HOLY SHIP 2007/11/14 BLACK DOSSIER IS FINALLY OUT

Oh wow, and Morrison doesn't want to be outdone:
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9

ASSman
Fables
Black Dossier (is it still going to have, like, a record and 3-d glasses and shit?)

DC does mentions the Tijuana Bible and the 3D spex, but not the record.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9
DMZ #25
FABLES #67
NIGHTWING #138
UN-MEN #4
WORLD OF WARCRAFT #1
HOUSE OF M AVENGERS #1 (Maybe)
WORLD WAR HULK #5
X-FACTOR #25

Wow. Big week.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN
LXG: BLACK DOSSIER - Eventually.
BPRD: KILLING GROUNDS
PUNISHER
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL - Wherein one of the various Kravens since LAST HUNT gets trotted out.
SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER - Slowly but surely becoming an objectivist screed.

all star soupman
thor
BPRD

will wait for the paperback on black dossier.

THOR any good?

All my instincts tell me no, but I'm currently picking up all of the Simonson run in back issues (insane plan - long story - halfway there) and groovin' incredibly on the ESSENTIALS and desperately want it to be excellent.

ASS, and maybe I'll try Wonder Woman as it's GS's first issue.

I may also make a discreet (i.e. evil credit card) purchase of the Black Dossier.

Seeing as I'm in Toronto, hopefully I can pick up a freebie of the Scott Pilgrim somewhere...

Why am I even considering buying a WoW comic book. wtf me.

Now THIS is a good week!

I've read BLACK DOSSIER, and the short version is yes it is awesome, and no it doesn't have the 7" record. Maybe the Absolute edition.

For me, otherwise:

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9--best superhero comic out right now, I think
BOOSTER GOLD #4--I'm a little shocked by how much I like this series
EX MACHINA VOL. 6 POWER DOWN TP--I enjoy most of BKV's stuff better in trades
JLA ULTRAMARINE CORPS TP--the prequel to "Seven Soldiers"!
WONDER WOMAN #14--read an advance copy, kinda fun
NEW AVENGERS #36--meanwhile, back at the plot...
WORLD WAR HULK #5--the other best superhero comic out right now
PALESTINE HC--expanded edition of Joe Sacco's fantastic reported comic
SCOTT PILGRIM VOL. 4 SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER TP--I've read this one too, and the short version is yes it is awesome, and no it doesn't have a 7" either
SHOOTING WAR GN--very eager to read this

I'm currently picking up all of the Simonson run in back issues (insane plan - long story - halfway there)

I have almost all of these if you want 'em...

What the EFF at the name of this thread. Only ONE COMIC MATTERS this week, and it's called

SCOTT

PILGRIM

GETS

IT

TOGETHER

When I am picking up SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER on Wednesday, I will also purchase these vastly less important comics items:

All Star Superman
New Avengers
World War Hulk
X-Factor

In anyone asks, Perpetua has been removed for his facile dismissal of good taste and lack of reasonable sense.

This seems like a bit of an odd paring.

SPIDER-MAN RED SONJA #4 (OF 5)

BPRD KILLING GROUND #4
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9
FABLES #67
GEN 13 #14
JLA CLASSIFIED #46
SHOWCASE PRESENTS TP SGT ROCK VOL 01
SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #9
WONDER WOMAN #14
BRIT #3
PUNISHER #52
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #13
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #48
WORLD WAR HULK #5
X-FACTOR #25
GARTH ENNIS CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD HC
MARK MILLAR UNFUNNIES #3
MARK MILLAR UNFUNNIES #4

A couple of those are dependent on LCS getting them in, I guess.

I am awaiting Amazon to do the DC restriction busting on The Black Dossier, so I don't know when I'll see it. Yes, the 7" record is supposed to be with the Absolute edition.

I am behind the curve on Scott Pilgrim, I need to get the ones inbetween before I get #4.

Oh good, I've been unbanned. That was weird.

You like the WRONG things. BANNED, motherfucka.

Btw: Who else wants to see X-Factor become a dark spy thriller completely focusing on Rictor infiltrating the Purifiers?

Cute McCay slideshow on the Boston Globe site: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/joshua_glenn/rarebit_fiend/

nice

"I'm currently picking up all of the Simonson run in back issues (insane plan - long story - halfway there)"

I have almost all of these if you want 'em...

