Sperg about comic books here

[CowPox]

Has anyone read that Grant Morrison book about comics? He digs in to Alan Moore a bit and explains the feud, to be honest i've never heard or seen Alan Moore get challenged on his views, sometimes its like he's never heard a single argument against his position.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

finished this year's Doom Patrol miniseries. Was entertaining. While it was all a callback to the 80s and 90s DP, it was fun.

 

[skykiii]

Which scene does Rosarch murder people for jaywalking? I missed that, I think...

I was being a little exaggerated there. Point is it does the thing where he kills one guy and then its implied that ultra-violence is his go-to.

Though even that is inconsistent as he's compassionate towards that old guy at the beginning.

.... Although now that I'm wide awake, my brain just fired off another thought that Watchmen is supposed to be a world where superheroes were all more pulp-style heroes in costumes with only one person actually having powers, and yet their world still had things like costumed supervillains for them to fight... people who were apparently actual villains and not just putting on a big larp.

I find that kinda weird, because an actual realistic take on superheroes would probably be like Golden Age Superman where most of his stories are about him taking down some random thug or exposing a corrupt orphanage or something.

Took awhile to respond because the forum kept being error'd up when I drafted this.

 

[Nick Obre]

​

I was being a little exaggerated there. Point is it does the thing where he kills one guy and then its implied that ultra-violence is his go-to.

The point was that finding the remains of the little girl who had been fed to the dogs broke him. He's always deranged due to childhood trauma, but he recalls everything before that moment being just playing and pretending, having even promised to the parents he'd bring back the girl unharmed. Then he realizes what happened and his mind is fractured by the experience, which he describes as something along the lines of "Kovacs closed his eyes and it was Rorschach who opened them".
It's not just "OK I killed a guy, in for a penny in for a pound", but rather the discovery of the little girl's death being so horrifying that it changed him irrevocably.

.... Although now that I'm wide awake, my brain just fired off another thought that Watchmen is supposed to be a world where superheroes were all more pulp-style heroes in costumes with only one person actually having powers, and yet their world still had things like costumed supervillains for them to fight... people who were apparently actual villains and not just putting on a big larp.

​

They were all just criminals with a flair for the dramatic, no one had any powers. At most they had some tech and resources, henchmen and such, and did grandiloquent schemes for the thrill of it (which in itself was a fad unintentionally encouraged by all the costumed adventurers going aroun). Like Moloch, who was a stage magician turned criminal, the only strange thing about him was the pointy ears; or Captain Axis, who was just Nazi trying to undermine America.

​

 

[jspit2.0]

For once, I agree with you wholeheartedly

Just once?

Hah.

The thing Alan Moore wants to say with that is Rorschach acts as judge jury and executioner with no due process, no determination of guilt little to no evidence and even if proven guilty, not upheld for public trial. That's supposed to be the intended message, killing pedos is bad cause you have no authority and you're not the justice system, justice should be delivered based on the collective consent of the masses which basically amounts to maoist struggle sessions and drumhead trials. Individualist vigilanteism bad. It's the same thing people intend judge dredd to come off as, someone who's unhinged because he takes action against people and exerts authority based on supposed subjective morality. I've even seen breadtubers echo the same sentiment when it comes to crime and they use legitimate cases where the justice system failed to prove their case.

That and the characters are all commentary on superhero comics. Some of it, even in the 80s was tired. Nietzsche, historical creators like Ditko, Lee, the inherent conservative nature with facist overtones of heroes.

The triumph of the book is it gives its readers some agency, which American comics to that point hadn't necessarily done.

I read his autobiography and he seems like a nice guy who's grown a bit from being rando British commie in the 70s. It's especially funny to see how Alan burned all the 2000AD bridges in the 2000s, he cut off contact with Dave cause he apparently betrayed Alan by supposedly getting extra money for his involvement in and endorsement of the Watchmen movie which Dave actually never got. Dave's still friends with Frank Miller ffs and he wants to collab with Frank again, the fascist holy terror Frank Miller.

Alan is cursed chalice. He's given every collaborator timeless classics, he's also screwed co-creators out of profits and turned on them.

1963 stands out to me. Series is worth a fortune, never been reprinted, never will because Alan is a cunt.

Has anyone read that Grant Morrison book about comics? He digs in to Alan Moore a bit and explains the feud, to be honest i've never heard or seen Alan Moore get challenged on his views, sometimes its like he's never heard a single argument against his position.

