It was never as good as when Crumb was drawing it, but man, when it was good it was good. American Splendor was one of the main things that got me reading the undergrounds. That and the time I stumbled on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, when I was way, way too young for it...
Sperg about comic books here
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Cactuar King
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Is that Atomica? She got ugly since her debut.
- Joined
- May 25, 2020
I wish they changed Sinestro's design too. Also I wish they had an earthy 3 joker on the legion of justice. However I loved this issue it's great to see the Emerald Knight get some lime light for once.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
I've always thought Tynion was a fairly mediocre writer (who, from what I've head, only ever got ahead in the comic industry due to being friends with Scott Snyder).
Speaking of mediocre, I recently read Trinity by Matt Wagner, which I found to be mostly disappointing. The art has this sort of lazy, first draft look to it -- Superman often looks bland while Wonder Woman bounces between looking alright and looking like a weird tranny, whereas Batman is the only one done with consistent detail and effort. The story isn't anything great: Ra's al Ghul wants to the cleanse the world yet again, this time he recruits Bizarro (the failed clone of Superman version) and Artemis (a runaway Amazon) for help.
The start of the story feels like its meant to be some sort of globe trotting mystery where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman team up for the first time to solve it and stop whoever is behind it. But it isn't. The Trinity constantly just immediately figure out plot points with little build-up or flair. Instead the story is largely just a collection of action scenes, with the bad guy escaping during it and then a page or two of the characters tracking them down again for another action scene. The characterization and dialogue is also very middling.
There is one really weird thing in the story - a sort of strange, sexual energy directed at Wonder Woman. Ra's al Ghul makes repeated comments about wanting to rape her and turn her into his personal concubine and later wants to turn all of the Amazons into breeding cattle. Even Batman at one point basically attacks Wonder Woman, throwing himself on her and kissing her.
I don't really know what went wrong here. Matt Wagner is definitely capable of much better -- his 'Monster Men' and the 'Mad Monk' minis are both really good in terms of art and writing. With Trinity, though, the art looks amateur-ish and the writing feels like something out of a teenager's fan fiction.
Speaking of mediocre, I recently read Trinity by Matt Wagner, which I found to be mostly disappointing. The art has this sort of lazy, first draft look to it -- Superman often looks bland while Wonder Woman bounces between looking alright and looking like a weird tranny, whereas Batman is the only one done with consistent detail and effort. The story isn't anything great: Ra's al Ghul wants to the cleanse the world yet again, this time he recruits Bizarro (the failed clone of Superman version) and Artemis (a runaway Amazon) for help.
The start of the story feels like its meant to be some sort of globe trotting mystery where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman team up for the first time to solve it and stop whoever is behind it. But it isn't. The Trinity constantly just immediately figure out plot points with little build-up or flair. Instead the story is largely just a collection of action scenes, with the bad guy escaping during it and then a page or two of the characters tracking them down again for another action scene. The characterization and dialogue is also very middling.
There is one really weird thing in the story - a sort of strange, sexual energy directed at Wonder Woman. Ra's al Ghul makes repeated comments about wanting to rape her and turn her into his personal concubine and later wants to turn all of the Amazons into breeding cattle. Even Batman at one point basically attacks Wonder Woman, throwing himself on her and kissing her.
I don't really know what went wrong here. Matt Wagner is definitely capable of much better -- his 'Monster Men' and the 'Mad Monk' minis are both really good in terms of art and writing. With Trinity, though, the art looks amateur-ish and the writing feels like something out of a teenager's fan fiction.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
i just enjoyed his Detective Comics run where he got to utilize the entire bat family. You pretty much don't get to see Batman, Robin, Cassandra and a bunch of others interact anymore. they're all either separated into their own books or don't exist. like right now Tim is just no where.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2018
That's enough batman for now....
Hellfire Gala is uhhh....a thing
Hellfire Gala is uhhh....a thing
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2021
They reprinted the entire run of the Freak Brothers in a trade softcover 'omnibus' about 12 years ago.