Kinda undermines my (wholly illogical) project, though thank you very much for the offer!

Is WW being written by Picoult? Simone? Who, now?

Also, are these really going to come out on Thursday (15th) because of vets' day?

And yeah, I ike Thor. It's good fun so far.

oh - cool.

WW = Simone. And yes, I mean Simone de Beauvoir. Via OUIJA board.

w/r/t shipping dates: Diamond typically reflects any delays in their lists. So tomorrow is likely correct, meaning Wednesday's the day I'm gonna show up and be told "ya shoulda ordered beforehand the Scott Pilgrim, Richard, they were all gone by noon". Just like last year.

scott pilgrim: overrated by video game nerds.

Oh yeah? Explain me then cos I don't like or play video games!

It's just the best comic ever. That's all.

Alan Moore: overrated by bearded dudes who think they are magical?

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #9 - this is why i will be at the comic shop tomorrow (that and it's now where I transfer buses on my way to work, so I might as well)
SHOWCASE PRESENTS TP SGT ROCK VOL 01 - this will be good, right???
SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #9 - oops, this will make FOUR extra issues of DO NOT WANT CONFIDENTIAL
WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY #12 - oops
AVENGERS INITIATIVE #7 $2.99
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #13 $2.99
WORLD WAR HULK #5 (OF 5) WWH $3.99
AMERICAN BORN CHINESE COLLECTORS ED HC $29.95

I totally missed WWHulk #4, wha hoppen?

SMASHING

All Star Superman, Booster Gold, Avengers Initiative, Nova, World War Hulk, X-Factor, and Scott Pilgrim.

The Black Dossier will have to wait 'til Christmas, I think.

ASSman
And the Black Dossier will have to wait 'til I can order it from across the fuckin' pond! *heavy sigh*
Let's hope it isn't the kind of disappointment that The 49ers turned out to be.

ps Isn't Rocketo due to start up again soon? Please god let this be true...

no date, but PRETTY

I asked Espinosa at a signing thing back in the spring about a release date, and he guessed October. He guessed WRONG.

Arghhhhhhhhhh the joint i go to didn't get the Black Dossier. What the heck? Did you guys get it in your neck of the woods?

Current slang is making "HULK SMASH" one of the funniest phrases in the world.

Oh yeah? Explain me then cos I don't like or play video games!

It's just the best comic ever. That's all.

SECONDED - not quite the "best comic ever" sentiment (add a "nearly the" and you'd have a good approximation of my opinion), but the apathy towards video games, yes.

It ain't terrible, but it's awfully corn-ball.

ian otm, at least as far as the drawing in SP is concerned - cornball, not to say sub-manga amateurish enough to put me right off

There is absolutely nothing amateurish about the art in Scott 4. In fact, I'd say that O'Malley is presently one of the best artists in the medium -- he's absolutely brilliant with comic timing, expression/acting, storytelling, and using the medium in creative, thoughtful ways to get across the story and the jokes. I can understand not getting into the style or tone, but the dude has become rather slick and polished, and improves in major ways with each new volume.

But really, give me "cornball" and hilarious/fun over BEARDY any day of the fucking week.

Matthew, do you mean Alan Moore by "beardy"? If so, THEM IS FIGHTIN WORDS (and I probably laughed at least as much while reading Black Dossier as Scott Pilgrim 4--although, admittedly, never as hard as at "Hey. You know your hair?").

But yeah, the drawing in the Scott Pilgrim books is increasingly fantastic--he's got such a command of place, tone, facial expressions...

eh, could someone tell me what Black Dossier is?

Maybe I read it too fast, but I've never been more than amused with SP. It's good, but nowhere near something I look forward to when a new LOEG volume is out the same week. (Dirty Vicar, that is what Black Dossier is.)

give me "cornball" and hilarious/fun over BEARDY

Or, you know, get comedy banned again.

I kid about Alan Moore, but seriously, is anyone more beardy?

My whole thing with Alan Moore is that I recognize that he's an extremely talented man and the majority of his collaborators are fantastic, but absolutely none of his work moves me in any way. I can barely bring myself to care about even the stuff that he's done that I like without reservations.

In other words, Alan Moore is a hero to most, but he doesn't mean shit to me.

You don't find Top 10 or LOEG fun? They're both gases.

Top 10 is hilarious a++.

