Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:29:58 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The All New Comics Thread 2017+ Edition

Started by Small Man Big Horse, October 13, 2017, 05:58:40 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Phil_A

Aww, fuck. I'm guessing it was cancer given he'd had at least one close shave already? Fuck it all.

Jesus, how many memorable images was he responsible for in the classic years of 2000AD? Too many to count. A defining artist in so many ways.


Phil_A

He's a legend for his work on Strontium Dog alone - "Journey Into Hell" was always a favourite of mine






kidsick5000

Such a shame. I loved Ezquerra's art. He's an artist that made it look effortless.
Always had energy in his lines.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on October 01, 2018, 07:24:39 PM
Heroes In Crisis - Tom King's big DC series, it's a bit too grim for my liking with Harley Quinn repeatedly knifing Booster Gold, and then the revelation that Booster might be responsible for murdering a fuck load of superheroes. The art's lovely and I am intrigued by the idea of their being a psychiatric hospital for damaged superheroes, and will probably read a couple more issues, but I can't say I particularly liked the first issue.

From the outside, everything about it says NO! Yet another Crisis event. Yet another event! Where does this fit? Haven't they yet to finish the other events like Doomsday Clock? And they're using that style of cover again. It all seems incredibly tired and horse flogging.
And yet... the art in the preview does look better than average. I could be swayed to try it. Art plays a big part in these things

kidsick5000

Tried it.
Didn't like it. Art was okay - a mix of Oliver Coipel and Leinil Yu.
His take on Wonder Woman is... well, I'm sure he studied certain poses a lot.

But the script- too grimdark albeit thankfully without overly macabre, dark, bdsm injustice outfits.
And yet, playing in the grittier end of CSI in order to have shocking deaths leaves me cold.

There may be some twist and I might be tempted to dip into the collected version but none of this made me interested to plod through on a monthly basis.

Small Man Big Horse

That's how I felt, which is a shame as I love his take on Mister Miracle and had high hopes for it.

Norton Canes

#276
Quote from: kidsick5000 on October 02, 2018, 02:43:27 AM
Such a shame. I loved Ezquerra's art. He's an artist that made it look effortless.
Always had energy in his lines


One of the obits described his art as 'a riot of grim flamboyance', which I thought summed it up pretty well.

It was a huge shame that Dredd got stolen out from under his nose in the early progs, and other artists such as Bolland, McMahon and Ron Smith became known for a while as the 'definitive' Dredd artists. But he roared back with The Apocalypse War and stamped his authority back on the strip with characteristic panache, re-establishing himself as the top dog. And on the subject of Dogs, while Dredd became something of a shared concern Strontium Dog was only ever his property, at least until the unwise decision to kill off Johnny Alpha prompted him to relinquish his hold on the strip. As can be seen by the examples upthread, it was with Strontium Dog that Carlos could really give free rein to his imagination.

The other remarkable thing about him is that his skills never showed the slightest sign of decline, even with the onset of old age and ill health. Some of the black and white commission work he's done over the last few years if anything eclipses the quality of his commercial material. And with a couple of exceptions he stayed loyal to the House of Tharg, even when he was seconded to Crisis to draw Third World War.

The fact that on top of all that he was a wonderful bloke who had time for everyone makes him seem almost too good to be true. Absolutely a legend. 

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Norton Canes on October 05, 2018, 02:17:12 PM

One of the obits described his art as 'a riot of grim flamboyance', which I thought summed it up pretty well.

It was a huge shame that Dredd got stolen out from under his nose in the early progs, and other artists such as Bolland, McMahon and Ron Smith became known for a while as the 'definitive' Dredd artists. But he roared back with The Apocalypse War and stamped his authority back on the strip with characteristic panache, re-establishing himself as the top dog. And on the subject of Dogs, while Dredd became something of a shared concern Strontium Dog was only ever his property, at least until the unwise decision to kill off Johnny Alpha prompted him to relinquish his hold on the strip. As can be seen by the examples upthread, it was with Strontium Dog that Carlos could really give free rein to his imagination.

