# Fanboy! Comic Book Discussion Thread



## Arcopitcairn (Mar 22, 2013)

I don't know how much interest there is in a thread like this, but I know there are several comic experts and fans here. I thought perhaps an ongoing discussion about comics might be fun. 

What do you like? What do you want? What do you recommend? What sucks? Who are the best artists and writers? Who could beat up who? What's the best, the worst, the even more best? Unleash your inner fanboy, True Believer! Or if not,well...fine!


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 22, 2013)

Thinking about getting Moon Knight 1-15. I'm just about to start Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis. I'm reading reprints of old E.C. New Direction comics, like Impact and Extra. I've decided I kind of like the Human Fly (From Marvel) and am thinking about starting a run. Oh, and Captain America would totally beat up Batman.


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## Lewdog (Mar 22, 2013)

Todd McFarlane would be probably the best artist in my mind.  How many other artist can simply change the value of a comic book because he did it, Like McFarlane did with "The Hulk?"  I used to be a big Classic X-men fan.  Captain America was genetically altered he should beat up Batman as long as Batman doesn't use his gadgets.  

I'm probably one of the only people that didn't like the Marvel Civil War crossover.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 22, 2013)

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## Leyline (Mar 22, 2013)

My all time favorites:

*We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely*

Not simply the most emotionally powerful comic I've ever read, but one of the most emotionally devastating works of art in any medium that I've ever experienced. My first reading of it was almost painfully intense. It broke my heart and filled me with admiration for the writer and artist. An unashamedly moralistic and political work that does not preach or wheedle or demand of the reader: it just unveils an experience, a journey, that forces the reader to think and feel. The final panel is one of the most simultaneously sad and hope-giving images I've ever see. Serious warning: not for the faint hearted or very young.

*Promethea by Alan Moore and J. H. Williams III*

I always get heat from Moore fans for choosing this as my favorite work by him, but oh well. I love it. His deconstruction of magikal theory and metaphysics is indeed something like a lecture masquerading as a superhero story, but it's a beautifully rendered, funny, moving, provocative and exhilarating lecture. It's also a deconstruction of the superhero genre itself, exploring _why_ people respond to the colorful adventures of more than human characters. Williams' art is glorious, and everything from the lettering to the panel structure is inventive and playful.

*From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell*

For my money, _the_ best exploration of the mystique of Jack The Ripper, encompassing the history, the legend, theory and the strange way that the story itself has sunk hooks in Anglo-American culture. Frightening, fascinating, enlightening and often blackly funny. Best read as a long work. Campbells artwork, which seems crude at first, quickly grows on the reader and within a dozen pages the realization comes that this story simply couldn't be drawn any other way.

*Concrete by Paul Chadwick*

Chadwick's masterpiece is a realistic, surprisingly gentle story about an ordinary guy who has his brain transplanted into a virtually indestructible stone body by aliens who are then never seen again. Every conflict afterwards is about how that ordinary guy deals with that extraordinary event. Funny, insightful, sometimes moving, it's a deeply human story, drawn in lovely line-art style with a minimum of exaggeration and lots of beautifully rendered detail.


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## Tettsuo (Mar 22, 2013)

When I read the X-Men's "Phoenix Saga" for the first time, I realized just how powerful comics could be as an artistic media for powerful storytelling.

This may be sacrilegious to some, but the movie Akira was not even close to as good as the books.  The movie may be classic, but I thought it failed compared to the books.


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## Tettsuo (Mar 22, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> Thinking about getting Moon Knight 1-15. I'm just about to start Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis. I'm reading reprints of old E.C. New Direction comics, like Impact and Extra. I've decided I kind of like the Human Fly (From Marvel) and am thinking about starting a run. Oh, and Captain America would totally beat up Batman.



100% agree.

Batman can beat anyone if he has advanced knowledge on them and time to prepare.  But, it a stand up unexpected fight, Cap trounces the Bat.


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## moderan (Mar 22, 2013)

Cap has more combat training than the Bat, is stronger and slightly larger according to published details. I like that they fought to a standstill in the Amalgam version.
The X-Men as written by Claremont and successors make me retch. Phoenix Saga pales beside the Kree-Skrull war. Wolverine is a sucky character too, and so are Storm and Gambit and Havok. And Forge and Bishop and anyother of those wretched X-farce dingbats.
Though I'm a tried-and-true Marvelite, Neal Adams was the best artist. His Bat was THE Bat. Beside him, Jack Davis, who could do horror, comedy, superhero, anything, and do it right.
My favorite comic is Matt Wagner's Grendel. My favorite character is the Vision. My favorite artist is either Phillippe Druillet or Berni(e) Wrightson. I prefer Metal Hurlant to long underwear people, though I have virtually all Marvel comics from the Golden and Silver Ages in my collection.
Concrete is awesome.
I stopped reading comics almost completely after crossover mania hit. Everything since then has been an attempt to equal the impact of Secret Wars, which was an awful piece of work. I'd rather read Silver Age comics than anything newer than say, 1990. Too gimmicky, not enough reader engagement, too much emphasis on power fantasy as opposed to humanity.


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## Nickleby (Mar 22, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> ... I've decided I kind of like the Human Fly (From Marvel) and am thinking about starting a run.



That was one of Bill Mantlo's titles. If you haven't heard, he was the victim of a hit and run in 1993, and he's still institutionalized with brain damage. At the risk of spamming, I've started a petition to have Disney/Marvel use some of the proceeds from the _Avengers_ movie to pay for the treatment that could cure him. Is it okay to post a link to it?

I rediscovered comics in college and got my mind blown, by Jim Starlin's Warlock especially. Other favorites were _Micronauts_ (another Mantlo title) and _Master of Kung Fu_.

As far as I'm concerned, everything good about comics got sucked into the black hole of suck that was the Clone Saga. So the only good comics are from 1961 to about 1984.


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## moderan (Mar 22, 2013)

That was a great series, Warlock. The Magus and all that, and coming from the High Evolutionary stuff originally. Mindfood. I'd endorse that timeline, with reservations.
Comics aren't all about long underwear and power fantasies. Underground stuff (like the Crumb mentioned) has been around forever. Matt Howarth's Post Brothers and Savage Henry are highly recommended.


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## beanlord56 (Mar 22, 2013)

I'm relatively new to the comic business. I just never got into it until about a year ago. I'm also assuming this thread includes graphic novels.

All I have is _Batman: Arkham City: End Game_, _Batman Beyond: #4-#7_ (unfortunately, #1-#3 are out of print and expensive online), _Darksiders II #0_ that came with my copy of the Darksiders II limited edition, _Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise_, and _Star Wars: The Old Republic: Blood of the Empire_.

What I want is too numerous to list. However it does include _The Dark Knight Returns_, _The Killing Joke_, the Mass Effect comics, the Dragon Age comics, select Star Wars comics, the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z manga, _Serenity_, and the Dead Space comics.

My sci-fi story, _Star Soul_ I see being a graphic novel, despite the fact that I'm writing it out like it's a novel. Words alone just can't do it justice. The only reason I keep writing it like it's a novel is I can't even draw a stick man. I've got two artistic friends, one of whom is almost always available to draw but his particular style isn't what I'm looking for, and the other one has the style I'm after but is never available.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 23, 2013)

*Lewdog: *Whatever happened to Mcfarlane? He doesn't do anything now, does he? I liked his Hulk stuff and the Early Spiderman, but I didn't really care for Spawn. Oh, and you're not alone. Civil War was pretty crappy!

*WhitakerRStanton: *Ross is pretty sweet. Marvels and Kingdom Come are great books! Hitch is always dependable, but the new Age of Ultron stuff he's doing is pretty lacking for him. If you see it, I bet you'll agree.

*Leyline: *Agree with all. We3 blew me away. I remember reading Concrete for the first time, man. Chadwick has such a lyrical quality in his words and pictures. It like reading music, in a way.

*Moderan: *Love Neal Adams. I know you're a Marvel Zombie, but Adams' Deadman stuff is really great, too. And you're dead on about his Batman. He started to lose me with his Continuity stuff, like Megalith. Ever read Skateman? Adams has a new Batman comic out that he writes and draws called Batman:Odyssey. It's completely off the rails, booby-hatch insane. You should check it out, or even just read some of the lengthy reviews. Bernie Wrightson is the man! I always kind of thought the crossover crap was more of a response to Crisis on Infinite Earths? We've talked about E.C. in the past, and Jack Davis is an undisputed master. As far as Silver Age goes, I agree, there's a ton of great reading there. I recently read some silver Supergirl collections. That stuff is crazy! But in a fun way

*Nickleby:* Post that link, man! I'll go sign it, that's for damn sure. I liked Micronauts, mostly because it was my first exposure to Michael Golden, who I love more than a very lovable thing. His classic art really does it for me. Warlock. Yes.

*Beanlord56: *I envy you. You're in for a whole world of treats when you open yourself up to comics. I love to hear about somebody jumping in for the first time. Have fun! 

Some comics I love: New Teen Titans (Not to mention almost any classic Perez), Marshal law, Captain Canuck (I wish George Freeman had a larger body of work. I love his art!), Marvel Fanfare, Tomb of Dracula, Mike Ploog's everything he's ever done, like his Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night for Marvel, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Chaykin and Mignola, all Dave Stevens, the Twisted Tales series, classic TMNT, and all E.C.

Are there some comic artists you used to hate but now like? I used to despise Don Heck, Carmine Infantino, Don Perlin, and Gene Colon when I was young, but now I think those guys are great! Maybe tastes change, I guess.

Hawkeye versus Green Arrow. I think Hawkeye takes him, but it would be a good fight. The new Hawkeye series is pretty darn good, in my opinion


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## Lewdog (Mar 23, 2013)

Nah, McFarlane is pretty much just living the dream off of the money he has already made off of stuff other than inking comics.  He made a lot of money off his toy line and animation stuff.  Other than that he has just been dealing with stupid lawsuits and collecting sports stuff.  I'm pretty sure he's the guy that bought Mark McGuire's record breaking baseball for some serious cash.  Needless to say that was a bad investment.

I used to be a fan of some of the less than popular comics like Green Arrow, Doc Savage, Nam, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.  For some odd reason before I became a Wolverine fan I liked Longshot and Colossus. 

Would Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix be invincible as long as she wasn't trying to kill someone she knew?


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 23, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> Nah, McFarlane is pretty much just living the dream off of the money he has already made off of stuff other than inking comics.  He made a lot of money off his toy line and animation stuff.  Other than that he has just been dealing with stupid lawsuits and collecting sports stuff.  I'm pretty sure he's the guy that bought Mark McGuire's record breaking baseball for some serious cash.  Needless to say that was a bad investment.
> 
> I used to be a fan of some of the less than popular comics like Green Arrow, Doc Savage, Nam, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.  For some odd reason before I became a Wolverine fan I liked Longshot and Colossus.
> 
> Would Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix be invincible as long as she wasn't trying to kill someone she knew?



The Nam, another one with Michael Golden art 

You mean like Dark Phoenix vs. The Avengers or Fantastic Four? I think she'd kick some serious butt, but I bet Reed Richards would find a way to beat her. Recently there was the whole Avengers vs. X-men, and that centered around the return of the Phoenix. I don't think it was handled well. Tony Stark figured out a way to bust the Phoenix force up, but the pieces flew into Cyclops, Magneto, Emma Frost, Colossus, and Magick. They all became Phoenixes. Then they took over the world. They beat the Avengers time and again, like government mules. The Avengers and Hope won the day, but not before Cyclops killed Professor X. It was interesting, but they never seem to be able to capitalize on and execute big ideas properly these days.


