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[paw broon]

Strange, because I'm looking at them on the page right now.

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

Strange, because I'm looking at them on the page right now.

I can see them too.

Geo

[narfstar]

coming in fine now. I compared to filler to a full scan of Slade and would say pretty sure that it is the same artist. Lots of similarities. The slade story has a different layout and smaller panels which too me makes it not look just alike.

[josemas]

The Shotgun Slade page loo0ks like Dan Spiegle to me, although I'd really have to see more pages to be really sure.  I'm not sure about the second story-again to see more would be helpful in making an educated guess.

Paw, do you have any of Dell's Maverick comics?  IIRC, those are all drawn by Spiegle and could be used for  comparison with the Shotgun Slade story.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Sorry for the tardiness of my replies, having terrible trouble with the new Firefox, (along with many others according to what I'm reading online)  Yes, I have a couple of issues but Maverick and Cheyenne are the 2 titles my pal isn't selling off, so I have to have a root about for them.  Bear with me, please.  Not sure about the same artist doing the 2 pages as the faces in the filler seem much more finely done.

O.K. found Maverick #16.  If Dan Spiegle did Maverick, then it looks so close to the art on Shotgun Slade.
Any advance on that?  ( Oh, by the way, the first Maverick story in this issue is rather good fun)

[josemas]

I've been reading a lot of graphic novels and tpb collections checked out of the local library lately.  Here's some quick comments on a half dozen series I've looked at in recent months.


Invincible tpb collections #1-4
The Astounding Wolf-Man tpb collections #1-3
The Walking Dead Book One HC collection

The above three series were all written by Robert Kirkman.

Invincible is the most "kid friendly'' of the bunch although it does have the occasional very violent sequence.  It's more or less a good take on a teenager acquiring superpowers.  Drawn in a somewhat cartoony style that works quite well on it by first Cory Walker and later Ryan Otley.

Astounding Wolf-Man has even more graphic violence sequences but is otherwise aimed at teens on up.  Story of a man who becomes a werewolf who tries to use his powers in a superhero manner.  Things don't always work out so well.  Also well drawn in a somewhat cartoony style by Jason Howard.

The Walking Dead is probably the series most people are familiar with due to the popular AMC TV Series that debuted last fall.  It was interesting noting both the similarities and differences between the show and the comic.  The comic is aimed at a somewhat older audience than the above two series with a bit more adult themes and language evident.  Drawn in a more realistic style by Tony Moore, initially, and later by Charlie Adlard. 

Y The Last Man Deluxe Edition #1-4 HC collections
Ex Machina tpb collections #1-2
Runaways tpb collections #1-2

These three series were all written by Brian Vaughan.  The first two are aimed at more adult audiences (with language/nudity etc..in them) while the last is aimed at kids on up.  All three are drawn in a fairly realistic manner. 

Runaways main artist is Adrian Alphonsa who has a style that doesn't use much spotting of blacks and relies a lot more on the colorists to help it along.  I'm kinda old school so it doesn't grab me as much as the other artist mentioned here. Story is about a group of kids who discover that their parents are really members of some sort of evil cult and who then runaway (hence the title) with some vague plan to try to stop them.  Trouble is that the parents have a lot of powerful people in their pockets and stopping them is going to be anything but easy even though most of the kids discover that they have various sorts of powers which will help then some.

Tony Harris brings his photo reference style very capably to Ex Machina which is the story of a wanna be superhero turned politician.

Y The Last Man is probably my favorite of all six series discussed here and its main artist is Pia Guerra and she has a nicely understated style that doesn't draw attention to itself but tells the story very well (think Johnny Craig).  Story is about the last man (and his monkey) left alive after a mysterious "plague" instantly wipes out all other males on the planet and of their travels and tribulations.  Develops a good cast of characters over time.

I would read more of all these series (and probably will as the library has more volumes of most of them).

Best

Joe

[bowers]

Just picked up Rocketeer Adventures #1, and was pretty impressed.  No real story, just three chapters from different artists and writers. Really loved the art in John Cassaday and Mike Kaluta's chapters. Mike Allred's chapter was just a bit crude on art, but had good writing. I was glad to see him bring back "Mr. Jonas" from the old Rocketeer's New York adventure. Kaluta's chapter also gave us some glimpses into Cliff's wartime adventures overseas- would really love to see these expanded upon. And , of course, a wonderful pinup of Betty by Jim Silke. All-in-all, a very nice tribute to Dave Steven's creation. Putting this one on my pull list. Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

Rocketeer was not bad but I was not impressed enough to want more.

