Bran the Blessed

It was an alright conclusion just, the first part was so dull. Not sure if I like the Fisher King, kinda looks like a cross between a Predator and a Pokémon with that weird wing thing.

Also Clara was on her A Game when it came to being an entitled insufferable bitch. Saying what can be summed up as: "You can't die if it inconveniences me." does not help to make you seem any less clingy and obsessed. She is actively giving Rose a run for her money when it comes to this, and is only less insufferable cause we don't have her annoying mom and ex-boyfriend constantly on screen arguing about stupid shit.

And I mean, the nerve on the woman to tell someone else they gotta move on, Mrs. "I was in a decent relationship with a guy who died, let me threaten to leave my friend to die a horrible agonising death at the side of an erupting volcano as I cut him off forever from the one vestige of home and his people he still has if he doesn't agree to destroy the universe to bring back someone from the dead who would die anyway if the universe was destroyed as consequence."

No, I will never let that go and the godamn nerve she has to even say something like that after not being able to do that herself for god knows how long.

So Under the Lake was basically shit. It's yet another Fake Ghost story (cause fuck me if we haven't had enough of those in this series right ?), the characters are boring and at best awful stereotypes, the code is nonsensical garbage that tries to sound deep but is just scatterbrained gibberish, and the cliffhanger was so obvious you could see it September 22nd 1963 and they sure took their time to build it up like it was gonna be at all surprising.

Can we have actual plots now ? Maybe go to an alien planet and solve their problems in a typical 90-ish minute story ? Cause even Apprentice/Familiar had the problem of not all that much happening, this is even less cause you don't have a returning villain to look forward to, or anything really substantial to fill up the story and differentiate it from the countless other "running around corridors chased by monsters/aliens/robots" stories of the New Who era alone.

Finished up City of Endless Nights a couple of days ago and started to read The Crushed Flower and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev.

Okay, this looks better then the previous one XD

maybe the last issue of the book since it just got slated for cancellation will involve classic biker lobo coming out of nowhere and then running nulobo over in the last page

What ? Dost I hear the song of angels ? Do my senses decieve me ?

I wish to read this final issue then, regardless of this series being shit, because I want to point at it and laugh at the person responsible.

Based on the pre-publicity, I assumed that WAS its mark.

You assume Cullen (btw "Just cause he's named Cullen doesn't mean he has to make the character sparkle" jokes got me, wish I could remember where I ran across those, was definitely not the Escapist) Bunn deliberately tried to make this as un-appealing to old fans and new fans alike in an effort to make some sort of statement about excessive rebooting and retooling to the point of there being nothing left of the original character ? : P

Would explain a lot but I have my doubts.

And seriously, I could not even find summaries for many issues, it's weird how under the radar this is. I just hope the bastard tanks and sinks with Titanic levels of gloom and disaster so someone up at DC might get the message of "retconning the character out of the character is a stupid stupid idea." I mean, if this year's Fantastic Four movie taught us anything it's that.

Mind you, I could barely find anyone talking about the new Lobo series period, or any information about the plot.

So seems to have missed it's mark I'd think.

I'm done reading all the Voices issues, just have been overwhelmed in the personal levels of my existence so patience please XD

To answer a rhetorical question....When Alan Grant was writing the character.

I was never a fan of Lobo though. He was always Deadpool before Deadpool became a huge name, to me.

I grew detached from the character around the time I found the much hyped and refferenced Christmas Special (apart from being brought up in Reservoir Mooks it also was the main plot point of the Lobo/Authority Crossover, which got a sequel as well, and also the original had a spinoff-sequel story about the pinguins) to be lacking.

However when I read how Bunn retconned him into a slick, young looking superserious professional assassin with an "extensive moral code" and said of this new incarnation: "He had a life, a job, a family, a lover long before he became the cruel, devious man-hunter we'll see in this series." I was ready to spit blood. And then he had the "real" Lobo kill the original "fake" one in the first issue and had the gall to say in an interview he "gets" the original character he retconned to be a fake was "cool" but he really wants people to give his "own take" on the character a shot.

I'm barely aware of ongoing american comics as it is due to geograhy and costs, but so far the New 52 has led to the cancellation and Newyorkification of Hellblazer and to retconing every single issue of Lobo I have ever read.

I realise this is off topic but I don't really want to make a topic about this when I've not actually experienced much of the New 52 myself.

I recently finished reading The Reign of the Evil One by C. F. Ramuz. Wish I had a copy of Ramuz' "The End of All Men" as well as he seems to be a very positive sort of person XD

After reading Morley Roberts' short story collection King Billy of Ballarat and Other Stories, which is a mix of humorous pieces, domestic drama pieces, some western tales and has one genuine supernatural-ish story "Father and Son", I moved onto City of Endless Night, a 1920 alternate future story about an underground city of Berlin fighting a continuous war against the World State for a century, which is another book I've been looking forward to for years, like the Ramuz.

Art is good but maybe it's just the prematurely aged and retired curmudgeonly cynic in me but I've kinda seen the above scene in about every comic ever made and then some. Kinda just feels like a black Spiderman from that example and yes I know about Morales : P

In a somewhat related note, remember when people who made Lobo knew it was satire ?

Promo material for Wonder Woman Earth One includes this mention of Grant:

 

From the masterful minds of Grant Morrison (FINAL CRISIS, THE MULTIVERSITY) and ...

 

They chose Final Crisis and Multiversity as Morrison's "by the author of ..." works.

 

Which of his works would you people choose?

I'm tempted to say The New Adventures of Hitler : P

Finished Katherine Tynan's "An Isle in the Water", some nice moody pieces there though the two superatural tales here don't go as long as one would expect them to.

