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The All New Comics Thread 2017+ Edition

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: madhair60 on June 04, 2019, 12:26:11 PM
Walking Dead #192 christ's sake

I've just read it and thought it was shit too. I've no issue with Rick dying, indeed I'd have been pissed off if he hadn't after being shot in the chest in the previous issue, but everything that followed it was a big pile of tedious crap. Carl's confrontation with the killer was laughably bad and considering Kirkman just killed off the lead character it felt ridiculously hollow and dull, even the reveal of Rick as a zombie was poorly handled and rushed. I really think this might be it for me, I've been hate reading it for ages now and see no point in continuing as it's clearly going to get worse and worse.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on June 05, 2019, 04:24:21 PM
I've just read it and thought it was shit too. I've no issue with Rick dying, indeed I'd have been pissed off if he hadn't after being shot in the chest in the previous issue, but everything that followed it was a big pile of tedious crap. Carl's confrontation with the killer was laughably bad and considering Kirkman just killed off the lead character it felt ridiculously hollow and dull, even the reveal of Rick as a zombie was poorly handled and rushed. I really think this might be it for me, I've been hate reading it for ages now and see no point in continuing as it's clearly going to get worse and worse.

I half admire Kirkman for doing it. And for making it so definite.
I wonder where his head is. Is he doing this to see if there are legs to the series post-Rick, or if sales plummet using it as an opportunity to wind up the series.?

madhair60

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on June 05, 2019, 03:34:49 PM
got a bundle on comixology that has 'Afterlife of Archie', 'Chilling Adventures of Sabrina', the 2015 reboot v1 and the comic based in the continuity of the Riverdale tv series (which I haven't seen). dipping into all tjhat shit and will report back

I enjoy the fuck out of Archie comics tbh

madhair60

Oh and Married Life is an outright good soap opera comic

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: kidsick5000 on June 05, 2019, 07:27:32 PM
I half admire Kirkman for doing it. And for making it so definite.
I wonder where his head is. Is he doing this to see if there are legs to the series post-Rick, or if sales plummet using it as an opportunity to wind up the series.?

From interviews I've read in the past it seems to be the latter, he's talked about hoping it'll run for 300 issues. And I like the fact that he did it, I just wish the aftermath had been more interesting / less absolutely rubbish.

Mister Six

As research for a... thing that I might post about in here at some point down the line, I've been inflicting the post-Hellblazer, DC-universe John Constantine series on myself. So I thought I should do some good with my suffering and moan about it on here, so you never make the same mistake.

Constantine is ninety-nine-point-nine-percent dog chods. There are a couple of great ideas in the early issues (my favourite being the giant demon with a detachable head who traps you in a pocket dimension from which the only escape is a hole in his neck), but mostly it's the kind of shit that makes Garth Ennis relentlessly mock superhero stories. Constantine fights people with a magic sword, for fuck's sake - mostly Sargon the Sorcerer's daughter (I can't remember if she has a name, she seems only to be referred to as "Sargon the Sorcerer's daughter"), Mr. E (now talking like Foghorn Leghorn) and someone else so boring I can't remember his name.

Past the first few issues (which have Jeff Lemire as co-writer; after that it's Ray Fawkes going solo), each issue seems to have just a single plot development that the characters inch towards, and not much else going on. The USP seems to be "Constantine meets superheroes", but of course that means he becomes just another superhero himself, and while Hellblazer proper would have - y'know - characters and conversations and jokes and regular people interacting with the weirdness, this just has page after page of glowing shit flying about as wizards wave their hands at each other. Stuff like this, basically:



There's one good issue in which John drives across a Darkseid-wracked parallel Earth, but that means Constantine can drive now. 0/10

After that comic was cancelled, a reboot - Constantine: The Hellblazer was commissioned, with a younger, hipper and - wait for it - bisexual Constantine in play. Ooooh! The bisexuality thing was a really minor point in the original Hellblazer run, but got blown up into A Big Deal by various blogs all feeding off each other around the time of the Constantine movie, and I get the feeling that the writers for this run were more familiar with the blog posts than the original comic. In the very first scene, John callously rips off a working-class shopgirl, knowing she'll probably be fired while the ghost of Gary Lester (a junkie thief who killed a child for his own selfish ends in the original comic) tries to be his conscience. You got that the exact wrong way round, guys. Still though. Bisexuals - and A Black, too. Woke!



