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[josemas]

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

Yes, I believe that is the one I've seen referenced.  As I understand they will be reprinting the Flash Gordon Sunday strips along with the Jungle Jim topper this time.

Best

Joe

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

Yes, I believe that is the one I've seen referenced.  As I understand they will be reprinting the Flash Gordon Sunday strips along with the Jungle Jim topper this time.

Best

Joe

What's different about this series is it will be in Full Color and they will be doing the whole series, starting with Raymond, then Raboy and finally Dan Berry (maybe this time around). That what I look forward to as I have the black and white series right now.

Geo

[josemas]

What's different about this series is it will be in Full Color and they will be doing the whole series, starting with Raymond, then Raboy and finally Dan Berry (maybe this time around). That what I look forward to as I have the black and white series right now.

Geo

I knew that the upcoming project was going to be in color (the previous Kitchen Sink and Checker Book printings of the Raymond strips were also in color) but I did not know that they were planning on reprinting the FG Sunday strip past the Raymond era.   That's very cool.
I'm currently slowly working my way through Dark Horse's B/W reprints of the Raboy era but maybe I should put 'em aside and wait for this color version?

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

The Hermes Phantom reprints vol. 3.  
Today I received a small pile of British newspaper strip reprints from ADCCC.  Some Paul Temple, Buck Ryan and a lovely Tug Transom by Holdaway and Sindall.  So, that'll keep me busy for a while.
OOps, modifying this to read:- Tug Transom by O'Donnell and Sindall.  Too excited and got carried away.

[josemas]

Vintage reprints-

Nancy Vol 1 and Little Lulu Vol;. 25: The Burglar Proof Club House and Other Stories-   One of my great pleasures in comic reading the last few years has been finally getting to immerse myself in the wonderful works of John Stanley.  While I had known something of his work for decades I had never really tried tracking down and studying his much praised comics.  Now thanks to the reprints from Dark Horse and Drawn and Quarterly there are probably somewhere between 6000-7000 pages of his material now back in print (with more on the way).

Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era: Strange Tales Vol. 3 and Tales to Astonish Vol. 2-   Some of my favorite GA collections being reprinted are these Atlas Era reprint volumes which show off the incredible diversity of artists and material that the company published in the 1950s.

Crypt of Horror Vol 4 and Men of Mystery Vol. 81-  Until I discovered GAC and DCM one of my main sources for GA material was reprints like these from Bill Black's AC Comics.  Even with the rich diversity of GAC/DCM I still like having these volumes to include among my bed time reading.


Some more collections from the library-

Invincible and The Walking Dead-  I'm now 14 volumes into the former up to volume 5 in the later (TWD is much more in demand at the library due to the popularity of the TV series and thus it takes longer to get the volumes for reading).  Really enjoying Kirkman's writing.  Lots of time spent on building the characters. 
One thing that has struck me on Invincible is how graphic the violence can be at times.  TWD can be gory too but because it is in B/W and obviously aimed at an older audience it doesn't seem nearly as jarring to me.  Maybe it's because I was raised on comic code approved Silver Age superheroes that when I see intestines flying, bones sticking out and faces graphically smashed in (in bright four colors)  I'm taken aback.   I also find it strange that while the comic has these occasional forays into "unrated" violence territory it is pretty circumspect about sex and nudity (usually in the PG-PG13 territory).

Birds of Prey-  I'm a couple more GN collections into this series (which I still have several of you guys here to thank for recommending).  Found one early Chuck Dixon written collection (with nice art by Greg Land) and an early Gail Simone (her first?) collection.  Since they have virtually the whole Simone run at the library I'll be reading these for a while yet.

Invincible and Irredeemable-  While continuing along with Mark Waid's tale of a super-hero gone bad (through vol 4 currently) I found the first volume of his companion series about a super-villain gone straight.  Both are holding my interest.

Superman:Birthright-  Mark Waid's maxi-series take on the Superman origin grabs bits and pieces from a number of previous comic writers (as well as some influences from the movies) and puts it all together in a reasonably entertaining version of  said story.

Courtney Crumrin's Monstrous Holiday-  Another adventure of Ted Naifeh's spooky little girl and her mysterious uncle has them encountering werewolves and vampires and also weaving in a call for tolerance.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Mentioned this previously but it bears emphasising - The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurt.  I bought vol.2 in tpb last week and I'm half way through.  It really appeals to me.  A western with voodoo, monsters, shoot outs, mystery, adventure and a couple of interesting characters.
What with that and All Star Western, it's an exciting time. 

