Rolling Comic Books 2019

Am also shocked that Impact font is still allowed (or desired by people whose job it is to put fonts on things)

DC has spent much of the year thus far (arguably for a number of years prior but really ramped up for 2019) demonstrating their dedication to questionable decisions. Subpar typefaces and movie ads on their covers are just skimming the surface.

(So much upheaval over such a little Batwang.)

I like the Bendis Superman books and assumed things were getting better. What have they fucked up now?

lengthy sidestep into crime-world and sudden introduction of superboy is readable i thought, sprawling super syndicate underground a little less so
in general they seem okay so far?

Finished the two volumes of Queen Esmeraldas by Leiji Matsumoto. I like how quiet and spacious it is, there's some cool places, and there is atmosphere but it's very annoying how Esmeraldas introduces herself constantly and keeps saying the same things about herself, the story is just way too impressed by the characters and ominous plot points seem to be dropped or ignored (unless they carried into other related stories).
There's a Harlock crossover with lots more humor, the cat being attached to the pole to eat the bird was funny. I was amused by the dad executing his own bratty daughter in the main story but I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be funny.

Read half of the first Captain Harlock book, much more comedic but still has some of the same annoyances. I dropped it, completely leaving the second book (hopefully I'll finally stop buying multiple comics in a series before I've read the first, thank fuck I didn't buy the third Harlock book and Space Battleship Yamato book. I'm worried I wont have the patience for my Hellboy omnibuses).

Having said all this I think others may want to give them a try. It does come off like a libertarian fantasy sometimes though, it's a cruel galaxy until kindred spirits with similar goals of absoloute freedom help each other out.

Some of the animated versions (Matsumoto seems to write most of them?) are supposed to be great, but there's hundreds of them. It's all one big Matsumoto universe.

I dug into some Marvel stuff lately to catch up and read the up-to-date runs of Conan, Punisher, Immortal Hulk and Avengers No Road Home. All pretty good, especially the last two. Ewing is on a roll!

So I guess Paul P0pe got out from under #metoo by virtue of getting #metoo'd before #metoo?

do I actually want to know what that’s in reference to, or would it just be more extraneous shit that makes me throw out things I could actually sell?

serial sexual creep allegations back in 2015? 2016?

He disappeared for a while following harassment allegations (haven't heard of anything he did since the third Battling Boy/West book in 2015), but i notice he's come back doing covers for Brian Azzarello/Maria Llovet's Faithless mini.
Not that I'm trying to raise pitchforks, honestly, but i'm surprised nobody noticed this

A film adaptation of that graphic novel Sabrina is being developed:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/drew-goddard-sabrina-movie-1203183484/

They will probably have to (or will want to) change the title for the movie version...

when does Top Notch get a movie though #nichetweet

lol "a grieving man"

Die's first arc just completed. I'm definitely into it - the art alone is very nice, and I dig the idea of this RPG/social deconstruction. Warning though: super teen goth angst!

I like it more than WICDIV, but I'm not so sure about the art! Just a general Vertigo-era fear of painted comics

so i may have access to a seedbox that is slowly being populated with complete runs of FF, Hulk, Tales to Astonish, 1940's Cap and more for cbr download or on screen viewing
if that's a thing ilxors might be interested in, maybe note here and you could possibly get an ilxmail

don't you already have those as part of that mega chrono collection? Or are these better versions.

no, i got em already; just found this as a resource to share.

I thought this was a cool tribute to Carlos Ezquerra by Chris Weston. It's being auctioned off for a Cancer charity. I can name quite a few of the characters, but a bunch I don't know. Bloody Mary is hidden way up in the right top corner. I like how Gronk is right by Carlos.

https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2019/4/23/d/4/d/d4df869f-259c-4b98-b981-1c57375eaac2.jpg

so the conan books have been really good! like surprisingly so! There's a cohesive story, a long game, due deference to tradition, and the art does what it's supposed to do.

You know an old-school Marvel artist like Ron Garney is LOVING being able to do some Conan. If the editor is good, I would not be surprised you see quite a few names drop in doing issues.

Marvel for the first time really does the back matter really great on those Conan omnibuses. You can tell they got Roy Thomas in to work on it to make it a good book. They should be doing that type of context work on all of the old really classic Marvel reprints.

If you're into it, there's a whole serialized conan short story in text going on in the main book too.

Thoughts on Ales Kot?

Got into his stuff a couple years back. Ok, loves dropping all of his interests/reading into things, stories are kind of flat. Doesn’t come off as clever as he’s aiming for but a couple books were ok.

generation gone was readably okay superheroes-in-the-millar-hyperviolent-fashion
days of hate thought it was quite clever but moved into a space where i didn't give a damn very quickly
his take on bloodborne, quite frankly, doesn't do justice to the video game; this is mostly on point - http://www.tcj.com/reviews/bloodborne-the-death-of-sleep/
tried two issues of New World and signed off
not a fan.

