2014 what are you reading thread

they're quay better

Dockwood - Jon McNaught - just caught up w/ this guy, gorgeous illustrative cartooning set in a small English town, equal parts Chris Ware and Phillip Larkin

So I just got in that mood, and re-read The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck for the umpteenth time. It really is one of the great novels of the nineties. Every time it returns to Scotland, it just gets me.

preach

I really should pick up that book

i probably already said this but ms. marvel and the wicked + the divine are both killing the shit out of everything rn and you should be reading them

adorable guest appearance (arc??) with wolverine in ms marvel this month

Journey Into Mystery aside, there's a combination of smugness and emo and try-hardiness about Gillen's comics that I find completely toxic. I totally get his appeal. But his characters are spanners.

I love Ms Marvel though!

i don't disagree with you about the tone but they do generally make for good readin' nonetheless

So guys, what was the last comic that really knocked your fucking socks off?

For me the best parts of Miura's Berserk did that. The second volume of Phoenix by Tezuka was close to that. Sadly both of them were last year I think.

last one that comes to mind was this:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2014/01/exclusive-preview-what-we-need-to-know-by-willy-linthout/

i don't want to encourage that

?

lettering in those samples was unbearable

i like that lettering! and i like linthout's previous book a lot as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Years-Elephant-Willy-Linthout/dp/8492444304

smugness and emo and try-hardiness about Gillen's comics

haha i totally sense this arrogance/smugness in the writing but i'm sorta taking it as part of the conceit of having so many deity characters

Yeah, that's why he's great at writing Loki! But I find it tiring when every character is a variation on that theme.

The smugness is part of his trademark style tbh, going back to his game reviewing days

Game reviewing! I get it now. I don't like it. But I get it.

btw I don't mean that as a slam, I was very fond of his games journo work

should i read phonogram if enjoying w+d btw y/n

Yes! I didn't like it either so you probably will. The first series is better though than "Singles Club".

haha ok

just bought the whole young avengers run and am pretty gobsmacked at how great it is

a lot of it reminds me of buffy at its best

gieron & mckelvie's run, that is

Emily Carroll's first collection Through The Woods out this week. I Might get it.

Some of you might be interested in Ragnarok, Walter Simonson's creator owned Norse mythology thing.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=22670

Mulling over getting the Boody Rogers collection that came out a few years ago. I read a few reprints in an issue of Comics Journal once. Crazy stuff, particularly how the main character grew really big feet in one story and seemed to keep them in later stories.

btw i read through the whole kieron young avengers last night, up til 4 in the morning

hot diggity

lol i typed 'kieron' thinking i was on twitter and it would autocomplete

just got the new o'malley - seconds

oh dude lmk how that is, considering it

waiting for paperback but seeing that it's lettered by Harbin instead of a computer makes me more anticipatory, that was the biggest (only!) flaw with Scott Pilgrim for me

thanks for reminding me, i will get it next time i tithe our amazon overlords

from comments on the ~utility belt~ supergirl has had added to her costume:

If you want to take selfies, you need a phone and for that you need pockets.

This is probably how the pouch-pocalypse of the '90s happened. It began with a good idea. Those superheroes need some place to carry their ammo, communication device and probably money. Then Liefeld thought maybe they need snacks and drinks too, so more pouches were added. And then they need to first aid kits, various scifi gadgets, repair kits for their outfits, a scarf maybe for those cold missions, a Walkman for those downtimes, tapes for the Walkman, a novel for the more literary types, a camera if they need to take photos of villain lairs, extra film for that camera, mints, toothbrush and toothpaste because they have so many teeth, hot oil for muscle cramps because Liefeld characters have more muscles than real humans, and so on.

That's great.

Titan are said to be reprinting a Druillet book, 6 Voyages. I'd be surprised if they just stopped there. I wonder if the translation will be new because some people say all those old translations were very poor.
I still don't have Salammbo so I hope they reprint that.

I just finished off Steve Lafler's Complete Bughouse and recommend it unreservedly.
http://www.co2comics.com/pages/co2_bughouse.html
http://www.amazon.com/M%C3%A9nage-%C3%A0-BUGHOUSE-Steve-Lafler/dp/B008PVLBJA/

I always welcome translated stuff (I'm going to put a list of all my translation wishes in the reprint thread soon) but now I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that these things are just getting released to tie in with a film adaptation (WOW! MOVIES! WOW! CELEBRITIES! Everybody knows comics are only good for films, games, toys and merchandise to be based on them).