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## moderan (Mar 23, 2013)

Doc Savage is the original superhero. Everything else is a copy. Seriously. You could look it up. Kenneth Robeson was there first. Clark Savage, Jr. had no powers but he's the template for Superman and Batman both. He's never really made a successful crossover to comics;neither has the Shadow, the closest thing to a contemporary.
IIRC, "Crisis" was a response to Secret Wars too...DC had to clean up their continuity and they chose that method. The tin hats at Marvel started reacting to that by making Secret Wars 2 at Jim Shooter's behest, and that culminated in the Atlantis Attacks! thing, which kindled summertime annual crossover mania and hastened the ruin of all of Marvel's flagship franchises as far as I'm concerned.
I've seen Adams' newer work. I'm a fan of what he does.
Gene Colan was the guy that made me start making my own comix, when I was very young. I hated the Stilt-man so much that I started making my own. I forget who was the writer for that issue (DD#8)-either Stan or Wally Wood, I think. Terrible villain. He did an awful version of Warlock too, and a pretty crappy version of Werewolf by Night. Ploog's was way better. Still don't like Don Heck either. Carmine Infantino was always good-he has that streamlined style, perfect for Barry Allen, not so fabulous for anyone else. He fits like Ditko fit for Spidey and Dr. Strange.
I loathe the Titans and the Legion. They were my DC-fan cousin's favorites. Boy did we have some wars! But not as much as I loathe the Phoenix force. Just stupid. Should have just made Owen Reese contain the thing and be done with it. But the old milquetoast Jean Grey had to die so that the new team could take over...
The new Avengers suck. There, I said it. Not that continuity between, say, 150-200something was all that great, but sheesh!
I don't follow comics anymore. I get the big graphic novels and that's about it. Since 1998 or so the time I woulda spent consuming that stuff has gone into writing and composing.


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## Lewdog (Mar 23, 2013)

I used to also be a big _Punisher _fan until they came out with like three or four spin offs.  I loved his funny remarks.  When your a kid there are only so many comics you can afford to subscribe to.  When they start doing this spin off, and that spin off, and then crossovers...it just gets ridiculous and you can't afford it.  That's even worse when you are trying to buy the older comics to complete your collection as well.  Pretty much comics got turned into a 20-30-year-old person's hobby.  The same thing happened with Magic the Gathering and other card games.


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## Leyline (Mar 23, 2013)

> Carmine Infantino was always good-he has that streamlined style, perfect for Barry Allen, not so fabulous for anyone else.



I agree that Infantino's Flash is pretty much the Platonic ideal for that character (I love the futuristic city-scapes he came up with as far back as the 60's!) but I like his work on a few other characters, Adam Strange especially.


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## moderan (Mar 23, 2013)

Leyline said:


> I agree that Infantino's Flash is pretty much the Platonic ideal for that character (I love the futuristic city-scapes he came up with as far back as the 60's!) but I like his work on a few other characters, Adam Strange especially.


Strange was pretty good. I'd almost forgotten about that. I wondered, when I got older, why Infantino didn't do sf illos. Was way more money in those. Maybe he liked the regular work.


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## Leyline (Mar 23, 2013)

Could be, he was extremely prolific. I also think he truly loved some characters. He drew The Flash for decades, I think?

BTW, this thread is responsible for screwing up my sleep schedule, when it was sort of normalized. It caused me to pull out _From Hell_, thinking, 'I'll just read a bit.' Yeah, right. Read all 580 pages, including the appendices where Moore lays out the incredible amount of research he and Campbell did for the work. I was up till 6 am.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 23, 2013)

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## moderan (Mar 23, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Could be, he was extremely prolific. I also think he truly loved some characters. He drew The Flash for decades, I think?
> 
> BTW, this thread is responsible for screwing up my sleep schedule, when it was sort of normalized. It caused me to pull out _From Hell_, thinking, 'I'll just read a bit.' Yeah, right. Read all 580 pages, including the appendices where Moore lays out the incredible amount of research he and Campbell did for the work. I was up till 6 am.


Yeah, decades. From the late 40s through into the 70s iirc. (actually that's sorta correct) He was responsible for signing Kirby from Marvel, leading to the Fourth World stuff, which is some of my favorite comic work ever (and is also the fundament for Star Wars but that isn't Jack's fault). Virman Vundabar Vorever! Granny Goodness gracious!
I have "From Hell" but haven't read it yet. Likewise "Promethea". And someone sent me the complete Cerebus. That was always an "I can take it or leave it" sorta thing for me, but I'll read it eventually. The same wit also sent me a collection of Archie comics, including some from the 90s. I can wait *snark*


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 24, 2013)

WhitakerRStanton said:


> One book I really loved was Midnight Nation by J. Michael Straczynski. I'm a Straczynski fan for the most part. It was a nice twelve issue run that sadly I never got to finish because I went overseas. I still need to read the last three or four issues, actually all of it again, but I do remember it being superb. Straczynski's run on Spiderman started out really good. He introduced some interesting characters and plot lines. I believe there was some friction and he was forced out so this whole new story never went anywhere. Drives me crazy. I got back to the U.S. soil and the Ultimate lines were going on and to be honest I just never came back.
> 
> On a side note, my favorite superhero was The Green Lantern. I actually liked Kyle Raynor way more than Hal. I was upset that they brought Hal back and so I stopped reading. I thought Hal made a perfect Spectre, the spirit of redemption. I mean who better than the once mighty lantern and the incredibly strong Parallax to be the Spectre. I have not been back in quite a while so I have no idea whats going on there. If you read this please don't bring up the movie, I never saw it and God willing, never will.



Over the last few years, the Green Lantern Corps has really been jumping. They discovered all the other-colored corps and had an interesting crossover event called Blackest Night. You should track down some trades. They're not the best comics ever made, but they're fun!


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 24, 2013)

moderan said:


> Doc Savage is the original superhero. Everything else is a copy. Seriously. You could look it up. Kenneth Robeson was there first. Clark Savage, Jr. had no powers but he's the template for Superman and Batman both.



For Superman, a good case can be made for Philip Wylie's 'Gladiator' as well. Hugo Danner predates Doc Savage by three years. I don't think it would be wrong to toss John Carter in there as well for some of those guys.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 24, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Could be, he was extremely prolific. I also think he truly loved some characters. He drew The Flash for decades, I think?
> 
> BTW, this thread is responsible for screwing up my sleep schedule, when it was sort of normalized. It caused me to pull out _From Hell_, thinking, 'I'll just read a bit.' Yeah, right. Read all 580 pages, including the appendices where Moore lays out the incredible amount of research he and Campbell did for the work. I was up till 6 am.



Hey, man. I take no responsibility! A seasoned comic guy knows that there are some books you don't pick up and then expect to put down within any reasonable time. Rookie mistake, pal


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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> For Superman, a good case can be made for Philip Wylie's 'Gladiator' as well. Hugo Danner predates Doc Savage by three years. I don't think it would be wrong to toss John Carter in there as well for some of those guys.


Especially Adam Strange for that last...and you're right about Gladiator, though iirc there's an interview with Siegel somewhere, explaining how the Fortress of Solitude and such came about.
I did oversimplify...there were others
And Jim Corrigan will always be the Spectre to me.
I hate reboots/remakes/redos in general. Has nothing to do with anything anyone's said here, but I've been reading some revisionary work in line with this thread and I suspect that I'll keep avoiding "modern" comics. In the main, they don't speak the same language to me anymore. That gives me a sad.
On the plus side-last night I was sent complete collections of Epic Illustrated and Marvel and DC non-hero graphic novels. I'm about to open "The Stars My Destination" on my trusty Kindle. Did I mention that I have the big new HD? Hohoho, merry xmas to me.
Cya next summer!LOL


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 24, 2013)

Maybe this sounds simple, I don't know, but I miss caption boxes and thought balloons. In the older comics, especially 70's Marvel, you really got the feeling that the writer was setting a scene with the captions. It was meatier than comics today. And thought balloons gave you an 'in' to the inner workings of character motivations. I miss that.

As for new comics, I agree that they are much weak and paler than the older books. The new ones are very pretty, and there are still a lot of talented writers and artists, but like Moderan said, they don't speak to me in the same way. In the classic books, you felt like you were privy, because of care and continuity, to a real world. You were a guest there, watching. I remember X-Men number 168 through 171. Wolverine was not in those books. Now, this is back when Wolverine was not quite so over-used and he was still kind of interesting. The reason he was not in those issues of X-Men was because he was in Japan, having his first limited series (The Claremont and Miller one). That's just a small example of care and continuity. Now, Wolverine is on 5 or 6 different teams at the same time. There is no continuity left, and whatever slight believability there was is gone forever. I don't pay money for new comics, that's for sure. I torrent them. And I only do that because I'm a comic nerd, and I feel I have to keep up with current comics. But the aren't really my comics.

Do any of you love the smell of old comics? I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about the tactile and sensory pleasures of an old comic. It's the aged newsprint smell, the ephemeral feel of actual paper instead of the slick stuff they use now. And there's something pleasing about a well-worn, well-read, beat-up old comic. I like combing quarter boxes and liberating old bronze and silver age comics that, because of their condition, no one wants. I got an old, beat up copy of Adventure into Fear the other day. One with Morbius. It's a well-read book, intact, but the cover and pages are soft, like cloth. A hundred people have read that comic, flipped through it, seasoned its cover, smudged its pages. It's a well-loved thing, that book, and I'll keep it, and I'll love it too. 

New comics don't and won't ever have that.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 24, 2013)

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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

But....the Green Lantern's power ring was the conduit through which the willpower was channeled. And Hal Jordan turned out to be a jerk and Alan Scott was retroengineered to be gay because Obsidian had to be gay because the publisher decided that they had to have a gay character to keep up with Alpha Flight and with indie comix...the different colored lanterns sound awful silly but then I still think that Kilowog is a poozer and Sinestro is a great name but a terrible villain.
Silver Surfer kicked John Stewart's butt, and Mignola made him a weakling in Cosmic Odyssey. And the Green Lanterns Corps are an alien organization. Oa!
And and and the movie sux real bad. But not as bad as the "Manhunter" storyline. That was some embarrassing stuff.
But I like the character, and his speech "In brightest day, in blackest night..." and all that, is awesome.
Yes, Arco, I love the smell of old comics and old books and woodpulp in general.
I remember Hulk #180 and 181, with this cute little dude:






Silly costume. Silly character. Hulk shoulda smashed. One of my favorite moments in comic history was when Magneto pulled out the adamantium, bone by bone. I'd have built a cage outta those bones and put Deadpool's sorry posterior in it. Deadpool is everything that's wrong with comics. He's a third-rate Mr Mxyzptlk without the charm of a second-rate character like the Impossible Man.
But I digress.


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## beanlord56 (Mar 24, 2013)

So I'm not the only one who doesn't like Deadpool. I can breathe now. I don't know if it's his sudden surge of popularity and the subconscious hipster in me (whom I ought to burn and bury) that wants to be rebellious, or if it's the silliness and lack of seriousness and good story (that I can perceive) surrounding his comics.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 24, 2013)

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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

Hawkeye was better when he was Goliath, and Roy Thomas wrote him pretty well. He's changed over the years, and not for the better. Those are decent rules, but I liked Spawn despite John being in it.
Mine:If Tom Cruise is in it, avoid at all costs. Likewise Jack Black.
I think Fred Hembeck should destroy Deadpool for the good of humanity. Or Punisher can take him out, but do it soon, please.
What if?


