1920 replies to this topic

[Christian]

I heard that Mignola was forced to speed up his plotting due to the movie. I guess the movie needed to have more solid answers and a contained plot, so Mignola realized he was going to be forced to reveal some of the mysteries of the series, or the movie would give away some of his future plotting.
So, yes, I believe it was the movie which caused that drop in quality.
The book was about the atmosphere up until the ending of The Island, and then the tone changed.

Movies often end up hurting the quality of the work.
The X-Files was totally ruined by the movie.

I'm sure the fact that he wasn't working at as leisurely a pace, with all the other work he was involved in, took away some of the vision he had spent on Hellboy up until that point also.

I'm looking forward to future Mignola, but he's really putting a lot of work out right now. There's so many BPRD series planned, plus Lobster Johnson right now, and further work on the Baltimore series coming up.
I hope he's clearing the table for future plans right now, and that he doesn't end up rushing to get too much work done.

[Maritimus]

Check out the video interview in my previous post, if you haven't, Mignola addresses the very issue of work overload among other things. He basically says that he is 100% back in Hellboy and he doesn't want to do anything else. His name is on the cover of BPRD, but he only works as a consultant and John Arcudi is the real writer. Not sure about Lobster. Also - Joe Golem, a project put on hold years ago gets fleshed out as an illustrated novel, sounds very interesting. A really cool interview, i recommend.

[Shawn]

It's been funny when I think of the books out there right now, for example; Glory, Prophet, Supreme, Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Greg Capullo on a top selling book, Rob Liefeld & Jim Lee at the fore front, X-Force is a top book, a cloned Peter Parker is starring in a Spidey-title, Image is a force to be reckoned with, Scott Lobdell & Howard Mackie are visible.......what freaking year am in?!?!?


I'm also surprised to say I am buying and enjoying Glory & Prophet. Glory is so not a Wonder Woman or even Promethea knock-off. And they just turned they whole thing on it's ear.

Also, I'm looking forward to Peter Panzerfaust. I've issues 1-3 waiting to read.

Saga has been a wonderfully epic & weird fantasy/sci-fi mashup. Staples art is so good

[Christian]

Well, at least this version of X-Force is a very different read from the early-1990s X-Force!

You forgot that there's also now an Age of Apocalypse on-going title.

I don't do good math, but the companies must figure that the people who grew up reading comics during the early-1990s boom must be about that age where nostalgia for childhood is hitting them.
Being of the age where I was in high school/entering college when the big early-90s boom hit, I'm feeling sorry for the people who look fondly back to their childhood with the "glory days" of Clone Sagas, McFarlane's Spawn, dead Supermen, and "new" Batmen...
I never thought people would feel nostalgic for those days.

The only Glory I read was the Alan Moore issues.

[Maritimus]

It feels I narrowly avoided that menace era, having grown up with Alan Grant's Batman and Claremont/Jim Lee X- Men.. Clone Sagas, Spawn and Knightfalls was what actually made me grow up. It felt bullshit even at 13 so I lost interest and stopped reading.

[Christian]

Yep, that's when I decided I was too old for comics. Claremont had left Uncanny X-Men, and that was pretty much the end for me for a couple of years.
I stopped buying all comics for a while, but a guy I knew from high school who was a few years older than me, started a comic book store after he graduated.
He eventually talked me into trying Sandman, and that got me hooked.
Sadly, I also started picking up Spawn for the first time...even though I was in high school.
From there, I discovered Hellblazer and Vertigo.
Eventually, I got hooked on all the different comics I read now, but I avoided all of the early-90s insanity (except Spawn).

Imagine, someday, people reading comics today might just grow nostalgic for the "wonder years" of comics when they were reading Marvel's Civil War...That's just a scary thought.

[sethos]

Another really great comic is Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's Conan series for Dark Hose. some of Cloonan's finest artwork, in my opinion. the next 3 issues have art by James Harren from the current BPRD series, what I've seen looks damn fine.

[A. Heathen]

I was looking at that Conan in the shop, it looks as good as you'd expect from those two.
I shall have the collection I think.

Did anyone see Becky Cloonan's Dracula yet? They hadn't got it in Orbital.

