Rolling Comic Book thread 2017

As requested: https://imgur.com/a/ubvwv

I feel like I've seen Al use ILX-specific terminology in a Marvel comic before. (Unwashed) Hats off to him either way.

ha, this is awesome

oh god yes, read that and forgot about it

wow that's kinda... terrible lol

thank you for providing.
that is kinda terrible, but also kinda awesome

the paws joke never made any sense so.. yeah...

oh, Nhexpaws

Really enjoyed Al Ewing's Rocket Racoon, and his stint on Doctor Who (my gf was also very impressed by that having a library assistant character, apparently Al knows his onions).

I started this year with a very half-arsed project to re-read all my comics. So half-arsed, in fact, that I am still at A. Art Out Of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaires 1900-1969 remains an awesome anthology, so much weird stuff in there. It first introduced me to Herbie! However, trying to read the tiny tiny word baloons in a lot of the stuff from the 00's/10's made me remember the times when I had both the eyesight and the tenacity to do that. #justmortalitythings

That book was a huge deal at the time. I never got the sequel Art In Time but I might sometime.

Ordered the three Tor by Joe Kubert hardcovers then had to cancel when I found out they give them the standard Archives/Masterworks cruelty.

Sick bastards.

sadly the thread where "oh, wrinklepaws" originated was deleted

The Tor series by DC in the 70s and Marvel in the 90s are the best option left, though far from complete.

original thread quoted in here i think:
I'm old here, so what is... 'Oh, Wrinklepaws'?

the real tragedy here is the loss of "oh, wrinklepaws".

― haitch (haitch), Saturday, April 8, 2006 12:33 AM (eleven years ago)

A few months ago I was enjoying someone's intelligent book reviews until I got to their review of a Molly Crabapple book. I have no idea what to make of her accusing Crabapple of being a turbo-capitalist co-opting important issues but I was quite shocked that she seemed to be saying that Crabapple's stories about being sexually harassed by men in her travels didn't count because she'd danced for rich white men. Someone else seemed to accuse her of making it all up.

I didn't really have the confidence or patience to look over it and criticize them. I was a bit stressed and doubted my perception and didn't want to get somebody into shit if I was completely wrong.

Is any of this talk familiar to you guys?

I'm a little bit paranoid my bringing this up will somehow catch Crabapple's attention and these people (who may or may not have said awful things) would be inundated by her angry fans.

Watched a little Image Comics documentary and Jim Lee said there was a meeting in which Rob Liefeld was jumping up and down on a bed. It showed a bunch of tv appearances Liefeld had, talks about meeting with Tom Cruise and Spielberg being interested in doing an Image thing. I thought it was Stephenson and Larsen that started the shift in the company but it was really Jim Valentino.

yes, because Valentino came from Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade (& al), so knew that indie publishers existed and proportionally paid better, with no interference. his entire "mainstream" career was only about two years?

I meant the shift towards more genres and styles that were different than the founders.

don’t forget the very special issue of Spawn where he met Cerebus

Both issues of Splitting Image came out before Spawn #10 tbf

Leslie Stein and Emily Flake getting good New Yorker placement
https://www.newyorker.com/sections/humor/the-man-with-a-discman
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/young-and-dumb-inside

did you miss the gabrielle bell page a couple of weeks ago about taking care of my elderly dog?

(I think it was online edition only but - highly recommended)

I did!
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/adventures-in-geriatric-dogsitting

That's great

Can't remember if I posted this before or someone else.
https://www.comics.org/issue/247718/cover/4/

ha, that ny’er piece is great

birth of the truth bomb!

Been looking at the art of Jorge Zaffino and Nestor Infante, good stuff. Infante did a bunch of daft looking Continuity comics, very 90s but also done quite well.
I like Kaja Saudek but the only thing I can find is a massive book in a Czech online store. I only discovered him recently, but I've always been a fan of his brilliant photographer brother Jan Saudek.

Considering buying a lot of comics I didn't think I'd be interested in again. This could easily be another elaborate form of procrastination, I constantly change my mind about what kind of comics I can get along with. So many things I've bought I just can't be bothered reading after I've had a look at the art, like Tipping Point from Humanoids, which had a pretty solid line-up. I just wasn't in the mood for Akira and was happy to read the synopsis.

Want to buy the first Marvel release in ages, their Horror Magazine Collection. It's not in colour so I don't think they can ruin it.

Whole bunch of Joe Kubert, Mort Meskin, Civiello (never been quite sure what to make of), Arthur Ranson, Russ Heath, Blutch, Mizuki's Kitaro books, Lone Wolf & Cub, Samurai Executioner, maybe some Planet Comics, Mystery In Space and similar science fantasy.

Reason I've been previously put off is because their drawings, taken individually don't stand up to as much scrutiny as I would like. But I've started thinking maybe that doesn't matter as much as the overall feel of their drawing styles.

Got an eye on the Showcase and Essential collections because they're getting a bit more scarce now and these comics might never be packaged so cheap and nice again.
I've never been a fan of most of the old DC artists, especially Infantino, Swan, Boring and Plastino. But I've never read enough of the really crazy old DC comics so I'm hoping Atomic Knights, Strange Adventures, Metamorpho, Metal Men and maybe even Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and Green Lantern will do. Throw in Amethyst (much newer), Sea Devils and a bunch of anthologies. Some decent Kubert, Heath, Ramona Fradon and Nick Cardy in there too.

