Rolling comic books 2021

Rolling comic books 2022, but Juni Ba has a new series coming out in January through Image. As mentioned above, his Djeliya was very impressive and gorgeous.

In January your local comic shop could get you the first of five issues of my mini series MONKEY MEAT, a fun action packed dystopia with magic and monsters, on an island owned by a corporation that sells cans of monkey meat. Join the safari by preordering at your LCS https://t.co/BJgjJHU33n pic.twitter.com/NWeI0VJQfy

— Juni Ba (@juni_ba) November 12, 2021

Oooh that's cool. Hope it'll get put in a trade afterwards.

40% off sale at Fantagraphics today, free US shipping for orders over $75

Any recommendations? Looking at Dementia 21. Wanted to fill in some L&R but the ones I want are out of stock, as was some of the 2021 stuff I was interested in (Crisis Zone, Crash Site).

A lot of stuff was showing out of stock because of selling heavily during the weekend's 30% off sale, but may be coming back, if you drop them a line to ask 'em if they can add to your order at sale price. Crisis Zone's second printing will be out by the end of the year! (and three or four other Hanselmanuals are also reprinting imminently.)

Guessing that you might also like Stone Fruit and No One Else from the 2021 lineup? maybe The Hand Of Black and Young Shadow, and whichever issues of the NOW anthology are in print.

Also, folks might not know about this deluxe reissue of a classic 80s story by a writer who doesn't like their name to appear on reissues these days. Or in reverse effect, Gary Panter's latest oversized $40 hardcover is now available as a floppy.

Ah, good notes! I will look at those.
Totally forgot about In Pictopia existing - what does Moore have against putting his name on that?

Moore has beef with Fantagraphics due to some old Comics Journal interview, is how I've heard it.

You astonish me.

Is there anyone in the comics industry he's still on speaking terms with?

Out of the many feuds I've seen him involved in this feels like the only one where I think he's just being silly tbh

Do any of y'all fuck with Ed Piskor's The Red Room? I only ask because when it was first announced, it looked extremely NOT up my alley, but people I respect keep praising and promoting it on the socials. So last week I bought issue 1 and it was pretty much what I expected it to be (i.e. not my thing). But I keep seeing people talking about it. Is it safe to assume if I didn't like issue 1, then I would expect more of the same in the other issues?

Ed Piskor has a lot of good will from his previous works. From the cover alone though I had a similar feeling that it wasn't for me. Maybe if my library gets a copy...

i have some love and patience for piskor but red room is terrible based on one issue

Yeah, I tried to read the first issue. It was bad.

I enjoy his Cartoonist Kayfabe channel for all the formalist analysis of comics but his vocal affectations remind me of like 50's white authors trying to show they're hip by talking jive. Not a comment on his work ofc.

Tried the first volume of Sophie Campbell's TMNT run. The concept is cool: a mutagen bomb goes off in a neighbourhood and now everyone's a mutant; the area gets cordoned off but instead of things devolving into gang wars as such a development usually would in a superhero comic the emphasis is on mutual aid, the turtles trying to build up structures to help the neighbourhood out. The art is very not for me tho.

Also tracked down the first volume of D&Q's Kitaro, after having gone through that Arrow yokai box set. Cool episodic stuff, v cartoonish figures contrasted with ultra realistic backgrounds.

Anyone recall the writer who explained Superman keeping his identity secret by vibrating his face when he is getting his photo taken/filmed? That's one of the funniest old DC things ever

Supergirl has also done that in her CW show. It's just as ridiculous as you'd expect.

Like this Teen Titans piece
https://joshbayer.storenvy.com/products/13642836-characters-watercolor-commission

I was just checking out when the remainder of Berserk is coming out (I was up to volume 37) and Miura has another one book series coming out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duranki_(manga)
I still haven't read Giganto Maxia either (that's one book)

Never seeing the real end of Berserk is going to be a lifelong regret for me

Has anyone read Blutch graphic novels or Don Simpson's Border Worlds? I'm thinking of getting them

Here's a review I wrote of Blutch's Total Jazz album:

https://theslingsandarrows.com/total-jazz/

Thanks

both worth a read imo

I remember Border Worlds was excellent back in the 80s, but I was out of comics when he later finished the story. Same thing with Puma Blues, which I think they later finished off at some point.

Indie comics is always a sad dead letter office of series that never finished.

i am rummaging through a digital stash of image comics of the 90's and wow are there ever a lot of unfinished and abbreviated series.

The factors that ended 1990s Image series are very different to the ones that ended Puma Blues.

not unrelated tho

Steve Geppi bought TOO many copies of Wetworks?

I think Dover put out a complete Puma Blues a few years ago.

That’s what earl’s referring to.

Yeah, I always intend to find a copy of that one but never have.

Don Simpson was from Michigan was was at a bunch of cons I went to as a teen back in the late 80s like in places like South Bend and Grand Rapids. He was a funny dude.

