Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Comments in response to the article are a lot more positive on Frank Miller's Justice League than I would be.

The only proper response to that is Kevin Maguire's. Which boiled down to "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NO!"

Also - if you think NFL replacement refs have it tough...

An excerpt from Sean Howe's "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" here: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8433000/an-excerpt-sean-howe-marvel-comics-untold-story

So.....Opie quit. I have no editorial commentary, but I know that some people will enjoy this. And this. And also this.

Stay classy, Opie.

Fuck Liefield. Only... don't. God knows what horrible disease you'd catch. I suspect his art style qualifies as an STD...

Liefeld's a douche, no question, but he's hardly the first person to indicate that editorial at DC is being run as if by a troop of baboons.

He might, however, be the first to explicitly describe the magnitude of those buffoons' dicks. Well, one of them, anyway. And, when you read his response as a sort of jilted break-up letter with a formerly intimate acquaintance, it kind of makes more sense.

I like that story. I'm going to go ahead and believe that that is what actually happened.

I was flipping through some of the Zero Month issues and on multiple occasions had the thought of "1993 Me would LOVE this!" - but then again, 1993 Me used to try andargue that Youngblood was far superior to that stodgy boring Avengers comic and that Marvel would be out of business in a year. 1993 Me was an idiot. But an idiot who bought the shit out of hologram foil die-cut covers.

That being said, if ever there was a time to pitch my "Revival of the best of DC Comics in the 1990s", now would be it.

I still have five autographed copies of WildCATS #1 that I'm sure are worth slightly less than the paper on which they are printed.

Just read Wolverine #1-30. Blech! Dull and ugly.

Can't shine a turd. No Wolverine book is going to be anything but dull and ugly.

I dunno...Wolverine the gaijin ronan has been done well--blood and sakura. Also Wolverine, the turd in the punch bowl can be lots of fun. This book was just done badly.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/10/24/rob-liefeld-announces-his-retirement-from-comics/

Sing, choirs of angels! Our long national nightmare is over!

Heads up, you digital comics folks*: Howard Chaykin's awesome and influential early 80s comic American Flagg! is up on Comixology for $0.99 an ish. If you've never read it, it's awesome.

* I am not one, because comics should be read on paper. Fuck your digital revolution. I said good day to you, sir. I SAID GOOD DAY!

I believe his run for Hawkgirl is also available on digital formats. So after reading American Flagg! you should read it and think to yourself, "Wow, this guy really went to shit at some point."

Chaykin's always been hit and miss. I think American Flagg! is by far his best work, and I remember liking Black Kiss at the time (haven't read it since), but even then we're talking about a guy who could give Frank Miller a run in the Most Misogynistic Comics Writer sweepstakes.

Tease! *sob*

Howard Chaykin is a dick, and he wants to be Harlan Ellison. Seriously, he even dresses like Harlan.

Well, yeah. But being a dick is not mutually exclusive with being a good writer. And, honestly, who wouldn't want to be Harlan Ellison? You ever see his house? It's awesome.

Chaykin's got a pretty nice house in the foothills of Encino. I've only seen pictures of Harlan's. Much nicer.

Highly recommended: The Activity. If you're a military intel buff, it reads pretty true. Good stuff.

When I was a freshman in college, one of my roommates was buying Black Kiss, and so another roommate and I would borrow each issue and make fun of it. Chaykin's inventive blowjob dialogue became a running joke: whenever we were frustrated, we'd say "Harrumph! Garagle!"; and when we went to the World Trade Center, the first response was "Oh, it's so bigarghghgh slurp!"

When you're writing porn that's more comical than titillating to a couple of 17 year olds, that's a bad sign.

"Young man, that rope is not a plaything!"

It's back, by the way. I haven't read it, but I'm quite happy to listen to Ron Richards tell me about it. It is apparently made entirely of dicks. Literally. That book, which he is publishing now, consists of one hundred percent of the dicks. It is apparently a comical volume of dicks.