[paw broon]

I splashed out a bit and bought some Cowboy Picture Library issues from 1957/8 (Kit Carson, Davy Crockett, Buck Jones) and a seldom seen Western Picture Library from about the same period and this one features Mustang Gray and the Texas Rangers in Badmen and Comanches.  The other digest comic in the pile was a Princess Picture Library from 1966 -Uncle Lionel's Burglar Chase.  This a "girl's" comic, one of many that proliferated here for yonks and it's good fun and well illustrated.  All these titles are around 60 - 64 pages.  Between these and the Dells I've been buying, I'm getting really keen on westerns.
I loved Rocketeer the first time round so I'll try to find this one before I go on holiday.

[CharlieRock]

The Tick Omnibus v.1

Just finished re-re-reading The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturne

[josemas]

Scott Pilgrim's (Vol. 1) Little Life
Scott Pilgrim (Vol 2) Vs. the World
Scott Pilgrim (Vol 3) & the Infinite Sadness
Scott Pilgrim (Vol 4) Gets it Together
Scott Pilgrim (Vol 5) Vs. the Universe
Scott Pilgrim's (Vol 6) Finest Hour
-by Bryan Lee O'Malley-Oni Press-

To tell the truth I had never even heard of this series of manga sized graphic novels before the movie adaptation came out last year but when I made inquiries about it at my lcs at the time I was given a bit of information about it.
I found out that it was one of the more popular titles with the Millennial Generation and I glanced it over but passed on buying as O'Malley's very manga influenced style of art wasn't enough to entice me to purchase any.

Recently though I discovered that our local library conveniently had multiple copies of each volume so I decided to give them a read. 
The story goes back and forth from real life angst to like being in the middle of a wild video game which was a bit jarring at first but something I soon adjusted to.  O'Malley does a good job of building the characters and getting you interested and caring for them.  He is also a pretty good artist and you can even see him improving over the course of the hundreds of pages covered in these volumes even if his humorous manga style isn't my thing.  I can see where others might get into it more than me especially if they are manga fans but ultimately, for me, its just not quite my cup of tea.  Maybe its a generational thing. 

Best

Joe   

[narfstar]

I did not like the Scott Pilgrim movie so never tried the comics

[josemas]

I just watched the Scott Pilgrim movie on a library DVD a few days ago.  I thought that they did a very good job of transferring the characters to film and capturing the spirit of the books.  There are many scenes that look almost exactly like the panels in the graphic novels.  So in this case I would safely bet that if you did not like the movie than you won't like the graphic novels.

After watching the movie I ran it again with the commentary track featuring author O'Malley, the screenwriters and director (there are also three additional commentary tracks-two by various actors and one by the tech team but I didn't feel like getting that much background on the movie).  The commentary track was very interesting as I learned that the movie had been going through pre-production for several years during which time O'Malley was working on the last 3 or 4 GNs.  Several screen treatments came O'Malley's way for appraisal during this period and he ended up using some of the ideas that they came up with in the last few GNs.  There was a sort of back and forth-a symbiosis of sorts- going on between O'Malley and the screenwriters during this period.  One of the more interesting commentary tracks I've listened to recently.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Being just back from holiday in Netherlands, I'm slowly trying to "read" some of the comics I bought in Amsterdam and Hoorn.  While I don't read Dutch, I can get the gist of some of what's going on from my basic German, Scottish, and the pictures. Titles include:- various Kapitein Rob originals; various Eric de Noorman originals; various Lilliputs of Sigurd, Nick and others;  an old s.f. comic titled Mars Commandoes on Earth; and some beeldromans of Dick Bos, De Moker and Tom Wels.  Very exciting to find these and Het Gele Tekken in Hoorn is run by a great guy who was really up for a chat about Dutch and British comics.  Lots of American titles translated and in tpb format, plus Manga everywhere.
Might get to my lcs soon and check out what's on the shelf.

