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Steev

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Posts posted by Steev

  1. I'm halfway through it at the moment- I'm reading it in chapters over a period of days. And I have to say, I'm enjoying it just as much as the Black Label run... just in a completely different way, obviously. It's very funny, clever and beautifully drawn.  

    If we could have this and the Black Label version regularly I would be very happy. It's the piss-awful mid-ground 'JL Dark' and 'Constantine The Hellblazer' shite that I object to. 

    Steev

  2. Could it be that just as they seem to rely on the constant rebooting of new #1s in order to maximise sales, DC now think that the fresh publicity of whole new publishing brands is what is needed? 

    The Bleeding Cool article quotes the DC EIC mentioning Hellblazer as a "current" series- so maybe this is where we will see John take up home briefly, for a few issues. Until the next line-wide reboot to please shareholders.

    Steev

  3. For anyone who doesn't yet know- after 38 years, Slaine finally comes to an end this Wednesday, with the final episode of Dragontamer in 2000AD prog #2228, by Pat Mills and Leonardo Manco. 

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  4. Good to see that link mentions that the old "Paul Jenking" issues will be available. Couldn't be without "Jenking". Shame his buddies "Gareth Ennis", "Jamie Delongo" and "Mike Curry" couldnt come along too. Or "Dennis Ming" and "Andy Dingle" for that matter. 

     

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  5. I've always absolutely LOVED Harrison's art- Revere is one of my top thrills of the whole run- so at the time I slipped into the post-Carlos Stront easily. 

    This time around I'm paying more attention to Carlos' art- as you do when you are savouring something you know will never come round again- so will let you know when I get to The Final Solution, and it becomes an issue again. 

    Steev

  6. Have been rereading Letter 44 (actually I think "reading", as I dont think I ever got around to the last ten or so issues, as I knew by then it was coming to a close and wanted to devour it all in a couple of sittings... then didnt). I'm up to #29 (of 35) and it is simply magnificent. Up there with Scalped, as one of my favourite comics of recent years. 

    To The Death- which I've been enjoying in Shift magazine so much, that I bought the original prequel series (that was first published digitally) from the website. It's very good- as is all of Shift, especially Tiny Acts of Violence, which is now out as a graphic novel and reviewed in this months Fortean Times. 

    King-Size Conan #1- which was the best Marvel Conan so far, with not a bad story in it, packed full of gorgeous art, and has a story by Chris Claremont that may rank as one of the better comics Conans of all time. 

    Cor!! from 1972, with Rat Trap- a series I have very disturbing memories around, and that I now want to read all of. 

    Strontium Dog- first of all from the 1999 reboot to the end, and with that done, from the Starlord start. I'm up to prog 420 of 2000AD, and I weep that we will never see another page of Carlos art. 

    And Sapiens- the graphic novel version of the Yuval Noah Harari book- which I seem to be the only person in the world to have so far found hugely disappointing and not one percent as absorbing or mind-expanding as the source material, or its two follow-ups. 

    Steev

  7. Theres has been an awful lot added to the Spidey mythos since #300 and Venom. Obviously, as far as recognition outside the comic itself goes, the number one would be Spidey's close association with The Avengers and Tony Stark- what with the Iron Spider costume making it to the movies, and Civil War providing the basis of much of the MCU. 

    But yes, the Morlun storyline has been far-reaching, and One More Day/ Brand New Day has still not been retroactively dismissed thirteen years on. Superior had long-lasting consequences, the entire Ultimate run has been seminal in both the comics and the wider movies/ merch and has led to Miles Morales being a central part of the story- with 2021 being his tenth anniversary. 

    If you were arguing that #300 marked a transition point in the Spider-story I'd agree with you. Its telling that Sam Raimi fought against incorporating Venom in Spider-Man 3 as he didnt feel like the character was of the "classic vilain" variety in which he was interested. Certainly, from the point of view of a fifty year old who grew up on Spidey and has read the comic his whole life, this particular comic reader considers Venom "new" and the point at which I stopped just consuming the stories and became a lot more critical. Somehow, Venom never fit in with how I view the "world of Spidey". 

    That said, I've enjoyed a lot since- the JMS run, OMD/BND and Superior are among my favourite stories. But Spider Island, The Goblin King, and everything since Slott left... not so much. 