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 24, 2013)

WhitakerRStanton said:


> Yes, that's another thing. People were telling me about all other colored corp. Ugh. Now I admit I am judging it before I've read but... It just seems it sucks a little bit of the mythos out of it. When I was a child and someone told me about the Green Lantern I laughed. Thought it sounded dumb. Why green? A lantern? There's no super? A magic ring? Then I read an issue or two. So here is a superhero whose power is derived not from the ring at all but his own willpower. That struck such a chord for me. It also made it seem closer than any superhero I read about. He wasn't an alien or there wasn't some sort of accident to change him. The only draw back is whether you are weak of heart. Well that and yellow, which sounds silly. The point is is his comes from who he is and not what he is. He is a Green Lantern. Now there are many colored lanterns. Maybe it awesome. If I read I will try to approach it with an open mind. I guess I'm just not ready yet. If it doesn't spoil any good plot points can you tell me why there are different colored lanterns?



Let's see. Green is willpower. Yellow is fear. Red is rage. Orange is greed. Pink is love. Blue is hope. There might be a purple, which is compassion? I should have looked these up. Black is death. White is life.

I guess it does sound a little goofy, and like I said, they aren't the greatest comics ever made, but they are kind of fun and interesting. There's a whole lot to the story, and it's neat to read. You have to realize, though, since I'm a massive comic geek, it takes a lot for me to really, really hate something. I'm pretty easy to please. I may not be the best barometer to measure whether certain comics are good or not. I cast a very wide net for stuff I'll read, even if it's not super-duper awesome

Did you say you hate Hawkeye? Aw, you're killin' me!

Deadpool is annoying, though. I'll happily agree to that point


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## Lewdog (Mar 24, 2013)

Can Deadpool even be killed?  Would he have to be thrown into the sun or something?


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 24, 2013)

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## Lewdog (Mar 24, 2013)

WhitakerRStanton said:


> Then we shall throw him in the sun. Mark the minute, the hour, the day and rejoice. For tomorrow, we kill Deadpool. Hahahahahahahahaha



...but he would have to be unconscious, otherwise he could just blink away from it.  How strong is his mental block?  Could someone with a powerful mind control force him to kill himself?


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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

Then we need Killraven, the Purple Man, and the Silver Surfer for the job. Or the Human Torch's Nova flame, or Frankie Raye's, or Havok's plasma blast. Or the Molecule Man or someone to wield the Cosmic Cube or the Beyonder or...there are many ways to kill Deadpool. Let's do them ALL. Personally I like the idea of encasing him in Wolverine's skeleton while the terminally boring and portentous Millie the Model reads to him from the works of Stephenie Meyer.


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## Lewdog (Mar 24, 2013)

moderan said:


> Then we need Killraven, the Purple Man, and the Silver Surfer for the job. Or the Human Torch's Nova flame, or Frankie Raye's, or Havok's plasma blast. Or the Molecule Man or someone to wield the Cosmic Cube or the Beyonder or...there are many ways to kill Deadpool. Let's do them ALL. Personally I like the idea of encasing him in Wolverine's skeleton while the terminally boring and portentous Millie the Model reads to him from the works of Stephenie Meyer.



Ghostrider could just give him the Penance stare?


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## beanlord56 (Mar 24, 2013)

Or Death from Darksiders. Between Soul Split so he can be in two places at once, the Phase Walker to create portals between both space _and _time, Reaper form to become nigh invincible, and one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and one of the last of the Nephilim, I think he could easily take out Deadpool.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 24, 2013)

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## Lewdog (Mar 24, 2013)

You guys are going to really hate it when his movie comes out...Ryan Reynolds has already signed on.

Deadpool Trailer, News, Videos, and Reviews | ComingSoon.net


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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

Who's Ryan Reynolds? Do I really wanna know? Is he as much of a dipstick as Shia LeBoeuf? As much as David Spade?
Who are all those people Beanlord is on about? (they sound like third-rate faux-Lovecraft ripoffs (I know who the mythical Four Horsemen and Nephilim are but I doubt that's what we're talking about here))
Can we do away with Johnny Blaze too? I hate that character. Especially after Nicolas Coppola played him. He's like Dormammu mated with Evel Knievel, it never worked for me.
I'm tempted to add half of this to the old "I Don't Connect With" thread because I'm obviously operating at quite a remove.
I hired Lobo to take out Deadpool.


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## Lewdog (Mar 24, 2013)

moderan said:


> Who's Ryan Reynolds? Do I really wanna know? Is he as much of a dipstick as Shia LeBoeuf? As much as David Spade?
> Who are all those people Beanlord is on about? (they sound like third-rate faux-Lovecraft ripoffs (I know who the mythical Four Horsemen and Nephilim are but I doubt that's what we're talking about here))
> Can we do away with Johnny Blaze too? I hate that character. Especially after Nicolas Coppola played him. He's like Dormammu mated with Evel Knievel, it never worked for me.
> I'm tempted to add half of this to the old "I Don't Connect With" thread because I'm obviously operating at quite a remove.
> I hired Lobo to take out Deadpool.



Are you being serious about who Ryan Reynolds is?  Van Wilder?  Green Lantern?  Deadpool in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine?"  Hannibal King in "Blade Trinity?"  I know you aren't being serious.


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## moderan (Mar 24, 2013)

Yeah, I'm serious. Did see Green Lantern though, so now I know-the rest of that stuff is crap I wouldn't even consider wasting my time on.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 25, 2013)

~


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 25, 2013)

WhitakerRStanton said:


> So am I the only Midnight Nation fan here.



Is that the religious-type story that Gary Frank drew? I imagine I'll get around to it eventually. Is it pretty good?


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## WhitakerRStanton (Mar 25, 2013)

~


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## Nickleby (Mar 25, 2013)

moderan said:


> Doc Savage is the original superhero. Everything else is a copy. Seriously. You could look it up. Kenneth Robeson was there first. Clark Savage, Jr. had no powers but he's the template for Superman and Batman both. He's never really made a successful crossover to comics;neither has the Shadow, the closest thing to a contemporary.



I didn't mention Doc because, as you say, he's never been translated properly to comics (IMHO). I had all the Bantam reprints at one point, but that's neither here nor there.

Here's the link to my Mantlo petition. Pass it along.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/279/269/909/get-writer-bill-mantlo-the-care-he-needs/


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

Signed. There should be more signatures there.

Unrelated, this:

Hark, a vagrant: 324

I thought that was funny...

Question: Watchmen and the Dark Knight Returns: Overrated?


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## Nickleby (Mar 26, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> Signed. There should be more signatures there.



Thank you. I'm afraid publicity and marketing aren't my strong suits, but that's my next challenge.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

Signed and shared to FB where some folks I know will hopefully help to circulate. I also sent copies to Mark Evanier and the Jack Kirby Foundation. Hope that helps.
Dark Knight Returns is pretty good, the sequel as well. Better work than Miller's DD riff, which I found boring because Elektra is just meh, though he did breathe a little life into tired old Wilson Fisk.
Watchmen cannot be over-rated imo, except for the Pirate parts, which I've never been able to get through. I understand the metaphor, but the execution isn't there. The movie had a better ending.
Now Sandman, that's over-rated.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

moderan said:


> Signed and shared to FB where some folks I know will hopefully help to circulate. I also sent copies to Mark Evanier and the Jack Kirby Foundation. Hope that helps.
> Dark Knight Returns is pretty good, the sequel as well. Better work than Miller's DD riff, which I found boring because Elektra is just meh, though he did breathe a little life into tired old Wilson Fisk.
> Watchmen cannot be over-rated imo, except for the Pirate parts, which I've never been able to get through. I understand the metaphor, but the execution isn't there. The movie had a better ending.
> Now Sandman, that's over-rated.



Sandman. Overrated. 100% agree.

Watchmen and DKR are both seminal works, I think, but I kind of always preferred Batman:Year One to DKR, and V For Vendetta and Miracleman to Watchmen. I liked the Watchmen book ending better than the movie because it was so crazy. When confronted with that level of insanity (The 'alien' or 'other-dimensional being'), you almost have no choice but to believe it to be true. You couldn't believe anyone could fake something like that. The bigger the lie, right? But the movie just had explosions, centered around Dr. Manhattan-type energy stations. You could ask questions or doubt something like that, in my opinion.

Yeah, Elektra is ass. But Daredevil: Born Again was a decent story.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

Have never read Miracleman. It's in my to-read queue, which is just HUGE.
Just re-read Born Again...it is a decent story, I guess. I don't go in for salvation stuff. I'm a nonbeliever, and crap like that's a good part of the why. Miller soft-pedaled the mythology though, and went with the human interest. 
V for Vendetta is just meh for me. I don't get behind it and can't really get into it. Sin City is more my speed.
I'm reading the "Before Watchmen" stuff now. Just ok. Marketing more than story, sadly. As far as the doubt about the energy and such, yeah..but I think to make Dr. Manhattan the enemy frees up the population in the same way, and the plot is tighter.
Better than "Kingdom Come" though. That's just too heavy-handed, though I like a lot of it. It's pure DC. A Marvel version might've had the prisoners triumphant and at least would have made more of the conflict between Superpickle and Wonder Woman "Not all of us have heat vision". Did I mention that I hate Superman? Big blue boy scout. Terrible. *shakes head*
Y'know what I really really liked? "Marvels" and "Ruins". I still retain the physical copies of those. That's some storytelling. And that old miniseries "Damage Control". That was some good thinking. Turn that crap on its ear, think about it in new ways. I grew up with the Silver Age (Amazing Fantasy #15 was six months before I was born), and all that crossover crap and the constant character reboots because creator-ego were literal betrayals to me.
Ugh. I always wanted to write for the comics, though I knew it wasn't a money-making proposition. I worked as a backgrounder, sometime penciler for Now Comics when they were in Chicago for a couple of months. Didn't get to write anything because the people that ran the company were grade-A buttholes and were scared of what I had in mind. I could still whup them people at their own game (pats ego on back) but I've moved on.
Wow. My coffee just kicked in. Forgive the block of text.
But I loved the comics, growing up. I followed the Avengers and the FF until I was in my 20s, from the git-go. My reading of comics ended with the "Amalgam Era". I could have crapped a better story. Just excuses for pugilism, and that's always bothered me about the long underwear people. Hand-to-hand combat really wouldn't fly with the abilities of most of those "people".
Dunno. Woulda coulda shoulda. NOW was so bad of an experience that I didn't bother with trying to go further. My line-drawing talent has mostly atrophied but I can write rings around most of those guys.
Didja ever read Chris Claremont or John Byrne's novels? Once I did, I understood why they stayed with comics. Sad. Chabon and Gaiman are critic's darlings, and they're good-not-great in my book, but I applaud them for getting out and doing the deed without the pictures.
Can't be 12 forever. That's the story of comics. There's the age when kids (mostly boys) move on to bigger and better things like sf. The need for spandex class fades...and graphic storytelling in this country has never caught on like it did in other lands, despite Byron Preiss' laudable efforts over the years.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

Marvels and Ruins were great. Ruins really threw me for a loop when it came out. That was some dark stuff!

I tried to read a John Byrne horror novel once but I could not make it through it. I used to really love John Byrne, and I guess I still do nostalgically. Have you seen his art lately? He used to have a really organic, almost candy-like, bulbous style that was very pleasing to the eye. Now his art is very angular and sharp, hard, not pretty. His stuff was good throughout his FF run, but he started slipping into his style when he took over Superman, I think.

I've read all the Before Watchmen stuff. I like the Ozymandias series best of all. Most of them are a waste, really. Those watchmen characters were completed in the original series. We didn't really need any more of them. Some of the art is nice, though.