And, just so I'm not bumping the thread only to inform people where they can find an assortment of graphical penises, Scott Snyder (Batman, American Vampire, Swamp Thing, more stuff) and Jim Lee will be cooperating on a Superman book at some point in the coming year. This could be very good.

I read 4 issues of Punk Rock Jesus. It's ok but not as great as I was told it would be. I gotta stop buying retail.

Brian Motherfucking Posehn is writing DEADPOOL. Issue #1 is out tomorrow. I have to see this. It will either be the best comic ever, or the best train wreck ever. Either way, worth the cover price!

kitten breath?

Is he ejecting bullets, clips, AND guns out of his gun?

I have read DEADPOOL #1, and it is awesome. Deadpool's first appearance in the book is completely absurd. As is Thor's cameo. And the whole plot of the book. I loved it. (Note that I'm familiar with Deadpool's back stories or anything, having never really been a Marvel fan, so this comic may actually suck compared to previous Deadpool comics. But I laughed my ass off, and I can't wait for #2.)

ETA: Should have been "I'm NOT familiar."

"This was NOT a team-up."

I picked up the Deadpool, which was decent (there's so much Deadpool stuff I shy away from it unless it's obviously good and I let the art weigh more heavily - some of the artists doing Deadpool are substandard IMO) but I miss the extra voices.

I also picked up the Activity trade (issues 1-6) and issues 7-9. I want to like it more than I do. It's feels to me like the tv show The Unit. And it's kind of weak tea on characters.

The latest issue of JLA has a glaring error that I can't believe got through. It briefly describes how Cheetah got her powers: she cut herself on a magic blade from a "lost tribe of the Amazon" that allowed the Cheetah spirit to take her over. And just to make sure there's no confusion about "Amazons" or the Amazon in South America - you know, that place where there are No Fucking Cheetahs? - they go there looking for this lost tribe. And for the cherry on top of this lack of basic geography - they're searching in a rainforest. For a plains cat. So apparently, Cheetah is now actually Jaguar, which fits better anyway because they drew the character with jaguar rosettes instead of cheetah dots.

Joker's back too. In Batman (I don't follow the whole Batman family of titles - and might not follow this much longer at all) there's some pretty loose logic involving pulse guns (as in "EMP", designed to shut down a car, if you point them up from the basement of a police HQ, they shut down that whole building) and he appears to be a ninja now too.

So JLA needs more logic and Batman needs more magic. Maybe I should read the bazillion Avengers vs X-Men titles and spinoffs instead?

Also, Fatale is now boring. Or more boring. Suicide Squad is ridiculous, murderous fun most of the time (I preferred the previous incarnation of Amanda Waller).

I was sold on Deadpool #1 from the first drawing of Captain America.

I don't know much about Deadpool, either, but I get that the jokes are supposed to be corny. I didn't think they were all so-bad-they're-good corny, but I do admit I liked FDR's "Here's a New Deal-- DIE!"

I don't know what is funnier, that the Marvel Universe has a show called "Dog Cops" or that apparently all the Avengers love it. (from the upcoming Hawkeye #6)

This just in - Saga is probably the best comic of 2012 and one of the more awesome sci-fi comics I've ever read. The first issue is free on Comixology and everyone should go read it right now.

I was going to post this in the Awesome Comic Art thread - but I'd have to go on and on too much about the writing as well.

I was re-reading Kraven's Last Hunt this past weekend - still one of my all-time favorite story arcs, hands down. The writing is almost reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's cadence, and the art from Mike Zeck is superb. Not just in the linework, but in the way he puts a page together, using a series of panels to depict motion in a quiet scene.



The four-panel sequence repeats a lot throughout the arc, with Zeck using it almost as a depiction of a series of photographs, which evokes a sense of distance from the scene. Usually most comics artists treat the panel as if it were a pin-up, with the viewer somewhere in the scene watching from the most dramatic angle. A lot of the layouts in these six issues come across almost more like a photographer on the scene. There's a lot of dynamic motion in the story, but the best parts are those beat panels.

