Books of Past Future!

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So, after a bit of a break to allow them to get new stock, I have resumed my Public Library comics borrowing.
Here's what I've got lately:

Black Panther Vol. 1: The Priest version. It's okay and it's got lots of good stuff, but the George Stephanopolous by way of Chandler Bing narrator (who just turned up in the current BP series!) wears thin after two panels, and the artist draws him like a Beavis and Butthead character.
Plastic Man: On the Lam: I bought the first two or three issues of this, and dropped it to focus on more trad superhero fare. Whatta schmuch I am! Brilliant, fun, smart, and stupid (when it wants to be). Mostly fun.
Complete Lowlife: Who knew Ed Brubaker could draw? Or that he may or may not have had such a shady past? Okay, he's not much of an artist--though it's pretty okay, and it's pretty good auto-biographical comix, even though he says in the introduction a lot of it isn't really true. Still, it's Ed Brubaker! Still, I had no idea that was his background in comics.
Fables Vol. 3: Gosh, I enjoy this series. I really shouldn't, cuz it seems like it should be super-twee, but dagnabbit, I like Fables.
Daredevil Vol 1: of the current series, by Kevin Smith and Joe Queseda. With a blurb on the back cover by Ben Affleck. I haven't read this yet, and I think I'm not going to like it.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 27 June 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

I read Black Panther from the library too. I found the Michael J Fox character less annoying than the fact that a comic which I'd heard was politically interesting had, for its major villain in this collection, the Devil. Red skin, horns, pointy tail and all.

― Ray (Ray), Monday, 27 June 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

I kinda liked that the Devil just sat and waited patiently, made small talk, like he was at the dentist's office that was neat and weird.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 27 June 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

For the first couple of issues, yes, because you could wonder what the hell was really going on. I assumed it was some sort of unreliable narrator thing, and eventually we'd find out that ... I don't know.
But no, it was the DEVIL, and he wanted Black Panther's SOUL, because it was TEH PURE!! But then, Black Panther was TOO PURE, and the devil was all "oh I can't take your goodness Mr Black Panther, please let me go", but Black Panther was like "No, devil, because you are EVIL. My secret scientist team have made a way of killing you, so now you are dead. Ha ha ha stoopid devil!!!!"

― Ray (Ray), Monday, 27 June 2005 21:04 (twenty years ago)

Who knew Ed Brubaker could draw?

Am I supposed to start feeling old or something now?

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)

I really hated Kevin Smith's Daredevil -- he's all but admitted to stealing from Frank Miller's second run w/ Mazzuchelli.

― Leeeeee (Leee), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

Kit's response should've been: "Who knew Ed Brubaker could write superheroes?"

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

ha ha

he's only just started recently though hasn't he? or did he do a Batman-proper run at some point? I've only read Sleeper and Scene Of The Crime and Prez and the first issue or two of Swingin' With Scooter In The Future of his colour work. And Sleeper & I assume Gotham Central write around superheroes more than actually tackling them as such...

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

oh that's right, Catwoman! I actually want to read that, but don't want to pay comic shop prices for the trades :(

bought Darwyn Cooke's hardcover GN though

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:06 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, the Cooke / Stewart Catwoman run is great, tho it also works around superstuff to a degree (as much as Sleeper does, anyway). If you're looking for a nice intro (via the flimsy pamphlets), check out a great two-issue story drawn by Javier Pulido (issues 17 & 18, I think). He's also done some work in Batman & Detective Comics. And then there's his Authority mini, which is going GREAT right now, after a seemingly slow start. And now Captain America, which is also GREAT (esp. the latest issue).

I don't know that he "works around superheroes" so much, though - I think he just focuses on the grounded elements of the story & characters, and then sparringly uses superheroic elements (powers, etc.) for maximum impact the way a good film director uses scares and shocks.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

Brubaker did at least one arc of Batman in Detective Comics, which were the first Batman comics I'd read in years after my self-imposed exile. I bought them because they featured a team-up with the Golden Age Green Lantern. I foolishly thought that all Batman comics would be that good.

PS Did you guys read last week's Captain America? HOT DAMN!

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

Yes! That's a perfect example about what kit was talking about: it's a story about Nomad slowly decaying as a result of his Super-Soldier serum, but the story's told from his POV, so the reader gets first-person accounts of his regrets, and his anxiety, and his ineffectualness in light of his gradual physical and mental degredation, and his attempts to live his life to the fullest before he loses it all. It's as much about a man on the margins of society slowly slipping away (in more ways than one) as it is about a superhero sidekick putting on the costume and going out w/ a bang. That one flashback panel w/ him wearing that ridiculous Scourge costume, looking at his helmet, seemingly asking himself "What the hell did I do w/ my life?", is beyond fantastic. The fact that the story also works as meta-commentary on the sad lot of forgotten characters is a bonus, which is the sort of stuff I always fall for.

This is where Huk's thread about recent trades he read turns into the Ed Brubaker Appreciation Thread.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

Deadenders: mod sci-fi five years before The Originals!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

turns into the Ed Brubaker Appreciation Thread. But don't they all, eventually?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

TS: ILC threads turning into Grant Morrison gushfests v. ILC threads turning into Ed Brubaker gushfets v. ILC threads turning into Vic Fluro gushfests.

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

RUCKA.

― Leeeeee (Leee), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

v. Leeeeee's threads that are mostly Greg Rucka gushfests

*superwinky!*

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, well what has Rucka ever drawn? Huh? Tell me that, smart guy!

PS, I have come around to Rucka more lately, after a few Brubaker-less Gotham Centrals (and I'm finally about halfway the Half A Life trade) and Vol. 1 of Q&C (and my local comic shop guy is getting more in for me--"You haven't read those yet?" he asked, incredulously.).

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

I done seen him draw his own self-portrait, so NYEH.

― Leeeeee (Leee), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

BATHE IN MY GUSHFEST

Rucka and Brubaker were both writers who I had to be slowly weaned onto, and they still don't have the power to get me to buy Superman, while Morrison does. So his fest is the best.

― Vic Fluro, Tuesday, 28 June 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

I may have bought a Superman by Rucka. Did he do that Identity Crisis follow-up where Batman and Wonder Woman talked to Superman about feelings and stuff?
And I don't think I'll ever be able get into Wonder Woman. I just, um, y'know, I don't dig it.

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

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