I think of his non-Marvel/DC work I enjoyed Zero the most. I don’t think I’ve read either of the ones forks mentioned

Yeah, I found Days Of Hate a total slog. New World was a relief by contrast, just through virtue of being more colourful and playful and having a sense of humour. Tradd Moore is a dope artist imo.

I was wincing along to the idea of a rebel in the future listening to RATM and Billy Bragg. Then I saw the "Elena Ferrante will never die" graffiti and started to think "ok, maybe they're being ridiculous on purpose".

Parts of Zero was good, but parts of it was total art school showoff bunk. It didn't jump the shark as much as spend a couple of whole issues showing the jumping of the shark with lots of blood splatter and bullets.

I read Zero in singles the whole series and I was kinda pissed reading near the second half. They just went nuts and did that fight scene that went across a couple issues and then the plot got even more bonkers. Thing is for how wack it ended, there was some pages and parts of the comic that were really well done.

I get lured into these Image comics by the first issue being really interesting, then I get behind on my pull list and reading and get the whole series. Once I catch up and read them, I realize that 1/2 of them go totally off the rails and I think "I spent $40 bucks on this turd"... I supposed one more reason to follow series in trade.

The other sadness of following indie comics on a pull list is the one that is amazing that just cold stops and never concludes. Those are worse, as you really do want to read how it turned out.

earl otm on all points

His Winter Soldier series for Marvel is 90% characters and planets named after musicians and Aphex Twin songs

"Die Die Die" by Kirkman, Chris Burnham and some other guy is another one. First couple of issues were fun but good lord people are just f-ing nuts when it comes to the gore these days. Burnham has done some cool comics but I was pretty honked up after reading the next few after say #3 later on in the comics pile. Parts of it seemed a total nick of The Boys and honestly, I don't know if you really want to go there anyway. I dropped Die Die Die from the pull list afterwards with extreme prejudice.

"Black Science" is another series I read the whole thing and wish I would have bailed way early on. There were some parts that were ok, but pretty much all the characters are totally unlikable. Fear Agent is a good read though. I need to get my set of Black Science together and try to blow it out on ebay. Stuff like this makes me just want to go read old Moon Knight or Swamp Thing.

<i>Heroes in Crisis</i> finally ended; I have to say it didn't wrap up as neatly as I hoped. It was a fun read but didn't quite come together. I also hate mysteries where previously known facts are hand-waved away as imaginary. I really liked individual bits of it (particularly the confessionals).

Doomsday Clock #10 came out and we finally get an answer to what Doctor Manhattan's been up to. I have to admit, as silly as this whole project is on a meta level (Geoff Johns, lol) it's been a pretty entertaining series. This issue in particular was quite good, imo.

Is that this?

Here's an honest to god page from DC's big murder mystery event comic. People have been praising the writer as a genius for years. pic.twitter.com/BNOIyvq3LK

— Hurb Cherpley Sea-Doo (@hurbcherpley) May 29, 2019

So that's by Tom King? His Vision run from a couple of years back was awesome, what happened to him?

He wrote a Mister Miracle 12-issue series that covered a lot of the same ground -- marriage and parenthood, what we'll do to protect them, etc. I liked it more than the Vision series.

It was just announced yesterday that he's scripting Duvernay's New Gods movie, for whatever that's worth to you.

King's run on Batman has had dips but has been consistently enjoyable for seventy issues and running.
Omega Men and Vision are both excellent; I need to return to Miracle Man.
I thought Heroes in Crisis was garbage; highlighted all his writerly weaknesses unnecessarily and made almost no sense.
Overall, my sense is that DC is overworking him and his output is watering down but he's proven himself worth following.

also i swear i've made that post like three times already.

xp pretty much agree with you

Overall, my sense is that DC is overworking him and his output is watering down but he's proven himself worth following.

See also any popular superhero comics writer ever

I swear at any given time the whole industry is being written by just 5 or 6 ppl

well sure! But not all those "doing 42 books at once" guys are at all interesting even when they started; cullen bunn and jeff lemire come to mind immediately in that category.

"Hey Bill Mantlo, can you get me a script with (insert character) by 2pm tomorrow?"

"No problem."

Sounds like a dream job, even in that situation lol

I've heard that Joe Gill (who was perhaps only behind Paul S Newman as most prolific American comics writer) was asked to write stories just as he was about to leave and could whip something up in 15 minutes, probably shorter than 22 pages though.

guiltily agree that Doomsday Clock is trash but a fun read

feel kinda bad that geoff johns must think it’s his Big Artistic Statement though

why would you feel bad, he got paid $$$$ to deconstruct his own mistakes