I was super fucking pumped to get a copy but when I had a look in my local bookshop, it was seriously disappointing.
The paper was 'Soviet gulag toilet paper' grade, worse than newsprint.
They'd shrunk the comics to meet a smaller size format, making the fonts tiny (the 'Fat Freddy's Cat' strips at the bottom of the page were completely unreadable).
And the shitty paper quality meant that the printing wasn't clean- half the writing was illegible because the paper was so rough that the ink had areas missing.
Really fucking disappointing.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Sounds depressing. I remember the Cerebus phonebooks being really cheaply printed but at least they were legible and the printing was half-decent. The books themselves were incredibly flimsy, though, and the spines prone to falling apart.
GranDuke
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2018
I kinda put it down to whole Trinity idea being stupid and him being unable to turn it into something worthwhile.
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2020
Anyone following Heroes Reborn? #5 is out. Some of the ideas are interesting, but it seems the main series is split into two stories, making the bit by Mcguiness seem far too compressed. That might be a good thing with some of the writing.
That's rough, I had seen that volume but never actually read it. Plus side, the comic-book versions were reprinted so many times that at least those aren't hard to lay hands on.
I don't really care about the plot or if it even has a plot, the gags and cameos have been a kick so far. It's corny but I'm here for a comic where El-P and Killer Mike spectate on a staredown between Cap and Doctor Doom.
Amber the Hedgehog
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
I get so strong writing by females with no interest in superhero comics vibe from it. On very basic level I get that "prom episode" has story potential. Large parties have been the place to network and make alliances, kindoms and conspiracies have gotten their starts from right people having an opportunity meet. The characters can give a monologue without it looking awkward and having social obligation to behave can result in fun passive aggressive fighting with thinly veiled insults. If something bad happens you have room full of tension and suspects. So it's not an idea completely without merit but how they have advertised it whole thing just looks bad.
View attachment 59D6E79F-7ABC-4CBD-89FC-E4386C2AE497.webp
So far only thing about it that remotely not ridiculous is this humor cover. I know what that sounds like but I mean it as a compliment. It's actually dynamic and gets the appeal of these two characters.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
looks like tim drake gonna suck some dick soon.
- Joined
- May 20, 2019
American comics is merely a subset of western comics. There are plenty of good comics still out there, just less known because they're rare in English.
You've all heard about Tintin, I'm sure, but that isn't the only YA/more serious ligne clair/franco-belgian comic out there.
I can wholeheartedly recommend two series,both are a bit older but still release every year or so. (Not at the american tempo but the quality is better imho) Here they are:
Yoko Tsuno is a more sci-fi and technical oriented comic series (with imho one of my favorite alien tech design philosophies in existence. Vinean tech is just AESTHETIC.) The older comics are not drawn as good as the newer ones but are still very nice to see. Yoko is a japanese electrical engineer living in europe and having wacky adventures all over the world (though I don't think she has been in america for some reason) and also some adventures in outer space.
Alix is a more historical oriented comic. Alix is adopted by a roman senator and has an interesting life in the principate (early roman empire) He sees lots of interesting stuff and it's pretty cool.
There are tons of other series but I don't know if they still run. Michel Vaillant is good, it's about racing. There are more childish comics out there. You might know The Smurfs or Asterix. Along those lines exist also Tuniques Bleues (about the american civil war) Kiekeboe (YA belgian simpsons comic) Red Knight/ Rode Ridder (about a knight in red, all sorts of medieval adventures) Spike and Suzy/ Suske en wiske (for like 12-14 year olds) Jommeke (toddler comic books, really wholesome).
Of course, these all underwent a more "multicultural" evolution the last decade but nowhere near the absurdity that is american woke comics.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
Been getting back into reading X-Men in chronological order. I'm a few issues after the Secret Wars event.
