TPBs Bought/Thought Thread

[Elijya]

Finally checking out Lone Wolf and Cub? I don't think you'll be disappointed (except maybe at the size)

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, Amazon had this buy-3-get-1-free deal, so I browsed through the eligible items and Lone Wolf and Cub was there. I've been wanting to read it for a while, so I figured I might as well get volume 1 and see how it is. I know it's small because I've seen it in bookstores, but I don't mind.

 

[Mladen]

Yeah, Amazon had this buy-3-get-1-free deal, so I browsed through the eligible items and Lone Wolf and Cub was there. I've been wanting to read it for a while, so I figured I might as well get volume 1 and see how it is. I know it's small because I've seen it in bookstores, but I don't mind.

Its a great comic, but the english-edition size format is horrible, really diminishes the effect of the art, and the text can give you eyestrain under low light.
otherwise, great comic

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Maybe I'll invest in a good magnifying glass. I've always one for the sheer Sherlock Holmesian coolness of it.

 

[Addendum]

If you like it, and decide to get the others, make sure you have plenty of shelf space.

26 volumes of one series takes a good chunk of any bookshelf

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Are there 26? I was wondering exactly how many there were. Eesh, that's more than I thought. I was thinking like 17 to 20 at most.

 

[PhotoJones]

Toothpaste For Dinner

Heh. Drew's a friend of mine. How'd you'd find out his little comic strip?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It was on the buy-3-get-1-free list and it sounded funny.

 

[Manic]

Okay, so I got the third volume of Shekhar Kapur's Devi series. For the first time, I'm disappointed.

Once again, the penciller changes. Several times in one chapter/issue, I think. It works pretty well, however, as the story is told in the form of 3 flashbacks. However, after that issue, the rest of the trade switches back to the same artist from the end of the second trade. And I think he's worse than ever before. Above all else, they simply cannot draw hair to save their lives. During the first chapter's 3-artist flashback-a-thon, we're introduced to a new character with long, white hair. The artist for the rest of the story, however... ugh. It looked like the same white-haired character had long black hair made out of random felt-tip pen lines, with odd dark grey speckles.

My disappointments with the art aside, let's get into the story.

At this point, Tara has finally accepted that she is the new Devi, and has figured out the perfect system for sharing her body with her ancient goddess personality. She's even doing the superhero thing, and has a nosey journalist following her around. But all is not candy, roses, and rainbows. We got more of Tara's pre-Devi backstory, and how she was a volunteer to underprivileged children. One of the kids she cared for is the constant victim of domestic violence, and now Tara can't sleep. This takes Tara to a new place, and we can barely recognize her by the end of the trade. Not a bad concept, what they did to her, but not paced very well. I felt like it came about too quickly.

Meanwhile, our favorite baddie wants revenge on the Devi, and a new player is in town who seems very intent on killing our heroine.

Not a bad story, but I felt like there was too much happening at once. Also, the writers on this book seem to have trouble segueing in and out of flashbacks. The timeline was a little wonky, and it made a revelation or two hard to grasp toward the end. The real downer was the art. This book needs its original penciller back, and fast.

 

[Manic]

And now yet another review wherein I continue to pay the bills for Virgin Comics...

Ramayan 3392 AD, vol. 1
Ramayan 3392 AD, as I understand it, is loosely based off of The Ramayana, an ancient Hindu epic tale. As you can probably guess by the title, Ramayan 3392 AD takes place in the distant future. Well, I use "future" loosely; This comic takes place in a medievo-futuristic landscape akin to that of a Final Fantasy game. By that, I mean battles are fought almost entirely with melee weapons, but there are flying machines that don't need wings or propellers to stay airborne.

I've got to give it up to this title. It's written in a way that befits an epic tale. So much happens in the first trade, but it ends in a way that makes you think the story just started. In a good way. We get to see the main character, Rama, start off as an admired soldier, lose everything, and get recruited to begin a journey that leads him to learn his true destiny. Whether or not he accepts this destiny is unclear by the end of this trade, but like I said, it felt like this was only the beginning of his story.

The writer of this comic probably had some good source material to pull from. The story is well-crafted, but the dialogue leaves a little something to be desired. Am... am I supposed to hope someone eventually kills Rama's brother? Because he's written like an ass. Even when he becomes a believer in the magic and sorcery around him (which, by the way, comes off as an everyday occurrence to some characters, but remarkable and unusual to others), he remains an ass to the Obligatory Gandalf-ish Old Man of the story. I get that Rama is supposed to be jaded and feels betrayed by his own people, but where the hell did his personality go?

