in house dollar bill thumbnail
In-House Image
 Total: 42,991 books
 New: 155 books




small login logo

Please enter your details to login and enjoy all the fun of the fair!

Not a member? Join us here. Everything is FREE and ALWAYS will be.

Forgotten your login details? No problem, you can get your password back here.

Watcha Readin'?

Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 27

topic icon Author Topic: Watcha Readin'?  (Read 152005 times)

Drusilla lives!

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #450 on: March 06, 2016, 11:59:06 PM »

Finished off Wood's "Cannon" after many months of picking it up, reading a few pages, and then setting it aside.   A truly sad, depressing end to one of my favorite comic book artists of all time.  :(

I spent most of the time trying to guess which artist was helping him out with the penciling and inking.  There's even one or two pages where I think Romita Sr. might have helped.  Weird.
ip icon Logged

Morgus

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #451 on: March 16, 2016, 08:49:09 AM »

Man, do I know what you mean...I had a shot years ago to buy the whole thing at a really HUGE price, and was pretty excited. A friend lent me his copy to read, to find out if I liked it first before sinking in the money...I'm glad I did...it was not the kind of collection you would read for pleasure, or maybe even more then once. So very sad. I kept thinking back to that comment he made about how at the end he wished he had lost his hands rather then go through what he had...I wished he could have gotten help. Retired happy. But none of it was to be...
ip icon Logged

Drusilla lives!

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #452 on: March 18, 2016, 12:43:09 AM »

To be honest, I don't know what was more disturbing... the work itself... or the letter Wood wrote to some publisher named Koch (which was reprinted with the collection). 

As far as being a "last work" goes, I suppose this, the first few issues of Witzend, his "Misfits" and his early "Sally Forth" stuff is better considered as that then what came later, in his darkest days... that stuff IS truly horrible and should respectfully be forgotten in my opinion.   

Wood's end is one reason why I like the idea of there being a Hero's Initiative organization nowadays.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 12:56:46 AM by Drusilla lives! »
ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #453 on: March 30, 2016, 01:30:15 AM »

I'm re-reading "the Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" by Paul Malmont.
This is a really cool book for anyone interested in the old pulps. The main characters are the pulp fiction authors including the authors of the Shadow and Doc Savage and much of the story is told from the perspective of a very young Ron L Hubbard as the pulp fiction writers find themselves drawn into a deadly mystery beginning with the untimely death and even more untimely resurrection of H P Lovecraft.

There's a lot of interesting history of publishers of the pulps as well as the writers and cover artists.
ip icon Logged

crashryan

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #454 on: July 01, 2016, 04:45:54 AM »

I've seen the Thin Man movies several times but I'd never read Dashiell Hammett's original novel. So I did. I enjoyed it immensely. The first film is pretty faithful to the book. However I was struck by a couple of differences between the book and the movie versions of Nick Charles.

While Nick and Nora do their sleuthing among the idle rich, as in the movies, Nick himself is a retired man of the blue-collar streets. In fact, he talks with exactly the tired, impatient cadence of Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. The book came out years before Bogart hit it big (1933), but it's Bogey who speaks the dialogue. Nick describes how he left California and the detective game behind once he married into Nora's money. Obviously his detective days were spent in the tough underworld of Sam Spade, and he's happy to be shut of it. But he isn't as comfortable in the upper class world as William Powell's Nick is.

Nora is much closer to Myrna Loy than Nick is to William Powell. She seems a little ditzy, but it's an act. Nora is impulsive, nosy, and strong-willed and she's able to talk Nick into doing things he'd rather not. At the same time she's devoted to him. In a couple of scenes she nearly turns into a mother figure.

These are the scenes which make it clear that Nick is a hard-core alcoholic. Nick wakes with a hangover, perks up with a drink, drinks through the day and goes to bed with a nightcap. He's more interested in wheedling Nora into fixing him a cocktail than he is in describing the results of his investigation. It's not bleak, dark alcoholism; but neither is it the jokey, sparkling alcoholism of the films.