- New Mutants' Nova Roma arc was it's first big story arc and was mostly great. Before this I think the biggest multi-parter was the Team America story, which was kinda dumb. I don't know why Claremont thought trying to add Team America into the X-Men lore was a good idea and he seems to have largely abandoned it, so I'm assuming he realized that a team whose skillset mostly consists of "we ride motorcycles really well" didn't quite mesh with the X-Men.
Sunspot is the only character I'm still finding somewhat bland and ill-defined, the only time I find him interesting is when he's interacting with his family. All the others have pretty strong personalities and roles, with Dani in particular developing well from outsider/loner to team-leader.
Anyway, as for the Nova Roma arc, there were only really two problems I had with it, first being that Magma's introduction felt lazy. That the sole Amazon the New Mutants capture ends up being the daughter of the Roman senator that they ultimately side with and a mutant on top of that felt like a string of coincidences that could've been handled better. I think a better way to have handled it that would've been cleaner narratively would have been to have Magma realize that the New Mutants were powerful outsiders and willingly give herself up to them, hoping they could help her father.
The second problem was that Rahne's (Wolfsbane) deep love for Sam (Cannonball) felt like it came out of nowhere and is now suddenly the focal point for her character. So far it hasn't been too annoying and hopefully it stays that way.
- I mostly skimmed the Secret Wars mini for the X-Men parts. I read it in full a while back when I was reading through Spider-Man. I've always felt the miniseries was bloated and overly long; they could have easily cut out a few characters and probably shortened it to 8 or 10 issues. Anyway, the X-Men stuff in it is pretty middling. A lot of the non-X-Men characters suddenly being prejudiced against mutants felt arbitrary and just there for cheap drama, and then there was specific character drama that I didn't like. In particular, the use of Magneto and Colossus is pretty bad.
The way the X-Men constantly stick up for and defend Magneto no matter what consistently came across as retarded. There's a couple of scenes that are basically just:
Character: We don't trust Magneto!
X-Man: It's because he's a mutant!
Character: No, it's because he's a terrorist that's murdered people.
X-Man: Nuh-uh! It's because he's a mutant!
At one point the X-Men even use the "one man's terrorist is another man's liberator" line of reasoning that Magneto has used in the past to justify his actions which the X-Men have constantly disregarded and argued against. Magneto also seems to constantly forget he's the master of magnetism and instead just uses his powers to fly and throw rocks.
Then there's Colossus. He mostly spends the mini-series obsessively pining over the alien healer chick and being jealous that she likes Johnny Storm. What's worse is that other characters realize that the obsession is a side-effect of the alien healer's power... but nobody cares to tell Colossus that nor does he ever figure it out. Had he had a character arc here where he slowly figures it out and then breaks out of his slump, deciding he wants to return to Kitty and so has a reason to fight again it would've been fine, and they could've even done the whole 'he breaks up with Kitty due to his conflicting feelings upon return' story, he just would have seemed like less of a retard.
The one shining spot with the X-Men in Secret Wars is Xavier. Having regained the full use of his legs he attempts to fully take command of the X-Men, coming into conflict with Storm who had become the leader of the X-Men since Cyclops' retirement. Charles quickly realizes he really isn't quite suited for combat nor being the actual field commander, yet stubbornly refuses to give up his newfound field leadership role. I suppose they could have done more with Cyclops being the former leader but him hanging back and not wanting to take charge fits with where his character is currently at (retired and married).
- Around this time are two miniseries. The first being X-Men & the Micronauts. It's not bad but nothing special. Nothing important really happens with the X-Men, whereas this seems like a really important story for the Micronauts given that half of their universe is genocided by the main antagonist (The Entity) and a major character dies. Even the twist, that The Entity is actually Xavier's dark psyche manifested into reality isn't given much weight. Xavier pretty much shrugs it off and chalks it up to the duality of man. Also, Xavier dark side shows that he really, really wants to fuck his female students, no matter the age.
The other mini-series is Magik, the four issue series that chronicles Illyana's seven years in Limbo after she was taken by Belasco. I really enjoyed this mini-series and don't really have any faults with it. The sole problem with it is that I think Claremont realized he made her too bad ass by the end of it and didn't know what to do with her in the New Mutants, but that's not really a fault of the miniseries itself.