I do have one last complaint, albeit a petty one. I don't speak Hindi. At all. And all these Hindi words mingled throughout the book are a little confusing, and disrupt the flow of the story. Now, I have nothing against the Indian-esque names all of the people and places have. I can deal with a comic in which Lakshman and Rama Suryavanshi travel to the forest of Dandakaranya. I can even deal with the occasional bit of Hindi mixed in with the characters' dialogue. Virgin Comics' Devi is the same way, on a much smaller scale (little kids call Tara "Tara Didi", followed by a caption box saying "Didi = Sister").
However, Ramayan 3392 AD overdoes it a tad. Long distance measurements are given in Yojans (roughly 2 miles each), which I understand nobody uses in modern day India. There's even a point where an army general shouts "AAKRAMANNN*!" which is followed by (on the very bottom of the page) a caption saying "*Attack." Wh-- why didn't they use "attack"? I don't like reading the bottom of the page for translations in every other panel. This comic was written for an English-speaking audience. Why are you giving me the hindi words for "army" and then translating it on the bottom of the page? It seems unnecessary. If it's the name of someone or something cultural, fine. But don't do it for every other word.

I know that probably made me come off as an ignorant American, and maybe I am, but I have those same gripes with stuff like Battlestar Galactica. Don't tell me "yarens" when it means the exact same thing as "years."

 

[Anubis]

Finished LOEG: the Black Dossier. Awesome. Pixie orgies, warrior she-males, upper dimensional beings with wooden dutch f**k dolls, and James Bond is a total *****e Bag. Rating: Bee p***y.


I also read Welcome to Tranquility. Good stuff. Really good stuff. Nice Mystery, enjoyable characters, and a D-Bag named Emoticon. So rediculously horrible, he was awesome all at the same time. Rating: Freakin' Sweet

 

[GNR]

Man,I haven't checked out any new trades in a while.

I can still finish up my Astro City series,but I'm in no rush.

Everytime I check out the trades section,nothing really calls out to me lately.

 

[Manic]

After muddling around Virgin Comics' trades, I decided to pick up an old classic I'd never gotten around to reading.

I finally read Watchmen. Good stuff. It's one of those stories so good, I needed to read it twice. And I did.

 

[Anubis]

The Fourth time's even better.

 

[Manic]

Believe me, I'll likely get around to reading it 5 times. The second time alone, I found out my local comic book shop named themselves after something in the background of one panel.

 

[Elijya]

What'd they name themselves?

 

[Manic]

http://www.treasureislandcomics.com/

They use part of a panel at the top of their page.

 

[GNR]

After muddling around Virgin Comics' trades, I decided to pick up an old classic I'd never gotten around to reading.

I finally read Watchmen. Good stuff. It's one of those stories so good, I needed to read it twice. And I did.

Watchmen just gets more dull the more times I read it.Yea yea,unpopular opinion and all,I just think people tend to get so fanatical trying to defend it and justify why people don't like it and say how dumb they are.Whatever.

the first 4 issues of Miracle Man alone trump Watchmen

 

[Anubis]

That's nice.

Finished Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Enemy. (Which isn't exactly a great feat considering how short it was.) Good stuff. Loved the original mini. For those that don't know, Chronicles of Wormwood is about this Cable t.v. CEO who just so happens to be the antichrist. Though he decided years ago to not give a piss about fulfilling his daddies wishes, and would rather hang out with his talking bunny and his best friend Jesus. Awesome story. Not for the overly religious. This story had some pretty good stuff that you'd come to expect from Garth Ennis. Not everyday you see the antichrist get his face smushed into the festering crotch of a psycho killer eunuch priest. And of course, the perverse awesomeness that is Pope Jacko.

Rating: Freakin' Sweet.

 

[Manic]

Watchmen just gets more dull the more times I read it.Yea yea,unpopular opinion and all,I just think people tend to get so fanatical trying to defend it and justify why people don't like it and say how dumb they are.Whatever.

the first 4 issues of Miracle Man alone trump Watchmen

To each his/her own. I'm not going to flame someone for not liking a comic I do. Hell, in this case, an old-as-dirt comic I'd only recently read and liked.

 

[cabel]

Gargoyles: Clan Building, Volume one (issues 1-6)

Writer: Greg Weisman
Pencils: David Hedgecock, Nir Paniry, Karine Charlebois, Gordon Purcell
Colors: Will Terrell, Dustin Evans, Stephanie Lostimolo

Background: In the mid ninties, Disney aired a cartoon series named "Gargoyles" on weekday afternoons. Created by Greg Weisman, the show stood out from Disney's other kid friendly shows due to it's dark tone, mature themes, and heavy influence of Arthurian legend, worldwide mythologies, and shakespeare.