[JasonT]

A. Heathen, on 15 April 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Did anyone see Becky Cloonan's Dracula yet?

I've never heard it called that before.




Is everyone reading Prophet? You all are, right? I'm convinced it's one of the standout titles of 2012. The art is beyond comic book art, and the writing, while marred by typos, is stylish and trippy. It reminds me of oldschool pop sci-fi like Jack Vance and Harry Harrison.



Too bad the artist on issues 21-23 isn't permanent:
http://www.usatoday....ries/53900954/1
(Article contains spoilers for issues 21-23.)

Groovy interview with Prophet's writer, Brandon Graham, here:
http://www.comicsbul...rophet-industry

[dogpoet]

Isn't Brandon Graham the guy who used to script a lot of the Wildstorm stuff early on?
Beautiful art samples: rather Moebius looking...

[Lou K]

JasonT, on 17 April 2012 - 08:30 AM, said:

Is everyone reading Prophet? You all are, right? I'm convinced it's one of the standout titles of 2012.

Yes.

This reminds me of some of the material I used to read in my step-dad's old Heavy Metal magazines from the 70s. Has that vintage sci-fi feel to it that really takes me back to the time when I was just discovering this sort of material for the 1st time. It's smartly done, like having the hero wear a living blobby thing so that he may enter a city whose main language is based off scent. I mean, c'mon, people don't think of stuff like that anymore, at least not in comic books. Meanwhile, just found issue 23 in my pile and see the cat did a nice job of clawing up the cover. Thanks, Gus.

[Shawn]

I too am buying Prophet still. After this 3rd issue wrapping up the first arc I am sold on this!! You get a very good idea of what this is all about, what John Prophet's mission is for Earth and the entire galaxy even. I've really enjoyed the art so far and I'm sad to see it go but the guy doing art for the next arc is quite good, based on previews.

And from the article, they are rotating art chores

Quote

Graham is using a four-man rotation of artists on the series. Simon Roy illustrated the first three, Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun War) jumps on for two issues beginning with issue 24 (out April 18), Giannis Milonogiannis is doing six issues this year, and Graham is drawing June's Prophet No. 26 all by his lonesome.

[Lou K]

Latest issue of Prophet was excellent. I re-read all 4 issues last night and this series is top notch.

[Christian]

Gilgamesh by Jim Starlin-This is an injustly neglected 4-issue mini-series from the 1980s, originally published by DC. I don't believe it as ever collected. It's Starlin at his cosmic best. I've flipped by this series so many times in the comic boxes, and always wondered, "Why is it called Gilgamesh, when there's a spaceship on the cover of the first issue? Is this one of those sci-fi deals where a spaceship is named after a classic story/character?". Well, no, it's actually Jim Starlin re-telling the myth of Gilgamesh as a science fiction story.

It starts out as a social satire.
In the 1980s, an alien ark spaceship looking to explore new worlds comes to Earth and is promptly blown up by missiles, fearing it's a "Ruskie plot". The pilot launches two capsules...the last of his race now....to Earth. Superman-esque, so far.
One baby lands in America, the other crashes in the Amazon rainforest, where the child is left to raise himself in the wild. Hint, hint if you know Gilgamesh.
A funny moment comes when the drugged out mother who adopts the baby in America is naming the infant. She says that she was reading a book for college about a hero who kills a monster named Grendel...and then says that she thinks she remembers the hero's name was....Gilgamesh.
Anyway, then something happens to the "Eastern Bloc" nations; no spoilers, but it plays off of the aspect of the Great Flood from Gilgamesh and becomes important eventually to the plot.
This leaves the US and China to start a new "Cold War" which quickly escalates into limited nuclear engagements, decimating parts of the globe.
The world's trans-national corporations decide that things are out of control, and if they lose markets they lose profits, so they merge, and they have more money than all the nations on Earth combined, so they're able to set about conquering the world.

