I like comics, How 'bout you?

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:25 pm

sprunkner wrote:The ones I read seemed to be going in the direction of character substance... and then totally bombed it.

I don't think there'll be any real character progression. That's sorta the point of the reset after all.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:30 pm

I'm re-reading Watchmen now. I haven't read it in something like five years. Wow, it really does live up to its reputation.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:44 pm

Professor Smooth wrote:I'm re-reading Watchmen now. I haven't read it in something like five years. Wow, it really does live up to its reputation.

I purchased this at the weekend, felt a bit ignorant for having not read a piece of comic history.

I also picked up The Umbrella Academy, which is pretty awesome so far

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:32 pm

Watchmen > Everything Else

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:22 pm

Watchmen=Overrated

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:58 am

Yaya=Dodo Head

Post by **Best First** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:32 am

spiderfrommars wrote:Watchmen > Everything Else

I think i prefer Preacher.

And possibly Bone and Fables.

And maybe Dark Knight.

I'm not saying they are better tho, just that i prefer em. Like i prefer Serenity to Schindlers list.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:28 pm

Best First wrote: I'm not saying they are better tho, just that i prefer em. Like i prefer Serenity to Schindlers list.

Well put. Like comparing apples and oranges frankly. But I really like them apples.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:25 pm

Bone>Watchmen

Yaya=Dodo Head>>>Sprunkner

Just read the latest issue of The Initiative.

This title is awesome!

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:27 pm

Initiative=great.

Sprunkner.

No symbols. That's all it takes.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:01 am

Yaya wrote:Watchmen=Overrated

This post adds nothing to the discussion. You don't elaborate on why you feel it's overrated. You don't say anything about the work. It adds nothing. Some people posted about how they liked it and you popped in, made a snide comment, and popped back out. What good is that?

It's one of the great failings of the internet. Can you imagine this happening "in real life?"

You're at a party and people around you are talking about something. They discuss both the pros and cons of things, but stick mostly to discussing what they like. Then somebody sticks his head in, says two words, and then clams up again. While this seems unlikely to the point of hilarity, it's also quite rude.

I see that farther down you said that Bone > Watchmen. That's interesting, a defensible assertion, even if it is comparing two things that share nothing but a storytelling medium, but you do nothing of the sort.

It's upsetting.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:15 pm

To be fair, I started it off.

As much as some of the other titles suggested are examples of great comic work, I feel that the sheer scale, scope and detail of Watchmen owns everything else.

Every single panel of Watchmen is a story in itself. You can read it again and again and always find something new to cherish and discover in its tiniest details.

You've also got to take into account the time was written - the other examples (bar Dark Knight) come later.

In comparing it with Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen differs in that it was a less streamlined affair, with all new characters in a whole new world, and a multiple character study, with a minutely worked out back story. Moore asserts that if someone was to dress up in a mask and act like a vigelante he'd probably be a psychopath, and Knight, though rebooting and breathing fresh life into a solid franchise still can't counter that for me.

But I feel a **** for having to criticise one great comic to praise the other.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:45 pm

I never liked Dark Knight. Miller always seems to rely on ultraviolence for the sake of shock value, and in this case the character of Batman was only moved forward as far as the violence intensified.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:12 pm

That said, I dusted of DKR this evening (haven't picked it up in 6 years) and started rereading. Bruce/Batman is nuts, but in a good way. I mean, at least he still remembers to wash...

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:28 am

Professor Smooth wrote:

It's one of the great failings of the internet. Can you imagine this happening "in real life?"

It's upsetting.

Great failings of the internet?

What's there not to like when socially inept persons can chime in, add absolutely nothing of value, and then just chime on out having never been invited to the party.

Anway, I should say, that the Watchmen for it's time was something revolutionary, and deserves credit for bringing something new to the world of comic books.

But by todays standards, it's just another dark commentary on the realm of super heroes. What does the Watchmen give us that Marvels Ultimates hasn't?

Watchmen was the first in a long line of stories aimed at realism.

It deserves that much credit, but to be hailed as the greatest comic book ever written? Hogwash.

Again, Watchmen=Overrated, but deserves credit for getting the ball rolling.

