Graphic Novels

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

I didn't think Garth Ennis could ever top The Preacher or Crossed, but man are The Boys heating up now. (I'm so happy I got the first 60 issues before Megaupload became Megaindicted, so I can stay up on these last few issues.)

So often in long-form storytelling the payoffs never come, but this story was managed brilliantly throughout. Now the payoffs are coming in spades, and I can only hope that it will end with something from the farthest reaches of Ennis's sick mind (albiet it will be tough to beat the end of Preacher, not sure how to top that one.)

[Edie St Pierre]

Graphic Novels

Oh, no. What a fucking dreadful idea.

That's like getting Terry Pratchett to write a sequel to 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'.

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

Apparently they're all prequels, so at least we get to keep the ending.

Unless Dr. Manhattan restarts the universe or something like that. In which case, yes, we don't need that shit.

[Edie St Pierre]

Graphic Novels

Reading that article, DC and the writer defending them do come across like a load of dicks though, I mean this for instance:

But Moore has spent much of the last decade writing The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (using characters created by Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, HG Wells, H Rider Haggard and so on), and Lost Girls (a pornographic team-up of Oz's Dorothy, Wonderland's Alice and Peter Pan's Wendy). Pot? Kettle?

They do get the difference between using characters from classic literature in a modern context, and this desperate cash-cow action, i'm sure. Desperate stuff.

[kugelrund]

Graphic Novels

Forgive me for not reading this thread from the start but could anyone tell me if there are any social realism graphic novels

Bored, you might like the compilations of Peter Bagge's Hate! comic. The Bradley family are gob-smackingly dysfunctional, casually violent and often quite funny. There's a lot of truth in amongst the slapstick, and the dalogue moves the stories along at great pace.

Buddy Bradley's teenage years are set initially in Jersey and later against a backdrop of the rise of grunge (he moves to Seattle at around the right moment). Some find Bagge's stylised and exaggerated artwork to be an acquired taste - I like it. There are many different compilations around now; the earlier ones included other stuff from Hate, but you can now pick the Seattle years, and so on... there are some great peripheral characters, as well, and the musical elements might interest you (he's a music snob and even starts managing a band at one point).

There's also a new book out called Nelson. It's one person's life, written a year at a time, with one story for each year, from their birth in 1967 up to 2011.

A different British comic artist has written and drawn each year's story. Obviously there will be some artists you like and others less so, but it's nicely done, and quite touching to watch one person's life develop, from wild child, to crazy punk adolescent, to adulthood.

[Bored Of Education]

Graphic Novels

Wow, that sounds amazing

[Beatle Simon]

Graphic Novels

[/quote]
Buddy Bradley's teenage years are set initially in Jersey [/quote]
So were mine!

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

So is anyone else reading The Boys ?

It may have topped The Preacher. May have.

Garth Ennis is the closest we have to Alfred Hitchcock walking the earth right now.

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

I guess not, but at least my neighbor across the street is, so I have someone to talk to about that.

So, Walking Dead #100. Wow.

Best Heel since the Governor.

[WOM]

Graphic Novels

I just finished Maus 1 and 2. Man, what an engrossing work of art.

[kugelrund]

Graphic Novels

Yeah, Maus is staggering in its scope; massive themes but also really human and personal. It changed people's ideas about what you could do with a comic.

I think he's struggled to move on from it, really (mainly because people won't let him - to the point where he's done a book trying to answer all the questions he gets asked over and over again about it).

Anyway. Sorry to keep dropping French stuff into this thread, but it's what I tend to see and get bought. So, someone bought me the first two books of La Marche Du Crabe (it's going to be a trilogy) by Arthur de Pins, a French animator and illustrator.

He originally did the idea in the form of a couple of short films (here) and (here). There's also a bit more about the books and various other films on his site, linked to above.

I like his drawing style - retro 70s (so good for classic car nerds), but done in Illustrator, it looks like.

And the story's a nice idea: it's about the unevolved crabs of the Gironde who can't change direction, and are therefore condemned to spend their lives walking sideways wherever they happen to be born. If that's between two rocks 10cm apart, so be it. It's occasionally touching, and funny, too. I'm looking forward to the final book. A few pages, nicked from someone's blog...

[Edie St Pierre]

Graphic Novels

I'm really looking forward to Part 3 of Alan Moore's LOEG Century series. I thought the previous two books were great, as was the Black Dossier, and i've been waiting for the final thing to come out for bleeding ages. Loads of people seem to hate the later LOEG stuff though, which I don't get at all, I think he's managed to really deepen the series, and give it a brilliantly pointed contempory relevance. I think it's a masterpiece, actually.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Graphic Novels

You know what, I don't think Moore's got a leg to stand on with this Watchmen franchise thing. The points in that article hold: Moore inherited those characters and has been using other people's creations (and biographical travesties) for most of his career. Plus he sounds like a berk talking about Moby Dick as if Great Novelists never got screwed. Melville only got paid $140 or something for it, and I bet there were subsequent rip-off flops. The conventional way to get screwed in comics is for someone to nick your "universe" wholesale, that's the only difference. Alan Moore's better known than his creations these days anyway, so it's not as if his fans are going to get ripped off.

They don't like it up 'em, these postmodernists, do they? They want to have their cake, eat it, and spend their dotage moaning about other people making cakes that use flour and eggs. I loved From Hell, but I only found out the other day that the showstopper bits are mostly nicked direct from Iain Sinclair's White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Lud Heat. A lot of it's a straight-up cover version of those two books (the better bits of the conspiracy, the pentangle between the Hawksmoor churches, even the visit to Bunhill Fields). Kind of takes the shine off it a bit, cause I'd assumed Moore had come up with it himself. I don't think many people who read it know, none of the Amazon reviews mention it.