     

  8. To be honest, I've not enjoyed a single story since Slott left. Everything has read like an attempt to continue in the vein of Dan Slott at his best (the earlier stuff, up to the end of Superior) and has sadly failed to even reach the level of Slott at his worst (everything post-Superior). If it weren't for the sake of "keeping up the collection", I wouldnt be buying it. 

    It's pitiful- and yes, Last Remains has been the lowest ebb. I have no idea what it's supposed to be about, other than I think we were supposed to be excited about the revelations over the past couple of issues, and the meaningless usage of those bloody distracting Spider-avatars like Gwen and Silk and whoever else, but instead it just feels like money being wasted- and when I think how much monthlies are going to cost post-Brexit, and I realise you can usually buy ex-library slightly battered trade paperbacks of this stuff from Amazon for a couple of quid after about six months, I see an end to that "collection keeping-up" very soon. 

    The sooner Spencer is off the book, the better, I say. How is Daredevil consistently so well-written, through Waid, Soule and Zdarsky, when Spidey has been so bad for so long? 

    By coincidence, as I've been writing this, the postman has just delivered my very delayed copy of #54.LR. Looking at it, I'm not sure it will even get read- and instead will probably be boxed immediately and forgotten. 

    Steev

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  9. Hmm... I've not been impressed with any recent Swampy DC efforts, barring the Twin Branches graphic novel. It has all been an exercise into twisting out any last drops of Alan Moore juice from a property that no one seems to have had an original idea for in decades. 

    This could go either way- but at least they are being up front about it being only a ten issue run. How much better would our feelings towards DC be about now if they had just announced the recent run of Hellblazer as a 12 issue series? 

    As a Swampy completist (at least as far as comics with his name in the title go- I cant bring myself to buy JLD) I am doomed to read them all, but at this point my first thought was a very negative "damn, this means I now need to buy another shortbox". 

    Steev

  10. No, we had THE SON, in which Johnny was partnered with Wulf's hitherto unknown offspring Kenton Sternhammer, in the prog a few years ago. And rather excellent it was too. 

    Sadly, despite it serving as the springboard for what would no doubt have been a whole new chapter- and it shook up the status quo greatly, giving Johnny a raison d'etre he arguably hadn't had for a few stories (since the end of Life & Death), it proved to be the last because Carlos tragically died soon after. 

    Aside from the continuing adventures of Durham Red- who also appears this week in the first part of a new series- we havent seen the core Stronty characters since... until this one, which is a one off, by Rob Williams and Laurence Campbell, and so sits in that area of continuity referred to as "somewhere around StarLord". 

    Steev

  11. For those interested, Slaine is finally back in the bumper xmas prog- #2212- on sale now. 100 pages, £5.99. 

    Also Dredd, Strontium Dog, Durham Red, Hershey, Proteus Vex, Survival Geeks, Time Twisters and Visions of Deadworld. 

    Steev

  12. Yep, that Sentinel. Especially Misty Moore, which was aces and a lot more like an updated Misty than the majority of strips in the official Rebellion specials this year... although the Boarding School story in Misty & Scream 2020 was absolutely sensational. 

    As for Spacewarp- it will have legs if Pat can somehow get the price down and get it out regularly, and perhaps in shops. The content was great- and if you love Mills' work, you will love this. If you don't, you won't. It was very much a modern rejiggle of Prog one, using the lessons learned from Doug Church's layout and design of that particular comic. 

    Expensive, but worth it. 

    Steev

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  13. 2000AD has been astonishingly good this year, and should win for Dan Abnett's contributions alone- especially The Out. 

    Also Hellblazer, obvs, but not the prestige one thanks. 

    And I'm very much enjoying Daredevil at the moment. 

    I'd also do a shout out for SENTINEL, THE 77, SPACEWARP, ZARJAZ and DOGBREATH- all showing you dont need huge corporations behind you to put out good comics. 

    Steev

  14. It was okay. Like the first issue, it reads a little like 'Constantine-Lite', and I really dont think the art helps at all- being a shade too close to generic superhero comics for me. The design of The Devil, especially, is a wide miss if it was trying to convince me that this version of Hellblazer was supposed to be "taken seriously". 

