Rolling Comic Book thread 2017

On the money.

I remember when I had mostly stopped following Marvel superheroes and they were bringing Thor back from the dead. The advert said "not a hoax, not a dream" or something like that. I honestly had no idea if this was tongue in cheek or if they really expected fans to be amazed they were bringing back one of their major characters.

I'm actually really enjoying that Clone Saga behind the scenes thing that Old Lunch linked on the other thread. I think it's interesting that so many people who hated it thought it had some ideas with a lot of potential, I kind of agree.
So much of it sounds utterly stupid in summary, also the summary of the Ultimate Clone Saga (Mary Jane turns into Demogoblin? What the hell?), which I hear was much better, was it?

"Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story" was a frequently used hyperbolic tagline on 'death' issues of DC and Marvel comics, eg

https://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/3/70/5372ca84416c7/detail.jpg

(fukitor is great trash btw)

Little that was done with the Ultimate line was better than anything being done in the regular books. They very wisely moved a few of the elements that worked (Miles Morales, Reed Richards's evil analogue) over to the Marvel Universe proper and nuked that failed experiment.

If you want to talk about cynical mainstream exercises with no compelling reason to exist, Ultimate Marvel a good place to start.

Something that is much more apparent to me now, especially reading summaries (admittedly the summaries may not explain motivations well) is how often stories are compromised by the understandable demand for regular fights.
When I was a big superhero fan, one of my pet hates was seeing heroes fighting each other on the covers. It made them seem incredibly stupid. They're supposed to be admirable and intelligent but they find more reasons to fight than drunk sports fans.
A lot of the best villains are really smart too, so Dr Doom and Magneto should be difficult to provoke.

Wasn't Fukitor supposed to be really racist?

From what I've been able to cull from images online (having never heard of Fukitor before the discussion itt), it appears to be at the very least super uncomfortably rape-y.

it's really racist and really violent and obscenely misogynistic and horrible in all the same ways as s clay wilson or, i dunno, johnny ryan.
i was raised on undergrounds and have a lot of patience with that shit in comics if it's presented with self-awareness, panache and with an underlying awareness of what it's referencing.

it's definitely packed with homage to wilson to the gills, as in this splash page
NSFW obvs
https://books.google.com/books?id=7O1gDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT107&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

fingerman and dorkin and brunetti also come to mind as guys working in this style, though all with very different styles

I've never really understood why Matt Furie has such difficulty seeing the minor Boy's Club characters as both a personal creation which potentially exists to make $$$ and iconic representations which have evolved beyond the mundane intentions of (and which will almost certainly outlive) him buying some food off of them.

i would not consider fukitor kosher for ilx

xp because the dominant use right now, that has eclipsed goofy jokes, is in support of completely disgusting views?

I mean, I think it's dumb if large corporate entities sue people using their characters in parody or in homage, but it generally doesn't dilute the original work, and tends to subvert the context of the original work. For instance, the wave of Garfield memes and parodies doesn't change the fact that people still think of Garfield as this boring mainstay of the comics page and occasional cartoon character.

I see the most iconic Boy's Club character and immediately think "disgusting edgelords who scream about white genocide"

What happened to Furie is basically the worst thing I can imagine an artist experiencing wrt their art.

"Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!" is as cynical as any of the Big Two's current shtick but I like it better because a) it was mostly aimed at children, b) it has an old school huckster panache totally lacking in today's stuff and c) you usually found out that it was, in fact, a hoax/dream/imaginary story very quickly, often at the end of the issue. Now it's months of Marvel going through the motions of "no no no Steve Rogers is DEFINITLEY a nazi now", feeding off internet outrage about same and then finally revealing that yeah of course it was a fucking Cosmic Cube thing.

after all, they are ALL imaginary tales
makes you think

also xp to mordy
http://gfbrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/rcrumnotpolite-300x274.jpg

i mean i really enjoy it (i have to keep it stashed away since i don't want my kids browsing it) but it contains basically everything that your average sensitive politically conscious ilxor would find deplorable

I'm a little concerned for anyone who honestly thought that Captain America was actually a secret Nazi now and that that shit wasn't going to be completely reversed at some point.

I wish I could find the goofy single-page parody of the whole thing I saw on twitter

"Finally, the culmination of my genius lifelong secret plan!"
*logs on to twitter*
Tweets: "Hail HYDRA!"

In further search of what appealed to me about Marvel superheroes as a kid, I've been looking at Marvel Masterpieces cards. Trading cards of comic characters were huge for me, but I wish they had just been art books instead of all that waste of paper (doublers) and people buying insane amounts just to get rare cards.
I know some people hate them but I think the Hildebrandt brothers could create really powerful colours and lighting.

I'm not sure I would have got into superheroes through most of the popular DC characters. Maybe the colour designs of Marvel characters deserves more credit. Maybe the more defined anatomy of modern superheroes was important, the night time settings definitely were (maybe Frank Miller deserves that credit?).