Yes, though anything Morrison says can't be given full credit. Very few creators in comics are giving wholly reliable accounts. You need to take there on self aggrandizement into account.

I was being a little exaggerated there.

Oh, kindof undermines your point though, doesn't it?

Point is it does the thing where he kills one guy and then its implied that ultra-violence is his go-to.

It is. He goes into prison and he kills people. He's uncompromising, which is the point. Evil must be opposed, criminals not given the chance to murder others.

And he doesn't kill all kinds. He didn't execute Moloch. He kills the people who he views as threats.

.... Although now that I'm wide awake, my brain just fired off another thought that Watchmen is supposed to be a world where superheroes were all more pulp-style heroes in costumes with only one person actually having powers, and yet their world still had things like costumed supervillains for them to fight... people who were apparently actual villains and not just putting on a big larp.

I find that kinda weird, because an actual realistic take on superheroes would probably be like Golden Age Superman where most of his stories are about him taking down some random thug or exposing a corrupt orphanage or something.

Took awhile to respond because the forum kept being error'd up when I drafted this.

That's...the book started off based on Charlton heroes. They're all thin expys of those characters. So Manhatten/Captain Atom

The point was that finding the remains of the little girl who had been fed to the dogs broke him. He's always deranged due to childhood trauma, but he recalls everything before that moment being just playing and pretending, having even promised to the parents he'd bring back the girl unharmed. Then he realizes what happened and his mind is fractured by the experience, which he describes as something along the lines of "Kovacs closed his eyes and it was Rorschach who opened them".
It's not just "OK I killed a guy, in for a penny in for a pound", but rather the discovery of the little girl's death being so horrifying that it changed him irrevocably.

The black and white of the mask. The state of the world. It's a dark Randian viewpoint.

They were all just criminals with a flair for the dramatic, no one had any powers. At most they had some tech and resources, henchmen and such, and did grandiloquent schemes for the thrill of it (which in itself was a fad unintentionally encouraged by all the costumed adventurers going aroun). Like Moloch, who was a stage magician turned criminal, the only strange thing about him was the pointy ears; or Captain Axis, who was just Nazi trying to undermine America.

As well as the golden age heroes all being cops. It's there in the background materials at the end of the issues.

Which is something no one brings up. Moore basically fails and undermines his own conceit throughout the entire book.

 

[dvnc]

Alan is a cunt.

Late I'm sure, but he's also pretty fucking gross. Have any of you checked out Lost Girls? Sorry if it's already been mentioned. I grabbed it in HC GN so I can sit on it for value due to the name attached to it. But I flipped through it one day and it's extremely whacked out.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

>thinking Watchmen is good

Saved by the editors my niggers. Moore is good for people with shit taste. Anyone with middling taste see’s him and other Anglos for what they are.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Late I'm sure, but he's also pretty fucking gross. Have any of you checked out Lost Girls? Sorry if it's already been mentioned. I grabbed it in HC GN so I can sit on it for value due to the name attached to it. But I flipped through it one day and it's extremely whacked out.

Lmao this book was fucking terrible and I pretty much regard it as child porn on the tier of loli, not at the level of cuties but certainly very fucking weird.
Unsurprising since Alan is the one who gave us this great introduction to a book on the history of porn

Spoiler: Spoiler

Im sure he considers himself an artful pornographer since the section he wrote for the Artists against Homophobia collection is just borderline porn.

1963 stands out to me. Series is worth a fortune, never been reprinted, never will because Alan is a cunt.

I got the entire TPB, I dont get it. Its something he did in the american comic dark years from 92 to 9/11 but thats all I got from it. Its not that great

 

[jspit2.0]

I got the entire TPB,

1963?

Is this within the last few years because last I knew he blocked Dynamite collecting it out of spite to his cocreators...

I dont get it. Its something he did in the american comic dark years from 92 to 9/11 but thats all I got from it. Its not that great

You've defended the boys and preacher with art by Steve Dillon, so I'd be lenient in grading a book with artwork by the likes of Rick Veitch and John Toltebeen.

It's a retro piece with some great older talents that's both a homage/pardoy to Stan Lee and the Marvel Revolution in the 60s. If you aren't an appreciator/have an understanding of those comics and how pivotal they were, you won't get it.

1963 is Alan's rosebud. See, Moore grew up idolizing Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Ditko. When he broke into comics he wrote these fan appreciation articles in Britbong comic mags.