In fact the novel has very little of the movies' lighthearted Nick-and-Nora repartee. There are moments of wit and a number of good lines, but the story is played pretty straight. Hammett derives most of his fun from the odd characters, both upper- and lower-caste, who provide clues and act as suspects.

The mystery is good. I don't think I'd have figured it out, but of course having seen the movie I already knew the ending. The pacing is fast and the dialogue is good. The novel is well worth reading if you haven't.
ip icon Logged

crashryan

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #455 on: July 16, 2016, 03:41:21 AM »

I had my second cataract surgery and couldn't read for a week. I turned to my old friend, the Librivox collection. Librivox.org is a library of public domain audiobooks recorded by volunteers. Its hundreds of titles range from classics to cyclopedias, from s-f pulps to 18th-century romances. The readings vary in quality, but most are quite listenable (though it is very strange to hear a Tom Corbett book dramatized by an all-English cast).

Since all Librivox books are solidly in the public domain, 99% of them are very old. Few were published after 1920. That means many novels are overwritten and tedious. It was a rare treat to discover the 1905 novel A Yellow Journalist by Miriam Michelson. It's the first-person story of an ambitious woman who works her way up from cub reporter to city editor at a sensationalist San Francisco newspaper. The book is written in a fast-moving, breezy style that seems much more modern than other novels of the period.

Michelson was herself a reporter, and her descriptions of behind-the-scene newspapering have an authentic ring. We watch spunky Rhoda Massey snoop, bluff, cajole, and fib her way to the Big Scoop. It's reminiscent of The Front Page without that play's cynicism. Which doesn't mean Rhoda is altogether ethical. Rhoda's personality is refreshingly three-dimensional. Her impulse to get an exclusive at any cost frequently bumps into her conscience and she doesn't always make the noblest choice.

It's funny how the story seems almost contemporary--then you realize the cabs are horse-drawn and electricity is still competing with gaslight. Michelson addresses some of the problems of the day like corrupt trusts and workplace sexism. She doesn't preach, though. Rhoda simply charges forward and shows 'em a thing or two. Miriam Michelson obviously loved San Francisco. She writes several evocative descriptions of The City. It's sad to think that a couple of years later her City was wiped out by the big earthquake.

This is a popular novel and it isn't perfect. All the seemingly unrelated characters and incidents turn out to be interconnected, which is dramatically satisfying but not very believable. Rhoda's romance with a rival columnist reads like an afterthought. I guess back then you needed a romance to sell copies. But even in romance Rhoda remains Rhoda. She loves reporting as much as (more than, really) she loves Ted and basically dumps him when things start popping. By the time Ted reappears for the closing clinch, Rhoda has wrapped everything up all by herself.

I recommend A Yellow Journalist for a fun change of pace. It's read by Lee Ann Howlett and can be found here:

https://librivox.org/a-yellow-journalist-by-miriam-michelson/
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #456 on: July 17, 2016, 12:49:27 PM »

sounds cool
ip icon Logged

profh0011

  • Global Moderator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #457 on: October 06, 2016, 03:16:03 PM »

I've been re-reading some of my favorite comics from 20 years ago-- Steve Rude, Scott McCloud, currently Mike Allred. Every so often, somebody mentions "Lee & Kirby", and I usually tense up. But I have to realize... back then (the 90s), I didn't know the full truth, either. It was a long, slow time coming.

I don't know if anybody here's familiar with Mike Allred's work. It looks a lot like "Kirby & STONE". The thing is, what really sets his work apart, to a large degree, is the writing. The stuff he crams into his stories, the way they're structured, the dialogue... all of it, I think, could be described as "UNIQUE".

I have not read ONE single word criticising his dialogue. NOT ONE.

Believe me... it's STRANGER than Kirby's.