Dude, I'm not saying they aren't fun! I'm saying I don't really care. I don't think I've actually read Top Ten proper, but I do have a copy of Top Ten: Forty Niners and that's nice enough. I've got a bunch of Moore stuff, I've read a fair chunk of his body of work. I just can't bring myself to care very much about any of it.

Even if Moore had never written anything but comedy--and he's written some pretty soggy comedy, I have to say (just found my copy of his dreadful, never-reprinted parody of Frank Miller's Daredevil, from '84 or so)--he'd still be in my comics pantheon for "D.R. and Quinch Go to Hollywood" ("Mind the oranges, Marlon!") and the early Bojeffries Saga stories, esp. the one about the vegan vampire attempting to run his errands without getting discorporated by the sun.

BUT I LOVE BOTH SCOTT PILGRIM AND LOEG CAN WE ALL GET ALONG PLS THX.

There's just not enough joycore in Alan Moore.

Suppose not.

"Liar! It's a magnificent beard and I know you want one! Hahahaha!" --Zor

Bojeffries saga is a riot - has that been reprinted anywhere? There are still jokes from that that run through my head ("call me inchmale")

I don't like a lot of Moore either -- I straight out don't like Watchmen -- but this:

I don't think I've actually read Top Ten proper, but I do have a copy of Top Ten: Forty Niners

Although I more-or-less love everything Alan Moore has done, I sort of agree with Matthew about him not "moving" me -- with the significant exception of V For Vendetta, which is pretty damn wrenching, especially if you first read it as a teenager. But even Watchmen is rather arch (albeit in a good way).

And of course, Moore can be very funny and/or horrifying, which is a sort of "movingness," if in a less obvious transformative-emo-type-of-way.

Matthew, I have a feeling (if you haven't read them), you'd very much dig DR and Quinch, and Halo Jones.

Leee, I got the 49ers thing for free. It was just kind of a random thing.

I'm not really asking Moore books to be some transformative experience or whatever, I just mean that it's one of those things where I acknowledge something has artistic merit and might even enjoy it in a "this is a pleasant way to pass some time" sort of way, but it doesn't do much to capture my imagination or accrue emotional/intellectual value in my mind. It's just one more thing. There's loads of stuff like that in my life, I guess, but the fact that Moore is so revered makes it a little weirder and I think I rebel a bit, kinda like how I can't bring myself to get too invested in, say, Bob Dylan.

I salute Leee's Robert Towne analogy.

NONSCOTT/NON BEARD COMMENTS ON WHAT I GOT THIS WEEK:

Despite the conspicuous lack of joy or beards, it's always nice when a comic aspires to FUCK YOU UP, like PUNISHER #52. I salute comics which fuck me up, despite knowing that the last page is probably a fake out. Of course, I could be consciously deluding myself that it's a fake out - a sane and reasonable response.

ALSO:
ALL STAR SUPERMAN = B+
LOIS' CAMOFLAGE ENSEMBLE = A+ (it's always an astonishing sight when comic characters are depicted in genuinely appealing, non-generic clothing.)

Eeek. I don't wanna get involved in any Alan Moore fanboy argument nonsense, but I will say: try reading Swamp Thing if you haven't, MP. It's probably the work of his that feels the most human--there very little in the way of irony and satire, and the metaphysical gobbledy-gook is kept in check by the nature of most of the stories. That is to say, you're not going to feel weighed down in crazy arcane shenanigans, a few arcs aside. Most of the stories tend to deal with human relationships, either to each other, themselves or their environment (lol i sound like a 7th grade english teacher.)

THIS WEEK:
Thor was kind of blah, but I'm still going to by the next one because the splash page preview looked MYSTICAL. I always want Thor to go in a very Dr. Strange direction of mystical intrigue. I liked ASSMan well enough, though it was an improvement over the last one but not up to the standards of the first three or four (some of my favorite comics of recent memory.)

I forgot, again, to get the 2nd part of THE THIRD KRYPTONIAN, which I missed a few weeks ago.

Ha, I appreciate what Matthew is saying (see also Dylan for me), but for my part I want to say try Top 10, it's crazy and funny and touching! There is certainly irony and satire, though.

ian, the THIRD part of the Third Kryptonian came out last week already. I'm not sure if I just didn't like the story or if I can blame it all on the art, since I've liked all the Busiek Super-stuff so far.

i got the third part, but i MISSED the 2nd part, i think??? (maybe more like 6 weeks ago, but whatev) maybe i bought it. i can't find it anyway. i'll probably buy a copy of it and realize i have had it all along.