Despite the fucked characterisation - and the arc in issues 2-5 being terrible - it's actually a really, really good comic. The writers have a fantastic grasp of the language of comics, it's brimming with wit and invention, and the jokes are genuinely funny. It's unlike so much of the mainstream DC stuff I've read because it's actually written with enthusiasm by a team with an artistic vision, rather than coming across as a hackjob someone knocked out on their way to the Batman strip they really want to do. Riley Rossmo's art is fantastic too, and even though it was cancelled at 24 issues it ends conclusively and relatively satisfyingly. Pretend it's not Hellblazer (not difficult), but instead some kind of Angel spin-off and you'll have a good time. 8/10

The Hellblazer (really running out of titles here, lads) was the third reboot, and an attempt to revisit what made the original series work: dark fantasy and horror stories, a British writer, set in London, with a marginally more down-to-Earth tone. Simon Oliver's opening 12-issue arc has really, really great dialogue: funny, naturalistic enough to convince but writerly enough to entertain, shot through with British slang without sounding contrived or hokey.

Which is a good thing, because that's about all there is to recommend this. The plot, such as it is, itself takes a long fucking time to go nowhere at all; the first couple of issues are a tangle of what I assume are subplots and crossovers from other comics of the time (Swamp Thing is looking for Abby, who is now an avatar of The Rot - kind of like the Green, but grosser - but we never see her and that subplot is pretty much forgotten about), the next few reintroduce lots of classic Hellblazer characters (Mercury, Marj, Map, Clarice, Albert) but written so poorly they're unrecognisable), and the ones after that take a diversion to Paris to meet a supporting cast that we'll never, ever see again. The story just stops with issue 12, which I assume is the point that Oliver got his marching orders. Constantine gets separated from the entire cast, who go to resolve the plot off-panel, and slopes off back to London. And the art's mostly bland shit. Somehow feels like an even bigger waste of Time than Constantine, even though it's objectively better written in terms of characterisation and dialogue. Some quite fun covers though. 1/10



And then there's the other half of this run, written by American Tim Seely, which is tons better than what came before but still weirdly dispensible. The three arcs here have fantastic conceits (Norse dwarves who have a drink that lets them rewrite reality; a xenophobic US Buddhist cult sending those they hate to Nirvana so they can claim the Earth; Cockney gangsters trying to bring back their kin from Hell; a vampire who's squeaminsh about biting people so attacks them with a hypodermic needle) but they all feel thinly spread, with bland characters and yarns that just sort of peter out. Constantine acts like a cunt all the time too, which is annoying (but par for the course in the DC universe). Oh, and Huntress, Batman's mate, turns up at the end for some reason. 5/10

So there you go: read Constantine: The Hellblazer (just grit your teeth through the early issues) and fuck off the rest. You're welcome.

Quote from: Mister Six on June 06, 2019, 02:29:09 PM
Sargon the Sorcerer

love the issue of Constantine where he defeats Sargon by debating him in a 3 hour youtube livestream

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Mister Six on June 06, 2019, 02:29:09 PM
As research for a... thing that I might post about in here at some point down the line, I've been inflicting the post-Hellblazer, DC-universe John Constantine series on myself. So I thought I should do some good with my suffering and moan about it on here, so you never make the same mistake....

That was a really interesting read, thanks for that Mister Six. I had read some of the post Hellblazer John Constantine comics but only a few as they were so bad, and everything that you said their suggests I'm not missing out on anything in the slightest.