Can't be 12 forever. You're right, though I doubt I'll ever really outgrow my love of superheroes. I guess someone who loses their connection with the 'long underwear types' has all kinds of great comics to move on to, yeah? There's an endless supply of independents, underground, classic comics, and non-super comics to gravitate towards. I've been enjoying a decent amount of silver and bronze age stuff lately, myself.


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## Nickleby (Mar 26, 2013)

moderan said:


> Signed and shared to FB where some folks I know will hopefully help to circulate. I also sent copies to Mark Evanier and the Jack Kirby Foundation. Hope that helps.



You have my undying gratitude. I hope some day Bill himself will be able to thank you too.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

There's not enough of the good stuff. There are some fantastic sf graphic novels-Alex Nino's More than Human is a prime example. I have Bernie Wrightson's Master of the Macabre series and FreakShow, and a heap of Richard Corben things. All of the Clive Barker stuff. DC's sf graphic novels are good, and there's EC and Warren and Heavy Metal (and many more, but not enough, and not enough that has any kind of narrative quality or continuity). There's great stuff on the web but that doesn't beat the experience of sitting back in my leather recliner with a cold beverage and a <redacted> and going off for a dream.
You ever read Grendel? Man, that's some comic book. Stylish Miller-derived art and a story with some beat to it. I even have a couple of novels from that series, and they're damn good.
Just don't try to give me any manga. Can't stand it.
I wish I had the time. I'd do a comic. I'd do a lot of comics. I love the graphic medium but to relearn the skills I'd have to sacrifice either prose or guitar, and that isn't gonna happen. It took a million years to be able to shred in those media.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

Nickleby said:


> You have my undying gratitude. I hope some day Bill himself will be able to thank you too.


You are of course welcome and I retain that hope also.
Most of my friends are indie authors and musicians (and in the same position as Bill). I hope that gets out onto the network. We've been able to do things like send deserving people to conventions, why not help with hospital bills and such?


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

moderan said:


> There's not enough of the good stuff. There are some fantastic sf graphic novels-Alex Nino's More than Human is a prime example. I have Bernie Wrightson's Master of the Macabre series and FreakShow, and a heap of Richard Corben things. All of the Clive Barker stuff. DC's sf graphic novels are good, and there's EC and Warren and Heavy Metal (and many more, but not enough, and not enough that has any kind of narrative quality or continuity). There's great stuff on the web but that doesn't beat the experience of sitting back in my leather recliner with a cold beverage and a <redacted> and going off for a dream.
> You ever read Grendel? Man, that's some comic book. Stylish Miller-derived art and a story with some beat to it. I even have a couple of novels from that series, and they're damn good.
> Just don't try to give me any manga. Can't stand it.
> I wish I had the time. I'd do a comic. I'd do a lot of comics. I love the graphic medium but to relearn the skills I'd have to sacrifice either prose or guitar, and that isn't gonna happen. It took a million years to be able to shred in those media.



I also have the Master of the Macabre series. I love those books. I read Grendel when it first came out, but I don't remember a lot of it. I'll have to check it out again. I've been reading a lot of DC silver lately. I have the Sea Devils collected book, and I'm looking forward to that. I like a lot of old war, horror, and western books. I'll read Sgt. Rock or Jonah Hex, and be satisfied. Thomas' Conan the Barbarian is good too. There's something especially insane about DC Silver Age stuff, a delightful, whimsical craziness that I enjoy. To tell the truth, there's not a lot of comics I won't read, if given the chance. I love reading _about_ comics, in mags like Alter Ego and Back Issue.

I thought for a time, when I was younger, about trying to break in, but truthfully, there are so many people who are more talented than I am, I didn't really stand a chance. 

The only Manga I ever really liked was Blackjack, a classic work about a freelance, infamous surgeon. I don't even try to look at the new stuff. The kids can have it


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## Leyline (Mar 26, 2013)

I enjoyed _Grendel_, the bulk of which I finally got to read a few years ago, but must admit to preferring Wagner's _Mage_ series, the third installment of which I've been waiting for ages. His four issue _Demon_ mini-series for DC was terrific as well.


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## Leyline (Mar 26, 2013)

In re: _Watchmen_ and _The Dark Knight Returns_:

Moore himself considers _Watchmen_ to be over-rated, but he's notoriously cranky and argumentative. I'm with mod in that I don't think it can be over-rated as far as _influence_ goes, but I too have a problem with the ending. I didn't make a home-made T-shirt with the legend 'Rorschach Was Right' for nothing.  As I said earlier in the thread, my favorite Moore is _Promethea_ and _From Hell_, and there are several other works by him I'd probably pull out before _Watchmen_, _V For Vendetta_, the collected _Miracleman_ and the collected _Swamp Thing_ issues among them.

I find that Miller's _Dark Knight_ is usually under-rated these days, in response to Miller's admittedly bizarre pro-war rants last decade. Things like that mean nothing to me, since I don't care about anything other than the story and art, both of which are superb in that equally influential to _Watchmen_ series. That said, _Year One_ is on an equal footing to me as a piece of art, and -- along with Moore's _The Killing Joke_* -- are the only Batman books I actually truly like. (Caveat: I've yet to read Morrison's take on Batman.)


*A few days ago I read an interview with Moore where he called _The Killing Joke_ one of his weaker works, solely because the only thing it really says is that The Batman and The Joker are mirror-images of one another, and such an observation wasn't profound, since any kid who reads a comic featuring the two understand that instinctively.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

The Killing Joke contains the best Joker portrait ever, despite it's claimed slightness. It would make a killer movie. Pun intended.
The thing that to me is completely over-rated is Arkham Asylum. The first thing is that nobody named Wilmarth is ever mentioned. Wait, what?
Yeah. I don't like it as well as some other things. It isn't very successful as a comic. And I've never played the videogame, so I've no standard of comparison. Except Ruins, and Ruins kicks its ass.
The Demon was good. I enjoyed that, but not so the Mage. Not that it was bad, but I love more the enduring evil trope of Grendel, which is so very malleable and comes in such a variety of hues, even though they're all black.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

Leyline said:


> *A few days ago I read an interview with Moore where he called _The Killing Joke_ one of his weaker works, solely because the only thing it really says is that The Batman and The Joker are mirror-images of one another, and such an observation wasn't profound, since any kid who reads a comic featuring the two understand that instinctively.



I've heard Moore say that as well. Maybe a creator is always his own toughest critic. Personally, I think Killing Joke is a masterpiece, story and art. Bolland barely gets much better than that (Side note: If you have not seen it, search out Bolland's Actress and the Bishop one shot. It's fantastic!) 

I like Batman as an idea, a historic character, but it's been a long time since I've liked how he has been portrayed. If a character is just too invincibly awesome, that character gets a little boring. Too much of the DC Universe revolves around him. I liked it when he could still get his ass kicked every once in a while.


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## beanlord56 (Mar 26, 2013)

moderan said:


> The Killing Joke contains the best Joker portrait ever, despite it's claimed slightness. It would make a killer movie. Pun intended.
> The thing that to me is completely over-rated is Arkham Asylum. The first thing is that nobody named Wilmarth is ever mentioned. Wait, what?
> Yeah. I don't like it as well as some other things. It isn't very successful as a comic. And I've never played the videogame, so I've no standard of comparison. Except Ruins, and Ruins kicks its ass.
> The Demon was good. I enjoyed that, but not so the Mage. Not that it was bad, but I love more the enduring evil trope of Grendel, which is so very malleable and comes in such a variety of hues, even though they're all black.



The game is incredible, and the sequel even better.

I read _Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search Part 1_ last night. All I can say is: HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!!!


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2013)

That's why I hate Superman. His dying didn't placate me. I generally don't care for DC because of him. 
Gardner Fox's Justice League and some of the Green Lantern and Flash stuff from the Silver was cool, but so much Superman and that damn Legion and Teen Titans. I liked the Metal Men when I was little. The Metal Men actually introduced me to the periodic table of elements. Make Mine Osmium!
Swamp-thing versus Man-Thing versus the Heap? Who wins?
I liked the Spectre too, and Silver age DC Horror. Wrightson, man. Wally Wood. The Phantom Stranger. That was more my DC beat, not the underwear models. I did read a lot of the stuff because my cousin, a year younger than me, was a DC kid. So we'd trade for a while, and sit around at family gatherings and read comics. It made things bearable.
It was jarring to me when the creators started moving from company to company. The house style wasn't as noticeable. I didn't care for that sorta hybrid period either, though I admit (again)to being enthralled with the Fourth World stuff (and Etrigan). But that was an extension of things like The Eternals anyway.


beanlord56 said:


> The game is incredible, and the sequel even better.
> 
> I read _Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search Part 1_ last night.


I'll never know that pleasure.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

If you're talking about Swamp Thing now (Forest Elemental), I think he wins. If you're talking Wein and Wrightson Swamp Thing, that's a tough one. Could be a draw, since they're all muck-based monsters. Man-Thing's burning touch might come into play, but the Heap is mindless, isn't he? And I'm not sure Swamp Thing would be afraid. Hmmm. Like I said, tough one. What do you think?

By the way, I could talk about this stuff all day.


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## Leyline (Mar 26, 2013)

If it's the Man-Thing from _my_ version of The Defenders, no contest. Swamp Thing and The Heap are toast.


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## Leyline (Mar 26, 2013)

I really dig The Phantom Stranger and always have. I loved the issue of Secret Origins that gave four 'possible' origins for him. I also dug the 4 issue series from '87. It was well enough written by Paul Kupperberg, but the art by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell was what made it extra special.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 26, 2013)

And some of the classic Phantom Stranger is surprisingly hard core!


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## moderan (Mar 27, 2013)

Swamp Thing (elemental) probably does win. He could use the green against his foes. Otherwise Man-Thing. Heap wasn't any great shakes, powerwise.
I never saw the PS miniseries. I'll have to look for it. Am about to embark on a read of "Creepy" from issue #1 through its demise. Then "Eerie". I am totally looking forward to it.
Brainiac vs. Modok. Who wins?


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 27, 2013)

The entirety of Creepy and Eerie. That's some good reading! When you read electronic versions of those, are you using a tablet, or are you reading them off a computer screen? I read mine off a screen, but I'd like to get a tablet

If Brainiac gives Superman so much trouble, then he annihilates Modok, in my opinion. Especially if you're talking about the Brainiac with the giant head ship and the fearsome metal body.


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## moderan (Mar 27, 2013)

Screen and Kindle. Mostly Kindle-I have the new big HD.
The problem with Modok is his minions...if he's got AIM going, then he's got a chance against any incarnation of Brainiac. But you're right. I had meant to write Ultron.


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## Lewdog (Mar 27, 2013)

I watched the trailer for the new Wolverine movie today, it looks boring as can be.  If I had to decide from the trailer alone if I wanted to see the movie, I would have to say no.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 27, 2013)

I thought Wolverine was pretty cool when I was a kid. He wasn't over-used and overexposed then. He was a violent little anomaly in the Marvel Universe. But they just wrung and wrung everything they could from the character. When you take a man of mystery and take away the mystery, sometimes it dulls the character. I just don't think there's enough there to carry a movie. To me, he only moderately works as the wild card in a group. I saw the first Wolverine movie and I did not care for it. I expect I won't care for the next one either.


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## Lewdog (Mar 27, 2013)

Personally I seem to gravitate towards characters that can make that funny one liner.  I loved the Punisher, Wolverine, Checkmate (it only lasted like 33 issues), and other guys like them.


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## Jon M (Mar 27, 2013)

.


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## moderan (Mar 27, 2013)

Two of my least favorite characters ever.


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## Jon M (Mar 27, 2013)

.