The reason I'm more likely to try golden/early silver age versions of superheroes with art I'm not crazy about is there's less attempts to make characters emotional in a way the artist can't deliver, less continuity heavy long arcs and there's less attempts to be hip (although I've been told to be wary of Bob Haney in this regard). With the Showcase collections I don't need to worry about bad digital colour.

I'll never read all this and can't afford it all but I'll do what I can.

I don't know if that new horror magazine collection is among them, but there are a number of previous collections of '70s Marvel b&w magazine material that they edited for content (naked boobies: okay in 1977, not okay in 2017). I'll leave it to you to decide whether those alterations ruin the material.

I mourn the essentials line, what a great thing those were. Everyone except colletta looks fantastic without color.

I think shops probably started to hate them. A lot of them (particularly DC's Showcase line) had a very limited audience and just sat there for years, taking up a lot of space. There were times you could tell they were struggling to get rid of them.
Probably the same for Gollancz SF Gateway Omnibus series which stopped a couple of years ago.

I'd love it if they brought them back, I really believe it's one of the best things Marvel ever done. Hardly anyone outside Marvel and DC jumped on this bandwagon. There were Savage Sword Of Conan, Savage Dragon and Fred Hembeck (that one was massive) books, can't remember anything else. Dark Horse made some surprisingly cheap colour omnibuses.

I absolutely hate Showcase and Essentials reprints, cheapo b&w crap is for chumps

Seriously, any dumb a-hole who ain't willing to shell out a measly $75 for a Masterworks collection is unfit to clean my gold-plated toilet.

hey I get all my comics from the library

Some comics suffer for the black and white but Ditko and Colan look superior in that form.

The current Marvel colour reprints look utterly foul (especially Masterworks), so it's not like we're spoiled for good options. If you want the best colour versions it's either buying back issues (could be well outside your price range) or finding decent torrent scans.

If anyone thinks Masterworks look better than Essential books, they're... I have no words for such an ailment.

Wolfman/Colan's Night Force was recently reprinted but again, the new colouring ruins it and I'd rather seek out back issues.

Another book I decided not to get because of the recolour: Winterworld by Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino.

The only Masterworks i own are kirby Thor editions from some years back and they look great imo

*shudder*

I don't regret burning my Masterworks and DC Archives at all. Hideous they were.

Yr nuts

The Man of Tomorrow DC Archive editions i have are wonderful

Maybe I'm nuts, but I'm very far from being the only one who hates them. I mean, some people think the Dark Horse reprints of Warren or the Yoe and PS Publishing reproductions are awful but it's a whole different level from Marvel Masterworks and DC Archives.

I dearly wish I was wrong but I paid a lot for those books, tried to convince myself they didn't look so bad and I'd be even more nuts if I managed to delude myself about it.

Here's some writing about the reproductions
http://digitizingcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/marvel-masterworks-reprint-or.html

http://community.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?1611-How-do-old-comics-get-reprinted

The recreations on those pretty obviously look like someone used a projector, either focused to enlarge or not, and traced it? I used to play around with doing that as a kid because my family had one and you have to be good at following lines and contours but pre-computer image editing it was a time consuming but easy way to recreate images.

It reminds me of all the fairly thankless work that artists that haven't broken through end up doing, either as interns or in-house at Marvel. I'm sure DC and others have similar roles, but the basic role is churning out all the stuff that goes on merchandise that's either mimicking existing art or recreating stock superhero poses for use in promo materials, t-shirts, coffee mugs, whatever

I had a high school friend who was an intern and ended up doing some of that stuff, but worked as an assistant to an artist who was doing several books. I think his highest profile published comic work, at least that he told me he did, was the cityscape backgrounds for several Ultimate Fantastic Four issues.

Strangest thing about using such disreputable techniques is how much extra work it must have taken. In other comparable art reproduction worlds you wouldn't be caught dead doing this stuff.

Surprisingly there aren't many side by side comparisons. Years ago I scanned some and I wish I'd kept them up. The overpowering solidity of the new colour on the bright white paper really contrasts with the subtler dotted colour on a less bright white.

In one of the comparisons with Kirby+Ayers with super thick lines it actually doesn't look too bad but on an artist whose linework is more delicate, it looks awful, like a person who's just had their teeth over-whitened.

Reading those cheapo B&W collections always felt wrong to me, like it was the pan & scan of comic books. Also especially when you're used to reading manga that was produced and meant to be read in B&W in the first place, even the great Marvel/DC stuff feels strangely incomplete without color. I'd prefer it even with the "bad" color reproduction in the glossy Masterworks collections - though to be honest, it's still more readable than a 30-year-old floppy of such-and-such, dotted on newsprint.

I'm too much of a rube to really notice bad colouring jobs I guess. I own plenty of Essential/Showcase volumes (initial Showcase fever was a great time to be on ILC) but I do think Silver Age superhero comics beg for colour in a way many other comics don't; b&w feels like removing a really essential component of the aesthetic.