Finally started "The Reign of the Evil One" by Ramuz. This is one I've wanted to read for a very, very long time, which you'd understand if you saw a summary of it like I did a long time ago. Only thing I've wanted to read so much in the past year or so is "Born of Flame, a Rosicrucian story" but no one's scanned that one yet, despite how deliciously insane it sounds.

Regardless, will probably review that, after I write up my thoughts on Jókai and the Tynan book XD

Well the foot's good again after some bandaging.

How about Weird War Tales?

Not familiar.

But I meant that from the rundown of stuff Battle did in the 70's, so much of it was WW II I know I'd lose interest if I ever had any to begin with.

I liked the ending of Darkie's mob but I remember one reader in the letter column of the Megazine being really annoyed at it being reprinted in the Megazine and well, that and Harry Twenty did take up most of the issue. And speaking of, to get a bit on topic again, that issue had the second part of the "Hong Tong" story. And well, unless I'm missing something, that is the most braindead no-effort-whatsoever title/name of a location in Asia period. Not to mention what I read of the story was kinda shit. You basically had two emotionless trigger happy thugs (Dredd and Chinese Agent Guy) shooting up a bunch of no name assholes to catch an old man.

That was not Judge Dredd's most epic achievement shall we say.

I kind of miss the humour of earlier Dredd, when he was satirising right-wing policing at the same time as having adventures. But I guess the more recent approach has texture and worldbuilding in its favour.

 

 

... Battle and other war-themed comics from the 70's, which btw seemed like a really limiting premise, since sci-fi lets you do pretty much anything and most of the stuff Battle did seemed to be rather normal. ...

 

You're dead to me.

There's only so many times you can have people heroically fight in WW II for it to be interesting : P

Recently, both my big toe nails came off. Well, one came off quite easily, the other I had to cut into pieces, so I have 1/8th of a toe nail left.

 

I don't know why, I can only assume it's time for me to take on my true form.

I'm wincing just at the thought.

And this is an observation I made a while ago to someone else online but it is true, the human body has one response to anything, and that is swelling.

 

And there is one other thing I could add here, but that's a bit too personal. Not sure if I should elaborate cause it's a bit gross XD

 

i know where this is going...

If you guessed hemerrhoids then you are truly a wizard : P

Swap vinegar for bourbon. Take as needed for pain

I don't drink : P

Not because I have any moral grounds for doing so, just because I really can't stand the taste of any alcohol. Everything that's not beer, which I don't like cause it's too bitter, tastes like I'm drinking cough drops. XD

And this is an observation I made a while ago to someone else online but it is true, the human body has one response to anything, and that is swelling. When I get a cold I have a problem going to sleep because my nasal passages swell up and thus prevent me from properly sleeping. Not too long ago my tonsils swelled up for the first time that I remember, only to be back to normal the following day and more or less normal a few hours afterwards.

And there is one other thing I could add here, but that's a bit too personal. Not sure if I should elaborate cause it's a bit gross XD

have you considered preemptive amputation?

Hardy har har.

Oh, speaking of good one-shots from Vertigo...How about Tainted from Jamie Delano? It might not be quite the best book Delano ever wrote, but if not, it's pretty damn close. That's a great Vertigo comic. Face was ok, but I wasn't as enamored of it as Dog seems to be...not enough to rank it as Milligan's best work. Tainted is much better.

Planning to do both and two others to cover all of Vertigo Voices. Already finished reading Face too.

Have a swollen foot under the ankle for no real reason. Don't remember being hit but it started hurting during the night. The vinegar, it does nothing.

Grant is pretty much Wagner's "plus 1" for Dredd, Christian. He did do a few Dredds on his own, but most of them are co written with Wagner. Pat Mills has done some great stuff though, not least The Cursed Earth, but as you say, he did very little. (Though rumour has it, the only reason he did any at all was because Wagner initially refused to write the strip as he hated Carlos Equezzerra's character design and resented having his first couple of scripts edited...)

 

As well as (the shitawful) Red Razors, Millar wrote some still worse Judge Dredd scripts. This was during the period in the mid '90s when Millar was still Grant Morrison's mini me and they were writing most of 2000AD's contents between them for a year or so. The basic problem with Millar writing Dredd (shared by Morrison, who collaborated with him on a couple of allegedly epic stories) is that he obviously loathes the character, but knew that he couldn't get away with writing him as an out and out villain. Seriously, if shite like Inferno didn't make it to the 'States, you're better off.

I remember reading Equezzerra (always read his name as Ezquerra for some reason) being rather pissed at them using someone else's artwork for the first instalment of Dredd, being the reason he created Strontium Dog. It's amusing how that wind up being published by 2000 AD. This comes from one of the Megazine's overviews of Battle and other war-themed comics from the 70's, which btw seemed like a really limiting premise, since sci-fi lets you do pretty much anything and most of the stuff Battle did seemed to be rather normal. I do love the ever loving hell out of the ending to Darkie's Mob though.

Is Inferno as bad as Crusade ? Cause I know they teamed up for that one and this person here does not like it one bit.

http://meanwhileon.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/very-worst-of-judge-dredd.html

As for Dredd, when reading these 70's stories it feels so refreshing to have him be writen as a decent human being for once. Sure he's kind of bland ish but at least he's more relatable then the Dredd of the Wagner days, where he kills Santa for flying without a permit and leaves him a mangled, bloody mess. I love the art but the ""stories" were nonexistant in those.

Got my hands on Complete Case Files 1 and 3 to read after I finish off the last few strips of 2. And I have to say The Day the Law Died was seriously the most hilarious thing I've read in a while. You can tell the creative team were having fun with this one.

Just started in on Len Deighton's XPD.

I'm a bit confused which one you mean as I mentioned three books. You mean the Dake ?