Jim Starlin was also a regular another Michigander that would show up at those cons too. I used to have a boodle of stuff signed by him. Loved some Dreadstar!

he dated an aunt of mine and my family name showed up on the nametag of a murdered soldier in Breed

Fuuck that is kinda weird, but it's comic dudes they are a strange lot.

i think it was friendly!

lol at “too many copies of Wetworks”

I think it was the Wizard/Image thing of the time but it was like.. this is… the series

and it never happened, then a pretty well-illustrated issue came out, and I think between corporate and personal issues, it was clear this was never going to happen in any conceivable way, and the speculators were trying to sell issues everyone had five copies of for a premium

Whilce Portacio is a pretty ok ilustrator but hey

(the story of image)

You never know though with comic dudes, it's not unusual for an artist in a dead body scene to draw their friends into a scene as a joke but from the line you stated about your aunt's dating him, it could be in fun or a creepy way. We are talking about comic artists, not exactly the most emotionally mature/stable group of humans on the planet.

I was hoping it was he was not a freak as Starlin was pretty cool when I met him as a teenager.

Then again, the only time I met Harlan Ellison he was amazingly nice and cool and seemed to really enjoy talking to me. But hey I was also running a booth at a comic con and was had a copy of the Deathbird stories with me.

Same con, I pissed off Julius Schwartz asking a question about him being a literary agent for HP Lovecraft (and got death glares galore from comic nurds of a couple generations at the 50th anniversary Superman con).

My recollection is Julie saying "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT DRUG FIEND!".

Schwartz known to be a serial sexual harasser, so bit rich of him to take the moral high ground:

https://www.comicsbeat.com/how-a-toxic-history-of-harassment-has-damaged-the-comics-industry/

Oh yeah, I don't doubt it as I said on some comic people kinda in general and not that HP Lovecraft was a nice person or anything.

At that point being like 18, I don't know that I had been in that situation of pissing off that many people at once. I usually reserve that for a one on one situation. I just thought it was a more curious thing to me in his career than the same question on the Legion or some Superman question.

I should have asked him why the Superman comics mostly sucked for the last 25 years of his career and went from a top seller to who cares, it make more money in t-shirts and lunch boxes.

Alan Moore asked him all about his Lovecraft connection but he was a star writer at the time

I read a bit about FJ Ackerman sexually harrassing someone who worked with him and it was horrible

I ran across this video of Ann Nocenti talking about Steve Ditko and found it entertaining, so I thought I’d share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvQtwceDILI

pretty sure the comment on the video mentioning that she’s probably thinking of a Daredevil issue he illustrated is correct

I seen Ditko's nephew say something about his uncle being disappointed that comics hadn't become more educational. Maybe that sums up what I don't like about the direction he taken for what ended up being the majority of his career. And maybe that's why despite loving fancy costumes, super powers and fights, I don't care for the amount of superhero stories that are about right and wrong, good and evil, heroism etc. It's a problem with martial arts films too.

pretty sure the comment on the video mentioning that she’s probably thinking of a Daredevil issue he illustrated is correct

Yep, when Ditko returned to Marvel he was adamant he wouldn't draw Spider-Man or Dr Strange ever again, not even in cameo appearances etc.

I recently read through most of Nocenti’s run on Daredevil. The “babies in bags” thing she mentions made it in, but if it was a metaphor for socialism (lol) she omitted that part or Ditko did not exactly explain how to convey that bit

The idea of Steve Ditko wandering into your office and rambling about his philosophy is pretty funny.

A friend of mine, who organised comic conventions in the UK, met Ditko up at the American Marvel offices in the early 1980s. Rather cheekily, my pal asked Ditko if he would like to come over to the UK as a comic con guest. Ditko just said, "No, I did one of those in 1964".

All Time Comics vol 1

This seems is mostly modelled on 80s and 90s superhero comics but I thought there was a lot of golden age in there too. I didn't like the stories much, it felt something like a reverential parody, embracing the clichés too much. It improves a little bit after the first couple of issues but never stopped feeling a bit restrained to me despite the outlaw attitude. There are some funny bits, but overall it's pretty staid. I know some artists find collaboration fun but as with the mainstream comics they're paying tribute, the pencillers and inkers rarely shine brightest when working together.

I mostly bought this because I wanted to see Josh Bayer's drawing and he doesn't have that many pages but writes most of it. He has a wonderfully sludgy drawing style so the writing kind of perplexes me because it's so straight forward. I quite like the stiff tensity of Benjamin Marra's best drawing and the work by the 4 colorists is really nice and warm, the most consistently good thing here. Herb Trimpe doing some of his last work. There's a ton of pinups and covers by a lot of artists and the several Das Pastoras pictures are why I'm keeping this book.

I have the second volume and it looks more energetic so I'm still looking forward to it.

"No, I did one of those in 1964".

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