Bone, on the other hand, takes me to a world unlike any of have ever read. It dares to mesh almost Disney-like qualities with a Lord of the Rings feel, and succeeds. It somehow, someway perfectly balances light-hearted humor with darker mature elements, without making the story feel likes its too jumbled or that it's just different stories brought together into one incohesive whole. And the characters? I find them to be amongst the most endearing of any I have read. Whereas Watchmen illicits a sense of forboding gloom and doom, Bone brings about a feeling of triumph.

You're right, they are two different stories, like comparing apples to oranges. But Bone just tastes so much better.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:28 am

Watchmen did something that I can't liken to any other comic book series in that it ran 12 issues and then finished. Forever. In those 12 issues we got the introductions to the characters, learned everything we needed to know about them, and were given enough "spare" info to discuss them long after the book ended. There's SO MUCH there.

While the characters are based on those from earlier books, they are still new characters. This is something that the denizens of the Ultimate Marvel books can not lay claim to. Ultimate Spider-Man is a damn fine read, but almost every issue of the run thus far has been a new take on an existing story. When you have 40 years of stories to mine for material, it's not tough for a good writer to put a new spin on it.

There's a reason that Watchmen made Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels list. It's because this superhero book, alone among all other superhero books, can be read like a novel. You don't need to have ever picked up a comic book before in order to enjoy the story and characters in Watchmen. In order to enjoy pretty much any Marvel or DC book, a significant investment into the medium and backstory needs to be made.

When you compare Watchmen to other great stories like Preacher, Bone or Sandman, you'll immediately notice a great size difference. Bone's run is huge and the collection is the size of the Tokyo phonebook. Sandman is 10 volumes plus a dozen or so spin-offs set in the same universe (and seems to take place in the DC Universe proper). Preacher also runs around a dozen volumes (including the collections of the Saint of Killers mini-series, the Arseface one-shot, etc). Watchmen is completely self-contained and doesn't need anything to help prop it up.

Watchmen, of course, also set the standard for all "adult-oriented" comics that would follow it. Much like the world contained within the series lives in the shadow of Manhattan, most of the notable comics to come out of the last two decades are living in the shadow of Watchmen.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 12:55 pm

I feel dirty typing it, and this is the absolute only time I will ever do so... and it only applies to this one instance, but...

Smooth FTW.

Watchmen is incomparable to Preacher in the same way that The Clash Singles Boxset is incomparable to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. Or The Blues Brothers to Six Feet Under.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:04 pm

Uh... which one is bad?

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:27 am

The one with the box on his head.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:57 am

sprunkner wrote:Uh... which one is bad?

Neither. They're both just completely different kinds of awesome.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:22 pm

Anyone read Mouse Guard?

It has been highly recommended to me from my comic store. The guy tells me if I liked Bone, I should like Mouse Guard as well.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 7:01 pm

Mice Templar is a thousand times better, and done by Michael Avon Oeming for a plus. I didn't like Mouse Guard after I read Mice Templar.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:37 pm

sprunkner wrote:Mice Templar is a thousand times better, and done by Michael Avon Oeming for a plus. I didn't like Mouse Guard after I read Mice Templar.

Hmmm. I'll think I'll take you up on this and check it out.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:22 pm

ok, so for those of you low down and dirty enough to still be buying ASM, how many of stories have genuinely benefitted from Pete being single?

Just because i don't like you doesn't mean i won't mine you for information.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:13 pm

Best First wrote:ok, so for those of you low down and dirty enough to still be buying ASM, how many of stories have genuinely benefitted from Pete being single?

Harry's girlfriend is flirting with him. So's Betty. There's a new superheroine Mary Jane lookalike. And I think there's a coroner he's got his eye on.

Er...

In any case, I wouldn't neccesarily argue with the decision to make him single. Just the way they did it.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 4:24 pm

I'm tempted by New Ways To Die... not tempted enough to buy it, though.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:27 am

Good man, good man.

To me, I don't think the problem is just Pete being single, or not being married, although that contributes to the background of the story. And no, I don't read the book, but I DO cull what I can from Spider-Man Podcasts, online reviews and forum posts....you know, what the kids like to call "spoilers". It's rebooting everyone's knowledge of who Spider-Man is, even way beyond pre Civil War levels that's making people drop the book. It's the 3 issues of a writer and an artist introducing a new villan rinse and repeat cycle that's making people drop the book. It's playing up the "good 'ol Parker luck" to the point where Peter isn't a hero, he's a loser that's making people drop the book.