Which got me once again PISSED OFF thinking about all the brainwashed, BRAIN-DEAD "MMMS" types who continue to INSIST that "Kirby couldn't write", or "Kirby couldn't write dialogue", or "Kirby's dialogue was TERRIBLE!!!!"

Even people who F***ING ought to know better, like Steve Thompson (I kicked him off my FB list because he and one of his pals KEPT bad-mouthing Kirby's dialogue on his page, then INSISTED "this isn't the place to argue that" when I offered an opposing opinion).

This morning I ran across a mention of Erik Larsen on one of the letters pages of "THE ATOMICS". Oh geez. Like I need that.

I still remember when Larsen ATTACKED me on Christmas morning. CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!!! I haven't seen him since. I wonder why that is? No I don't.

"BLOCK".
ip icon Logged

josemas

  • VIP & JVJ Project Member
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #458 on: February 04, 2017, 06:44:35 PM »

Books read this past month-

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo- by Amy Schumer   I must confess that the only thing I knew Schumer from was her film Trainwreck and just picked up this book on a whim at the local library.  It's made me curious enough to check out more of her work.

MacArthur's War- by Bevin ALexander  Gives the basics on MacArthur running afoul of President Truman during the Korean war.

Mexicana: Vintage Mexican Graphics- edited by Jim Heimann  Picture book features an interesting assortment of artistic images of popular culture (almost all seem to be from the twentieth century prior to 1960) from advertisements for various products, travel brochures, movie promotions, bull fights and more.

Elvis in Hollywood- by Steve Pond  Mostly a picture book on Elvis's first film.

End of Watch- by Stephen King   The conclusion of the Bill Hodges trilogy.   While the first one (the best of the three, IMHO) was pretty much a straight thriller, King has moved to more familiar territory with this one which features elements of telekinesis and mind control.

Happy Birthday to You!- by Dr. Seuss   I started working my way through Seuss's books last year in a, more or less, chronological order.  This one I found rather disappointing but then it did come on the tails of two of his most popular books (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat) so it had a hard act to follow

Chasing Darkness-  Robert Crais   Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.  Good stuff.

Pop Twenty Vol 1- Edited by Bob Birchard  An assortment of pieces on film, television and music of the 20th century. Mostly concentrates on the pre 1970 years.  Kept my interest.

ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #459 on: February 09, 2017, 07:55:19 PM »



It was a rare treat to discover the 1905 novel A Yellow Journalist by Miriam Michelson. It's the first-person story of an ambitious woman who works her way up from cub reporter to city editor at a sensationalist San Francisco newspaper. The book is written in a fast-moving, breezy style that seems much more modern than other novels of the period.

Michelson was herself a reporter, and her descriptions of behind-the-scene newspapering have an authentic ring. We watch spunky Rhoda Massey snoop, bluff, cajole, and fib her way to the Big Scoop. It's reminiscent of The Front Page without that play's cynicism. Which doesn't mean Rhoda is altogether ethical. Rhoda's personality is refreshingly three-dimensional. Her impulse to get an exclusive at any cost frequently bumps into her conscience and she doesn't always make the noblest choice.




When you wrote of this it sparked the memory of a book I was given for Christmas years ago but set aside and forgot. I was lucky to find it very quickly the first place I looked.

The title is "I Cover the Waterfront" by Max Miller. First published in 1932 its tells of Miller's first six years as a reporter of the goings on in the notorious San Diego waterfront district of his day.

My sister who was a crime reporter for a major newspaper for many years gave me this book.
ip icon Logged

bowers

  • Global Moderator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #460 on: April 25, 2017, 06:51:02 PM »

 Had a very long weekend so I've been catching up on my Brit comics. A good friend found me another picture library comic, and I enjoyed it so much I had to read several issues I had downloaded but not yet read. Time well spent. Cheers, Bowers
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #461 on: April 27, 2017, 01:52:27 AM »

I finished Chuck Dixon's second Hard Times book and immediately bought the third. I don't like time travel where the past/present/future can be changed. He does in a reasonable way. I have started Chris Nigro's Dargolla
ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #462 on: July 23, 2017, 03:23:07 AM »

Just about halfway through "Weird Shadows over Innsmouth", a collection of H P Lovecraft inspired stories. The first story is a fragmentary rough first draft of Shadows over Innsmouth written by H P himself.