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## moderan (Mar 28, 2013)

The Question had that long ago. Rorshach is based on his original (Charlton comics) incarnation. Good Ditko character. Effective later, too. Always wanted him to meet up with Jack Ryder (the Creeper), dunno if he ever did. I have all of that JLA/I/E stuff but that's hard going, and he never did in his own mag.
*shrug* I'm just not an X-Men fan. I don't care for any of the characters except for Nightcrawler. I always secretly hoped that the Sentinels would get them and that would be the end of the series. In my comic-reading heyday, they were decided also-rans.


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## Arcopitcairn (Mar 28, 2013)

Moore threw a liberal dose of Mr. A into Rorshach as well. Mr. A. is Ditko at his most loony. I saw a U.K. documentary not long ago called "Searching for Steve Ditko" hosted by Jonathan Ross. Alan Moore was on it, and he said that someone asked Ditko if he'd known about Rorscach, and Ditko said:

"That's the one who's like Mr. A...except he's insane."

I thought that was hilarious I always forget who Ozymandias was based on. Wasn't it like Thunderbolt, or some Karate guy? DC should have just let Moore use those Charlton characters. They would have been legendary. DC did absolutely squat with those characters, just wasted them.


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## moderan (Mar 28, 2013)

Agreed. Turned Vic Sage into a John Bircher and Ted Kord into a quip machine. Blue Beetle was a dumb character anyway. And yes, Peter Cannon.


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## moderan (Apr 5, 2013)

RIP Carmine Infantino.


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## Leyline (Apr 5, 2013)

moderan said:


> RIP Carmine Infantino.



 Saw that just a few minutes ago. When I was looking at some of his 60's FLASH stuff the other day, when the discussion on this thread turned to him, I noticed his birth date. 'Probably won't be with us much longer,' I said to myself. I could do with being less right most of the time.

Still, it's a measure of his talent that a group of people were discussing how his art still rocked a few days before his death, surely?


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## moderan (Apr 5, 2013)

It is sad indeed. But you're right. And his work will be with us for some time. I just got hold of a copy of The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told. They're almost all his. Like we said, he did the Flash like Neal Adams did the Batman-definitively.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 6, 2013)

Infantino was said not to really care for long-underwear types very much, but his classic work in the genre is definitive. However, his older crime and sci-fi stuff is even better. It's always sad to see these old masters pass on. We won't see their like again.


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## moderan (Apr 6, 2013)

Their lives and talents, like their times, have passed, irreversible. I find it sad that they are not as universally revered as they once were. A former WFer, a professional graphic artist, has expressed to me that he thought Kirby over-rated and didn't understand how Infantino and John Buscema achieved such distinction.
He's quite young. I took that into account and replied that I supposed one had to grow up with their work in order to fully understand.
It isn't all about technique.
I've been trying to slog through some newer comics, chiefly the "Minuteman" series of things from Marvel, and it's been as tough as reading "Twilight". Though the art is more "realistic", I don't care for it. Continual reinvention has robbed the characters of their power, and I find everything to be homogenous. (Superhero) Comics have finally acquired the feel of chain restaurants, where everything feels the same regardless of content.
My eyes are too bad to get much out of webcomics. 
I don't know whether the above damns me or the creators. Perhaps both. But I miss the sense of wonder, of experimentation, of pushing boundaries that few even knew existed.
*heaves great old-guy sigh*
Another treasure-trove came my way this morning. Complete runs of the corny old titles Marvel Two-in-One and Marvel Team-Up. I'm looking forward to reliving those episodes.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 6, 2013)

The fun, the whimsy, the simplicity, and the straight-up, matter-of-fact technical craftsmanship of older comics is what I miss. It was just _comics_, like they'd always been, no growing concern, no big deal, just fun. New comics don't have that feel any more. New comics are all about cool poses, in your face epics, press releases, and out-grossing the last event. And you can tell, even though they are mediocre, they're trying too hard. 

Old comics are easy. The old masters made it seem almost effortless_. Those Two-In-One's _and _Team-Up's _are great reads because they're just good, old-fashioned fun. 

To tell the truth, I wouldn't mind seeing comic industry collapse completely, and maybe crawl back to a more niche market. Comics should be a fringe element again, an outsider hobby, able to separate from useless competition with movies, internet, or TV. It's nice that people like superhero movies, but that is not doing the artistic medium any favors, because the creators of the comics are trying to make them more cinematic (Wide-screen), and they're losing all the things that make comics such a singular art form. Comics aren't movies. Comics are the imagination you use between the panels, the picture you make move in your head, the sound effects you can hear, being privy to the secret thoughts and motivations of your favorite heroes and villains, and being moved by the synthesis of words and pictures flowing. Comics are unique. At least they used to be.


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## Leyline (Apr 6, 2013)

An Infantino cover from '59 -- a lot of his hallmarks: wry humor, a certain surreality of scene, giving the sense of motion to a crowd (some of whom are quite predatory looking) to intensify the unusual stillness of The Flash!




He was still doing covers and interior pencils for the Barry Allen Flash when I was in elementary school and they were 'new issues.' I take your word that he didn't care much for superheroes, but I think he took a somewhat propriety interest in how the Flash was portrayed, probably simply because he'd defined the look so much, over years and years.


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## Leyline (Apr 6, 2013)

Inafantino (1963) vs. Darwyn Cooke (2011)

For me, no contest. Infantino's Flash isn't just barreling to no where, he's hunting an enemy with purpose. Both he and Reverse Flash seem to be moving, where in the new variation, Reverse Flash may as well be The Amazing Frozen In Place Man. And Infantino's cityscapes are easily the best. You can see how the futurescape organically grows out of the already stylized skyline in the 'past.' The new one looks like somebody typed it there with a blade runner font. And removing the people from the Police rocket sleds and replacing them with purple balls was a dumb, cheap idea. A shortcut, really.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 7, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Inafantino (1963) vs. Darwyn Cooke (2011)
> 
> For me, no contest. Infantino's Flash isn't just barreling to no where, he's hunting an enemy with purpose. Both he and Reverse Flash seem to be moving, where in the new variation, Reverse Flash may as well be The Amazing Frozen In Place Man. And Infantino's cityscapes are easily the best. You can see how the futurescape organically grows out of the already stylized skyline in the 'past.' The new one looks like somebody typed it there with a blade runner font. And removing the people from the Police rocket sleds and replacing them with purple balls was a dumb, cheap idea. A shortcut, really.



Agree! 100%. Cooke is fine and dandy, but what he does is a _version_ of classic art. Real classic art wins out just about every time.


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## moderan (Apr 7, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> The fun, the whimsy, the simplicity, and the straight-up, matter-of-fact technical craftsmanship of older comics is what I miss. It was just _comics_, like they'd always been, no growing concern, no big deal, just fun. New comics don't have that feel any more. New comics are all about cool poses, in your face epics, press releases, and out-grossing the last event. And you can tell, even though they are mediocre, they're trying too hard.



It's my take that they're trying too hard because their motivation is different.  It's the profit motive-trying to become the next McFarlane or whoever, create the next Spider-man, be the next big thing.



> Old comics are easy. The old masters made it seem almost effortless_. Those Two-In-One's _and _Team-Up's _are great reads because they're just good, old-fashioned fun.



The artists and writers were having fun. Most of them knew that the industry they worked in wasn't their best chance for commercial success...yet still they persisted, because they believed, and because it was the most fulfilling field for them. I've read reams of interviews with people like Don Heck and Gene Colan, who were lifers, who did comics of all kinds-funny animals, romance, western, war, long underwear. The believed in the medium-it was the best possible vehicle for what they wanted to express artistically.



> To tell the truth, I wouldn't mind seeing comic industry collapse completely, and maybe crawl back to a more niche market. Comics should be a fringe element again, an outsider hobby, able to separate from useless competition with movies, internet, or TV. It's nice that people like superhero movies, but that is not doing the artistic medium any favors, because the creators of the comics are trying to make them more cinematic (Wide-screen), and they're losing all the things that make comics such a singular art form. Comics aren't movies. Comics are the imagination you use between the panels, the picture you make move in your head, the sound effects you can hear, being privy to the secret thoughts and motivations of your favorite heroes and villains, and being moved by the synthesis of words and pictures flowing. Comics are unique. At least they used to be.



It was that damnable sea-change that happened toward the end of the 70s, when big business took over everything. Not just comics, the entirety of our way of life. It was obvious and blinding, and nobody knew what to do about it. The bulk of the population here were born and grew up after it happened, and can only see the watermarks-Star Wars, Rumours, that whole blockbuster mentality. And a lot of folks subscribe to it.
It's the ownership of the comics industry driving that model. When folks like Carl Icahn determine how you function by court-order, ars gratia artis goes out the window and you better rake in the greenbacks. It isn't enough to break even or maintain a small profit margin. You have to break the bank.
I'd extend it. I wouldn't mind seeing the whole mass-media complex collapse and fall on its face.Pillory me for being old-fashioned and elitist if you want, but I'm tired of the abysmally low standard of most of what's called entertainment today. I spend way more time crafting my own work, realizing my own fantasies, than consuming such. Perhaps that's blessing in disguise, but the impetus is the same as it originally was-ironically, it was a Gene Colan-drawn arc of Daredevil (#26-7) that first started me off on writing.





I suppose from the point of view of business that my mentality is provincial, a wanting to return to feudalism. So be it. I like niche markets and individually-driven enterprise. I prefer Roger Corman to James Cameron.


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## beanlord56 (Apr 8, 2013)

I know this isn't directly related to comics but:
[video=youtube;QT5jFILLYN0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT5jFILLYN0[/video]

DC heroes and villains beating the living crap out of each other. As a gamer and a DC Comics fan, I'm pretty excited for this, and usually hate fighting games. The complete list of characters:
-Aquaman
-Ares
-Bane
-Batman
-Black Adam
-Catwoman
-Cyborn
-Deathstroke
-Doomsday
-Flash
-Green Arrow
-Green Lantern
-Harley Quinn
-Hawkgirl
-Joker
-Killer Frost
-Lex Luthor
-Nightwing
-Raven
-Shazam
-Sinestro
-Solomon Grundy
-Superman
-Wonder Woman


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## Nickleby (Apr 8, 2013)

moderan said:


> I wouldn't mind seeing the whole mass-media complex collapse and fall on its face.... I spend way more time crafting my own work, realizing my own fantasies, than consuming such.



I've become that way myself. Everything in the mass media is a copy of something else, when it's not pushing the corporate agenda down our throats.



moderan said:


> I suppose from the point of view of business that my mentality is provincial, a wanting to return to feudalism. So be it. I like niche markets and individually-driven enterprise. I prefer Roger Corman to James Cameron.



We are on the brink of an age when creativity will become one of the most sought-after traits. Digital technology will let us make whatever we want and spread it everywhere. The only things that will stand out will be the new, the different, the hand-made. It's not feudalism, it's the future.


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## Lewdog (Apr 9, 2013)

MMA fighter Georges St-Pierre is named the next villain in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."  He is going to play Batroc the Leaper.

Y! SPORTS


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## Morkonan (Apr 9, 2013)

I have a question for comic book fans!

Well, it's more like several questions that are related, but some may choose to divide their answers.

How do traditional comic book fans view graphic novels, traditional comics and serialized comics or shorts, like those in magazines like _Heavy Metal_?

Do you see them as separate genres with distinctive styles, or do you view them as all being included under the "comic" genre?

Do you have any particular expectations that are reserved only for certain genres or forms of work?

Graphic Novels have really taken off, these days. Important and recognized "names" in writing are contributing a great deal of material to them. As a matter of fact, graphic novels have not only produced works in other genres and mediums, but have also been targeted by creators in other art forms. So, movies have been spun from popular graphic novels and even serials, but graphic novels and similar works have also been purposefully targeted by film makers and even some authors, who hope to ride the wave of their latest popular work in other mediums.