[josemas]

It's been awhile since I posted here but I've been continuing to check graphic novels and collections out of the library over the last several months.

Here's a quick look-

The Walking Dead- took me some time to get through these volumes of Robert Kitkman's because due to the popularity of the AMC TV series they are much in demand.  I've read up through volume 14 now and hope to get volume 15 sometime in the next couple months or so.

Have read more of Gail Simone's run of Birds of Prey and am generally pretty pleased with it.  Have also read a couple volumes of her run on Wonder Woman (just okay) and her first volumes of Secret Six and Welcome to Tranquility (enjoyed both).

Up to volume 7 of Mark Waid's Irredeemable and volume 4 of his Incorruptible.  Also read his Captain America: Man Out of Time.

A couple of DC/Vertigo crime graphic novels had nice noir feelings to them- Area 10 and Rat Catcher.

Other Vertigo titles sampled have included one volume each of American Vampire (Stephen King is one of the writers on this) and The Losers plus more volumes of Fables.  All interesting enough to have me checking out more if the library gets 'em in.

On a somewhat lighter side are a couple volumes of Troublemakers (so-so mystery-adventure from best-selling author Janet Evanovich) another volume of Chew (up to #4 on this series now), and Allison Dare: Little Miss Adventure (lots of fun).

Superman: Earth One J. Michael Straczynski's new take on Supe's origin- lotsa' hype and sales on this one but I thought it was just okay.

Dracula -this is Kurt Busiek's take on the character for Boom-revived into the modern world.  Only one volume so far.  Hasn't grabbed me yet but hasn't bored me either.

Green Lantern: No Fear-  I liked the story illustrated by Darwyn Cooke but have already forgotten most of the rest of the book.

The Hunter- adapted by Darwyn Cooke. The first of Donald Westlake's Parker novels gets a fine GN treatment by Cooke.  Looking forward to more of these!

Blankets by Craig Thompson  Took me a long time to get this one as it always seemed to have reserves on it.  Excellent, auto-biographical, very personal coming of age story.  Recommended!

Nola- I think this was a mini-series from Boom.  Somewhat interesting mystery set amidst the flooding of New Orleans a few years back.  Nothing great but an easy read.

Health Care Reform-  This GN kinda reminds me of some of those comic books put out by branches of the government in years past but this one is actually published by a mainstream publisher and written by some professor who was one of consultants on the health care reform that was done under Obama.  Illustrated by Eisner and Harvey nominated cartoonist Nathan Schreiber.  Does a pretty good job of making a complex issue pretty understandable.

Lewis and Clark-  Lewis Bettozzi does a very readable history of this pioneering expedition of early American history.

Phoenix: A Tale of the Future by Osama Tezuka   I'm just now starting to sample some of the many manga volumes at the library and am starting with one of the masters- Tezuka (Astro Boy) whom I have read before.  Excellent volume.

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol 1: 1930-1932: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson.  Wonderful volume!  Got to pick up a copy of this one up for myself.  Highly recommended!

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

ROBOTECH: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL  (1986)

Decided to try reading this BEFORE reading MACROSS #1, since it's supposed to be a prequel. I read both when they came out, this time I figured, why not read them "in sequence".

The problem is, coming strraight off ther MACROSS movie, this book is a near-incoherent, EXCESSIVELY complex and convoluted mess. Carl Macek has a lot to answer for. The force-fit of 3 unrelated TV series was at the expense of ALL of them.  The biggest casualty was taking one of the most fascinating concepts of the original show, and mutating it into something else entirely, so one of the fundamental ideas of the series is completely lost.

I could NEVER figure out what the HELL "protoculture" was supposed to be while watching ROBOTECH, and now that I've read this graphic novel again, and understand what they turned it into, I'm very unhappy and disappointed.

This all makes me wish I had some version of the original MACROSS tv series on tape... instead of the American ROBOTECH version.


On top of all that, I had some minor problems with the inking (Ken Steacy), and major ones with the coloring (Tom Vincent). It really hurts when you look at something, and KNOW you can do better (and have) than someone who got PAID for it.

