Bran the Blessed

I found an edited down version of Verne's sequel to Poe's "Pym" and I wanted to get the full version, and so I did.

It was the dullest read I've had in years. Verne spent most of the book denying anything fantastical or extraordinary ever happened in the first book, claiming it was all lies and fabrications, and the rest of the book was about the sailors encountering minute daily problems of sea life and overcoming them. Chapter after drudging chapter.

This all in a book that starts off with literally the biggest coincidence ever. The brother of the captain of the ship from Pym randomly stumbles onto an iceberg with a dead crewmember from his brother's ship who has a note on him about what happened, and coincidentally manages to run across him by sheer dumb luck in non arctic waters just before it sinks.

So after that little tirade, let me add that if the Huysmans was edited down, l'd hate to see the full version.

Btw there's another sequel to Pym, penned by Charles Romeyn Dake, called "A Strange Discovery". Anyone ever read that ? Can't be worse then the Verne.

In the pages of All-Star Section Eight #3, Ennis had this little bit to say about New 52 John:

He was imitating Mike Jeavons ? XD

So wait, is the thing with Gabriel related to old Hellblazer or did they just do it again after the relaunch ?

Just started Face and there's a guy cutting up his own eyelid.

And I'm extremely squeamish when it comes to eye dammage and such. I'll persevere but it's not starting easy on the eyes is all. XD

I'd skip Against the Grain if you were unhappy with La Bas. La Bas actually has things happening in it, Against the Grain really does not. I enjoyed Against the Grain as well, but there's no doubt that it doesn't really work as a novel, whereas La Bas works better as a novel because it actually has a plot. I'm sure a lot of people would find Against the Grain infuriating and boring to the extreme.

Mind you, this series is supposed to move towards the main character finding religion and whatnot. Instead it's a book of him whinning he has someone to sleep with, oh noes.

I might cover all four Vertigo Voices issues in one post actually : D

Thanks for the suggestion.

Either gimme any ol' Dalek story if you can have more Davros, cause I'd love to see Capaldi bicker with him.

Or give us another cosmic level scale threat for the Daleks, and make it a three parter at least. Have them try to blow up all of time or something. You know, Dalek's Master Plan levels.

Just please, no more Billie Piper.

Hell have the Monk show up again, haven't seen the bugger on screen since the Hartnell days.

By the way, anyone here watched The Time Meddler ? Cause the Doctor is kinda despicably having the people work to ensure they do get raped and pillaged by an army of vikings and then have their king killed and all subjugated to another group of invading foreigners.

It's the fact the Doctor has them be the instrument of their own demise, with the story already implying just a couple of them around resulted in one of the village women being raped.....yeah, the whole thing just becomes quite dark and the Doctor is all too cheery about it.

Well he was also cheery as balls when Nero set Rome on fire come to think of it.

There was the one drawn by Bisley I think, the Bambi parody, anyone remember what that was called, not getting any results.

Was fascinated by that since the psycopath there (whose design contains a lot of elements I sort of want to get explained, and which make me worry a bit for the artist) is showing off what look to be his balls without censorship. It's a totally forgettable parody beyond that.

Oh and how can I forget I still need to read more stuff from M.R.James ! Read Ghost Stories of an Anitquary and a few others things here and there but no other full collection.

About the Huysmann, well yes but to be frank, I found it revoltingly tedious. I actually saw it refferenced in Geoffrey Dennis' Harvest in Poland and so printed it out and was less then thrilled, so much so I'm reconsidering reading Against the Grain.

Btw since I already brought it up the Dennis book is a novel about an Enligshman getting tangled up with satanism and other supernatural elements in pre WW I Poland and I definitely recommend it if you can find a copy. Also don't be discouraged by the first chapter or two being really didactic and preachy, it really picks up atmosphere after that.

Gave to give some examples on the Millar then ? Not really familiar with what he did at all.

Also I shudder to think what poor Walter's fate must eventually have been. Please, don't spoil me, I'd rather not know in advance.