The other remarkable thing about him is that his skills never showed the slightest sign of decline, even with the onset of old age and ill health. Some of the black and white commission work he's done over the last few years if anything eclipses the quality of his commercial material. And with a couple of exceptions he stayed loyal to the House of Tharg, even when he was seconded to Crisis to draw Third World War.

The fact that on top of all that he was a wonderful bloke who had time for everyone makes him seem almost too good to be true. Absolutely a legend.

That's a lovely tribute to the great man there.

Freakangels - Originally a webcomic, this has been collected together as six trade paperbacks. Written by Warren Ellis it's a fun and breezy read, and the arts mostly nice too. It has the occasional dip in quality but I liked it a fair bit as a whole.

Batman 56 - Bats is on the rampage after the shooting last month, trying to track down the person responsible. It's okay, but not the most interesting work King has done on the series.

The Walking Dead 184 - Why do I do this to myself? It's a real sickness. Am getting therapy soon and will ask for help on this front first.

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor Issue 0 - Barely features 13 at all and is just an excuse to have brief stories from the previous 12 Doctors. Quite fun, and the art's mostly great, though frustratingly they went with a really shitty cartoonish style for Tom Baker that spoils it a bit.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Norton Canes on October 05, 2018, 02:17:12 PM

One of the obits described his art as 'a riot of grim flamboyance', which I thought summed it up pretty well.

It was a huge shame that Dredd got stolen out from under his nose in the early progs, and other artists such as Bolland, McMahon and Ron Smith became known for a while as the 'definitive' Dredd artists.

I have to admit, his early Dredd stuff I was not a fan, possibly because he was drawing Dredd too realistically - or costume designing for a low-budget film adaptation in the early days - his Dredd had more of a biker feel. Other artists embellished the costume for it to work in comics. (Then again, there's something joyfully nuts about UK comics where each artist could just dictate helmet shape, style of eagle, gun for their go.)

But Strontium Dog and the rest, Ezquerra had such a punk edge to his style. It was attractively raw. You can tell when an artist has studied anatomy and he was a natural director. The are no poses or layouts where you can see he's struggled. Everything feels like it hit the page from his pen with little-to-no resistance.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on October 05, 2018, 07:11:10 PM


The Walking Dead 184 - Why do I do this to myself? It's a real sickness. Am getting therapy soon and will ask for help on this front first.

Like the tv show, you could get the same joy from reading the synopsis on Wikipedia.
That said, I still buy the collections as they have, rather decently kept the price pretty much the same and they do work better reading 6-7 issues at a time

Small Man Big Horse

It turns out for the last couple of years we've had a "Comics Laureate" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45840811 - Apparently she's "the award-winning creator of graphic novels Adamtine and Livestock" but I can't say I've heard of them, does anyone know if they're any good?



Icehaven

Saw that on the news this morning and also hadn't heard of them/her (although the title Adamtine sounds familiar, but I'm not sure if that's just because it sounds like Adamantine) so going to investigate further.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: icehaven on October 15, 2018, 07:20:43 AM
Saw that on the news this morning and also hadn't heard of them/her (although the title Adamtine sounds familiar, but I'm not sure if that's just because it sounds like Adamantine) so going to investigate further.

I'd be intrigued to hear your thoughts, I couldn't track down any of her work online and can't afford graphic novels right now.

Small Man Big Horse

Supergirl - Being Super - Cute four issue retelling of the origin story which is fun if a little throwaway, but I enjoyed reading it well enough. Pleased to see the character no longer has enormous breasts too, it's about time DC stopped making all of it's superheroes ridiculously top heavy.

Faith - Dreamscape 1 - I love the character and wish she had an ongoing series but have to put up with occasional mini-series. Anyway, this is great stuff, and I'd recommend everyone track all of her comics down.


