Comics, Graphic Novels and Manga

[manmiles]

I agree that the early issues of Generation X were fantastic and I think I lasted a good fifteen or so issues before I stopped getting it for some reason. I was in my early teens, I can't remember why.

I think one of the big problems with comics is the continuity, so much of what seems to be going on now is based on old events or parts of a continuing arc, it's real easy to get lost, or even knowing what goes where. I agree with the old Stan Lee saying that 'Every Spider-Man comic is somebody's first Spider-Man comic'. This doesn't mean you have to chuck out whole years of continuity (ala Spider-Man and One More Day... do they even mention the whole Clone Saga ever?), but just actually try and not play for the fans so much.

[red snow]

DC has just announced a bold move. They are going to relaunch their entire line, apparently with new continuity (or at least tweaked).

Personally, I'm fearing it's going to be a line wide "Spider-man: One more day" scenario where they pick and choose things. This will probably result in me dropping most of my DC titles unless they offer up some solid info on the level of reboot. It seems madness to me to relaunch and reset the continuity on titles like Green Lantern and Batman which have been enjoying a lot of success witht heir current storylines and creative teams.

I think they'd have been better off doing the "ultimate marvel" thing and test the water with a separate universe of titles. In a way that's almost what they did with JMS "Superman: Earth one" but JMS has confirmed that is a completely separate entity.

I guess it generates headlines at least and I just hope it's a "soft" retcon rather than obliterating everything. What do other DC readers (and non-DC) think? Bold, crazy or both?

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that DC will do same day digital releases with the relaunch. This makes a lot of sense to me. I know retailers will absolutely hate it but to be honest illegal downloads are happening anyhow. I reckon same day legal digital can only take away from illegal downloads. It will kill some comic shops though, which is sad, but given the current industry I think shops are closing anyway. At least with this move there will hopefully still be a collectibles industry that comic stores can cater for.

[Teng Ai Hui]

Has anyone been reading Doorways? Anyone plan to buy the hardcover omnibus? It's listed on Amazon as being on sale starting tomorrow.

[haLobEnder]

DC has just announced a bold move. They are going to relaunch their entire line, apparently with new continuity (or at least tweaked).

I'm mildly intrigued by DCs plans which is saying something because I'm not much of a superhero fanboy let alone a DC superhero fanboy. I may give a couple issues a shot, in particular any of the 3 or 4 series that Scott Lobdell has been announced as writing. Jeff Lemire's stuff might also be worth checking out, but I'm a little skeptical of his ability to write superheroes.

Speaking of Lemire, has anyone here read Essex County? I loved it, but then I'm a little biased as most my family lives in the eponymous Essex County :P

Has anyone been reading Doorways? Anyone plan to buy the hardcover omnibus? It's listed on Amazon as being on sale starting tomorrow.

I read the first issue and was largely disappointed. It's not that it was bad really, but if you own Dreamsongs as I do, there's really no reason to pick it up outside of the art and I wasn't overly impressed with the artist's interpretation of the characters.

There's also something about the comic that screams 90's network TV -- the protagonist is a dedicated doctor, the female companion can kick much ass but is still dependent on the male lead, the villains are all sort of bombastically EVIL ... that sort of stuff.

[Nephrite]

Speaking of Lemire, has anyone here read Essex County? I loved it, but then I'm a little biased as most my family lives in the eponymous Essex County :P

I read it. It's quite good. Really sad and touching.

[red snow]

Has anyone been reading any of fear itself? It's the first marvel event (or marvel books) I've read in a while and even though I thought it was the weakest "event" idea i've heard of, it's actually quite fun. Matt fraction has insinuated it's a marvel "final crisis" which is a fair assessment in that it's not as cerebral but is actually possible to understand. I don't know why but I was shocked by the end of issue 3 which is always nice

although i'm surprised i'm surprised as i called Bucky being removed as cap america as soon as the film came out starring Steve Rogers

. The tie-ins have been a bit hit and miss but the iron man book was excellent

Iron man been thrown into and smashing parisian human statues is very disturbing

, it even has me considering tracking down the fraction/larocca run.

[Galactus]

Fraction's Iron-man run is... Divisive. It's pretty good in some ways but it just feels... off in a way that's disturbing to me.

[Nephrite]

Has anyone been reading any of fear itself? It's the first marvel event (or marvel books) I've read in a while and even though I thought it was the weakest "event" idea i've heard of, it's actually quite fun. Matt fraction has insinuated it's a marvel "final crisis" which is a fair assessment in that it's not as cerebral but is actually possible to understand. I don't know why but I was shocked by the end of issue 3 which is always nice

although i'm surprised i'm surprised as i called Bucky being removed as cap america as soon as the film came out starring Steve Rogers

.

This is one of those things that always leaves me scratching my head.

Why do comicbook companies do this? It never brought any mythical new readers and even if it did, surely they are not so dumb that they think that Hollywood, the same Hollywood that changes everything in adaptations of books, is gonna be completely truthful to comicbooks. Suddenly they'll discover reverence. Like if people read Lord of the Rings their heads won't explode cause it's not identical to the movies. Surely they can comprehend that things in the ADAPTATION of Batman will not 100% match the source material.

Well, it's all hypothetical cause they'll never massively start picking up Captain America or Green Lantern anyway.

[red snow]

Fraction's Iron-man run is... Divisive. It's pretty good in some ways but it just feels... off in a way that's disturbing to me.

So this could just be a case of an action story that works well? I've tried over the years to get into Iron Man but he's one of those characters who strangely works better in film than in comics. I read a couple of years of heroes reborn Iron Man by Busiek and I enjoyed the ultimate Stark for the first two Ultimates books. I had a hard time swallowing stark as Darth Stark in Civil war for a couple of years too.