I think the upcoming Superman Annual wrap-up of the Arion story is where I get off Superbooks for now (except ASS).

i'm off all the bat books, except dini & morrison. (especially important is NO MINIS)

I'm going to check out Batman & the Outsiders.

I am also thinking about checking out a trade paperback or two of the Justice League. I'd like to read the one where Ra's Al Ghul gets Batman's notes on how to take out his fellow JLA members. That story and the one where Batman gets his memory wiped are referenced a few times in his own books.

Hows the Batman/Outsiders Essential b&w that just came out? Anyone read it? Looks fun.

Superman Confidential is actually pretty good. Some very mellow and enjoyable art, like a menthol cigarette. Except the inker changes on some pages and the art suffers. The story kinda reminds me of the good(?} old(?) days of Byrne when Action was a team-up book. Also, nice to see someone put that insufferably pretentious Highfather and his insufferably homely neckbeard in their place.
Welcome to Tranquility: is this over now? Cancelled? All wrapped up in a bow? Finito? Endum runnibillus? Kaput? Goodnight nurse? Exit stage left?
All Star Superman - the only thing that bugs me about this comic is they motion-picture style credits. I really love Quitely's Jimmy Olsen, and would read All Star Jimmy Olsen for 100 issues if Quitely drew it, even if it was written by Gray & Palmiotti.

Bojeffries saga is a riot - has that been reprinted anywhere? There are still jokes from that that run through my head

Yep, quite a lot: I think all the stories to date got reprinted (some or all with half-decent colourisation) in the back of various issues of Dalgoda, then a new one ran there, then all of the Warrior AND Dalgoda AND A1 stories got collected with a few scraps of new stuff into a paperback by Tundra - with such horrendous colourisation that I could bever bear to buy it - and then a couple got reprinted again when A1 made a half-arsed attempt at restarting two years ago.

My shop hadn't unpacked All-Star Superman yet so I went to another one and Byrne-stole it.
Looking forward lots to Scott Pilgrim if it comes in at bookshop next week.
Looking forward even more but with much more patience for the Absolute edtion of Black Dossier, wherein DC charge me A$80 for one (1) 7", the cunts.

Did anyone else check out The Sword? It's the new Luna Brothers comic, and the art is exactly the same as Girls. Which is to say: I LOVES IT.

huh I only know it from the Dalgoda reprints - didn't know about the Tundra collection

I've got to dig out my Dalgodas -- there's a Bojeffries story I'm trying to find that isn't in any of the A1's. If only all my boxed comics would magically perfect-bind themselves.

huh I only know it from the Dalgoda reprints

there were five or six more in A1! including the totally essential "Sex With Ginda Bojeffries" and the musical "Song Of The Terraces."

The Ginda story might be the funniest eight pages ever published in comics, and I'm not forgetting Mad Comics. "My nipples have a glazed, faraway look. My eyes protrude stiffly, twin peaks of desire..."

Dear God. You can quote it from memory. (So can I.) Yes, it really is that good, isn't it?

:-))))

http://www.shsu.edu/~lib_jjn/dossier.html

That's a lotta annotating!

did anybody ever end up getting this...? I saw a copy today and almost got it but it was missing the 3-D specs :(

also there was quite a bit more artwork in it than I had anticipated

I read it. It was super lamo.

:(

I got it, and while I won't go as far as to whip out "lamo" as an descriptor, it disappointed me. Read more like a metafiction "clip show" (meaning it was like an episode of a sitcom where the regular cast reminisces about this & that -- "hey, remember when Orlando kept switching genders & lived for a long ass time?" -- then they cut away to a flashback of said thing, then return to comment on it, then clumsily segue to the next clip) than an actual work of (meta)fiction like the previous 2 minis, and there wasn't nearly enough O'Neill art for my liking. Tho the lack of straightforward story in it (and the faithful to a fault homages) lead me to just skip most of the "clips" (aka the meat of the book) and just read the story that bookended the tributes, which is probably the #1 wrong way to approach this thing.

I read it last week for the first time, it was plenty of fun. Skinny margins on the Beat pastiche were my undoing, though.

x-post there's O'Neill art on almost every page!

My reaction was somewhere between Mordy's and DaveR's.

NOT ENOUGH I SAYS