Mister Six

I honestly would recommend the Constantine: The Hellblazer series (authors are Ming Doyle and James Tynion IV) as a very breezy read - just not Hellblazer.

madhair60


chveik

Quote from: madhair60 on June 05, 2019, 07:44:58 PM
Oh and Married Life is an outright good soap opera comic

I would add The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel

Mister Six

Quote from: madhair60 on June 06, 2019, 11:25:03 PM
I liked it by Garth Ennis

Hellblazer is gold (more or less) from #1-143. Then Brian Azzarello comes on and it gets a bit wonky. Then there's a little renaissance from Mike Carey (issues 175-215) and then you can pretty much sack it off from there (maybe dipping in for issue 229 which is a brief fill-in by Mike Carey, and 250 which has a really great short story by China Mieville).

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Mister Six on June 07, 2019, 01:56:23 AM
Hellblazer is gold (more or less) from #1-143. Then Brian Azzarello comes on and it gets a bit wonky. Then there's a little renaissance from Mike Carey (issues 175-215) and then you can pretty much sack it off from there (maybe dipping in for issue 229 which is a brief fill-in by Mike Carey, and 250 which has a really great short story by China Mieville).
I'm just about to start from issue 1, which I've already read and loved, and complete up to Azzarello. I've heard elsewhere that that's when it dies. But I'll have a look at the Mieville issue.

Small Man Big Horse

I like the Milligan run that sees it through to the end, it's not as good as Hellblazer at it's best and some of the decisions he made were a little dodgy but overall I think it's fun. At the very least it's worth reading the final issue as I think it worked effectively.

madhair60

Quote from: chveik on June 06, 2019, 11:28:19 PM
I would add The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel

I've been meaning to buy this for ages. I love comics like that, or that Chester Brown/Seth/Joe Matt lot.

Oh by the way I have to "brag", nabbed an immaculate copy of Building Stories from the Mind shop for £4 last weekend.

Mister Six

Quote from: Artie Fufkin on June 07, 2019, 01:13:32 PM
I'm just about to start from issue 1, which I've already read and loved, and complete up to Azzarello. I've heard elsewhere that that's when it dies. But I'll have a look at the Mieville issue.

Azzarello doesn't quite get John and his final arc is naff, but his run is worth persisting through for some career-best work from artist Marcelo Frusin and a few very effective stories (Freezes Over and Highwater being the highlights).

Mike Carey comes on immediately after and totally reinvigorates the comic. I'd say his is the last true classic run and definitely worth reading. You could skip right to him, but I think there's enough gold in the Azzarello run to make it worth sticking with (though maybe get the books from a library rather than paying for them).

chveik

Quote from: madhair60 on June 07, 2019, 01:50:03 PM
I've been meaning to buy this for ages. I love comics like that, or that Chester Brown/Seth/Joe Matt lot.

yeah love those too.

discovered a couple of similar comics recently, if you're interested:

- Dirty Plotte (Julie Doucet)
- Schizo (Ivan Brunetti) some of his strips remind me a bit of your own work

madhair60

Quote from: chveik on June 07, 2019, 08:30:58 PM
some of his strips remind me a bit of your own work

Always a thrill when people compare me to real comic book creators. x

Mister Six

Fuck me, Fury: My War Gone By is two volumes of concentrated grimness, but never less than compelling. Ennis takes the seemingly immortal - or at least very slowly ageing - super-soldier and does something that, in retrospect, is blindingly obvious: shows us his involvement in the great (and terrible) wars of the latter half of the 20th century: Vietnam (1950s), Cuba (1960s), Vietnam again (1970s) and Nicaragua (1980s). It starts off as a slightly cynical gung-ho war comic and develops into a damning indictment of American foreign policy and the corruption created by the military-industrial complex, with a real fucking gut-punch of a finale. Frank Castle and Barracuda show up in a couple of storylines, though not together, and while the former doesn't get much to do, the latter is put to better use than he was in Punisher MAX, I reckon.

Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Anyone with an interest in espionage or war stories, or Ennis' harder stuff, should absolutely pick it up. Fab work from Croatian art hero Goran Parlov, too.

Artie Fufkin


Mister Six

No worries - hope you enjoy it. There's a bit in one of the later issues involving something seen through night vision goggles that is one of my favourite bits of dialogue-free storytelling, I think. Not flashy at all, maybe not even a stand-out to anyone else, but absolutely gets across everything it needs to in about four panels.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Mister Six on June 19, 2019, 03:48:58 AM
Fuck me, Fury: My War Gone By is two volumes of concentrated grimness, but never less than compelling. Ennis takes the seemingly immortal - or at least very slowly ageing - super-soldier and does something that, in retrospect, is blindingly obvious: shows us his involvement in the great (and terrible) wars of the latter half of the 20th century: Vietnam (1950s), Cuba (1960s), Vietnam again (1970s) and Nicaragua (1980s). It starts off as a slightly cynical gung-ho war comic and develops into a damning indictment of American foreign policy and the corruption created by the military-industrial complex, with a real fucking gut-punch of a finale. Frank Castle and Barracuda show up in a couple of storylines, though not together, and while the former doesn't get much to do, the latter is put to better use than he was in Punisher MAX, I reckon.

Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Anyone with an interest in espionage or war stories, or Ennis' harder stuff, should absolutely pick it up. Fab work from Croatian art hero Goran Parlov, too.

I'll have to try this. Though I wasn't a fan of Ennis' MAX take on Fury - where he's burnt out and looking after his nephew. But let's give it a go

kidsick5000

I know this is poor form, but I'm desperately looking for an old comic strip.
Does anyone know where you can download old issues of Deadline?

Phil_A

Very few Deadline scans floating around for some reason, I've only ever been able to grab a handful of them. What strip was it specifically?

I'm hoping the British Comics blog guy will eventually start uploading them, he's got Deadline on his list of future uploads so it will happen at some point.

https://britishcomics.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/comics-list/

Small Man Big Horse

Santa Versus Dracula - I thought this might be a bit gimmicky, with the writer coming up with a great title but not delivering, but it's actually really fun stuff, the characters have depth and though the art's a bit cartoony I thought it suited it well.

Batman 73 - Eh, a bit fillerish, and what could have been told in about 10 pages was spread out to an entire issue. Apparently King's now leaving the title with issue 85 instead of 100 so I hope it up's the pace and finishes the story he wanted to tell.

Immortal Hulk 19 - I loved this at first but didn't get on with the Hulk in hell arc, but now it's back on form and I love what they've done with Betty, I'm still amazed that Marvel publish such a weird comic but apparently it's a big seller so it's set to continue for a good while which pleases.

Elvira - Another comic I thought might be gimmicky, but this is quite good too, it's nothing amazing but it's got a cute sense of humour and the plot's daft fun.

Superman: Year One - Fucking awful, and just an embarrassment in general.

And here's a long arse review of the GLOW comic based on the Netflix series that I wrote for my site:

There are many tv shows which have had a comics spin off while on the air or after they've been cancelled, from the likes of Buffy to Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica to Firefly, but most of them are sci-fi or fantasy genre pieces and it's rare that either a comedy or drama has ended in comics form. There are exceptions of course, some mad man thought people would want to buy a Saved By The Bell comic back in the nineties, but they tend to be few and far apart so I was quite surprised when I saw that IDW Publishing had put out a comic based on the popular Netflix show GLOW.

If you've not seen the series it's based on the Glamorous Ladies Of Wrestling, a tv series made in the eighties which showcased a selection of talented women and their wrestling abilities, though most of it is actually about what goes on behind the scenes and the relationships they have with each other and their mostly okay but occasionally shitty bosses Sam and Bash. Starring Allison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Sydelle Noel, Britney Young and Marc Maron it's been an enjoyable affair, it's not the most innovative of shows but the characters have depth and it's smartly written.