Stories so far are great. Extremely spooky to downright disturbing. I don't doubt less jaded readers would lose a lot of sleep after reading some of these.
ip icon Logged

Florian R. Guillon

message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #463 on: July 23, 2017, 09:20:24 AM »

This past week, I read Golden Age Greats #2 (an all-Phantom Lady issue), a bit of Essential Tomb of Dracula #3 , El Mesias, Une s
ip icon Logged

The Australian Panther

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #464 on: July 23, 2017, 11:51:46 AM »

Just finished Walter Mosley's  'Rose Gold'. Mosley never disappoints.
Slowly working through Robin Lane Fox's biography of Alexander the Great. About the forth bio of Alexander the Macedonian I have read. Never get tired of it.
John Burdett's Bangkok Haunts the third Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep Book. Noir with a definite Asian Flavor.
Hank Wangford's Los(t) Cowboys - awesome book about the Spanish roots of the American (North and South) Cowboy tradition. A road trip from Buenos Aires to San Antonio. The book also introduced me to the epic poem about the Gaucho, Martin Fierro by Jose Hernandez.


ip icon Logged

paw broon

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #465 on: July 25, 2017, 04:34:45 PM »

A Panini Doctor Who GN which collects 6th Doctor stories from Doctor Who Magazine.  This one is vol. 2 and has some excellent b&w art by John Ridgeway. I'm about half way through and it's all good stuff.
Also, Vanished Railways of West Lothian, a big hardback about railway history of places I used to live and places close to me nowadays.  Passenger, freight (goods), mineral lines and tramways and how they developed because of the coal, minerals and shale oil all over this part of Scotland. Packed with photos and maps courtesy of National Library of Scotland. I bought this in the bookshop at the nearby Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway, a preserved line running steam trains and heritage diesels.
http://www.bkrailway.co.uk/
In between, I'm dipping in and out of the Rebellion collection of The Leopard from Lime Street. Just a smidgin of Messrs. Lee and Ditko in the origin.  The strip originally appeared in buster, a weekly kids comic and Billy (The Leopard) is 13.  Well told and drawn and, more importantly, good fun.
ip icon Logged

narfstar

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #466 on: July 25, 2017, 11:09:14 PM »

https://www.amazon.com/Alabaster-Kid-Slipknot-David-Noe/dp/1945667435/ I have not started the Slipknot side and am only part way through Alabaster Kid but it has been really good.
ip icon Logged

paw broon

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #467 on: November 12, 2017, 04:58:31 PM »

Batman '66 meets Wonder Woman '77, the collection. Really good fun.  Disengage brain, sit back and enjoy.
Wonder Woman meets The Bionic Woman. the collection.  Chalk and cheese compared to the Bats book.  Crude art makes the whole thing frustrating and hard to enjoy.  This should have been just right nostalgically and superherowise.  What a disappointment.
Scarlet Traces Vol. 2  (Edginton and D'Israeli)  Excellent and a great follow on from vol. 1.


                                             *****SPOILER ALERT*****

Shivers right at the start when a spaceship crash lands on Earth and 2 figures wearing very familiar spacesuits with the names Caroon and Greene on the back crawl from the ship. Quatermass rules!

As I'm currently struggling with the most colossal cold, all I can do apart from cough, splutter and feel like crap is read.  I'm just getting into A Very English Scandal by John Preston, which is a well researched account of the Jeremy Thorpe affair from the '60's/70's (Thorpe was a Liberal politician and became leader of the Liberal party in Westminster) This is a Wiki page:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Thorpe
Digitally, I have a pile of Rip Kirby stories to re-read and I keep dipping into them.
ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #468 on: February 05, 2018, 12:43:53 PM »

Found a book i got after christmas and set aside then forgot about till now.
Its "Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible, A Marvelous Memoir" by Stan Lee , Peter David and Colleen Doran.