As a kid, I was a comic book fan with somewhat limited interests. Later, I broadened my horizons with Heavy Metal serials. But, I haven't really explored those genres in decades, preferring old-fashioned print as my poison of choice. So, I turn to you guys, the connoisseurs of colorful creations to illuminate me with your thoughts on the matter.


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## Lewdog (Apr 9, 2013)

For those comic fans that are not just readers, but also collectors, graphic novels give them a way to read the substance of the books without worrying about damaging them.  It also gives them the opportunity to fill in holes where they haven't procured a book in the series yet.


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## beanlord56 (Apr 9, 2013)

In other comic-based video game news, Batman: Arkham Origins has been officially announced. Preorders are already up. The only downside: Rocksteady (who developed Arkham Asylum and Arkham City) are not developing. So long as there's at least some basis in _The Killing Joke_, thus bringing Mark Hamill back, and the rumor that it will be based in Silver Age Batman stays a rumor and doesn't become fact, I think it'll be awesome.

Big pic 1
Big pic 2


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## Lewdog (Apr 14, 2013)

I cam across this article today and it really doesn't make sense to me:

Batgirl's First Trans Character Comes Out of the Comic Book Closet

In it, Batgirl comes out as a lesbian and her roommate is a transgender bi-sexual woman.  It is pretty confusing seeing as, didn't Batgirl use her sexuality many times with men to her benefit?  Why would someone become a transgender woman if she liked women in the first place?  Odd, some of these people are going to really destroy the classics.


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## Morkonan (Apr 14, 2013)

I once knew a lesbian that used flirting and her sexual appeal to her benefit. (Though, she only did it jokingly with guys she knew or, otherwise, as part of an inside joke.) Though, I'm not privy to things Batgirl may have done outside of the old Batman and Robin television show. 

IIRC, both Marvel and DC have had gay super-heroes. It is shocking, however, that a long-time IP has taken this twist. Has Batgirl ever had a boyfriend in any of the comics?

The transgender bi-sexual is a bit.. complicated, but I've heard of similar real-life cases. It's the body-identity problem that's in focus with transgendered people, not their sexuality. That is, apparently, somehow a separate issue. It makes a bit of sense, really, since one's sex is not a sole determiner of one's sexuality. Again, something else is going on that breaks the expected boundaries. (Personally, I think its hormone imbalances in the prenatal environment that play a large role in this problems.)

I think comics can and should be a place for social commentary, but they also need to do so with skill. Comic IPs have accepted alternative histories and even universes, where just about any character can take on any qualities or be subjected to any alternate timeline in the setting. I don't think that sort of accepted dynamic should be twisted just any ol' which way, however. If that's done too often, these heroes just end up being people wearing a particularly colored suit and that's not very endearing.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 14, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> I cam across this article today and it really doesn't make sense to me:
> 
> Batgirl's First Trans Character Comes Out of the Comic Book Closet
> 
> In it, Batgirl comes out as a lesbian and her roommate is a transgender bi-sexual woman.  It is pretty confusing seeing as, didn't Batgirl use her sexuality many times with men to her benefit?  Why would someone become a transgender woman if she liked women in the first place?  Odd, some of these people are going to really destroy the classics.



Corporate window-dressing and pandering for publicity. They do things like this because they cannot produce good comics.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 14, 2013)

Morkonan said:


> I have a question for comic book fans!
> 
> Well, it's more like several questions that are related, but some may choose to divide their answers.
> 
> ...



I think graphic novels are great, but there's the geek distinction. _Maus, Persoplis, _and _Tale of Sand _are graphic novels. _Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, _and _The Walking Dead _are comic books that have been collected into trade paperback or hardcover form. I consider a graphic novel to be a prestige piece of some kind, a special thing. An actual work that was meant to be in novel form, and not serialized chapters. Both types of book are just dandy as far as I'm concerned. They, and publications like _Heavy Metal, Epic Illustrated, _and web-comics are really just comics to me. Tale of Sand is a comic, but it's a fancy comic. I like 'em all, and consider them all funny books in different forms

The problem with big names swooping in and writing comics is their absolute and complete disregard for continuity. Because they are famous, they don't care what came before, and they walk all over the hard, years-long work of journeymen creators who shaped and formed the universe that 'big names' marginalize. This is a generalization, but not much of one. And the comic book companies, who still remember the 'lean times' and their historical lack of respect as an art form, are all too happy to bend over and take whatever a 'big name' has to offer in some desperate grab for more respectability and stability. People who own comic companies and work for them have love for the art form, but little faith in it.

If you're interested, Morkonan, in checking out some stuff, the cheapest and easiest way would be to go to your local library. Don't get any graphic novels that have superheroes in them, and see what the sequential art form has to offer. Libraries always get all the award-winning and popular stuff, but with or without superheroes. Or go ahead and check out some superhero stuff too. You never know...


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## Morkonan (Apr 15, 2013)

Arcopitcairn said:


> ... An actual work that was meant to be in novel form, and not serialized chapters. ..



(Took a look at panels from your suggestions. Wow, didn't know the story behind Tale of Sand.)

Graphic Novels seem, for the most part, to be, well, "novels." As you say, they're not serialized like comics, but follow a bit more "form." Does "length" and some sort of quality like "fullness or richness of story" help to separate a graphic novel from comics? What about adaptions? For instance, when Star Wars came out, they did a "comic adaption" of it. (I wish I still had those oversized releases.) It followed the story very closely and, IIRC, there were two or three of them. I realize they're properly called "adaptions", but what would separate them from being graphic novels? It's that certain something that I'm looking for, something definitive that say's "This is a comic" and "This is a graphic novel."



> ... People who own comic companies and work for them have love for the art form, but little faith in it.



I imagine competition is fierce. Back in the day, comics gave visualizations that just weren't anywhere else. Big cool spaceships, lazers assploading all over the place, rock 'em sock 'em action, heroes riding dragons, mutants mutating, nifty wavy mind-ray thingies... Now, there's video games and on-demand web comics. Plus, there's the manga/whatsits Japanese invasion that traditional US Comic publishers have to compete with. Can Superman defeat The Last Airbender? Pokemons vs X-Men? Pulling those "Big Names" into struggling publishers probably helps boost their sales, but maybe at the cost of the integrity of their IP, if they fail the stewardship test.



> If you're interested, Morkonan, in checking out some stuff, the cheapest and easiest way would be to go to your local library. Don't get any graphic novels that have superheroes in them, and see what the sequential art form has to offer. Libraries always get all the award-winning and popular stuff, but with or without superheroes. Or go ahead and check out some superhero stuff too. You never know...



Library? Wait, that's that big square building with all the shelves, right?  I haven't been to a library since College... I know, it's terrible. I have a thing about "owning" what I read, even if it turns out to be crap. That way, I can foist it off on my friends... But, a little research wouldn't be amiss and I'll keep it in mind. (There's a place I travel to fairly frequently that has a library right down the street.)

Thanks for your reply on this! I'm totally out my element on the Comic and Graphic Novel front.


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## Arcopitcairn (Apr 15, 2013)

"It's that certain something that I'm looking for, something definitive  that say's "This is a comic" and "This is a graphic novel."

Well, for me, it's this: Any form of sequential art can be considered comics, even graphic novels, or the Star Wars Treasury Editions you mentioned (Which are actually not too expensive if you want to treat yourself to some nostalgia), but an actual comic book, like Watchmen #5, is not a graphic novel. It's a comic book. I think the only big difference is preference. Tale of Sand can be considered a comic, no doubt, but also (And more properly around comic geeks) it's a graphic novel.

I dunno. Moderan could probably answer these questions better than me


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## beanlord56 (Apr 17, 2013)

One of my friends has, unfortunately and worryingly, cut himself off to the world as of Saturday. But, as an early birthday present, he decided to give me his copy of _The Killing Joke_ deluxe edition. However, he had several other comics that he just threw away, such as _Run, Riddler, Run_. While it's great that he gave me _The Killing Joke_, I do worry about him.


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## moderan (Apr 17, 2013)

Jack Kirby did the Star Wars and 2001 Treasury editions. I have them still.
There are also graphic albums, which are shorter pieces. Graphic novels in the US first stated appearing as alternative or premium items, with "deeper" stories and more "adult" concepts. The first one I remember was a Silver Surfer volume in 1978:





Not long after that, Metal Hurlant started releasing graphic novels-the first was the sensational adaptation of More Than Human:




Which eventually led to Epic Illustrated and DC's line of science fiction graphic novels. These were upscale works, comparable in quality to things like the more recent "Marvels" and "Ruins".
They died commercially but were well-received critically, and were influential when the direct-sales market collapsed and Marvel's honchos sought new markets by getting their product added to the shelves at WaldenBooks and Printer's Ink, two early B&N forerunners. Nowadays there really isn't much distinction between what I'd call a "graphic novel" and a simple collection of stuff, but originally there was.
Epic's first graphic novel was also an sf classic:





Quite a bit different in intent and content than such overexposed tripe as The Dark Phoenix Saga. "Watchmen" works better as a GN than as a series of comics because it is novelistic-likewise the more famous Miller works, which were conceived as graphic novels from the start. Essentially, I think the difference is in the coherence and relative sophistication of the plots, and in the relative self-containment of the narrative.
The better stuff was also usally produced by Byron Preiss, who tried real hard to make the graphic novel a viable artform in the US, only to be stymied by the market and by publishers' insistence on producing long underwear comics. He tried to do it in book form, with a series called Weird Heroes, with stories and novels by Ron Goulart and Archie Goodwin, among other folks, and art by Alex Nino and John Buscema. It died too. Sad. I have those books.


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## Leyline (Apr 18, 2013)

Morkonon, I recommend:

_From Hell_ (Complete Edition) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.

At nearly 600 pages (including Moore's fascinating and often hilarious research notes), this is, IMO, both the best recounting of the Ripper murders in literature and the most provocative and oddly sympathetic examination of conspiracy theory Freemasons and their various enemies I've read. It's more than that as well: Moore laces the two examinations with veins of horror, philosophy, and historical fact. The nature of the Ripper, in his own words, transcends even the greatest of conspiracy theories by becoming a profane act of magic, and transforms the narrative into a grand critique of the coming 20th Century. Moore's writing is a magic act itself: he weaves all this heavy weather into a calm and steady tale, dominated by an ensemble of extremely well rendered characters. The prostitutes of Whitechapel all have something of the same look: desperate, cold, hungry, intent on survival, but when they speak you recognize them instantly. Moore, true to the spirit of his place and time, tackles a variety of dialects and brings them off well. His Fred Abberline is a frustrated but decent man, mostly unhappy but amiable about it. His biggest vice is an extremely protracted, mostly innocent flirtation with one of the prostitutes, both of them giving false names and Abberline claiming to be a saddle-maker like his father. 

The art, by Eddie Campbell, is amazing and deeply integral to the story. Campbell did even more research, and his period London is exactingly laid out. His style seems crude at first, but becomes bolder and more complex, eventually becoming honest and graceful in it's depiction of a season of terror.


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## moderan (Apr 18, 2013)

I still haven't read that. It sounds daunting.


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## Morkonan (Apr 18, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Morkonon, I recommend:
> 
> _From Hell_ (Complete Edition) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.



Ooooh, I've been wanting to read that! I've heard good things about it, but have yet to purchase a modern-day "graphic novel." I dunno, it feels somewhat... pornographic. I don't mean that particular novel, I mean all graphic novelsl. It's as if I have a certain image of graphic novels being prurient and contrived only for titillating the senses, not for any legitimate artistic reason and certainly for nothing related to "The Craft" of writing! 