Despite the show's praise and popularity, Disney decided to take Weisman off the show after the end of the second season. The result was a lackluster third and final season subtitled, "The Goliath Chronicles," and Weisman was left with a lot of told stories and ideas, till now.

So in general, this comic is the third season of the series as Weisman intended it, ignoring The Goliath Chronicles save for 'The Journey' the one episode he had any involvment in.

The Review:

Story: B +
The first two issues are pretty much a retelling of 'The Journey,' save a few extra scenes. So the actually new material starts at Issue three.

This first volume seems to serve two purposes. One, to reintroduce and establish the characters and setting to the audience, fans and newcomers alike. The second is that this volume is more or less six issues worth of setup, planting the seeds for a much larger plot involving the illuminati.

This volume has some good action and humor, and most important, succeeded at leaving me in anticipation of how the arc will play out.

Having said that, the big question mark is the nostalgia factor. I don't know how much I'd be enjoying this volume if I wasn't already familiar with the 65 episodes worth of histroy between the characters.

Art: C
Hit and miss may be a cliche, but it's a pretty accurate way of descirbing the artwork of Gargoyles. In some issues the colors are great, in some the lines are great, and in some inks and shading is great, but they all can't seem to be great at the same time.

And while I respect that different artist have their own styles, In a multi-issue comic book story, is it too much to ask for some consistency in the artwork?

Visually, I feel like I'm looking at six different comics as a result of the interchanging combinations of pencil and color artists.

Of the issues, I have to say my favorite artwise was the collaboration of David Hedgecock and Dustin Evans on issue three.

The worst hands down would have to be Nir Paniry's pencil's in Issue four. It's too cartoony, doesn't fit with Gargoyles at all. All of his lines are too thick, everything's too exaggerrated to the point that he made Goliath look like a roided up body builder.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle

There was apparently an Iron Man animated series running in the early 90s, the period of my youth, when I wasted many an hour watching episodes of Batman, Spider-Man, and X-Men, making me lifelong fans of all three franchises; however, I never saw so much as one episode of the Iron Man show, and so I never developed much interest in the character (or the entire Avengers franchise in general, which was absent from the screens in that era, only arriving in highly diluted form after the big boom was over). Once I started reading comics, I gradually became familiar with him, and with the big movie on the way (which looks great), we’re seeing a renaissance of Iron Man product; this is often heralded as Tony’s big story, so I bought the very nice-looking Premier edition, collecting the nine-issue "Demon in a Bottle" arc (which, in the tradition of older comics, is really a series of one-, two-, or three-parters linked by a common subplot.

The overall verdict: pretty good stuff. Certainly quite readable, and Michelinie and Layton largely avoid smothering the pages with captions, giving Romita Jr. room to work, something Claremont never learned to do (not to say there aren’t plenty of captions; much more than you’d find in a modern comic; in particular, there’s the understandable need for each issue to recap, in space ranging from a few panels to a few pages, the preceding issue, which is rather awkward in a modern collected edition which this story clearly wasn’t written with in mind). This is trumpeted as Tony’s big brush with alcoholism, but for all but the last issue or so that’s deep-background; the main plot involves the newly-introduced Justin Hammer’s attempts to undermine Stark Industries by various means, which is just the main of many pressures building on Stark that drive him to drink (including a notably unresolved plot introduced before this collection even begins involving SHIELD, but the ending provides a sort of "go get ‘em" closure where you know Tony will get by fine now that he’s got his winning edge). The principle supporting cast is Bethany Cabe and James Rhodes; the former, Tony’s new love interest (with some discreetly implied casual sex in a hotel), is a memorable character; Rhodey’s fine here, though he hasn’t yet become War Machine (or even found out about his boss’s real name). Also present are the Avengers (notably a sparring session with Captain America), the late Ant-Man II (a Michelinie creation), and Namor (there are few better choices for a misunderstanding-fight than Namor, given his nature). One thing I found kind of amusing is the status of secret identities here: nobody knows who Tony is; not Cap or any of the other Avengers, not Bethany or Rhodey, not Ant-Man (particularly notable, since Tony doesn’t know Scott is Ant-Man either); it feels a bit forced, really, but it’s not anything close to a real issue. I really like Romita Jr.’s art here; nowadays his stuff is just boxy and ugly, but the classic look is wonderful.

 

[JTStarkiller]

Catching up with Templesmith's Wormwood series. Picked up the first two trades, which were both hilariously fun reads.

The ones sitting on my coffee table I haven't yet read are Y: The Last Man (book 1), Planetary (book 1), Ultra, and 30 Days of Night (books 2 and 3).

 

[Elijya]

Ultra was alright, 30DoN kinda sucked after the first mini, but Y and Planetary will blow you away.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Planetary makes me both love and hate Ellis and Cassaday at the same time.