[narfstar]

Read the Hunger Games and really liked it. Took a little to get into with the first person writing but once I got to know Katniss and she let us in on the other characters it was a great read. I look forward to finishing the trilogy. I think that anyone who likes this will also like the Tripods trilogy and prequel by John Christopher. The White Mountains is my most read book ever. I am not one for reruns or re-reading but I would check this book out of the library to read every summer for several years. I did not know that there where to sequels for many years just sitting there beside it on the library shelves. I was thrilled when I discovered them. I have read them a few times now. Then the prequel came out and I was overjoyed. I have watched the BBC series a couple of times. Unfortunatly they stopped production after the second book.
If you think I loved the Tripod series you just might have gotten a clue. It may well be a result of my age at first reading but for whatever reason it is probably my all time favorite read.

[paw broon]

Tripods still has a bit of a cult following here.
Re-read a reprint volume of L' Asso di Picche (Ace of Spades or L'As de Piques, if you want to look out for the French translation)  the early Hugo Pratt costumed hero series.  Awfy good.  There are some covers here if you fancy a look:-
http://www.archivespratt.net/assodipicche.htm

[josemas]

Just read the latest Kick Ass miniseries. 

What really struck me about every issue was writer mark Millar's constant plugs for everything else he is writing. 

The guy even has this "MillarWorld" logo on covers and getting full page exposure inside the comics.

How full of yourself can you get! 

I found them a big distraction from actually reading the comics.

Tone it down, Dude!

Joe

[profh0011]

Yesterday... THE DEMON #1 again.  3rd time.  Had to read it twice in a row so I could write a coherent review.

Oh yeah, and here's the "restoration"...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yrE63C8vD-U/T3p7DCYi49I/AAAAAAAABc0/YSKhdeauFgo/s1600/Demon+01_cb_HK.jpg

Don't I have strange ideas of "fun"?

[paw broon]

"How full of yourself can you get!"  "Tone it down, Dude!"  josemas
Although I've never bought a Kick Ass comic, I have read some and I've had a look at Clint.  I don't understand the constant self-plugging either, nor do I understand, or like, the constant bad language.  It strikes me that he's not very original and does a lot of this for show, or to be controversial, or cover up his lack of depth.  But that's only my opinion.  He must have struck a chord somewhere.  

[paw broon]

"Don't I have strange ideas of "fun"?"  profh0011

Oh, I don't know, I'm happy reading comics, often more than once.  And that's a tasty cover.  What was the review for?

[josemas]

Yesterday... THE DEMON #1 again.  3rd time.  Had to read it twice in a row so I could write a coherent review.

Oh yeah, and here's the "restoration"...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yrE63C8vD-U/T3p7DCYi49I/AAAAAAAABc0/YSKhdeauFgo/s1600/Demon+01_cb_HK.jpg

Don't I have strange ideas of "fun"?

I remember buying that one off the stands.  Haven't read the original Kirby series in many years though.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

"What was the review for?"

That's what I meant by "fun". A few years back, I started re-reading all the Jack Kirby stories I had in my collection, in chronological order, from the beginning.  Most of these were repritns, of course. I worked thru really early stuff (thanks to Greg Theakston's reprints), Marvel, DC, post-war, the 50's, and eventually, 60's Marvel.  Even with the stuff in the 40's & 50's, I had been reading EVERY Marvel story I had (again, all reprints).  With the 60's stuff, it gave me a chance to read all those stories in sequence, to finally be able to experience all the inter-connected stuff in an order that made sense.

Somewhere around the 1967 issues, I started writing reviews which I posted on message boards. At some point I began re-posting them at Nick Simon's SILVER AGE MARVEL site (once I designed a format for the review pages).

The big question came when I got to when Kirby left to go to DC.  Which would I continue with?  Well, I was having such a blast, I kept going with the early-70's Marvel stuff. Until I ran out of steam (about one month before Gwen Stacy got killed, as it happens). Maybe a year or more went by, until, last summer, I dug out Kirby's early-70's DC stuff and started re-reading them, many for the first time in 30 years.  As I did, I also made a point of scanning in and doing "restorations" of EVERY cover.  I'd done this a lot with the 60's Marvel stuff, but never quite so systematically, in order.

Nick's site had gone down in March (and it took a couple months before he realized it wasn't coming back up, and HE had no interest in setting it up AGAIN).  So I started a blog, just to post cover restorations.

To keep it "simple", I posted the reviews separately... at Legion World, at several Yahoo grops I belonged to, via e-mail to various friends, and eventually, at Captain Comics.  What a surprise when the discussion at CC exploded into the most intelligent I'd run across in years.  (I made a point NOT to post at Masterworks.  There's just too many guys there who obsessively HATE Jack Kirby's work.  In fact, it was a "Fourth World" thread at Masterworks that inspired me to finally dig out the boosk myself.  The thing immeidately degenrated into a collection of hate and derision, and died after 3 pages.)