Of course, I know that is not the case. However, when I picture myself standing in line at Barnes & Noble with a graphic novel in hand, waiting for my turn at the cashier, I can see myself hiding the cover.


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## moderan (Apr 19, 2013)

Amazon sends them in plain brown boxes :0


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## Lewdog (Apr 19, 2013)

Just spotted this:



> If he were to return, it wouldn't be anytime soon. He will be heading to London to start filming Marvel's _Guardians of the Galaxy_ in June. Batista will be playing Drax the Destroyer in the superhero flick, which is why he has been bulking up. Once he finishes filming the movie, he will make the media rounds to promote _Riddick_, which releases on September 6th.



I wonder if they are going to tie it into the Avengers 2 movie.


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## moderan (Apr 20, 2013)

So they cast a wrestler as Arthur Douglas. The Guardians will have to deal with Thanos, who is rumored to be one of the villains in the second Avengers pic. Guardians in general is pretty weak-not a flagship-type operation anyway. But then so is Scarlett Johanssen as Natasha Romanoff. Avi ARad is greenlighting some weird stuff.


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## Leyline (Apr 23, 2013)

Recently finished: _The Eternals_ (6 issue mini-series) by Neil Gaiman and John Romita, Jr.

Fantastic! Both Gaiman and Romita are in ultra-respectful mode, and the whole thing shines as a tribute to Kirby. Gaiman is a world away from trying to be flashy or clever or sly -- he's working a simpler, more primal comics-writing style: sleek plot, fun dialogue, bizarre concepts tossed amongst the mundane to set them off. Romita, rather than imitating Kirby, simply sets the already huge Kirby influence on his art (I may be mistaken, but I think Jack was his godfather?) free.

Speaking of Kirby (and reminded by mod's mention earlier in the thread): when I was a kid (like 7, 8, 9...) I didn't care for him either. I considered his work 'crude' and 'old.' It was my younger brother (who was always the artist) who began arguing the case. I still remember the thing he said to me that led to my re-appraisal: "Look at the way he draws energy. Nobody else draws energy like that. You know why? Because they can't. It would look stupid if they tried it."


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## moderan (Apr 23, 2013)

John Byrne tried for a while, and maybe came the closest, but it's true. The heck with the square fingers and extreme foreshortening and the rest of the bag o'tricks. Plus Kirby had that serious metaphysical side that underlay everything, and really started coming out when his career started to unravel due to market considerations. That was what attracted me to comics in the first place...all the cosmic stuff.
That Eternals thing sounds great-that had the potential to be his finest work, and was derailed by contract matters. The Fourth World was a step in that direction, but was contained (and eventually curtailed) by DC's editorial direction.


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## Leyline (Apr 28, 2013)

I've been reading (original series) _What If?_ Extremely goofy, but also extremely fun. And the issue about the Avengers never forming had a surprisingly moving ending where a character sacrifices himself and it doesn't come off as melodramatic or over-reaching: it's a genuinely sad moment. (Excellent Gene Colon art as well!) Contrast that to the one about The Invaders never disbanding, which had characters in tears half the time, Harry 'Nuke 'Em' Truman treated as a nearly god-like hero, and the morbidly amusing sight of a caught-on-fire-Hitler calmly informing his second in command to lie and tell the world he'd commited suicide rather than been burned to death by The Human Torch. Still...fun. 




moderan said:


> John Byrne tried for a while, and maybe came the closest, but it's true. The heck with the square fingers and extreme foreshortening and the rest of the bag o'tricks. Plus Kirby had that serious metaphysical side that underlay everything, and really started coming out when his career started to unravel due to market considerations. That was what attracted me to comics in the first place...all the cosmic stuff.
> That Eternals thing sounds great-that had the potential to be his finest work, and was derailed by contract matters. The Fourth World was a step in that direction, but was contained (and eventually curtailed) by DC's editorial direction.



In my days of not liking Kirby much I pretty much hero worshiped Byrne and Perez. These days their work seems somewhat bland and unassuming, while I can can study and admire Kirby's art on multiple levels. The treatment of Kirby, Ditko, Buscema, Romita and the other Silver Age masters is still a black spot on the reputations of DC and Marvel in my opinion.


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## moderan (Apr 28, 2013)

I have the whole What-If series. Due for a re-read, but so are so many other things.
I'll always be a Kirby fan. Not so Colan...I don't like the way he draws faces, with that ridiculous stricture. I prefer Gray Morrow (given the same type of career arc and longevity)...but then a lot of my early comic reading was EC and Warren and things like House of Secrets. I didn't then and don't now care for DC editorial policy regarding the long underwear people--I find them way too undercharacterized and whitebread (in the main-there are of course exceptions), even when they try real hard. The look of the art, with Swan and Infantino and later Adams, was good, the stories, not so much, unless Jim Aparo had a hand in them.
George Perez is a Marvel guy I never liked much. His lines are clean but again, it's the faces. I don't care for the look. And Marvel has a lot of talking headshots. Don Heck was another one. His characters were always too clunky, and he didn't draw girls (or women) very well. Buscema and Romita were far better at faces...Byrne just ok.
As has been said previously, I was and am a big fan of Jack Davis, Berni(e) Wrightson, Kirby. Davis especially had unparalleled versatility-having done EC, Disney, TV Guide covers, MAD, Marvel and DC, plus other commercial illustration. Aparo was another artist I liked a lot-especially his run on Spectre. That was unforgettable. Remember the scissors? That was so EC.o


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## Leyline (Apr 28, 2013)

I find Colon very hit or miss, sometimes from panel to panel! Ha. But, for some reason, he seemed to be on a roll with that particular issue of _What If?_ 

Aparo rocked, without doubt. As a kid I sort of knew _Batman & The Outsiders_ was a goofy idea, but I bought and read it for the art. Also, it had Metamorpho, so I was down with it. LOL. 

One thing I did appreciate about DC was their willingness to feature heroes who were quite freakish for want of a better word.


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## moderan (Apr 29, 2013)

They did feature outre appearances and origins, but didn't make them real enough for me to follow. Metamorpho, as good a character as he is, was a complete cypher for years.
DC Horror was far superior...Chamber of Chills, the Marvel offering, was more fantasy-oriented, and Tomb of Dracula, et al, were pretty hackneyed when compared to House of Secrets/Mystery. A lot of it was the art. Colan doesn't hold a black candle to Aparo and Wrightson. Better was the prose Vault of Horror, which like Chamber of Chills opened with an Ellison story ("Neon" in that case, one of Harlan's best). But that was prose. I didn't like when the horror comics went long underwear and was thrilled when they got back to the gritty...and I have the ish with the debut of Swamp Thing. I've kept it for a million years.
The Spectre was somewhere in between...I don't like Hal Jordan being him. DC has ruined their stuff, warped it beyond recognition, substituted seeming expedience for imagination at an even greater rate than Timely.
Lots of digression there...I certainly agree about the treatment of the Silver Age masters. I grew up with their work. I retain certain elements (as do you) of their stylings to this day, in my literary and artistic work. I see Kirby as a master on a par with Lovecraft-he had the same sort of mythopoetic imagination and intent. The Marvel method is to this day defined by what that man did.


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## Leyline (May 17, 2013)

Mod --

In regards to your earlier-in-the-thread comments on _Creepy_, I ran into this surfing Wiki, from the _Batman Black & White_ article:



> The origin of the series is told by editor Mark Chiarello  in his introduction to the first collection, in which he writes about a  dinner table-discussion with "a few famous comic-book artists," at  which they pondered the "desert island" question in terms of a single  complete run of comics one would be happy to be stranded with.[SUP][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Black_and_White#Publication_history"][1][/URL][/SUP]  Ultimately, with "half a minute"'s thought, they "amazingly... all  agreed, pound for pound, page for page" that the unequivocal choice was Warren Publishing's _Creepy_,  a high point unmatched since "there has never been such a collection of  stellar artists assembled under one banner publication" as in _Creepy_, whose pages were host to (among others) "Toth, Frazetta, Williamson, Torres, Colan, Ditko, Wrightson, Corben[, etc.]."[SUP][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Black_and_White#Publication_history"][1][/URL][/SUP] Chiarello notes that "most of those stories" were written by one man: Archie Goodwin  "probably the very best editor ever to work in comics, probably the  very best writer ever to work in comics," (and early mentor to Chiarello  when the two worked at Marvel) whose Warren work was itself an "homage  to the favorite comics of his youth, the E.C. line."[SUP][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Black_and_White#Publication_history"][1][/URL][/SUP]



Despite the fact that I have little love for Batman, I'm going to find that series -- the writing and art line-up (Goodwin, Corben, Sienkiewicz, Wagner, Chaykin, Bolland, Gaiman and more) sounds fantastic!


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## Arcopitcairn (May 17, 2013)

I remember Batman: Black and White. That was a pretty good series, well worth checking out


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## Lewdog (May 18, 2013)

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will be in the next Avengers movie.  Who do you think would make good actors for each?  Megan Fox as the Scarlet Witch and Taylor Lautner as Quicksilver.

Movie Pictures | Movie Posters - Yahoo! Movies


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## Leyline (May 29, 2013)

I'm reading _Saga Of The Swamp Thing_ Issues #22-64, Alan Moore's groundbreaking run on the title. I haven't read them since childhood and -- coming back to them in adulthood after they've become absolutely _legendary_ -- I feared I'd find them a letdown.

No. Just no.

An incredible experience, and perhaps the finest sustained run on any mainstream big company title. The entire  saga is one of the most beautiful, exhilarating, multi-leveled and _honest_ love stories I've ever read: a Romance in the oldest sense, fully deserving the capital 'R' and encompassing everything from horror to social criticism, metaphysics to old-fashioned literate adventure story telling.

Even if you hate comics, you should read this. Because this is _literature_ of the finest, most subversive and transcendent sort.


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## Arcopitcairn (May 30, 2013)

Absolutely. That stuff holds up perfectly. A lot of Moore's work does.


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## Leyline (May 30, 2013)

Currently reading _The Ballad Of Halo Jones_ by Moore and Gibson. Pretty dang delightful -- a sort of re-invention and subversion of 'girls comics.'


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## Leyline (Jun 3, 2013)

_1963_ by Alan Moore -- probably the most loving combination of parody/tribute to Silver Age Marvel Comics ever made. My personal favorite was Johnny Beyond -- a delightful re-imagining of Doctor Strange as a Tibetan trained beatnik wizard.


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## Arcopitcairn (Jun 4, 2013)

Leyline said:


> _1963_ by Alan Moore -- probably the most loving combination of parody/tribute to Silver Age Marvel Comics ever made. My personal favorite was Johnny Beyond -- a delightful re-imagining of Doctor Strange as a Tibetan trained beatnik wizard.



I loved the ads in those. Shamed By You English?

Great stuff, I just wish they would have been able to finish it!


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## Al D (Jun 4, 2013)

I used to be a comics nut but severed ties around a decade ago. Reading this thread has brought back memories.

A few of my favorites:
The Invisibles - The mad Grant Morrison in full wizard mode, an ouroboros text that's funny, frightening and mind-expanding. And, for me, now a missing document, lent and unreturned.
Morrison's Animal Man and his early issues of Doom Patrol are well worth reading, too.

Miracleman, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 1963 (someone else remembers these!) From Hell and Swamp Thing. Alan Moore. 

The original Superman from the pulp age. An amazing character, nothing like you'd expect and not at all a boyscout or angsty alien. Anarchistic, fun-loving and still fresh. "I'll think I'll do something about all that traffic today..."

