Rolling 2015 Reading Funnybooks Thread

Barry Humphries wrote The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie as a weekly strip before the films. (Obviously better known as a monologue and dialogue writer and improviser than prose writer, but has about ten fiction & non-fiction & memoir books under his belt too.)

Patricia Highsmith did comics?

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/04/24/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-152/

Scroll down a bit to see the Highsmith bit. I once heard Ripley was based on a comic artist she knew but I can't remember where I read that.

I think Spillane mostly wrote those 1-2 page text stories. Apparently Bill Everett and Spillane had some sort of grudge.

I always wondered if those text stories that nobody ever read in old Comics had lots of brilliant ones scattered across them.

Oh man what an unloved unhallowed body of work, those text one-pagers.

I once made an effort to read them, but that was late on in the time I was reading those anthologies. I wish I had read all the ones I came across.

Seems like there's no cheap option for those Alfred Bester DC comics.

Bester co-created Solomon Grundy too.

Nameless #1 was a fun read. When you get down to the core plot, the bad guys in all of Grant Morrison's comics are really the same folk aren't they? I don't say that as a bad thing, but it is his story hook in many ways.

while reading it i kept wondering if this was just an artist's rendition of morrison's automatic writing journal

Patricia Highsmith was once set up on a date with Stan Lee. http://www.scottedelman.com/2010/04/04/stan-lee-was-only-interested-in-stan-lee/

love the url there; clearly not a giving lover

The one review I read of Bitch Planet talked about how odd and inauthentic the use of ersatz Ben-Day patterns was - some guy has recoloured a bunch of pages with an actually 70s-reminiscent style, and not only does it look GREAT, but wow at how ugly the original colouring is generally:

http://jonathanbogart.tumblr.com/post/110308310125/aintgotnoladytronblues-twiststreet-schwabco-i

Felt like the whole comic was kind of a letdown after the title -- found it quite difficult to follow -- ODY-C too. Maybe I don't have patience for comics that involve effort.

I'm really appreciating this coloring talk! I think it's something that bothers me in some titles but not at a conscious level.

Some of the art where the colorist work is obviously a collaboration with clearly defined palettes definitely is a strength of some titles. The Hellboy/BPRD titles, with their limited colors and shading, or most of the titles drawn by Mike Allred (notably often colored by his wife) are very appealing in this regard.

Felt like the whole comic was kind of a letdown after the title -- found it quite difficult to follow -- ODY-C too. Maybe I don't have patience for comics that involve effort.

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, February 9, 2015 11:42 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

definitely felt ODY-C was difficult to follow--had to read a few pages a few times--but idk had no trouble following BP. a bunch of people i've heard say they were lost at the climax though

I haven't had a problem understanding BP; my only problem is understanding why people are thinking it's great. ODY-C is a hot mess.

http://instagram.com/p/y5W5dqpeGQ/

never heard of eternauta, interest piqued

These are GORGEOUS
http://50watts.com/Okamoto-Kiichi

Wow, love those

Just grabbed 1 & 2 of They're Not Like Us to see what all the fuss was about, so far not really doing it for me. Feels like a Wanted-style spin on like "what if X-Men were. . .bad"

to see what all the fuss was about

literally heard of this for the first time in the words immediately preceding that quote

El Eternauta has always sounded pretty cool and way ahead of its time (a mature, long-form sci-fi/political allegory originally published in the 1950s), I hope one someone will translate it to a language I can read...

"I hope some day someone will translate it"

There are some English scanlations here, but the translator seems to have abandoned the project. Still, even those pages make it clear it's quite unlike any comic published in the US or Europe at the time.

I haven't explored too widely, but Scribd is a service that appears to be offering a brief trial right now (although they do hold your credit info in case you don't cancel) and they have a bunch of comics from a few different companies. I looked at some Marvel stuff but the image quality seemed lower than Marvel Unlimited. However, they have a lot of the recent Valiant stuff.

And lots of Top Shelf, too

can you download drm-free files from scribd or are they 'on loan' so to speak?

on loan

Ah. Off topic for this thread but I saw they're the only ppl who seem to offer an ebook of England's Hidden Reverse.

hm. i will check that out.

https://www.comixology.com/Powers/bundle/160?tid=E150212001&utm_source=comiXology+Digital+Comics+Newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=E150212001_Icon_Powers_Sale

Powers collection on sale for 50% off at Comixology

This is fascinating:
http://www.tcj.com/working-stiff-working-loose-the-1950s-career-of-john-stanley/
who among us knew that John Stanley revived Krazy Kat seven years after Herriman's death? Or that it looked like THIS?!?!?
http://images.tcj.com/2015/02/6-IgnatzPanelsFromKat-650x500.jpg

Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca's Darth Vader #1 was a really good read. I quite liked Larroca's artwork on Iron Man, but he seems to be a kid in a candy store drawing this Star Wars series. I'm definitely not a Star Wars geek but I am a fan, so it is cool to see a scene between Vader and Jabba. It was a pretty well done 'licensed' comic by filling in the blanks on scenes for the comic.

Anyone else notice that the minute Dark Horse lost the Star Wars license, Marvel instantly published their entire catalog in digital format with Marvel logos on it?

Licensed comics makes strange bedfellows. One of the weirder ones I have seen in the past few years was DC putting out a showcase of the 1975 Marvel black and white magazines

Which ones?

I was kind of referring to how certain comic properties would go from one company to another. Back in the mid 70s to come out along a terrible Doc Savage movie, Marvel comics did two Doc Savage comic book series. One was a regular comic book and the other was in their black and white magazine like Savage Sword of Conan. A few years ago, DC still with the rights of Doc Savage reprinted those black and white magazine issues. This year Dynamite is reprinting the same 70s Marvel comics issues in a hard cover. Quite a few of the characters that came out of the pulps have been with multiple publishers in comics also like the Shadow, Elric and Conan.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/dreadstar-tv-series-jim-starlin-universal-cable-productions-benderspink-1201435486/

That seems like a bad idea

I'm pleased that Starlin is getting a payday, and it serves as another reminder about the importance of retaining the copyright to your creations. Whether it will actually happen is anyone's guess.

Cartoon or live action? I think I'd prefer the former.

That seems like a bad idea

― the plight of y0landa (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, February 18, 2015

i choose to hope

I'm all for starlin getting paid, just think dread star is one of the weaker properties he could forward

The Kaluta art book is the most delayed item I've ever waited for. I think that book was promised over 5 years ago.

Anybody rate Frank Thorne's Red Sonja? The recent collections were coloured so badly Thorne was horrified and the "art editions" are huge and expensive.

xpost here's the thing about Starlin: i always pictured him looking exactly like Vanth Dreadstar, and he kinda does!

http://rivista-cdn.hvmag.com//Hudson-Valley-Magazine/February-2009/Comic-Book-Heroes/Starlin_3522.jpg

Should we start a thread for that? Comic book creators who look like their (fictional) characters? I'm sure there are loads of examples, like Liefeld, Morrison, etc.

I blame Morrison and Bendis for the sudden preponderance of bald characters in the 2000s

Warren Ellis wasn't bald but Transmetropolitan.

it seems impossible for liefeld to look like any of his characters. unless he is irl covered in pouches?

whoa whoa whoa

http://scontent-b.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xpa1/t51.2885-15/925660_957389617624459_317203352_a.jpg

http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/thumb/e/ee/Rob_Liefeld.jpg/250px-Rob_Liefeld.jpg " class="noborder">