[paw broon]

You mention some sites I've never heard of.  Masterworks?  I'll have a look. It's surprising that there are so many who obsessively hate Kirby's work.   The subject does come up now and then at Glasgow marts and while there is discussion of just where he should be in the pantheon of greats, because some of us don't rate him as highly as do others, I can't think of anyone here who would hate his work.  Despite the huge fall off in quality of his later stuff.  When you think of some of the dross that has filled the pages of American comics over the years, to hate Kirby's work is worrying.

How do you find the time to write and post all those thoughts and opinions?  And still find time to read the damn things. 
That whole thing with writing reviews or doing a bit of research can be fun though.  My efforts, purely for my own amusement, of researching and listing obscure masked mystery men and costumed heroes has been good fun and now and then, someone needs a bit of info. that I have on my cards.  (note "cards".  It's been suggested that I run for chair of the local Luddite society - I really am that haunless with new technology)

[josemas]

You mention some sites I've never heard of.  Masterworks?  I'll have a look. It's surprising that there are so many who obsessively hate Kirby's work.   The subject does come up now and then at Glasgow marts and while there is discussion of just where he should be in the pantheon of greats, because some of us don't rate him as highly as do others, I can't think of anyone here who would hate his work.  Despite the huge fall off in quality of his later stuff.  When you think of some of the dross that has filled the pages of American comics over the years, to hate Kirby's work is worrying.

Paw, You ought to see how ugly things can get on some of those forums and boards when the Kirby haters get going against the Stan Lee haters.  I run for the hills!

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Actually, I'm not sure I do.  I once got into a bit of a rammy with another contributor on Chronicle Chamber and felt really bad about it, even though there was no vitriol in it.  I prefer an easy life and that's why this forum and DCM forum and a couple of others can be a delight.

[narfstar]

It has been the policy here and at DCM to always remain a friendly place to be.

[josemas]

It's been quite some time since I listed my current comic reading.

Here's what I got through in January.

Not reading too many floppies these days.  Only read 9 last month and some had been laying around for awhile.

Legion Lost #13-16 This DC title was one of the original New 52 and was cancelled some months ago.  The Lil Missus is the Legion fan so I originally picked them up for her then decided to read 'em myself later.  This was the wrap-up of the story of a group of Legionaries stranded i9n the 21st century.  Nothing special.

Justice League #26 and Forever Evil #4  Part of DC's current big storyline now.  These sort of things usually always seem way over-hyped to me.  It is keeping my interest slightly more than expected though.

Lobster Johnson: A Scent of Lotus#1-2  Really like the pulp feel of these various LJ one shots and short series.  I'm thinking of switching over to reading them in TPBs though.

DC Retroactive-JLA-The 80s #1-  This has been laying in my "to be read" pile for 2 or 3 years.  It does a good job of capturing the Justice League:Detroit era which isn't one of my favorite JLA periods (which is probably why it set unread for such a while).

Graphic novels and collections.

Finished up quite of few of these in January.  As usual thanks to my local library who was the source for the majority of titles read.  Here's the list-

Swallowing the Earth-Digital Manga Pub., Black Jack Vol 17-Vertical, The Twin Knights-Vertical   I have been reading a lot of Osamu Tezuka over the past year or so.  The guy is a lot more diverse than Astroboy and Kimba, the White Lion as these volumes amply show.  It's great to see more of his work becoming available to western audiences.  More good stuff for me to read too.

The Secret of the Unicorn-  I started rereading the Herge Tintin stories about a year ago.  Now hitting the best era, IMHO.  Great stuff.

Dan Dare-Pilot of the Future: Voyage to Venus Pt 1-  Wonderful 1950s sci-fi.  Frank Hampson and his studio were really pushing the bounds with their full color illustrations for this comic book series in the early 1950s.  It doesn't always work, due to the limitations of color registration of that time period, but when it does it looks wonderful.

Blackest Night: Green Lantern and Green Lantern Vol 2: The Revenge of Black Hand-  I've decided to try catching up on what's been going on with Green lantern in recent years as the library has quite a few volumes collecting his adventures,  They're generally quite well drawn (mainly by Doug Mahnke) although the Geoff Johns' stories are a bit grim at time for me.

Fables Vol 10: The Good Prince-  This is a wonderful series from DC/Vertigo. Written by Bill Willingham and primarily illustrated by Mark Buckingham. 