Vertigo books: The early issues of Hellblazer, a fair percentage of Sandman (mostly the non-arc stuff) and a few others.

I can take or leave superheroes, but I still have a fondness for Kieth Giffen's '5 years later' reboot of The Legion of Superheroes and his comedic take on the Justice League.

My biggest problem with comics today is that (understandably, I guess) they seem to be written by embarrassed fanboys trying to justify their continued interest in children's literature by making it 'mature'. They've taken something bright, fun and exciting and turned it into a leering, needlessly violent mess that references and draws from older comics but misses the point.
Grumble, grumble.


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

Benicio Del Toro as Thanos?

omg! Celebrity gossip, news photos, babies, couples, hotties, and more - omg! from Yahoo!


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## Arcopitcairn (Jun 4, 2013)

Al D said:


> My biggest problem with comics today is that (understandably, I guess) they seem to be written by embarrassed fanboys trying to justify their continued interest in children's literature by making it 'mature'. They've taken something bright, fun and exciting and turned it into a leering, needlessly violent mess that references and draws from older comics but misses the point.
> Grumble, grumble.



Double agreement. This is truth. That's why I mostly read old stuff.

You mentioned the Golden/Silver Age Superman. He really was half a psychopath. Did you ever read any of the old Supergirl? Superman treated her like garbage, man. It was hilarious. I love all that old stuff. It's fun, like you said, and there is no irony in it.


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## Al D (Jun 5, 2013)

Oh, man. Some of the silver age DCs - I'm thinking of the Superman Family titles - are golden. All those stories with Jimmy or Lois turning into gorillas, shrinking, changing race or gender, having unlikely marriages... all to Superman's cover-featured indifference or outright mockery... that really takes me back. 
It's true, I guess, that they seem silly and dated. I wonder if I'd enjoy reading one after all these years?


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## Arcopitcairn (Jun 5, 2013)

I know I enjoy them. I'm always reading that stuff. In ways they might be dated, but the craziness and goofiness and fun are universal.


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## Leyline (Jun 12, 2013)

> Oh, man. Some of the silver age DCs - I'm thinking of the Superman  Family titles - are golden. All those stories with Jimmy or Lois turning  into gorillas, shrinking, changing race or gender, having unlikely  marriages... all to Superman's cover-featured indifference or outright  mockery... that really takes me back.
> It's true, I guess, that they seem silly and dated. I wonder if I'd enjoy reading one after all these years?



Just in case anyone thought you were _exaggerating_...












Fantastic.


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## Kevin (Jun 12, 2013)

That first cover reminds me of _R. Crumb's - Whiteman meets the Yeti._


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## Al D (Jun 12, 2013)

Those covers... thanks, George.
They cause me to remember some very good times. Every Wednesday our stoic dad would ask if we wanted to 'go to town'. That meant Mom could go to Bible study, my 3 oldest brothers could sneak out and do whatever unfathomable things they did, and I and the next two oldest would entwine ourselves amid the junk and old furniture in the van. Then we'd bounce and jostle our way to Spencer's (or Spense's... you know, I've never seen it written down) Bazaar. Now, at Spencer's you could bid on items at auction, sample local Amish food, enjoy a vast array of gray market weapons, cigarettes and clothing from an ever-changing cast of shifty dealers. This was the late 1960's and early 1970's, and to an 8 year old kid it was a shimmering place, an intoxicating miasma of smoke, dung and belching V-8 exhaust.
But most of all, it was where that nice lady had the staggering collection of 3 for .25 comics. No mylar bags here, guys. These were the real deal, comics that had been read and loved, foxed, torn and wrinkled, signed by the owners and destined to never be mailed flat.
Going through those boxes, the dollar from Dad (my fetching coffee fee) twitching in my pocket, all the sights and sounds from Spencer's faded and forgotten, I was alone with the comics. Sure, there were some Marvels, and I was always watching out for old Avengers, but it was the DCs I was after. That was the gold. Superman. Superboy. The Legion of Superheroes. Action. Adventure. And all those compelling covers. You know what? They might look insanely goofy now, but back then comics were electric and wonderful. They were written to surprise and entertain. They kindled joy in our souls.
*ahem* Sorry. Got carried away there. Thanks again, George.


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## Leyline (Jun 13, 2013)

Al D said:


> Those covers... thanks, George.
> They cause me to remember some very good times. Every Wednesday our stoic dad would ask if we wanted to 'go to town'. That meant Mom could go to Bible study, my 3 oldest brothers could sneak out and do whatever unfathomable things they did, and I and the next two oldest would entwine ourselves amid the junk and old furniture in the van. Then we'd bounce and jostle our way to Spencer's (or Spense's... you know, I've never seen it written down) Bazaar. Now, at Spencer's you could bid on items at auction, sample local Amish food, enjoy a vast array of gray market weapons, cigarettes and clothing from an ever-changing cast of shifty dealers. This was the late 1960's and early 1970's, and to an 8 year old kid it was a shimmering place, an intoxicating miasma of smoke, dung and belching V-8 exhaust.
> But most of all, it was where that nice lady had the staggering collection of 3 for .25 comics. No mylar bags here, guys. These were the real deal, comics that had been read and loved, foxed, torn and wrinkled, signed by the owners and destined to never be mailed flat.
> Going through those boxes, the dollar from Dad (my fetching coffee fee) twitching in my pocket, all the sights and sounds from Spencer's faded and forgotten, I was alone with the comics. Sure, there were some Marvels, and I was always watching out for old Avengers, but it was the DCs I was after. That was the gold. Superman. Superboy. The Legion of Superheroes. Action. Adventure. And all those compelling covers. You know what? They might look insanely goofy now, but back then comics were electric and wonderful. They were written to surprise and entertain. They kindled joy in our souls.
> *ahem* Sorry. Got carried away there. Thanks again, George.



Hey, getting carried away is encouraged in this thread! 

Great story. I have two, but I'm only going to tell one now, because they both make me pretty emotional.

My introduction to comics came at the Elkhorn City, KY public library. I _never_ went into the kids section, because all the science fiction was in the adult section (including the Heinlein juveniles and the Andre Norton.) That place was for _babies_. I'd ran out of Heinlein Juves, Norton, and most of the Golden Age stuff and was (despite my vast mutant brain) still a _bit_ too young for Damon Knight's ORBIT and Terry Carr's UNIVERSE anthologies and the like (not that I didn't try,mind you!). My little brother hung out in the kid's room, because he usually had a pal or two from school there. So I wandered in, mostly out of boredom, and found him and a couple other kids reading these scrawny little magazine things. I checked one out. It was an issue of the reprint run of Lee and Kirby's X-MEN, #3, I think, with The Vanisher.

Hooked.

They had a HUGE stack, all battered and worn, because they actually let kids check them out and they came back -- well, you can imagine.

That's also where I found one of the most important tomes of my life: Crawford's Encyclopedia Of Comics. Until the day we moved away to Florida, I checked that thing out at least once a month. 

Another mutant power I have is to make every female librarian I meet fall in love with me. It's very handy. And these librarians were my first true loves (other than Leela, of course, but she was more of a goddess). Years later I made the mistake of sending after that free issue of _Comics Buyer's Guide_ when it was a newspaper deal, and discovered the existence of independant comics and graphic novels and the like. I put on my best 'sad-boy-denied-literary-sustenance' look and asked if they could order some of them.

"Well," Miss Thacker said. "It's not in our budget. But I'll see what I can do, baby."

And that's how I got to read The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and ElfQuest and lots more despite living a hundred miles from a comic shop and being poor as dirt.

Over twenty years later I went back to Elkhorn City and those same librarians still worked there (I'm pretty convinced that they're the Fates). They instantly knew who I was, and it was a lovely, loud, tearful reunion. 

Then they waited, and I knew they were expecting something. And I knew what. By instinct I made my way through the aisles to where muscle-memory or something took me. To the Crawfords.

And it was smack in the middle of an entire full length shelf of trade paperback and hardcover comic collections. Seriously, one of the finest selections I've ever seen in any library. And to paraphrase Al Swearengen "I been to Chicago." And this is a tiny little rural library.

"We remembered how you use to get other kids into reading with the comics. So we figured you were on to something."

Because of me, kids in Podunk, Hillsville can read. The Dark Knight Returns. And Watchmen. And Concrete. And the collected Moore's Swamp Thing. And the collected Bone and Pogo and massive hardback collections of silver age Marvel and DC.

I was overwhelmed.

If I have a legacy so far, that's it.

And I can live with that.


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## Al D (Jun 13, 2013)

I'd be damned proud if that was my legacy.
You rock _and_ roll, sir.


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## Leyline (Jun 13, 2013)

Al D said:


> I'd be damned proud if that was my legacy.
> You rock _and_ roll, sir.



Oh, I got my own reward. It was in that wonderful selection that I first discovered Moore's incredible _Promethea_.


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## shinyford (Jun 13, 2013)

Another great story George - and this one has the added benefit of being true!

I love the superpower of being able to make librarians fall in love with you. That's a comic waiting to happen right there.


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## Lewdog (Aug 27, 2013)

So after the recent announcement that Ben Affleck would be taking over the role of Batman in the next Superman sequel, word comes today that Brian Cranston (Breaking Bad & Malcom in the Middle) would be garnering the role of Lex Luthor.

Ok the Affleck pick is horrendous, but Cranston is a great actor.  The only problem I have here is, isn't Luthor supposed to be roughly the same age as Superman?  Cranston is... A LOT older than Henry Cavill.  Why do directors have to keep taking such creative detours from the original works?  There has to be a younger actor out there that would make a great Luthor. 

James Marsden?






Ryan Gosling?






Any other ideas?


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## Arcopitcairn (Aug 28, 2013)

Lex Luthor's age varies, depending on which continuity you're talking about. pre-crisis, post-crisis, elseworlds, or A.U. Plus, Hollywood follows their own continuity. 

As for Affleck, who cares? Characters like Batman or Superman aren't even recognizable characters anymore. They're just corporate brands. They're impossible to actually ruin. They're too iconic to ruin. I mean, I thought that Man of Steel was complete garbage, but did it tarnish Superman for me? Nope. Superman remains.


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## Lewdog (Aug 29, 2013)

James Spader as Ultron in the next Avengers film...could be interesting as he is a great character actor, but I imagined Ultron's voice to be a bit deeper.

Movie Pictures | Movie Posters - Yahoo! Movies


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## Lewdog (Sep 24, 2013)

What was everyone's thoughts on the premier episode of "The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

I liked it, and I can't wait to see where it goes.  I just hope that Whedon doesn't run The Avengers into the ground with over exposure.


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## beanlord56 (Sep 29, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> What was everyone's thoughts on the premier episode of "The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
> 
> I liked it, and I can't wait to see where it goes.  I just hope that Disney and Marvel don't run The Avengers into the ground with over exposure.



Fixed. Both are relying way too much on Whedon to keep the Marvel Cinematic Universe going. He wants to do his own stuff, but they want him to do practically everything. They shipped him to the UK to help with some "issues" going on with Thor: The Dark World. The MCU's demands and Marvel's over-reliance on him since the success of The Avengers is going to strip away his talent, and that will run the MCU into the ground.


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## Leyline (Sep 30, 2013)

Agents of D.U.L.L. was dull. Seriously, inescapably dull and predictable. It showcases every problem I have with Whedon as a writer: his idea that everyone talks exactly like a Whedon imagined Californian teenager, that narrative laziness can be overcome by a cool special effect, that character doesn't really matter so long as the actor is attractive enough, that nobody will care so long as someone shoots someone else at a certain narrative beat...

AWFUL.


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