Nephrite: It makes sense that they try and make the comics accessible for movie fans but I still think they miss the point. If they wanted to capture new readers from the film they should have a free comic book stack for people leaving the cinema. As long as it's a good story and isn't part of a mega event then I could see that working.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Marvel's complete lack of interest in the X-men: first class. Considering all the Thor and Captain America tie-ins, X-men looks like a non-event. I think this is clearly because First class isn't a "marvel" film but if that is the case then Marvel Management need to be shot as it's a bad sign when you don't even try and sell comics. I agree that it's probably unlikely to bring in new readers but a film can definitely bring in existing comic readers to a title.

[Bahimiron]

Who else is super jazzed about Rob Granito's awesome new comic lineup?!

[Nephrite]

Nephrite: It makes sense that they try and make the comics accessible for movie fans but I still think they miss the point. If they wanted to capture new readers from the film they should have a free comic book stack for people leaving the cinema. As long as it's a good story and isn't part of a mega event then I could see that working.

Yeah, having a cheap Batman: Year One trade with no extras (maybe even in digest format) made for Batman Begins would've been cool. But, like with many things Warner Bros related right hand rarely talks to the left one.

Who else is super jazzed about Rob Granito's awesome new comic lineup?!

This guy. Is he suffering from some kind of disorder?

[haLobEnder]

Who else is super jazzed about Rob Granito's awesome new comic lineup?!

What does it say when a zombie book by a known plagiarist sounds more original than 99% of the zombie comics currently on the shelves? :P

In an odd way, I sort of wish the guy success. I mean, the dude's name is Mudd. Everyone's going to be watching him closely to see who he rips off, it would be kind of a surprise to see him come out with something not only original, but original and good. OK, I know it won't be --he can barely string two words together-- but still...

As it stands, I bet you if he ever did release something there'd be a bunch of people who'd pick his work up for the irony; Perhaps being exposed as a fraud was the best thing that could have happened to his comic career.

[red snow]

I'm in the process of rereading all of "100 bullets" as I found the first 6 volumes worked best as a single read through whereas all the single issues I read afterward I knew i was missing out on all the connections. Anyway as soon as i read the first volume several years back i thought, "this would make a great TV show". Apparently Geoff Johns mentioned that "100 bullets will make a great TV show". I hope it's a cable channel who handles this - maybe AMC given their success with "walking dead".

[haLobEnder]

Damn, just lost the post I was working on. The short version:

I picked up the first two volumes of Locke & Key the other day. I can't remember being this impressed with a series since I first read BKV's Runaways several years back. I highly recommend checking it out if, like me, you've been holding out for some reason (for me it was the price of the trades, luckily I found them dirt cheap somewhere).

Speaking of Brian K. Vaughan, I think the most exciting comic related news coming out of Comic-Con was that he was returning to comics next year with a new epic sci-fi/fantasy series being published by Image.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just finished up the first 7 TPBs of Scalped by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera. Good stuff, Maynard. Pretty dark crime noire series set on an Indian reservation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalped

[red snow]

Speaking of Brian K. Vaughan, I think the most exciting comic related news coming out of Comic-Con was that he was returning to comics next year with a new epic sci-fi/fantasy series being published by Image.

I'll definitely be picking this up. Vaughn's record is excellent and he tends to try a lot of different things in comics. He could definitely make a space opera work. I wonder if this was something he initially pitched as a TV show? I can remember him saying he left the "lost" team because he wanted to create his own show. It sounds like it could have made a TV show - although an expensive one.

[Glyndwr]

Recentley picked up "Cycle of the werewolf" by Stephen King & I must admit it was a blast from the past that I thoroughly enjoyed. Bernie Wrightsons artwork was pretty cool too...!!!

[LordBloodravenI]

Don't really want to look through all 13 pages of this thread, but I'm looking for some reccomendations on good comic books. I'm a fan of Mark Millar, Brian Azarello and Warren Ellis, and I'm looking for stuff similar to them. I'd also prefer stand-alone graphic novels or miniseries to ongoing series.

[haLobEnder]

Don't really want to look through all 13 pages of this thread, but I'm looking for some reccomendations on good comic books. I'm a fan of Mark Millar, Brian Azarello and Warren Ellis, and I'm looking for stuff similar to them. I'd also prefer stand-alone graphic novels or miniseries to ongoing series.

If you're looking for something in the 100 Bullets vein, I'd recommend checking out some of the Vertigo Crime graphic novels. Azzarello himself wrote one called Filthy Rich, though so far my favourite has been The Executor by Jon Evans and Andrea Mutti.

Jason Aaron's Scalped is also a must read if you like gritty crime comics.

Millar I can't help you with. I tend to lump him in with the drudge of superhero stuff that doesn't appeal to me. Jonathan Hickman maybe?

With regards to Ellis, perhaps something out of Alan Moore's ABC Comics line like Top10 or Promethea would appeal to you. I'm not as familiar with Ellis as I wish I was, but I sort of associate Ellis with whimsy and the ABC stuff has that in abundance.

My only other recommendation would be to make sure to check out Ellis' Avatar stuff such as FreakAngels if you haven't already.

[gladius]

I've read the 16 volumes of Priest. I like the backstory and the rage and vengeance theme that permeates everything, but the story slows down too much in the last few volumes, because it introduces too many secondary characters who don't have much to offer, although the inclusion of Nera (Netraphim) is pretty much necessary, because there needs to be a contrast. A story were everyone is motivated by the same thing risks becoming repetitive and boring.