Then he became THE Alan Moore. He hit it off and he became a delusional cunt. He reversed track, the narrative being he realized Stan Lee was a shit and Ditko was a loony. It's all to fit into his narrative where people who hold views he doesn't like can't be talented creators or put out good work (see his pivot on Frank Miller)

1963 is Moore excising Stan Lee, working through the fact that most of his career highlights was based in part of the contributions Lee made to comics writing and now he hated him. That's my opinion at least after reading it. It's meant to be a take down of Lee and a homage bundled up into one.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Is this within the last few years because last I knew he blocked Dynamite collecting it out of spite to his cocreators...

Digital TPB

so I'd be lenient in grading a book with artwork by the likes of Rick Veitch and John Toltebeen.

I like Saga of Swamp thing despite its pretty mediocre artwork. I know its supposed to be a sci fi superhero throwback to the 60s but I dont know whats so good about it, its okay. Seems like a captain planet ripoff or something. Its been a while since I read it arguably but I dont remember it being that "Alan Moore" style of writing with psychological faggotry, it was more similar to Tom Strong where he was just writing very tropey but okay to read stuff.

1963 is Alan's rosebud. See, Moore grew up idolizing Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Ditko. When he broke into comics he wrote these fan appreciation articles in Britbong comic mags.

I dont really see it, from what I know of britbongs they were fans of 50s and 60s british comics like battle, action, marvelman and the like, not necessarily american comics and even if they were they were almost always fans of DC not Marvel. One of the reasons why britbongs were eager for Vertigo and the DC scoop during the British Invasion while Marvel mostly stayed out of it even during the 2000s when they just mostly hired Garth Ennis and that was it, very small runs from Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Alan Grant and the rest.

Then he became THE Alan Moore. He hit it off and he became a delusional cunt. He reversed track, the narrative being he realized Stan Lee was a shit and Ditko was a loony. It's all to fit into his narrative where people who hold views he doesn't like can't be talented creators or put out good work (see his pivot on Frank Miller)

I think he never wrote fan letters to anybody, his debut from what I remember was starting off writing the Marvelman reboot for Warrior with minor writing gigs at Marvel UK for Captain Britain which is an organization completely divorced from Marvel US. Later he picked up two more comics for Warrior, V for Vendetta and I think BoJeffries Saga. Then he got hired for 2000AD and the rest is practically history. And you have to remember he was a communist, always was always will be. During that time at Warrior in 77 78 he was polyamorous fucking two other women, one of whom mothered his daughter Leah Moore who he wrote Albion with. That punk generation of Britain were all Russia supporting communist faggots due to their sheer hatred of Thatcher and so called "Counter Culture Attitudes" so their perceived love of American heroism is completely false.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Alan Moore was definitely a fan of of Marvel comics as a kid, I remember him talking about it in a few interviews, like this one.

 

[el bandito loco]

Late I'm sure, but he's also pretty fucking gross. Have any of you checked out Lost Girls? Sorry if it's already been mentioned. I grabbed it in HC GN so I can sit on it for value due to the name attached to it. But I flipped through it one day and it's extremely whacked out.
View attachment 5465085

In high school my buddy and I had heard of it and thought the premise sounded hilarious and we managed to find it at a used book store and it ended up disgusting both of us at 16. Although I do remember my friend reading it and bursting out laughing at this part where I think two of the husbands just start being gay out of literally nowhere and he showed me the page and that part was pretty funny. unfortunately the book as a whole is a disturbing pedo rape apologist fantasy from my recollection

 

[jspit2.0]

@Georgio Cocklord

Digital TPB

Official? Because if so I'm glad. His collaborators deserved to make money off that project, the prick.

I like Saga of Swamp thing despite its pretty mediocre artwork. I know its supposed to be a sci fi superhero throwback to the 60s but I dont know whats so good about it, its okay. Seems like a captain planet ripoff or something. Its been a while since I read it arguably but I dont remember it being that "Alan Moore" style of writing with psychological faggotry, it was more similar to Tom Strong where he was just writing very tropey but okay to read stuff.

I mean, John drew those insane images of London torn apart by KidMiracleman. Swamp Thing's was pretty trippy. A whole issue of him tripping on a love fruit and doing Abby Arcane. Not at all like Tom Strong, either artistically or as a story.

I dont really see it, from what I know of britbongs they were fans of 50s and 60s british comics like battle, action, marvelman and the like, not necessarily american comics and even if they were they were almost always fans of DC not Marvel. One of the reasons why britbongs were eager for Vertigo and the DC scoop during the British Invasion while Marvel mostly stayed out of it even during the 2000s when they just mostly hired Garth Ennis and that was it, very small runs from Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Alan Grant and the rest.