A sort of biography of Stan Lee and history of his contribution to comics. All illustrated in color in the form of a graphic novel.
ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #469 on: June 18, 2019, 07:33:52 AM »

Just finished "The City of Endless Night" A Pendergast novel by Preston and Child.

Not bad, but more pacing more suited to a ninety minute 1970's TV crime drama than as a novel.

It strongly reminds me of the 60's (?) short story "Head Hunters of New York".
ip icon Logged

The Australian Panther

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #470 on: June 18, 2019, 01:52:03 PM »

I read the Peter David Book, not in detail, skimmed it. looked for certain elements. Looked entertaining. No question, Marvel wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for Stan Lee. 
Today I finished Mark Evanier's 'Kirby - King of Comics' It tells a somewhat different story.
One thing I was happy about with the last Avengers movie, if you scan the credits, Both Lee and Kirby are credited, Don Heck and Steve Englehart get a credit for Mantis and Starlin gets a credit for Thanos. I Won't spoil Evanier's book  for those who have yet to read it, but it turns out that the title 'King of Comics' came with some serious irony. Also, when I got to the last photo in the book, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Tears came to my eyes.
           
ip icon Logged

paw broon

  • Administrator
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #471 on: July 02, 2019, 03:01:45 PM »

Just finished the first book in the Scandrake series, Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom.  Set at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, Scandrake, a hunchback, is one of Thomas Cromwell's Commissioners and is sent of to the south coast to investigate a murder in the local monastery.  I think the author has done his research well and some of the descriptions of monastic life and the treatment of young initiates and servants makes for unpleasant reading.  A good story, well told, and I'll be off down the library to see if they have more of the series.
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/c-j-sansom/dissolution/9781447285830
ip icon Logged

Captain Audio

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #472 on: August 26, 2019, 10:04:26 PM »

Just finished "Hammett Unwritten".
Its a story based on the idea that the "Maltese Falcon" was based on an actual supernatural art object. Dashell Hammett had kept it as a keepsake of the case he's based his novel on. The various characters of the book and film he based on real crooks involved in that long ago crime.
He gives the bird away and finds he has lost the ability to write. He then spends decades trying to find out if the bird is real and to find it again.
ip icon Logged

The Australian Panther

  • VIP
message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #473 on: August 27, 2019, 04:58:57 AM »

I read far too much but a couple of choices to bring to your attention.
'Helsinki Blood' by James Thompson. Police Noir by an american writer from the south but set in Finland, where he lives. Not the first in the series, and I'm going to go back to read those. I described this to a bookseller friend of mine in this way. 'If you think of Rebus and Bosch books as a cold beer, this is like having a few shots of whisky.'
I am also looking at Europe Comics material and am currently reading Mika
« Last Edit: August 28, 2019, 01:32:33 AM by The Australian Panther »
ip icon Logged

Andrew999

message icon
Re: Watcha Readin'?
« Reply #474 on: August 27, 2019, 05:55:11 PM »

Hammett Unwritten sounds great - thanks for pointing me in the direction of that. I'm currently reading Mick Herron's Slough House series - strongly recommended.
ip icon Logged
Pages: 1 ... 17 18 [19] 20 21 ... 27
 

Comic Book Plus In-House Image
Mission and Disclaimer: The mission of Comic Book Plus is to present completely free of charge, and to the widest possible audience, popular cultural works of the past. These records are offered as a contribution to education and lifelong learning. They are historical documents reflecting the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. We at Comic Book Plus do not endorse the views expressed in these, which may contain content offensive to modern users.

We aim to house only content in the Public Domain. If you suspect that any of our material may be infringing copyright, then please use our contact page to let us know. So we can investigate further.