Within the mini she became a powerful sorceress and memorized a library's worth of arcane tomes, becoming skilled and powerful enough to defeat Belasco by herself; was taught how to fight by Cat; became toughened enough that she was able to kill her two best friends in Limbo; and just generally survived this harsh, desolate place for years. Yet when she returns to regular reality and joins with the New Mutants her sole purpose is often just teleporting the team around. She's otherwise 'too tired' to do any spells or gets knocked out quickly in a fight. With the power, skill, and experience she accumulated by the end of her seven years in Limbo she probably should've been able to mop the floor with the Hellions in their first battle.
- Bill Sienkiewicz joins as the main artist of New Mutants in the next issue for me, which leads into the famous Demon Bear story and soon Doug Ramsey and Warlock join, who I think are the last major members to join the New Mutants. In Uncanny, the X-Men are mostly just dealing with personal problems upon returning from Secret Wars, in particular Carol (Ms. Marvel's) persona and memories are starting to take control of Rogue.
Sunspot is the only character I'm still finding somewhat bland and ill-defined, the only time I find him interesting is when he's interacting with his family. All the others have pretty strong personalities and roles, with Dani in particular developing well from outsider/loner to team-leader.
Anyway, as for the Nova Roma arc, there were only really two problems I had with it, first being that Magma's introduction felt lazy. That the sole Amazon the New Mutants capture ends up being the daughter of the Roman senator that they ultimately side with and a mutant on top of that felt like a string of coincidences that could've been handled better. I think a better way to have handled it that would've been cleaner narratively would have been to have Magma realize that the New Mutants were powerful outsiders and willingly give herself up to them, hoping they could help her father.
The second problem was that Rahne's (Wolfsbane) deep love for Sam (Cannonball) felt like it came out of nowhere and is now suddenly the focal point for her character. So far it hasn't been too annoying and hopefully it stays that way.
- I mostly skimmed the Secret Wars mini for the X-Men parts. I read it in full a while back when I was reading through Spider-Man. I've always felt the miniseries was bloated and overly long; they could have easily cut out a few characters and probably shortened it to 8 or 10 issues. Anyway, the X-Men stuff in it is pretty middling. A lot of the non-X-Men characters suddenly being prejudiced against mutants felt arbitrary and just there for cheap drama, and then there was specific character drama that I didn't like. In particular, the use of Magneto and Colossus is pretty bad.
The way the X-Men constantly stick up for and defend Magneto no matter what consistently came across as retarded. There's a couple of scenes that are basically just:
Character: We don't trust Magneto!
X-Man: It's because he's a mutant!
Character: No, it's because he's a terrorist that's murdered people.
X-Man: Nuh-uh! It's because he's a mutant!
At one point the X-Men even use the "one man's terrorist is another man's liberator" line of reasoning that Magneto has used in the past to justify his actions which the X-Men have constantly disregarded and argued against. Magneto also seems to constantly forget he's the master of magnetism and instead just uses his powers to fly and throw rocks.
Then there's Colossus. He mostly spends the mini-series obsessively pining over the alien healer chick and being jealous that she likes Johnny Storm. What's worse is that other characters realize that the obsession is a side-effect of the alien healer's power... but nobody cares to tell Colossus that nor does he ever figure it out. Had he had a character arc here where he slowly figures it out and then breaks out of his slump, deciding he wants to return to Kitty and so has a reason to fight again it would've been fine, and they could've even done the whole 'he breaks up with Kitty due to his conflicting feelings upon return' story, he just would have seemed like less of a retard.
The one shining spot with the X-Men in Secret Wars is Xavier. Having regained the full use of his legs he attempts to fully take command of the X-Men, coming into conflict with Storm who had become the leader of the X-Men since Cyclops' retirement. Charles quickly realizes he really isn't quite suited for combat nor being the actual field commander, yet stubbornly refuses to give up his newfound field leadership role. I suppose they could have done more with Cyclops being the former leader but him hanging back and not wanting to take charge fits with where his character is currently at (retired and married).