The basic storyline is that Kraven has finally beaten Spider-Man - ambushed him, drugged him, and buried him alive. But he goes a step further and starts dressing as Spider-Man in a psychologically-twisted attempt to become that which has always stymied him and thus consume it and defeat it. There are some serious David Lynch headtrippy moments in the book (usually involving Kraven getting hopped up on jungle drugs, eating handfuls of spiders, and hallucinating like mad) but the writing echoes this stream-of-consciousness narrative in his brain that reveals more facets to the formerly-buffoonish villain than ever before.

A man who's escaped the Russian purges, who's extended his life through arcane tribal potions and became an adrenalin junkie who hunted first dangerous animals, then men, then superheroes simply because he wanted something to do. Other supervillains were motivated by revenge or greed, Kraven became one because he was bored. But at the same time, you have him witnessing the decline of American culture and how it keeps contrasting more and more with his ideals of Russian nobility, which he exemplifies by the sacrifices his parents made to get out of Russia with their lives, only to suffocate in America.



A lot of folks criticized the "black costume" era - this was at the point post-Secret Wars where it wasn't revealed that the costume itself was an alien entity (and Kraven's wearing a knockoff anyway, having buried Spider-Man in the costume) - Mike Zeck's also the guy who originally designed the black costume in the Secret Wars maxi-series. It kind of looked odd in its initial debut, but in darker stories like those that followed in Web of Spider-Man, the ability to have just the chest symbol and the eyes staring out of a black shadow was awesome.

And then you have what are possibly the best two pages for pacing in that whole era of comics.

In short - I recommend everyone read it, if you like seeing an almost-realistic take on the kind of insanity that has to be inherent in the whole superhero genre. If I ever had the chance to write or direct a Spider-Man film, I would adapt this arc without a second thought. It'd be that good.

My favorite Kraven appearance was in Marvel Team Up #67 (a Chris Claremont / John Byrne joint) -

Now...my primary reasons for loving this book as an adolescent were and remain undefensibly adolescent...

But, but, just look at how Kraven rolls when he rolls deep. Just Lounging in front of his sworn enemy in skin tight cheetah skin capri's, a mind controlled Tigra and the world's best belt. SWAG.



I really liked Byrne's work on these early 80's Marvel Team Ups, they remain some of my favorite books of all time. That being said, it is panels like below that led to the more serious Kraven stories like Nute's above. Hard to imagine anyone getting owned any harder than Kraven does.



"DIE, SPIDE -- WHOU-U-UFF!"

Good ol' dependable Claremont. You sure were a weirdo.

Were?!

Heck, last time I got back into comics he was kicking off a brand new Excalibur series which featured Sage brainwashing herself so she could become an evil Captain Britain. The blog seems to focus on mind control, but the guy was just totally hooked on any transformation of female characters, whether it be Dark Phoenix (though we did see some mind control there with Mastermind and the Hellfire Club) or Kitty Pryde and Wolverine (which I'd always thought was considered one of the worst goddam canon limited series Marvel had ever done, but apparently they recently did a hardcover reprint of it) or even just Storm inexplicably getting a haircut.

Some of my earliest comics memories are of X-Men from the 80s (which I read a bit later), so my first exposure to him was White Queen Emma Frost (sexy mind control) and Black Queen Selene (psychic vampire sex) in the appropriately queenly attire (quasi-SFW).

Claremont never let an opportunity to feature bondage or mind control pass him by.

I always liked the black spidey costume better, its simple and clean, and looks like he could be actually stealthy in it if he wanted.

Wired reporting a film adaptation of Y: The Last Man. To be directed by first time feature film director Dan Trachtenberg, whose previous work is... a seven-minute Portal fan film.