[narfstar]

sounds like fun stuff paw

[paw broon]

Yes, indeed, and while I don't want to pull a JVJ here, because his accounts of his Paris trips are just so entertaining, it was also the white asparagus season.  I love it so we ate it as often as possible - in soups, with excellent Dutch ham, on it's own with a light dressing, as an accompaniment to a number of dishes, and so on.  A jonge genever as an aperitif, then wine for Linda and one of the many delightful and intriguing Dutch beers for me.  The other thing, which might turn some of you off, is the small, young herring, which is eaten raw, on its own or with tiny pieces of raw onion and in a bread roll with onion and/or pickles.  A great delight.  I always like to try eel and again, it didn't disappoint, either as a snack on bread or as a meal, fried in batter and served with those amazing dutch chips (fries) and mayo.  Sorry, this is completely off topic but all this plus comics is too much not to share.

[narfstar]

You just took all the fun out of it paw 

[narfstar]

The Girl in the Golden Atom by Ray Cummings is in the John Carter of Mars vein. There is nothing truly original so you read to find the unique aspects of the style and story. When I read Planet of Peril, I found almost nothing unique about Klien. It was so much like Brrroughs that it turned me off to trying any of his other books. To read Golden Atom you have to ignore the complete scientific impossibilities and other things. In this book a man shrinks to a sub atomic world and has adventures. One interesting aspect was that Cummings did not name the "full size" characters. He refers to them as: The Chemist, The Banker, The Big Businessman and The Very Young Man. Odd but appealing because of being different. And it is always stuff like The Very Young Man not just the Young Man. There are very rare instances of first names when they refer to each other. If you enjoyed Burroughs you might want to give this a try free at Gutenberg.org

[josemas]

I've been reading a bunch of collections and graphic novels-mostly stuff checked out pf my local library-over the last couple months.  Here's some of it-

Invincible-  I've really been getting into this superhero comic by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker from Image.  I believe I'm up to the 10th or 11th collected edition now (which must cover the first 50 plus issues of the comic) and I find myself enjoying it more than many of my favorites that I have been following for years.  The library still has a few more collections then I will be seriously considering adding this to my pull list at the LCS.

Irredeemable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause  Interesting storyline about a superman type hero gone bad and how the other heroes in the world try to stop his rampage.  So far I've only read the first two collections (8 issues) from Boom.

The Unknown by Mark Waid and Minck Oosterveer   Another Boom series written by Waid.  This one's a mystery storyline with some supernatural elements.  Some nice noir moments.  Have read the first two collections so far.

Mutant Texas:Tales of Ida Red (Vol 1) by Paul Dini and J. Bone   Funny comic-adventure done in an animated style.  Would like to see more.

Chew: Volume One: Taster's Choice by John Layman & Rob Guilloney  Comic cop procedural.  I enjoyed this one enough that I snagged volume two soon after and am reading it now.

Birds of Prey: Perfest Pitch by Gail Simone and co.   I've heard several of youse guys praise this DC series so I decided to see if the library had any samples and guess what?  They seem to have collections of just about all of the Simone written issues plus a couple others so it looks like I'll be reading my way through those for a bit.

Steve Ditko:Edge of Genius   One of Greg Theakston's Pure Imagination collections.  This one collects a nice chunk of Ditko's earliest work from 1953-1956  Some fine art indeed!

Justice League of America Archives Vol 6   by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and co. Collects issues #41-50 of the JLA's original run.  I remember several of these stories well from when I read them as a kid so this was a bit of a nostalgic read for me.  Bernie Sachs leaves as inker and is eventually replaced by Sid Greene by volume's end.  I always liked Greene's inking on both Sekowsky and later Dillin in the second half of the 1960s and was sorry when he left the title.

More to come.

best

Joe

[narfstar]

I have too much to read I do not need to start something like Invincible or Irredemable even though I would probably like the. I have read Mutant Texas and also wanted more. I highly recommend it. I have almost all the JLA comics. I am one of those who has recommended Birds of Prey and am upset Simone will not be doing it. I hope here Firestorm is good.

[josemas]

Here's few more of the collections/graphic novels that I've been reading.

Fables Volume 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham, L. Medina and co.   This one has been recommended to me several times and I finally snagged the first collection at the library.  Excellent!  I have volume two on reserve now.

Movie Comics   Another collection from Pure Imagination.  Most of Greg Theakston's books are centered around a particular artist but occasionally he builds them around a group of artists with something in common or in this case around a particular theme.  Nice work from Fawcett and Dell featuring art by Kurt Schaffenberger, Gil Kane, George Evans, Al Williamson, Gene Colan and Russ Manning.