- Around this time are two miniseries. The first being X-Men & the Micronauts. It's not bad but nothing special. Nothing important really happens with the X-Men, whereas this seems like a really important story for the Micronauts given that half of their universe is genocided by the main antagonist (The Entity) and a major character dies. Even the twist, that The Entity is actually Xavier's dark psyche manifested into reality isn't given much weight. Xavier pretty much shrugs it off and chalks it up to the duality of man. Also, Xavier dark side shows that he really, really wants to fuck his female students, no matter the age.
The other mini-series is Magik, the four issue series that chronicles Illyana's seven years in Limbo after she was taken by Belasco. I really enjoyed this mini-series and don't really have any faults with it. The sole problem with it is that I think Claremont realized he made her too bad ass by the end of it and didn't know what to do with her in the New Mutants, but that's not really a fault of the miniseries itself.
Within the mini she became a powerful sorceress and memorized a library's worth of arcane tomes, becoming skilled and powerful enough to defeat Belasco by herself; was taught how to fight by Cat; became toughened enough that she was able to kill her two best friends in Limbo; and just generally survived this harsh, desolate place for years. Yet when she returns to regular reality and joins with the New Mutants her sole purpose is often just teleporting the team around. She's otherwise 'too tired' to do any spells or gets knocked out quickly in a fight. With the power, skill, and experience she accumulated by the end of her seven years in Limbo she probably should've been able to mop the floor with the Hellions in their first battle.
- Bill Sienkiewicz joins as the main artist of New Mutants in the next issue for me, which leads into the famous Demon Bear story and soon Doug Ramsey and Warlock join, who I think are the last major members to join the New Mutants. In Uncanny, the X-Men are mostly just dealing with personal problems upon returning from Secret Wars, in particular Carol (Ms. Marvel's) persona and memories are starting to take control of Rogue.
New Mutants had that problem with both Magik and Karma. They were cool character concepts with powers that turned out to be way too strong to easily write around.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2017
That's why Karma got written out early in the series by having her taken over by the Shadow King in issue 6. Xi'an didn't show up again for 2 years, which by then she got to be the size of Tess Holiday since Shadow King could enjoy food again in a corporeal body and just bail into new, healthy body when necessary.
Has anyone been following this Ant thing?
Ant, for those who don't know was created by Mario Gully in '96.
He created her while in jail for robbery.
He then got picked up by Erik Larsen in the mid 00's when Larsen was in charge at Image. Larsen went gaga for the character.
I wonder why?
Larsen bought the character off Gully shortly before he was arrested in 2012 for larceny.
Just recently, the Ant was released with a new issue #12 done by Larsen.
It's definitely a funny entry in the never changing, always weird and wacky American comics scene.
Ant, for those who don't know was created by Mario Gully in '96.
He created her while in jail for robbery.
He then got picked up by Erik Larsen in the mid 00's when Larsen was in charge at Image. Larsen went gaga for the character.
I wonder why?
Larsen bought the character off Gully shortly before he was arrested in 2012 for larceny.
Just recently, the Ant was released with a new issue #12 done by Larsen.
It's definitely a funny entry in the never changing, always weird and wacky American comics scene.
Affluent Reptilian
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2018
Mediocre at best. A whole lot of nothing happens in the main series. The spin-offs aren't much better. Nothing very imaginative.
Jupiter's Requiem issue 1 finally came out. Not bad - I liked Circle okay and Legacy quite a lot previously; this is more in line with Legacy. Interested in what's going on with the aliens, who are shown in a weird and menacing light here.
I see DC are doing Superman and the Authority next month - I gather that's the main DCU bland versions of the Wildstorm characters rather than any return of the Wildstorm universe proper (or anything to do with Warren Ellis' excellent but abortive Wild Storm reboot).