I'll post more but: I intend to read more Blackwood. I've a few audio tracks from him on my phone (for when I'm nost listening to Mindwebs before falling asleep), read only a few of his things so far. I really did enjoy The Lost Valley and Other Stories for the more fantastical side of Blackwood.

Of course I've still got him, Machen and Hodgson on my "essentials" list along with a mountain of obscure things, for example "The Reign of the Evil One" described as "A Christian fantasy in which Satan impersonates Christ, reenacting his life in parody form and corrupting a small Swiss village"

I'm gonna probably ramble something fierce about Robert W. Chambers when I come back, and other things, I'd like to bring up my weird fiction ish blog here, I'm gonna tackle the collection of Maurus Jókai I read a while back on there later, but the most important part of that blog is my List of Fantastical Fiction that is out of copyright but not available online.

http://theweirdandwo...d-fantasic.html

I get the titles from scraping up L.W.Currey usually, and I got a ton out of Bleiler's book on the Supernatural in fiction.

Personally really hope "BORN OF FLAME: A ROSICRUCIAN STORY" gets uploaded online soon because it sounds utterly crazy.

On the Carnacki, I've not actually read the genuinely supernatural of his stories so I should definitely look at those. And my complete printout of the Night Land which I have in a binding next to my bookshelf is definitely clamoring for attention as well.

Any suggestions/requests on what I should do next ? Prefferabely mini series length ?

Started looking over some of the classic Judge Dredd sagas. The Cursed Earth was a lot of fun, and was all around nuts but The Day the Law Died, well....

http://www.mediafire.com/view/yc3k235l0xaw2mr/101.jpg

http://www.mediafire.com/view/nwyoiqtnmt1nkmj/298.jpg

http://www.mediafire.com/view/7l19anj9bwzxpnv/241.jpg

I find myself enjoying this Dredd a lot more then the episodic grimey vignettes of Ennis. And I find Walter the Robot strangely amusing.

Lol that's taking me back

Hmm, can I interest you in some Zed Yago then ? : D

Well my review of Muktuk is up.

http://thevertigovault.blogspot.cz/2015/08/the-vertigo-vault-4-muktuk-wolfsbreath.html

Oh and here's a recommendation from me because why not. Not sure if I'd get anyone to look at a seperate thread so here goes.

There's a little criminally underused franchise and that is Devlin Waugh. Technically a spin off series to the Judge Dredd universe, it combines scientific magic (using sciencemagical technobabble that kinda sounds like it means something and thus makes it more believable in such a futuristic society, kind of a sucker for this very very specific thing) with the most amazingly out there non parody protagonist ever.

Devlin Waugh is more gay then the whole Blue Oyster combined, and manly enough to want to torch a motherfucker because they ruined his vintage aquarel collection. He's also an admitted sadist, and by the way, an exorcist for the Vatican. And also a vampire, as luck would have it.

And the thing I love about this series is Devlin. He does not give a shit about what anyone says, he is gonna breed his cats and put on tight pants and torch a vampires face with a blowtorch. When he became a vampire, he scoffed at the very idea that such a "trivial accident" should interfere with "forty years of excellent breeding".

Of course the world he operates in is crazy as hell, and the very first two stories, Swimming in Blood and the Herod/Sirius storyline runs the gamut from grisly yet still atmospheric horror painted in the marvelous way only Sean Phillips can paint to chasing down a mandman wanting to literally tip the world on it's side.

The only problem is, John Smith, the creator, has not touched the series since 2007. And his last story of any significance or length, Red Tide, is a poor repeat of Swimming in Blood, down to Colin MacNeil refusing to draw anyone with a normal skin colour cause purple is an appropriate skin colour after dark apparently. But even in a story that's not good Devlin shines through. Really wish John Smith would either do more with him or let others take over as just the things he set up in Chasing Herod would make up for four, five very exciting, utterly deranged testosterone filled stories.

Is it worth mentioning that there's an... inventive... comics version of The House On The Borderland with some lovely Richard Corben art, and script that seems to have calculated to piss off Hodgson purists?

