Rolling comic book thread 2018

I know that "angelpaws" in a Marvel comic was months ago but... the only piece of ILX lore I really want to see out in the world is "thassa noice Vageen".

For the first time in about 30 years, I have a pull list at my local comic book store. God help me.

thanks to FCBD and a lift, I learnt that a shop that's moved an hour and a half away is really good now

the one half an hour's walk basically sells Marvel & Image and roleplaying stuff, but is clean

This sounds good for any London ILC-ers

http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/asterix

I didn't know Goscinny was Jewish! Both my Asterix and my Jewish nerdery have failed me

TCJ to the rescue yet again! I learned like thirty things about Goscinny reading this, starting with his Jewish heritage:

http://www.tcj.com/french-and-frisky-the-man-behind-asterix/

Thanks for that, really good piece. Although arguably Asterix had already peaked at the time of Goscinny's death, his passing at just 51 still feels like one of comics' greatest losses.

Hoping to get to that Asterix exhibition when I'm down in London in July - have never been to the Jewish Museum either, so that will be interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asterix_volumes

In the UK, the back covers didn't list the books in the correct order, so I've never thought about Asterix books having a set running order like Tintin.

But still - Goscinny's run of ten books in six years (!) is a pretty spectacular imperial phase:

1965 Asterix and Cleopatra
1966 Asterix and the Big Fight
1966 Asterix in Britain
1966 Asterix and the Normans
1967 Asterix the Legionary
1968 Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield
1968 Asterix at the Olympic Games
1969 Asterix and the Cauldron
1969 Asterix in Spain
1970 Asterix and the Roman Agent

When I was a kid I fooled myself that Uderzo's later stuff is just as good as the Goscinny volumes, despite my father's grumblings. But looking at the stuff coming out now - admitidely more from a leafing through volumes pov than actually sitting down and reading - it does seem so inferior.

I watched a few eps of Goscinny's tv series. It's on YT, though w/o any English subtitles. Really enjoyed the one about a group of businessmen going to lunch to "discuss business" and just getting progressively more drunk and stuffing their faces in food.

Oh, I've never heard of that - you got a link?

Of the Uderzo stories, I think The Great Divide is on par with the Goscinny books (perhaps the English translation helps), Black Gold and Magic Carpet are fun but dumb, and the rest are disasters.

I've not read any of the new ones, but they seem to follow on from the Uderzo "more is more!" template, and the art seems grotesque in a way the classic books never did.

Yeah, don't they have aliens in them at some point? smh

First episode: http://youtu.be/pWarqUINgNk

I have read the new ones - agree that the art isn't quite 'right', but the scripts are generally better than the Uderzo-written ones, and the second one in particular - The Missing Scroll - actually quite effectively nudges the series out of its narrative comfort zone.

That list of Goscinny's 'imperial phase' really is remarkable - especially when you consider he was also writing some superb, and quite different, Lucky Luke volumes at the same time (I like Iznogoud too, but it's not in the same league as the other two series).

I'm fighting the horrible impulse to start contributing to the Hellboy comics wiki

Chuck OTM re the Uderzo volumes

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/nyregion/the-sistine-chapel-of-comic-strip-art.html

my mind is kind of blown

Mr. Jaffee, who couldn’t precisely recall what he drew in ’76, addressed the wall’s value wryly. “The scribblings on the caves in France also became more important in recent times than they were in their own times,” he said.

Al is still insanely in character at a ripe old age

Been quiet lately. Aside from Superman: The Final Last Stand, Power Pack: Retribution and Squirrel Girl: The Requiemening, anything interesting lately?

i think i know what the first one is, but what the other two

They're all fake. I was just trying to imagine the daftest titles I could. Angel And The Ape: Revelations, Paste Pot Pete: Evolution, Woozy Winks: Redemption, Snapper Carr: Exodus, Gay Ghost: Dark Awakening, Bouncing Boy: Rising, Devil Dinosaur: Defiance, Willie Lumpkin: Devastation, Newsboy Legion: Absolution etc...

but who doesn't want to see the Dark Awakening of a Gay Ghost?

They renamed him Grim Ghost. No joke.

Been quiet lately. Aside from Superman: The Final Last Stand, Power Pack: Retribution and Squirrel Girl: The Requiemening, anything interesting lately?