    I like the format, the story would otherwise make a pretty decent three parter in the middle of any other run (I can see something similar maybe appearing under Ennis  or perhaps Jenkins), but was it deserving of the luxury treatment or eventual collection as a hardback prestige graphic novel? No, not really. 

    Again, I have to compare it to what we are getting on a monthly basis in the regular series, and find it wanting. 

    Steev

  15. No, mine is sitting in the pile beside me, waiting for a chance to be read this weekend. I must admit I kind of resent it, but that's just due to the love I have for the current main run and my anger at it being cancelled. 

    On a brief flick through one thing did stick out- couldnt they have asked Darick Robertson to draw to the size and shape of the pages, negating the need for those ugly white columns down the side of each page? 

    Steev

  16. I must say I'm not overly against this. The art looks decent and funny, it's not even pretending to sit in continuity, and most importantly- these kind of things have habit of being a lot of fun. The recent Swamp Thing: Twin Branches, aimed at the young adult market just happened to be the single best Swampy product in years. So much so that I was actually disappointed when DC announced the upcoming two issue event tie-in and NOT a continuing series using the creators of Twin Branches and set within the confines of that book. 

    If the series we've seen/ suffered since #300 have taught us anything it should be that there is room within comics for a lot of diversity of approach. If this turns out to be a fun read, then yay. If it turns out to be awful, then it's just a book on the shelf amongst many others. 

    As stated above, the timing just makes it seem worse than it is- to take the current, wonderful, run away with one hand and give us this with the other- well, that sucks. 

    Steev

  17. On 10/14/2020 at 7:12 PM, Steev said:

    The sequence with Nat meeting her end truly shocked me- for the first time in comics since somewhere in the first hundred of that series. 

    Sorry, I've just read that back and realised it didn't make any sense. It should have said "for the first time in comics since somewhere in the first hundred of The Walking Dead". 

  18. Well, my copy FINALLY arrived today- thanks FP- and I've just put it down. Any comic that gets put to the top of my Wednesday reading list (just under this week's 2000AD) has got to have made an impact, and I am absolutely gutted we only have two more of these to go. 

    That was a superb issue, and while I've not been overly keen on Matias Bergara's art up to now, he came into his own this time. This really IS the same series that "ended" with #300 isnt it? In every way that matters. 

    The sequence with Nat meeting her end truly shocked me- for the first time in comics since somewhere in the first hundred of that series. That's amazing writing, and I cannot wait to see #11- which is only a couple of weeks away now. So we have six weeks of Hellblazer left. 

    Bah. 

  19. By now it should be obvious that Slaine has not shown his face in prog 2200, for reasons not yet given. I'm assuming that's got something to do with the horrendous state of the world at present, but as I say, so far no official word on why that may be. 

    Currently, rumour states the strip is due to premier in the xmas prog.

    Sigh.

     

    Steev

  20. Well, that wasn't bad. If Spurrier's run had come to a natural end, and the next issue had been this, I wouldnt feel aggrieved. No more gargantuan a jump than between some of the writers during the original three hundred. 

    However, Spurrier's run did not come to a natural end- in fact is still ongoing with the shadow of the axe above it- and this is hard to take as anything other than a passive aggressive move from an increasingly troublesome comics company- love bombing us with expensive large format graphic novel series, while at the same time gratuitously taking away the thing we really want. 

    And, despite me saying it wasnt bad, an angel falling from the sky and getting impaled on a church spire is hardly groundbreaking: its 3exactly the kind of thing anyone might come up with if asked to do a Hellblazer story. And- what was up with the copper wearing exactly the same outfit as John? 

     

  21. Well, for me that's four in a row now that stand with the absolute best of the whole Hellblazer original run. 

    I know we've had "John in the pub approached by someone who wants something and who gets told a story that backfires" issues before, but that was just sensational. I understand why Prince Andrew had to be, er, disguised as someone a bit more generic, but kudos to Spurrier for even going there. 

    Mermaids and unicorns- what next? 

    It just makes it all the more devastating that the series is ending at #12. I'd urge everyone to sign that petition and contact DC. Even if just responding to the the Tweet today about #9. The fact they even did that, well, it suggests... something... surely? 

    Steev

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