I mean, he literally wrote an article gushing on Lee. It was titled blinded by hype, an affectionate character assassination...

Choice quotes

[Stan lee is the name of the flawed genius...without stan lee you would not be reading this....]

He relates how his mum bought him FF 3

[Some two hours after I'd finished reading FF no. 3 for the eighth time I realized that she had in fact done me a tremendous service. This comic was utterly stark raving foaming-at-the-mouth stupendous!]

He goes on to fan rave, comparing it to the DC comics he enjoyed as a kid and how sanitized they were. He then continues praising lee.

Moore was a massive fanboy thatt's why he riffed on so much of the silver age when he was creating things. But he pivoted, saying he then came to believe Stan Lee never wrote anything.

I think he never wrote fan letters to anybody, his debut from what I remember was starting off writing the Marvelman reboot for Warrior with minor writing gigs at Marvel UK for Captain Britain which is an organization completely divorced from Marvel US. Later he picked up two more comics for Warrior, V for Vendetta and I think BoJeffries Saga. Then he got hired for 2000AD and the rest is practically history. And you have to remember he was a communist, always was always will be. During that time at Warrior in 77 78 he was polyamorous fucking two other women, one of whom mothered his daughter Leah Moore who he wrote Albion with. That punk generation of Britain were all Russia supporting communist faggots due to their sheer hatred of Thatcher and so called "Counter Culture Attitudes" so their perceived love of American heroism is completely false.

Yes, he was a degenerate fuck. But his weirdo politics and becoming cucked by those two women is beside the point.

He was writing essays for zines in the British scene. Fan analysis. There a number of them. One raving over Miller's Daredevil. Some indie books etc. It's all interesting, a little picture of him before he got high on his own farts.

I've been thinking about what how I'd rate the Justice Leagues if I had a top five run list. It's made me consider that JL hasn't had a great track record as a whole.

You've got Giffen DMS and their JLI fun, 5 years from 87 to 91ish at my no 1. Then you have JLA with Morrison, Waid, Kelly, and company for a hundred issues or so in the late 90s to early 00s at no. 2. Then...maybe Brad Meltzer's Justice League of America run? It's either that, Dan Jurgen's year and a half follow up in the 90s or that year or so George Perez did layouts on the League. There just isn't much there.

The Nu52 Geoff Johns run is a big long nothing that doesn't even have an ending. The stuff after that is somehow worse. Are there some gems, sure. Is the early League wacky and silver age fun, yeah. But it's not something like JSA or the Avengers where you can fight over runs.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

I wasn't a big fan of Jurgen's JL stint, which was weird because I loved his regular Superman work. His Justice League felt like 'Superman and some strays that nobody was using', and incidentally the TPBs they released of it recently were titled Superman and the Justice League. Jurgens wrote it like Superman was an annoyed adult dealing with a bunch of shitty kids.

 

[jspit2.0]

I wasn't a big fan of Jurgen's JL stint, which was weird because I loved his regular Superman work. His Justice League felt like 'Superman and some strays that nobody was using', and incidentally the TPBs they released of it recently were titled Superman and the Justice League. Jurgens wrote it like Superman was an annoyed adult dealing with a bunch of shitty kids.

It was absolutely Jurgen's subsuming half the JLI into the Superman titles at the time. You still had the JLI technically being carried forward by Jones...just can't even. But that didn't work, for lots of reasons.

The thing I kindof about it was it showed Booster, Guy, Beetle as more competent; once he had his favorite Superman get his digs in. It was one of those there was no way he was ever going to live up to Giffen and DMS, so instead he tried to make it more serious while still keeping it humorous. Which was happening until Death of Superman junked the book. After that he ditched the title with just two little arcs.

Butt that's kindof my point. It was probably, what? A six?

But what else is there? Gerry Conways stale stuff for near a decade? Certainly not the dried husk that followed Jurgen's run with Waid and Priest and Vado. Dwayne McDuffie's run is just one Dan Didio created mess, followed by a perfectly mild and bleh James Robinson run. So either you have to hit the sixties or seventies to fill the rest out. That's pretty stark content wise, because those comics were okay and not really anything spectacular.