Polly and the Pirates and Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh   Both of these books by Naifeh are published by Oni Press and both feature young girls as their protagonists.  The first is a Victorian era adventure tale and the later a Spiderwicke Chronicles sort of storyline.  Both are fun reads for kids of all ages.

All for now

Joe

[paw broon]

I'm currently savouring vol.3 of Hermes Phantom dailies. In between doses of Ghost Who Walks, I read a couple of Dells and I'm dipping in and out of some old French titles from my collection.

[narfstar]

Just got a book at BAM for a buck called
IT'S NOT NEWS, IT'S FARK
How the mass media tries to pass off crap as news.

Just read a little so far but it rings so true. This is a book I think most here would get into.

[josemas]

As a kid I remember reading the many paperback collections of comic strips that were published as often as I read comic books.  If anything these were passed around even more commonly among the kids at school.  Many volumes of Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, B.C., Beetle Bailey, Family Circus, etc...   Heck I even first encountered Mad via paperback collections well before I found the magazine on the newsstands.
Today I still find myself enjoying reading these collections and there are a plethora of them-both of recent strips and vintage strips.  Here's a few I've recently read.

Krazy and Ignatz: A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy:1935-1936- by George Herriman- Fantagraphics-   The folks at Fantagraphics have done a great service finally getting into print the entire run (picking up where Eclipse left off when they started the series some years back) of Herriman's Krazy Kat Sunday pages.  I have them all and have been slowly doling them out to read and savoring every page as I go through them.  Now I can only hope that they'll tackle the project of reprinting Herriman's daily run of the strip.  Highly recommended!

Cats and Dogs: Mutts II and Mutts III: More Shtuff- by Patrick McDonnell- Andrews McMeel Pub.-   Mutts is probably my favorite current strip.  McDonnell's sense of humor, his writing, his art, his homages to images from popular culture from decades past are all things that I find immensely appealing about this strip.  I also much prefer these collections to reading it in my local paper as the the newspaper reproduces it so small that it is a pain to read while in these volumes it is reprinted clearly and at a comfortable size for reading.  Highly recommended!

Flash Gordon Volume 7- by Alex Raymond (and Austin Briggs)- Checker Book Pub.-   I first encountered Alex Raymond's version of Flash Gordon via those wonderful B/W volumes from Nostalgia Press that came out in the 1960s.  Over the years I guess I must have read a good chunk of Raymond's work on the strip but never his complete run until I picked up these Checker Book reprints.  Some wonderful art in these volumes (even if the reproduction is variable) although I wouldn't put the space opera story-lines in the same category as Hal Foster's writing on Prince Valiant.  The last several months in this final volumes (which finish up a storyline started under Raymond) are illustrated by Raymond's assistant Austin Briggs (who took over the strip after Raymond entered the service during WWII) and who, if my eyes don't deceive me, also occasionally ghosted the strip here and there in the year or so prior to his takeover.  I'd give it a hearty recommendation but I'm hoping that one of the upcoming re-printings of the strip does a bit better job reproducing the strip.

Best

Joe

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

Flash Gordon Volume 7- by Alex Raymond (and Austin Briggs)- Checker Book Pub.-   I first encountered Alex Raymond's version of Flash Gordon via those wonderful B/W volumes from Nostalgia Press that came out in the 1960s.  Over the years I guess I must have read a good chunk of Raymond's work on the strip but never his complete run until I picked up these Checker Book reprints.  Some wonderful art in these volumes (even if the reproduction is variable) although I wouldn't put the space opera story-lines in the same category as Hal Foster's writing on Prince Valiant.  The last several months in this final volumes (which finish up a storyline started under Raymond) are illustrated by Raymond's assistant Austin Briggs (who took over the strip after Raymond entered the service during WWII) and who, if my eyes don't deceive me, also occasionally ghosted the strip here and there in the year or so prior to his takeover.  I'd give it a hearty recommendation but I'm hoping that one of the upcoming re-printings of the strip does a bit better job reproducing the strip.

Best

Joe

You must be talking about the The Complete Flash Gordon Library: On the Planet Mongo (Vol. 1) (Alex Raymond Sunday Strips) Hardcover coming out in March 2012 from Titan Books?

Geo