Get Jiro!-  Nicely illustrated but I couldn't get much  into the story about battling chefs in this DC/Vertigo GN

Roy Crane's Captain Easy:Soldier of Fortune Vol 2: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1936-1937-  I read these originally in NBM's black and white reprints some years back.  It's great though seeing them in color in this new Fantagraphics series.  Classic stuff!

The Walking Dead Vol 18: What Comes After-  Kirkman and Adlard continue to keep the storyline compelling reading.

Atlantis Mystery-  Paw has been plugging the Blake and Mortimer series for some time now so I took the plunge a few months ago and read The Yellow "M".  They're a fun mix of sci-fi and mystery.  I'm sure some will find them old-fashioned and a bit verbose but that did not bother me in the least.  I'm planning on checking out some of the later volumes done by those who succeeded the series' creator Edgar P. Jacobs.

Mutts: Sundays-  Patrick McDonell's newspaper strip is one of my favorites among current strips.  You can't go wrong with any of these collections, IMHO.

Warlord of Mars: Fall of Barsoom Vol 1-  Dynamite has done a pretty good job with their continuation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books.  I didn't find this one as good as some of the previous volumes I'd read though.

Samurai Executioner Vol 10: A Couple of Jette-  The final volume of this Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's series. Maybe not as classic as their Lone Wolf and Cub series but still good stuff.

Freud: An Illustrated Biography-   I've read a few graphic novel bios this past year. While this may not be the best (that would be Tezuka's multi-volume Buddha bio) it is interesting and creatively illustrated.

The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Vol 4: Dailies and Sundays 1936-1938-   Gould begins the move away from his thirties gangster stories toward his classic criminal era with the Blank story at the end of this volume.  The art begins to mature to what we think of as classic Gould as assistant Dick Moores leaves the strip too.

The Family Circus Vol 2: Dailies and Sundays !961-1963- by Bil Keane  When I was kid paperback reprints of newspaper strips were read by more kids than regular comic books.  I read my way through dozens of volumes.  Peanuts, B. C., Dennis the Menace and Family Circus were among the most popular.  This series from IDW is doing a great job of collecting the series chronologically with fine intros by Keane family members providing background on what was going on with Keane and the strip.

Saucer Country Vol 1: Run-  An interesting blend of politics/UFO/Aliens in the storyline of this DC/Vertigo title. Not sure where it's going yet.

Law of the Desert Born-  Tom Yeates illustrates this adaptation of the Louis Lamour story.  Excellent western. Recommended!

Legion of Super-Hero Archives Vol 6-  Mid 60s Legion.  Most written by Jim Shooter and and drawn by Curt Swan and George Klein.  Many consider this one of the best period's for DC's LSH stories.  I love the Swan/Klein art and definitely agree that the stories are pretty solid throughout this volume.  I've just never been a big Legion fan so can only get jazzed up so much over them.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

What a list Joe.  While I'm not reading American "floppies" much nowadays, I was impressed by your reaction to Dan Dare - it's so good. O.K. the stories might be to straight up and "play the game " for kids nowadays, but they are spectacular in their scope and the art is excellent.
As you are in Herge mode, I wonder if you fancy a look at Jije - Joseph Gillain - who  does/did some lovely stuff.  Problem is that there is very little in English.  One of his famous characters is Jerry Spring and you can read a couple of pages here:-
http://www.bdoubliees.com/journalspirou/series3/spring.htm
if you scroll down a couple of inches to "L'extrait" and click the highlighted line you'll get there.

I'm working my way through a small pile of Thriller Picture Library and Super Detective Library that I've been buying over the last couple of months and some WDL British reprints of Dell Movie Classics.

[narfstar]

I was disappointed by the conclusion to Saucer Country

[josemas]

As you are in Herge mode, I wonder if you fancy a look at Jije - Joseph Gillain - who  does/did some lovely stuff.  Problem is that there is very little in English.  One of his famous characters is Jerry Spring and you can read a couple of pages here:-
http://www.bdoubliees.com/journalspirou/series3/spring.htm
if you scroll down a couple of inches to "L'extrait" and click the highlighted line you'll get there.

Thanks for the link, Paw.  Looking it over I'll say that Joseph Gillain's Jerry Spring reminds me more of Jean Giraud's Lt. Blueberry (much of which I have in English editions) than any of Herge's work.  If it ever gets an English translation I'll be checking them out.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

I was disappointed by the conclusion to Saucer Country

Reading Volume 2 this month.  We'll see.

Best

Joe