 

[Nick Obre]

You've got Giffen DMS and their JLI fun, 5 years from 87 to 91ish at my no 1. Then you have JLA with Morrison, Waid, Kelly, and company for a hundred issues or so in the late 90s to early 00s at no. 2.

Ok so maybe I agree with you not just once

 

[Tor Lugosi]

I was getting into the JLA, JSA, and All Stars '70s comics for a little while but I was reading like a dozen different titles and got burnt out on comics for a while and dropped everything, so I can't say how good that era is overall. Though very Silver Age-y what I read was pretty entertaining. I don't think I ever bothered with Conway's infamous Detroit era, though I've seen a few hardcore fans of it over the years. I've always wondered if Jurgen's JL book turned out how he wanted it to -- he had just written Panic in the Sky which had a more classic JLA team-up in it, so I'm curious if his Justice League book team line-up was what he really wanted. Plus, he didn't last long on it and the overall quality felt noticeably lower than what he was doing on regular Superman.

You'd think it'd be an easy book to make good and entertaining but, yeah, outside of Morrison's JLA era and DeMatteis' JLI era I've never really liked the books.

 

[The Feline Solution]

You've defended the boys and preacher with art by Steve Dillon

You best not be hating on the Sameface Man, nigga. Dillon's artwork in Preacher i find pretty good but he has some real stinkers like that short Punisher run, that one suffers more from ass-ugly inks than his pencils, though. RIP either way.

Then he became THE Alan Moore. He hit it off and he became a delusional cunt. He reversed track, the narrative being he realized Stan Lee was a shit and Ditko was a loony. It's all to fit into his narrative where people who hold views he doesn't like can't be talented creators or put out good work (see his pivot on Frank Miller)

I unironically appreciate your elaborate shitting on Moore. While i enjoyed a lot of his works i can't stand anything coming out of his cunt mouth outside of his comics, he's the quintessential smarmy britfag artist, moreso than even Morrison is.

 

[el bandito loco]

the JLA is my favorite superhero team but historically the book is almost always terrible. the new 52 book is horrible. weirdly enough outside of the Morrison & waid run the best modern run is probably when Bryan Hitch did his initial few issues, once he took over the ongoing it was obvious he had no ideas because he just did the same story over and over again. Snyder's opening arc was alright but it went to shit because the whole run ended up just being a set up for death metal or whatever. and bendis was shitting the bed so hard in the Superman books I never bothered with his run.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

man reading the Abnett/Lanning 2000s cosmic marvel was great, and then seeing the first bit of the Bendis Guardians of the Galaxy made me fucking go into whiplash.

Like, come the fuck on Marvel. You just had to hand the Guardians book to literally anyone else. The Abnett/Lanning Guardians had the perfect sendoff in Thanos Imperative and the 2 Annihilators mini-series. It was perfect. Then you all somehow had Bendis screwing up great ideas and major character potential just to give us the shallowest bullshit.

Bendis' quips and bullshit writing worked with the Avengers he had because it was a large rotating cast of very well established characters. Spidey quips, Tony quips. Etc. It's not great, but it kinda worked alright.

Guardians with Bendis was shit. Jesus Christ. You ruined everything and then you took Ben Grimm and Kitty Pryde along for the ride.

I'd take any other establish capeshit comics writer of that time. Hell, I'd even take Mark Waid or Geoff Johns.

the reintegration of Richard Ryder back into Marvel has also been kind of a disaster. I wish we'd had a few more guest appearances of him. But I don't like how the fuck we wound up with Worldmind being a villain in the last Nova solo series when it'd been established to be still existing in the universe in the previous ongoing Nova book. Fucking hell, 2000s Cosmic Marvel was so fuck to read. Then they kneecapped literally all of it because of Bendis. Bendis had the opportunity to have Star-Lord's characterization move forward and fit his established persona, but kept him locked in with his vision of Peter being an irresponsible retard that runs away from his problems when we had like a dozen issues after Peter's first death talking about how he tried to recruit misfits and outcasts to do their best to save the galaxy. Like, come the fuck on. Christ. Bendis is a trash writer who pumps out consumable product. I just wish both marvel and DC would realize that he should never ever be handed anything without a wrangler. He's screwed up his stuff at DC and didn't even successfully get his Naomi stuff done.

At least Annihilation Scourge was sort of interesting. With any luck, we could get a half-decent writer to bring back more cosmic marvel fun without giving it to bendis. Ewing and Hickman are alright when they're reigned in. Maybe a Donny Cates Guardians of the Galaxy run could be fun?