With all the talk of Alan Moore asking people to boycott the Hercules film based on Steve Moore's comic (minus the gay relationship), Phoebe Gloeckner's Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Refn's version of Incal. Plus all the usual stuff.

hey, if it takes a movie to get good comics back into print, who cares?

Yes! to new Druillet editions. I remember reading somewhere - probably Jack Kirby Collector - that Kirby once went into a comic shop and out of everything on display he picked up a Druillet book and said, "Now THAT's comics!"

I'm just particularly fed up with film adaptations and biopics being like this ultimate validation. Sick of familiarity being prized.

Some of my favourite films and comics are adaptations but I think it's more important to support original works in any medium.
I think in geek culture in particular (which dominates comics worse than films) there's an attitude that familiar things are unbeatable and need to be continually built up. Build shrines to what they already know, not looking for other things.

When something new comes along I wonder how many people think about how many more new things could come around? When Game Of Thrones got a bigger fandom I wonder how many people thought "maybe there are thousands of great stories that will never have a screen adaptation"? Have people totally given up hope of a giant readership for lots of newer writers without help of making a screen adaptation? Keep making adaptations probably isn't going to reverse this.

I don't refuse to buy adaptations, sequels, works with fictional celebrities (Cthulhu) etc or put people who do them on a list but I'm often a little disappointed that they didn't develop something more new. I think there is a really serious lack of confidence and conviction about what could be created (somehow contemplating all the things that could exist someday doesn't have an overwhelming allure for most). There's a lot of people who believe nothing will ever be as good as Star Wars or Marvel Universe, that needs to be fought against.

Everything is about franchises when it should be about seeking qualities that drawn people to these franchises in the first place. If a geek is entranced by Giger's vision in films, the geek is more likely to want endless collectibles based on it than Giger art and equally powerful artists like Albin Brunovsky, Robert Venosa, Andrzej Masanis, Denis Forkas Kostromitin, Ernst Fuchs, Santiago Caruso, Nicholas Kalmakoff, Alison Schulnik and quite a number more (look up these guys if you like spectacular visions).

I might have said this before but geek culture desperately needs to take more from Metal fandom. Metal fandom certainly has problems but in general its worship of established acts got less in the way of finding new powerful visions.

getting around to reading Godland. Art is the main appeal, feel like it's v much Veitch doing Kirby a la 1963. It is very weird to see a Kirby homage with zero sound effects though.

Refn's version of Incal

wait waht

His Incal isn't confirmed yet but he seems intent on doing it and Jodorowsky is a close buddy so it seems like it will happen eventually.
He also wants to do the 2000AD Button Man story. Expressed an interest in a Wonder Woman film but that isn't happening now. So I guess he likes comics.

phwoar

The biggest digital comic book distributor in all of digital comics land, Comixology, just took a relatively unprecedented move for a platform its size. Customers will now be able to download DRM-free backups—meaning when you buy a book, you'll finally get to own it, too.

http://gizmodo.com/you-can-finally-download-drm-free-comic-book-backups-fr-1610443535?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

doesn't say which publishers have signed on yet and i can't imagine all the big boys will but still this is p cool

Out of the stuff I've bought it looks like Image and Top Shelf. No surprise on either of them. I haven't bought anything from the big two.

OK that's huge. That's what was keeping me away from those services. Hope more publishers get onboard.

that's good news. probably timed to go against marvel's SDCC promo

hasn't Top Shelf's digital been DRM-free for four or five years?

Not if you bought it through comixology

EZ Snapping, if you didn't see that Saxon/Whitesnake thread, I'm just telling you here that what you said has had me laughing my ass off.

I bought the Emily Carroll book, very nicely designed.

I still pick up lots of comics in the shop and can't decide if I want to buy it for a relatively small portion of the content. That book of early Joe Kubert in particular. I just love the rugged detail.

Interesting to see Waterstones dedicating part of a table to Savage Dragon.

comixology is like the diamond comics of digital. those motherfuckers.