 

As for supernatural comics recommendations, have you read Gaiman's Sandman, Carey's Lucifer, Wolfman's Tomb Of Dracula, Hewetson's Saga Of The Victims, Chaykin's Shadow, Helfer's Shadow, or Mill's Nemesis The Warlock? Depending on how much of a sticking point superheroes are, I'd suggest Moore's Promethea and Milligan's Shade as well.

Read most of Sandman but A Game of You was a bit unterwhelming so that's where I stopped. Had the shit spoiled out of Lucifer for me on some site where they posted a pages from all throughout it's run. Still gonna give that a go.

Not heard of the others. I am reminded I still have Hellboy stuff I've not read though.

Wanted to ask about things supposedly inspired by Hellblazer accoring to ye infallible Wikipedia, anyone have any experience with Criminal Macabre or Gravel ? The former immediately puts me off with having one of the artists be Ben Templesmith. I know he also does Fell but I'll try that anyway just....I never really read much of the stuff he did, but somehow his art style just rubs me the wrong way on a deep, subconscious level.

Did not know about the Borderland comic. Would probably not like it then : P Btw is there a point to me rambling about my vintage weird fiction obsession ? I mean is there anyone here who'd respond to a thread like that ? XD

Never read Carncaki or Hodgson.

 

Been a while since I read Fell but I recall his attitude being like, "Yup, shit's fucked up."

No, Carnacki the Ghost Finder was written by William Hope Hogson. XD

Well, as a lighter reading (The Night Land, though it has some amazing imagery from what I read, is very long, and relies on an extremely outdated accent and repetition from the narrator) I'd suggest you look up either House on the Borderland, or give his short story "The Voice in the Night" a read.

http://gaslight.mtro...ca/voicenig.htm

I'm only saying this because this man could have been the second Poe had he not died during WW 1.

There's a nice little rag out there by Warren Ellis called Fell about an occult detective type.

Hope there's none of that rationalisation nonsense like with some literally occult detectives. Carnacki's "explainable" yarns were very tedious.

(Btw ever read anything from Hodgson ? Have to get back to reading The Night Land myself, the language is a bit of an issue but otherwise the man was a very dark genious. Apart from those few Carnacki the Ghost Finder stories. Still have to read the actual genuine ones myself)

I'm not much the superhero type (unless you give the writer all of the drugs like happened with Morrison) so I'm looking for recommendations on supernatural comics as a whole now I've finished Hellblazer.

I've got Swamp Thing lined up, and I've thought about Books of Magic for example. Any other recommendations ? : D

Dogpoet, check your inbox : D

And I'm getting to Muktuk once I finish issue 5 of Swamp Thing. Well that and after I finish Chapter VII of Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel.

Hey stop snickering, I'm practically swimming in incantations against snake bites here : P

Freakwave is a very old Milligan project, not a recent thing, Lou. I think it was the first thing he had published in the 'States. There's excerpts from it in that The Best Of Milligan And McCarthy book, but (like the other two things in there I'd loved to have seen collected properly) it's only represented by a few chunks of story.

 

Sadly, as that was published by Eclipse (I think), it doesn't really come under Bran's Vertigo umbrella. On the other hand, The Extremist, Egypt, and Enigma all do.

And Face. Seriously, Bran, you gotta read Face. It's the single best comic Milligan has ever done. Honest.

 

Nice site, btw, Bran. I loved The Minx, so it was great seeing that discussed.

It's also where the plot fo Water World was ripped off of.

And there is a complete scan of this online, which I only say because it was never collected. But to copy something from an issue I do have lying about

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K8ALlxB3IhU/UDPRZiINKVI/AAAAAAAAB_s/mwRqg9TCKmE/s1600/frkwv_0030.jpg

I'd even take Kamelion over Clara.

You know, maybe we could have another actual robot built without the creator dying in a boating accident this time.

Cool Project, man!

 

Have you read The Extremist by Milligan and McKeever? Classic Vertigo tale that is

Nope.

But speaking of Milligan, ever hear about Freakwave ?

Before I go to visit the nocturnal realm, I have a final question: Is the Chas standalone any good ? Might give that a go after AHE.