This is where the plot really kicks off with the world run by a mega-corporation. Gilgamesh was the strongest man alive, and sided as a mercenary with the trans-national corporations, so he is given a high-ranking position within the corporation, which he is able to work his way up until he's the chairman of the corporation. This makes him the de-facto Emperor of the world.
Under the corporate dictatorship, the world is at peace. Everyone worships Gilgamesh. You get hints that things aren't idyllic, like it seems from the corporate boardroom though. Basically, we get another Cyberpunk future plot.
Anyway, some years into Gilgamesh's reign, a corporate mission to raze the Amazon rainforests (the last area of trees remaining in the world) is stopped by a "wild man" who lives in the jungle.
Yes, the forgotten brother is finally discovered.
At first, the two hate each other, but then they begin to bond, as each realizes that they share a common bond of loneliness.
So ends issue #1.

The next two chapters don't work very well. They're just there to set up the correlation with the plot from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
So far the series is average and heading towards pointless....but then comes the final chapter!

It's quite simply a breathtaking journey through Starlin's cosmogony.
Basically, the point is the meaninglessness of human existence. It's done in a very powerful manner. It has to be read to be understood, without wanting to give away any more pertinent plot details.

So, it's not exactly uplifting, but it's not quite as dark as I make it seem (plenty dark, but also seeming to speak truth), as you need to grasp the whole plot to understand the conclusion and what it really means. The story doesn't preclude meaning in life, but if you know the Epic of Gilgamesh, it plays very well with the final revelations learned by Gilgamesh (the epic hero).
Sure, Starlin might technically also have nabbed an idea from Samuel Delaney, but the important aspects are that Starlin actually did a pretty good job of reinterpreting the Epic of Gilgamesh, something I thought he was going to badly fail at when I started reading the series.

So, if you see this mini-series, pick it up! It's all worth it for the fourth issue.

[Christian]

I noticed that the Dr. Who Classics series has gotten up to reprinting Jamie Delano stories. I had to pick up a copy of that.

[dogpoet]

Any good?
I didn't know Delano had ever written any Who comics....

[Christian]

I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, so I'll let you know on that aspect.
Looking at IDW's web-site, this seems to be the only Delano issue scheduled for the foreseeable future, and this issue contains two stories by him, so maybe that's the entirety of his work on Dr. Who?
I remember that someone posted a link to some online Delano Dr. Who strips on this site...it was a very long time ago. I can't even remember what the stories were about now. Not sure if the links are still up, or where they'd be...I'm pretty sure they found their way into a thread in the Hellblazer section.

Anyway, it's Dr. Who Classics series 4 #3 published by IDW if you want to look out for the comic.

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I quite enjoyed it. Delano did very well with a cosmic plot that involved juggling quite a number of seemingly unrelated ideas....a race of aliens traveling through space to find their Creator, a Brave New World future world, and our Earth at the dawn of time.
Of course, it's easy to figure out how two of the plots are connected...but it's got the classic twist ending.
It'd work nicely as one of those short stories from 2000 A.D.

[Shawn]

The Spider by Liss was rather good. Liss does a good job of updating a gritty pulp character into the modern day. I know very little of the Spider as he originally appeared but it all works for me. He has a Punisher-like attitude towards crime but without the grumpiness. By day he fights crime as well, acting as a special consultant to the police. Icing on the cake was the cover by Francesco Francavilla. Compared to Ennis' Shadow, I thought this a better debut

[dogpoet]

The Spider was a shortlived Shadow rip off with even dafter gimmicks and a tendency towards SF plot devices in his stories. I think most of the pulps were by Norvell Page, and a few of them could be found online a while back, though I have no idea if that's still the case.

[Christian]

dogpoet, on 08 May 2012 - 10:53 AM, said:

The Spider was a shortlived Shadow rip off with even dafter gimmicks and a tendency towards SF plot devices in his stories. I think most of the pulps were by Norvell Page, and a few of them could be found online a while back, though I have no idea if that's still the case.

Yeah, most were written by Norvell Page.

This site seems to be the only place you can find any online:
http://www.wattpad.c...-spider-strikes
That's a link to the first Spider story.
Here are the other stories you can find at that web-site:
"Wings of the Black Death”: the third novel in the series and the first to be written by Norvell Page
“City of Flaming Shadows”: the fourth novel, also written by Page
“Empire of Doom”: the fifth novel, also by Page