Mind you, Sinclair's another one: made his name writing those (excellent) books, one of which is based in part on Stephen Knight's bestselling ripper conspiracy theory, The Final Solution. Then he started moaning that Ripper conspiracy loonies were writing to him, as if he couldn't see that one coming, and looking snootily down on people who go on guided Ripper tours, when his book pretty much takes you on one. Mind you, he also started moaning about every single thing that crossed his mind and/or line of vision, and hasn't stopped yet, so perhaps that doesn't tell you much.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Graphic Novels

Don't get me wrong, the prequel Watchmen thing's bound to be shit, and what Moore does and Sinclair did up till 1990 or so was brilliant. But that's the only difference: quality. Moore's still a good pot calling a shit kettle black when he does this.

[Errorist Sympathiser]

Graphic Novels

Read Glyn Dillon's The Nao Of Brown in one sumptuous sitting last night. It's been (quite rightly) called the best work of 2012, and I can't think of anything (other than Chris Ware's Building Stories or the continuing Love & Rockets) that came close to it last year.

It's about a half-Japanese girl with murder urges, a washing machine repairman who resembles an anime character, Buddhism, and bad fathers. It's beyond proper description and so, so worth the Ł15 I paid for it.

Plus, if you buy it from Dillon (who was one of Deadline's bright young things, back in the day) he'll paint a watercolour sketch in it for you...

[sw2borshch]

Graphic Novels

For Christmas I got Marvels, Judge Dredd vs Aliens, Captain America: The New Deal, Charley's War: Death From Above & treat myself to Penguin: Pain and Prejudice (mustn't forget the 'd').

That Marvels, even though it's fairly old now, is really good stuff - looks beautiful, and such an obvious, but slept on idea - the impact of superheroes from the point of view of standard people.

The more Charley's War I (re)read, the more important I reckon it is.

[Bored Of Education]

Graphic Novels

Graphic novel about James Joyce's daughter wins Costa biography prize

[Jon]

Graphic Novels

Written by Mary Talbot and illustrated by her husband, Bryan Talbot, no less. Really pleased for them both. Is the Costa prize a prestigious one then?

sw2boro - good to hear that Marvels still holds up well. Haven't read it for years but it was a real revelation at the time and was probably the main reason that I started reading comics again. Never read Charley's War but always wanted too.

[Bored Of Education]

Graphic Novels

Written by Mary Talbot and illustrated by her husband, Bryan Talbot, no less. Really pleased for them both. Is the Costa prize a prestigious one then?

I don't know. It was announced on Radio 4's Front Row so I suppose it must be

[Jon]

Graphic Novels

So I've been doing a bit of reading up on these Costa awards. Turns out they are the new name of the Whitbread awards. (I say new but it changed its name a few years ago now.)

They name a winner in 5 categories, best novel, best first novel, best poetry, best biography and best chidren's book. They then choose the best overall winner. How on earth can you pick the best overall winner from such a diverse range of categories? And with Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winner one of the nominated 5, who on earth is going to bet against her?

[johnr]

Graphic Novels

Bored of Education wrote:

Written by Mary Talbot and illustrated by her husband, Bryan Talbot, no less. Really pleased for them both. Is the Costa prize a prestigious one then?

I don't know. It was announced on Radio 4's Front Row so I suppose it must be

I'm pleased for them too, not least because Bryan has very kindly agreed to write the foreword and design the cover of Brighton - The Graphic Novel for a non-profit organisation that I work for...he's a lovely man...

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

Anyone else reading the new storyline in Walking Dead ?

For me, #105 was one of the greatest comics ever written, and that's counting issue #100. This new bit just keeps topping itself.

The thing is, Walking Dead captures what was great about pro wrestling back in the day. I have to think the creator grew up watching it, especially with the nod to it during the Governor storyline.

You have the babyface, you introduce the heel, and the babyface will either defeat the heel or not. This new heel is Ric Flair mixed with the Undertaker. Just very visceral, gut-level storytelling.

Also have been loving Fatale beyond belief. As a film noir dude, they take the essence of a femme fatale: vulnerable, sexy, able to get a sad sack to do her bidding with one look of the eye...and make it due to a demonic curse. The storytelling is the best of supernatural storytelling throughout the years, from Lovecraft in the turn of the century to the Manson killings in the 60s.

Have also loved the webcomic of Crossed, which is called Wish You Were Here. When Crossed is at its best, it's not grande guignol shock (Family Values, Psychopath,) but sets up great characters up against the most evil and terrifying heels of all time. Wish You Were Here is the best of it, setting up the story in the fog-encrusted islands of northern Scotland.

[Crusoe]

Graphic Novels

jasoń voorhees wrote: Have also loved the webcomic of Crossed, which is called Wish You Were Here. When Crossed is at its best, it's not grande guignol shock (Family Values, Psychopath,) but sets up great characters up against the most evil and terrifying heels of all time. Wish You Were Here is the best of it, setting up the story in the fog-encrusted islands of northern Scotland.

Gah. Crossed is car-crash reading for me. It turns my stomach but I can't not look.

[jason voorhees]

Graphic Novels

Here's all the chapters of Wish You Were Here.

Complete with car crashes.

[sw2borshch]

Graphic Novels

I've just been reading those Crossed's. That's good, but nasty, stuff, that, like.

Walking Dead I'm reading as the big thick compendiums come out, after my mate's read them. But if you have a 360/PS3 you should play the game too.