More Talk of Comics

[jebreject]

fuckinggoddamnnewpagefuck

[Andrew_TSKS]

that actually really sucks, jeb. i have trouble with imitating writers i've just read, sometimes even writers who i don't think are very good. i can't write AT ALL for a week after i read chuck palahniuk.

[jebreject]

I do that with writing too, but so far no Palahuniuks or Eggers have fucked me up the way Rob Liefield has with drawing

(though neither of those guys are nearly as bad to books as liefield is to comics)

[Andrew_TSKS]

hah, man, i don't know about that, at least w/regard to palahniuk. he'd be awesome if he'd only ever written "Fight club" and "Choke", but at this point that style of his is worn so thin i can read his books through it.

[jebreject]

chucky p. = annoying. robbie l. = detrimental to his craft

[Greg Nog]

Yeah, I was trying to come up with a prose equivalent to Rob Liefeld, and I think in terms of popularity and hackyness, the closest I can think of is probably Dan Brown?

[jebreject]

Even he is fairly benign in comparison though. He is the closest I can think of too though.

[das kranke Tier]

Y'know, I don't understand how my local shop just called me to tell me that the copy of Lost At Sea that I ordered just came in, but I've been waiting on Scott Pilgrim 3 for like a month and a half...

[DCDave]

I closed my box.  They fired a good friend of mine who was the manager of the store after 13 years of service for essentially no reason (fiscal mismanagement was the stated cause, but that is 100% bullshit, as the owner was blowing through $1000s on parties).  So did 15 other regulars - The funny thing is the losses in sales to us probably exceeded his salary. 

So I'm just doing GNs for a while.

[das kranke Tier]

That's really all I do as well.  I've got too much shit going on to keep up with serials, but both the ladyfriend and I really got into the Scott Pilgrim books and they can't seem to get their shit together and just get me a copy.

[Andrew_TSKS]

damn, dave, that sucks. you didn't open a box elsewhere?

by the way dudes, i hated the ending of "one more day" entirely and completely, which makes me feel really weird about the fact that i actually really like "brand new day" so far. it's just... damn it, what a fucking copout. they could have saved time and just said "hey guys, we realize that the events of the civil war painted us completely into a corner where spider-man is concerned, so we have to make them go away somehow. here, have a mystical bullshit story, and we'll pretend the last 20 years of the comic never happened." GOD, SO LAME.

[Greg Nog]

Andrew, I don't know if you've been following all the drama, but apparently, you're not alone there.

[DCDave]

damn, dave, that sucks. you didn't open a box elsewhere?

by the way dudes, i hated the ending of "one more day" entirely and completely, which makes me feel really weird about the fact that i actually really like "brand new day" so far. it's just... damn it, what a fucking copout. they could have saved time and just said "hey guys, we realize that the events of the civil war painted us completely into a corner where spider-man is concerned, so we have to make them go away somehow. here, have a mystical bullshit story, and we'll pretend the last 20 years of the comic never happened." GOD, SO LAME.

Andrew - My comics habit was ridiculous, and there's nowhere else in walking distance.  I'm saving the $50-60/week.

[Thermofusion]

I just finished reading Chaykin's 1986 modern day reworking of The Shadow.  I'd heard great things but, I don't know...it didn't click.  Taking The Shadow out of the 1930s seems futile because you can't take the 1930s out of The Shadow. 

Not knocking Chaykin, though, because of course American Flagg was the shit and I'm even one of the four or five people who loved American Century.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Andrew - My comics habit was ridiculous, and there's nowhere else in walking distance.  I'm saving the $50-60/week.

i should follow your example. i take forever to read over half of the comics i buy. it's becoming really obvious to me recently that i'm only really attached to about 15 of the titles i get in my box. but i get something like 40.

oh, and greg, i hadn't seen that. thanks for the link.

[DCDave]

Here are the books I miss reading:

Nova.

That is all.

[Andrew_TSKS]

hahaha i got bored with nova. but i totally understand what you're saying. i would miss more than that, but not nearly as many as i get.

also, this newsarama article is blowing my mind. here's j. michael straczynski on the transition into "brand new day":

There's this notion that magic fixes everything. It doesn't. "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Well, actually, yes, you do. Magic has to have rules. And this is clearly not just a case of one spell making everybody forget he's Spidey...suddenly you're bringing back the dead, undoing wounds, erasing records, reinstating web shooters, on and on and on.

What I wanted to do was to make one small change to history, a tiny thing, whose ripples we could control to only touch what editorial wanted to touch, making changes we could explain logically. I worked for weeks to come up with a timeline that would leave every other bit of continuity in place. It was rigorous, and as logical as I could make it. In the end of OMD as published, Harry is alive and he's always been alive as far as the characters know...so how is that different than he was alive the whole time?

It made no sense to me.

Still doesn't. It's sloppy. It violates every rule of writing fiction of the fantastic that I and every other SF/Fantasy writer knows you can't violate. It's fantasy 101.

god, exactly. and this guy WROTE the fucking story, though apparently in protest; he says he wanted to take his name off the last two issues of the arc because he hated what marvel was making him write that much.

[Almanzo]

I'm up to 40 titles, but that means that I end up with a stack of about 60 issues at any given time in my "to read" pile. And then a good half of those are complete crap that I keep reading because I hope they'll get better or good again.

I'm bummed that Testament got canceled so suddenly, because it was one of my favorite books. Sure, it had gotten kind of derailed and crappy over the last two or three issues, but the concept was so great and I knew Rushkoff had more story to tell.

Exterminators continues to be awesome. I really like Stracyznski's new The Twelve and think it has a ton of potential.

Suddenly Morrison's Batman is back to future-batman!?

[Andrew_TSKS]

hah, i didn't even know testament got cancelled. that's rather abrupt. sucks, too. i agree with you, it was a good comic. a lot of people found it pretty incoherent, though. i could follow it, but i realized that it was supposed to be somewhat hallucinatory, and i guess a lot of people weren't into that.

[Almanzo]

hah, i didn't even know testament got cancelled. that's rather abrupt. sucks, too. i agree with you, it was a good comic. a lot of people found it pretty incoherent, though. i could follow it, but i realized that it was supposed to be somewhat hallucinatory, and i guess a lot of people weren't into that.

Yeah, I found out it was canceled when this past week's issue had FINAL ISSUE across the top. Bummer.

[Andrew_TSKS]

ahh. i haven't picked up comics in a few weeks. fuck, i wish i could, i'm so broke right now. oh well.

[jordanmichael]

I bought the last issue of Y: The Last Man today. I teared up.

[Almanzo]

I bought the last issue of Y: The Last Man today. I teared up.

Oh man, I'm not getting it until tomorrow. Is it a fitting epilogue?

[Lucy]

i got the first scott pilgrim and loved the heck out of it. also read the first sandman mystery theater last night and am glad i have the next one waiting for me at home. all the racial slurs are a bit off-putting though, even if it is set in 1938.

[das kranke Tier]

The ladyfriend is a Scott Pilgrim fiend!  They finally got the last two books in at the comic shop and I picked them up Wednesday.  I thought her head was going to explode if they didn't come in soon.