Small Man Big Horse

Thought I'd give Thor issue 6 a go as I haven't read the comic before, and it turns out events are all rather complicated:



It's actually fairly fun stuff, the art's really great and it's ridiculously over the top, so I plan to start reading it regularly now, which surprises as I'm not normally in to Marvel fare.

Batman 57 - One long fight scene between Bats and The Beast, intercut with an old Russian fairytale. Took about five minutes to read and was pretty disappointing stuff, I get what King was trying to do but I'd be pissed off if I'd paid £3 for it.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on October 18, 2018, 02:11:11 AM
Thought I'd give Thor issue 6 a go as I haven't read the comic before, and it turns out events are all rather complicated:


I'd have words with that intern. All caps is for headlines and standfirsts, not body text.
Grief that was a difficult read.

Small Man Big Horse

Heh, you're not wrong. Turns out that it's a great comic though, it feels so weird to praise a mainstream Marvel title but it really is a lot of fun.

I'm also especially fond of Thor's dog, Thori.




garbed_attic

I'm still thoroughly enjoying Olivia James' new Nancy comics. Cute and endearing without ever resorting to sentimentalism. Not as startlingly iconic as classic Bushmiller-era, but she has some real comics chops and gets how child psychology can make for some fun, even arch jokes.

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2018/10/06?fbclid=IwAR2fesjY1kTPRLmjqSf4B9yP2gDeKbR1ACesLBLyUDcK323OQgTHgo-jaGg

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2018/09/04?fbclid=IwAR0z-WP1_Tqmqv28kMuv2XwSffg04ycbNFXgC_ZUlGrwsrKHJkMcc4ELP_c

https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2018/07/16?fbclid=IwAR2we2RUpUYjD6TMNh4hXqSbUWDTe2Fu_FNYbQ5o4tcaXsI8bE-kUzYFxqw

Spiteface

2 issues into Beyond the Grid, and I hope things pick up with the new creative team on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, because I'm not really feeling this right now. Maybe it was because of the absurdly high stakes with Shattered Grid (basically Power Rangers does a Crisis) with the VERY familiar original cast, written by someone (Kyle Higgins) who utterly gets Power Rangers but writes it with a comic book sensiblility freed from having to use stock footage from Japan.

So far, I feel like you could take out this random team, replace them with 6 other characters and the outcome would be the same, it's coming off like any other spacey sci fi material at the moment. Solar Ranger is an interesting original (i.e. non-Japanese) design though, and I want to know more about her and how she's apparently got powers when the Grid's still fucked after what Lord Drakkon did:

Small Man Big Horse

Betty "The Slayer" Mitchell - Cross Buffy with The X-Files and set it in the Victorian period and what have you got? A big old pile of annoying shit. It's a nice enough idea but the writings terrible, and surprisingly bland given the concept.

Small Man Big Horse

Just learnt that the artist of Doomsday Clock is a fan of Stewart Lee's, and included him in issue 3:



Though if that's what he does to comedians he likes I'd hate to see the outcome of one he hated.

kidsick5000

Have just been reading Neil Gaiman's A Study In Emerald.
A clever Holmes-ian mystery with some nice twists.
It's by Dark Horse but it really feels like a publishers wish-fulfilment - ie what if we did more with The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman in the Victorian era (back when it was more fun). That's very telling in the spoof ads that go ahead of each chapter.
If you can't get Alan Moore, Gaiman is the obvious choice.
There are a few Victorian legends involved, a touch of Lovecraft.
Some really nice art by Rafael Albuquerque who's work has a looseness but a confidences and you're never left wondering who's who.
If you haven't read Huck yet, another of Mark Millar's movie pitches in comic form.

Lovely Stuff. With the ending, I really want to know more about this world, and particularly this Baker St duo.

magval

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 06, 2018, 12:35:00 AM
Just learnt that the artist of Doomsday Clock is a fan of Stewart Lee's, and included him in issue 3:



Though if that's what he does to comedians he likes I'd hate to see the outcome of one he hated.