The comic it's based on isn't the disaster that I thought it might be too. The story line is a fairly involving one where the women are overjoyed at the prospect of an entire weekend off for the first time in an age and start planning what they want to do, only for Sam to quash their plans as he's booked them in to perform at a wrestling convention. Once they arrive they discover that there's another female wrestling team who they have to work with, and said wrestlers aren't impressed by the GLOW stars, considering them not to be real wrestlers in the slightest.

Written by Tini Howard with art by Hannah Templer, the art is a bit too simplistic and cartoonish for my tastes though at least you can recognise all of the individual characters which doesn't always apply with comics' adaptations (*glares at some of the artists who have taken on Buffy over the years*). Of course this kind of thing wouldn't suit anything too realistic and artists like Simon Bisley or Rob Liefield might have sucked the fun out of it, but someone like Adam Hughes or Kevin Maguire who have a real knack for capturing quirky facial expressions would have been better. As it is it's not the end of the world though and Templer captures the physicality of the wrestling effectively at least.

On the writing side of things I've less complaints and Tini Howard does a decent job at capturing the individual characteristics of the cast. So Ruth is as optimistic and perky as ever, Betty's slightly reluctant but always ready to up her game, while Carmen is excitable but then has concerns as to how her family might react to her performing at a real wrestling convention rather than on tv. Her portrayal of Sam is strong too, he's still curmudgeonly but shows occasionally glimpses of kindness, and when it comes to Sheila, well, she's still slightly odd but without it ever feeling cliched or lazy. Out of the rest only Cherry gets a raw deal and is used for cheap laughs, but as she's kind of out of it on painkillers after a dental procedure I'll let it slide just this once.

There's a good few amusing moments during these two issues, from Ruth and Betty's play fighting in character to raise money for the journey to Rhonda's desperate attempts to win a quiz, and Melanie's attempted seduction of a British wrestler raised a smile, even if the latter character's dialogue is a pretty cliched version of how the English speak. But on the downside it's an extremely flimsy read, there's none of the slightly more complex elements of the tv series in the comic, Ruth and Betty's relationship isn't explored in anywhere close to the depth of the show and bar Carmen's subplot there isn't a dramatic edge to it at all, which is a shame as that's one of the best parts of the tv series.

I'd be surprised if it appealed to anyone who hasn't watched the tv show and unsurprisingly sales figures for the first issue weren't that high (it was the 192nd best selling comic for March, which obviously isn't good) so I don't know how long it will continue for. And even fans of the series might go away disappointed, at least if they're looking for something which really replicates how good the show is, but if you're in the mood for something fun and breezy featuring characters that you're fond of, that could have been a real mess but which at least manages to successfully capture some of the feel of the tv show, then it's something you might want to check out at least once.

(psst, SMBH, does the Glow comic have any nudity, asking for a very unwoke friend who I definitely don't approve of)

Small Man Big Horse

Heh, you can tell your disgusting friend that no, no it does not. And even if it did the art's so cartoony I can't imagine him finding it erotic.


Ta SMBH, my friend will probably get the comics anyway, as he loves the various personalities in the show

Small Man Big Horse

I was quite surprised how much I liked it, as I said in the review it's not as good as the show but it's not the disaster it could've been. And if your friend is a dirty rotten thief like me he can read it here for free: https://readcomiconline.to/

kidsick5000

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on June 22, 2019, 07:41:34 PM

Superman: Year One - Fucking awful, and just an embarrassment in general.

I've yet to read it. But I'm amazed that Frank Miller keeps getting DC gigs.
He's an early example for me of "Oh no, he actually meant it". One of those who lost it after 9/11, we should never forget Holy Terror, his pitch for Batman versus the terrorists.
Then there's the unfinished All-Star Batman and Robin