I kind of wish I had my superhero phase later on in life. I'm glad I came to metal later on because I probably would have heard so much more crap metal if I started young.

I'm a little concerned for anyone who honestly thought that Captain America was actually a secret Nazi now and that that shit wasn't going to be completely reversed at some point.

It's a real thing! Saw lots of outrage on my FB timeline - though tellingly none of it came from comic book fans. It took a while for me to realise that, yeah, within most other kinds of culture a new plot development has a good chance of being permanent and not a six month "no man we take it back" thing.

Still kinda sad that Marvel can't just pitch that shit as an interesting story and has to go through those motions, though.

i mean i really enjoy it (i have to keep it stashed away since i don't want my kids browsing it)

This reminds me, in 1990 I left home for the first time and moved to Seattle and initially I was staying with my aunt and uncle while looking for a room somewhere. I brought my few boxes of favorite comics in from the car so they wouldn't get fucked up by weather. My second night there, I look over and somehow my ten year old cousin has pulled out a small stack of yummy furs and guess what page he has open

Fukitor is great, Mordy otm

xp

guess what page he has open

Ronald Reagan penis-head?

Re: Clone Saga again. I like how the deeply tortured Kaine must have sat down and designed a costume that expressed his despair but made room for his lovely hair. It must have taken him ages to get the veins right when he was knitting.

Xpost the spread where the scientists are cutting off dicks to perform the transplant

welp, you've scarred him now!

When I was 9 or 10 at my first comic shop visit, these Bissette covers taken a while to process. Especially the farting part.

https://www.comics.org/series/84895/covers/

wow I've never seen either of those

"comics: not just for kids anymore!" lol

this is the cover that most fucked me up as a kid
http://i.pinimg.com/originals/19/0e/5e/190e5eca6d555e99c831a81ac5bd4a4b.jpg

EC was just so great

I have that issue!! it may have been the first EC comic I ever bought.

all of the shock/crime covers are just incredible.

I got that one and the one with the junkie as a two-fer

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ep.tc%2Fproblems%2F29%2Fshk.jpg&f=1

that one def fucked me up too.

I'm guessing these were the East Coast 1970s reprints you had, rather than the originals:

https://atomicavenue.com/title/1773/EC-Classic-Reprints

yep, had all those. also got the gladstone/diamond ones that started reprinting. then bought the hardback cochran editions whenever i could. then the fanta artist reprints. and now have torrents of the complete runs. EC Addict!

Still reading that series about the 90s Clone Saga. Seems like I wasn't crazy in being excited by the early parts of it (although it had problems from the start).
I've never understood why so many writers persisted for years in trying to keep Aunt May alive and trying to get rid of Mary Jane. I don't remember anyone ever doing anything interesting with Aunt May, the explanation for her revival is extremely bad. They gave her a good send-off then ruined it.

Editors blame the marketing department for continually extending the Clone Saga when it was selling extremely well. It was only supposed to last a few months, then by extending it they created problems that taken them much longer to undo.

This is a quote from Tom DeFalco I found interesting. He's addressing the complaint of Marvel having too many similar characters, including Fantastic Force.

As for his belief that a SCARLET SPIDER book would have eventually failed, he is entitled to his opinion. I certainly believe that the powers-that-were at Marvel would have eventually cancelled the book even if it was selling...just like they cancelled THUNDERSTRIKE and WAR MACHINE even though both books were profitable. Since I had access to the actual sales during that period, I can attest to the fact that at the time it was canceled THUNDERSTRIKE was actually selling more copies than both THOR and AVENGERS combined. Why were profitable titles like THUNDERSTRIKE, WAR MACHINE and all the 2099 books cancelled? The answer I was given was that the guy in charge of marketing had decided that these additional titles were hurting the core company franchises. He believed that the sales on THOR would go up as soon as THUNDERSTRIKE was cancelled, and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN would increase with SPIDER-MAN 2099 gone. Nice theory...but I still think it was nonsense."

Never knew of Fukitor before today, but looking at that Google Book preview has definitely confirmed i need not investigate further: it looks AWFUL

Same here. Too much (fill in the blank) for me.

I never liked the look of it either.

It was this 174-post comment thread on Groth's website that drew his attention to the work: http://www.tcj.com/new-small-press-comics/

Finally got round to Jillian Tamaki's BOUNDLESS, which is a really nicely done collection of stories, though sometimes they just stop rather than end. Recommended.

i found this very helpful

Pronunciation guide for Marvel staffer names, circa 1984 pic.twitter.com/62sa74bf0A

— Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) October 30, 2017

that IS useful!

I had pretty much all of those right except I was giving dematteis an extra syllable

Ehhhhhh, I actually think you might be right, Jon. I knew someone who was close friends with his son, and I'm fairly certain she pronounced his name with that extra syllable.