tried to think of other "cartoonists" who might've been published in both. I thought surely Stan Lee must've done something for New Yorker once? I couldn't find any online evidence if he had. Anyone else who might fulfill this criteria?

Jaime Hernandez did a cover and story for the indie version of Strange Tales and has had a number of illos in the New Yorker. Seems like he's done a cover or two as well?

she's probably the only "she" who published in marvel and the new yorker but i'm not sure i even believe that. marie severin?

Ivan Brunetti was also in that Strange Tales and has done at least one New Yorker cover.

Jillian Tamaki is a Canadian illustrator known for her work in The New York Times and The New Yorker and for the graphic novel Skim, written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki.[1]

Comix Book reprinted Maus, and Spiegelman has been in the New Yorker approx 972,034 times

Indie comickers : Strange Tales :: Heavy metal dudes : Testament ?

If Testament was formed with the intention of getting guys to play heavy metal in it, then yes

kinda sorta

Francoise Mouly, the art editor at the New Yorker, coloured some Marvel Comics

r crumb had a strip in a Kurtzman book published by Marvel, and has appeared in the New Yorker

^ covers and reportage multi-page colour strips

kinda think infinity would have been a lot better if roz chast had been the continuity editor

Mazzuchelli?

I've been getting into some of the 2000 AD series trades, since so many are now not hard to find in the US. I'm reading the first Slaine TPB, Judge Dredd Mega City Masters 1 and the first Dredd Case File right now. I got the first Nemesis the Warlock and Strontium Dog Agency File in my stack to start next.

first nemesis volume is awesome, mills and o'neil at the top of their game

and halo jones is in the v top tier of alan moore comics

http://brokentractorparts.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/scan.jpg

Got to say that Zombo "Can I Eat You Please?" was a really, really fun read. I know Al posts around here and all I can say is thumbs up. I'm definitely going to rep. Zombo to my local shop, as knowing the guys that work there and how many zombie comics they sell there are people that would love it if they read it. I've got the second Zombo trade on order. There are bunches of really funny lines of dialog in the comic and Henry Flint's artwork is really sharp.

Foligatto. If it didn't look as great as it does I'd feel ripped off by 15 pounds for 64 pages.

I saw a huge stack, maybe 20 copies of Fashion Beast reduced in the comic shop. I woulda thought 80s Moore would have sold better.

It's not 80s Moore though, it's '10s Johnston

oh hi dere every volume of blueberry scanlated into english

better link

The translation was decent and the lettering so good in the Epic editions, I don't think I could bear to look at it with amateur translation and computer letters