Stewart's talked about Peter David's run on Hulk in his shows in the past, and a good deal of it was illustrated by Gary Frank who's on Doomsday Clock at the minute. He's actually drawn him in the background of his comics before, too.

Glebe



Grant Morrison signing in Forbidden Planet here in Dublin yesterday. Seemed like a nice bloke, was taking his time and chatting away to people and that.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: magval on November 07, 2018, 02:17:30 AM
Stewart's talked about Peter David's run on Hulk in his shows in the past, and a good deal of it was illustrated by Gary Frank who's on Doomsday Clock at the minute. He's actually drawn him in the background of his comics before, too.

Ah, I didn't know that but it's really interesting to hear.

Quote from: Glebe on November 08, 2018, 05:38:13 AM


Grant Morrison signing in Forbidden Planet here in Dublin yesterday. Seemed like a nice bloke, was taking his time and chatting away to people and that.

I'm very jealous Glebe, I'd like to have met him as I'm a big fan of his work, admittedly mostly his 90s / early 2000s comics but I still find him interesting to this day. Did you buy anything out of interest? Or ask any questions?

Glebe

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 08, 2018, 11:39:26 AMI'm very jealous Glebe, I'd like to have met him as I'm a big fan of his work, admittedly mostly his 90s / early 2000s comics but I still find him interesting to this day. Did you buy anything out of interest? Or ask any questions?

I got Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Batman: Gothic signed (he drew Batman symbols with both sigs! Oh, and issue 1 of his new Green Lantern series, which, tbh, I only bought out of courtesy), SMBH... I have to admit that they're the only books of his I have, but Arkham Asylum in particular is one of my favourite Batman graphic novels. So while, rather ashamedly, I'm not familiar with a lot of his other famous works, I was delighted to get them signed, being a big Batman fan and that.

As I say, he was really cool and relaxed, taking the time to talk to people and that. I just vaguely mumbled something about reading that he felt that Dave McKean went to town a bit illustrating AA, but yeah, he seemed very nice.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Glebe on November 09, 2018, 02:35:40 AM
I got Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Batman: Gothic signed (he drew Batman symbols with both sigs! Oh, and issue 1 of his new Green Lantern series, which, tbh, I only bought out of courtesy), SMBH... I have to admit that they're the only books of his I have, but Arkham Asylum in particular is one of my favourite Batman graphic novels. So while, rather ashamedly, I'm not familiar with a lot of his other famous works, I was delighted to get them signed, being a big Batman fan and that.

As I say, he was really cool and relaxed, taking the time to talk to people and that. I just vaguely mumbled something about reading that he felt that Dave McKean went to town a bit illustrating AA, but yeah, he seemed very nice.

Ah, that's cool, I really should keep an eye out for more comics signings as apart from the one comic con I've attended the only one I've ever been to was Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean and that was back in 1998! I'd also not heard of Batman Gothic before so will have to check that out.

studpuppet

A few years ago my local library (someone there obviously loves their graphic novels) organised an evening with Bryan Talbot. If you ever get a chance to go to one, do so. He spent the evening talking about the structure of comics, how artists draw the reader's eye around the page in the right order, subconscious visual clues they drop in etc. (I remember him talking about The Tale Of One Bad Rat and how, every time the main character is in danger there's red involved, even down to the car her dad drives and the postbox she posts him a letter in).

At the end he sold and signed for everyone - I'd brought some books with me, but I bought one so I didn't feel like a complete heel. He then proceeded to take at least a couple of minutes signing every book handed to him with a full (sometimes double-page) illustration plus signature. Top bloke.

Edited to say that the whole point of my post was to say: go and see him if he does a similar talk near you!

Small Man Big Horse

That's really interesting to hear, I've bookmarked his fan site which has news on such things and will do my best to attend one at some point.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 09, 2018, 12:14:38 PM
That's really interesting to hear, I've bookmarked his fan site which has news on such things and will do my best to attend one at some point.
Likewise