oh fuck yeah, Non is storming, Hanselmann has a new mini, I went to FCBD for the second time ever* and picked up several giveaways were actually fun & interesting, plus (in sales) a MariNaomi on Retrofit that I didn't know, and a Bob Levin prose novel. No Better Words by Carolyn Nowak on Silver Sprocket is the best new single issue I've seen this year. Found it in a comic shop, but Blocked is the first kickstarter-funded themed anthology I've read that isn't 72% trash (and unlike, say Spike's, doesn't consistently suffer gutter loss). The new Daygloayhole #1 turned out to be mostly a reprint of the old Daygloayhole #1, but Passmore's profile has risen a lot since then and what the heck, my copies are on another continent. I haven't even re-read Pope Hats #5 since I picked it up last year, but the Young Frances collection is out there and is unlikely to have turned shit by getting between hardcovers. Jen Wang's The Prince And The Dressmaker is a surprising delight for :01 YA. The material in Mudbite is slight (appearing to be two dream comics), but FFS the first Dave Cooper comics in...fifteen years? can't be sneezed at. I wish there was more drawing-qua-drawing in Bizarre Romance, but it's worth checking the range of approaches used. Picked up the first offset trade and two riso minis of Band Vs Band at VanCAF on the weekend, and the story is... not there yet, but the design and colour pallettes are g--o-r-g-e-o-u-s. Was also thrilling to see that Colin Upton is still out there doing real actual $1 minis (lotsa ppl's minis were $5-10) - picked up three 2018 newies.

*the other time was to get the issue of Langridge's Thor romance that hadn't been printed in the cancelled run.

ooh and there's a new L&R out this week, and the new Karl Stevens GN

http://www.comicsreporter.com/images/uploads/lnr05bottom_thumb.jpg

I might get Mudbite. Could swear I seen Cooper say he didn't think he could still do lengthy comics anymore, but that was maybe 5 years ago.

Last thing I got was one of those Bastien Vives adult comics which will probably never get translated to English.

https://www.blackgate.com/2018/06/13/two-count-em-two-nazi-robot-t-rexes/

More funny golden age silliness.

Some poor bastard bought $18k wholesale in Batman #50 (~10k copies) because of the promised wedding that's not happening.

is there anything in the world that could happen that could make a single store move that many copies of a single comic? that seems incredibly weird

If they do a lot of conventions, maybe and most of the time it's multi-store chains. Those numbers usually mean they got a custom cover for their shop(s), which is a minimum of 5k copies give or take.

I'd go bankrupt.

it'd be much funnier if it was that X-Men wedding issue that I doubt anyone cared about

"this is going to be huge! I'm betting it all on... whoever the heck gets married in this issue"

This is old but i only just found it: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/how-one-mash-up-artist-got-legal-permission-to-pair-calvin-hobbes-with-dune/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/02/c1.png

really dug the first two issues of Ewing's IMMORTAL HULK. the Hulk itself is one of the best depictions I've seen in years

Yes! Super glad that Al has found a better niche at Marvel than his last few titles.

I'm just about to go on a lazy holiday for two weeks, which means I like to DL a long Marvel (or whatever) run from the 70s or 80s and read it on my iPad.

Any suggestions? I've got the Simonson Thor run (which I've never read) booked for another time. But something similar in quality/scope (if not length) - maybe like 20 issues?

Or - something hacky but readable like Squadron Supreme (but not that)

http://comicsbulletin.com/top-10-1970s-marvels/

This is a pretty good list of longish 70s Marvel runs. Their number one choice would be mine too, especially the Headmen saga issues (Defenders 31-40)

oh, been meaning to read that defenders run forever. thanks!

would anyone recommend the brubaker run on captain america? i seem to remember from yester-ILC that it started well and tapered off before the end

it kinda did but i still rememeber it generally fondly. the bucky-cap stuff did downslide a bit, but still readable

9. Doctor Strange (Steve Englehart / Frank Brunner / Gene Colan)

I got the Essentials edition of this recently and was blown away by how good it was, had never seen any of Brunner's work before.

I think the solution might be to just pony up for MU while I'm away

Ok guys here’s my new weekly thing (alongside new weekly things by Tom Hart, Karen Sneider, Megan Kelso and Steve Weismann!). We comprise the Sunday funnies section of this new web mag Popula that just launched this week. My thing is kind of a fantasia on the notion of people and their phones.

https://popula.com/2018/07/15/sunday-funnies-july-15-2018/

Digging the style of yr comic Jon!

that's great

Read Kerascoet’s Beautiful Darkness and Satania in one sitting and... don’t do that.

I much preferred the first - it’s a self-consciously horrific riff on The Borrowers-type children’s stories, and impressively nasty.

Satania just drags on and on in a punishing way, though. I mean, it’s literally about a journey through hell, so fair enough I guess. But it’s boring.

but which is the one you'd recommend for a kid?

lol

Read the firs trade of that Sabrina The Teenage Witch reimagining. Surprisingly enjoyable: the pulp horror shit works and, surprisingly, the comic has a lot of heart. It does suffer from reference-itis though where characters are constantly telling each other what they're reading.

I totally missed the now old news that Chuck Dixon was working with Vox Day. Not sure I ever read any Dixon, but Jeezy Chreezy.

HAve you guys already discussed the x men grand design thing? Or is that not even worthy of discussion? I’m way out of the loop but I bought the book and it’s kind of enjoyable in an old school way. Was not expecting the retro graphic style