I'm not saying that sales are plummeting (although they ARE at a steady decline, they just have a ways to go before they reach what ASM, SSM, and FNSM used to do in a month), I'm just saying that if they had done OMD, and changed everything they did, and then the "Spidey Braintrust" produced something that knocked everyone's socks off, we who don't read the book on principle would be a dying minority forced to either get on or leave Spidey behind.

Now, from what I've heard and culled from glancing at the end at my LCS (shhh!), "New Ways To Die" is good stuff. Stuff so good, in fact, that if it HAD been released at the start of BND, perhaps the scenario I described above might have come to pass. It's been hinted in NWTD that Peter knows something perhaps of the deal with Mephisto. When he sees the Goblin, he says something to the effect of, "He doesn't know who I am, that was part of the deal." So yeah, they're finally going to get around to explaining exactly what the f*** happened between OMD and BND and how it can fit into a supposedly realistic Marvel timeline, but to me it's like screwing the pooch and then waiting around for six months before you wash your c*** off.

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:42 am

Well, I'm reading the Swedish edition, and we have only just had the first storyline, by Slott and McNiven, and started on the one that introduces Jackpot.

It's... Actually pretty good. A+ for a nice fun reading-experience every month, ( one swedish issue is approximately 2-3 american ones) but it doesn't so far seem as if anyones trying to write a defining kind of Spider-man run or anything, mostly seems like the creators are having a wee bit of fun, in a kind of jam-session way.

And I'm still miffed that if they bothered to bring back the Osborn, that they didn't bring back the lovely Gwen. Bah.

And of course the fact that Kraven's Last Hunt can't possibly be in continuity any more...

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:51 am

New Ways to Die is certainly a step up from the previous stuff, but I stand by my earlier comment. ASM right now is like that one Spider-Man book that would come out every fourth week. The mini-series or one shot that was a fun little ride but had nothing to do with continuity.

I liked the JMS run. I had a bit of an issue with a major life-altering event happening to Peter every 6 months (like clockwork), but it I still enjoyed it. Even with all the changes, there wasn't much flip-flopping. Stuff would change and then OTHER stuff would change. It wouldn't necessarily change BACK.

However, what BND has done is show that, if stuff changes too much, it can all be erased with ease and just explained away later. I mean, Civil War gave us an unmasked Spider-Man. That was a DECADE of good stories. Peter would have to reconcile with or completely sever ties with everyone he's ever known. He'd have to try to get on with his life. Would his troubles with the law finally end? What would the stories about an openly Peter Parker Spider-Man who isn't wanted by the law be like?

I'm not sure that Marvel quite understands the boat they're in.

I dropped COMICS because of this. I was having my monthly comics mailed to me from the US to JAPAN. Spider-Man was like my anchor to the comic book world. Without caring about Spider-Man, I lost interest in monthly titles and switched over to buying trades from Amazon (at between 40 and 75 percent off).

Marvel is not going to get new readers on monthly (or tri-monthly books) books. It's just not going to happen. A month's worth of Spider-Man comics (25 minutes of reading material, TOPS) costs around 10 bucks. That's a couple of game rentals, a large chunk of a month of Netflix, a movie ticket, etc. There is NOTHING that Marvel can do to get new readers into comic shops.

From the very start, Joe Quesada has been all about getting NEW readers. It's all been about the new readers. And he's failed. Miserably. The larger numbers were returning readers. Readers who had dropped the books the last time Marvel pulled this (with the Clone Saga and Reboot).

I hate to sound like a broken record, but Marvel really doesn't seem to understand the shifting dynamic. The people that make the weekly trip to the comic shop and have pull lists put in more effort and money than is necessary for plenty of reasons, because something makes them WANT to. But it's certainly not because they NEED to. It's cheaper to get the trade off of Amazon, and it's FREE to read comics at any of a dozen sites. Marvel (and DC, and Image, and...) should be doing everything in their power to KEEP their readers, not continuously gamble them (and LOSE!) on new readers.

Marvel's money comes from movies now. Movies and licensing. Do whatever crazy stuff you want with the movies. Keep Spidey single and Iron Man heroic forever. But keep writing the comics that the comic buying public wants to read. Look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was a hit cartoon show, a line of cute action figures, and a breakfast cereal, but you could still buy in issue of the Mirage comic with Raphael breaking some guy's kneecaps!

But, in answer to your question, BF, no, there hasn't been anything that couldn't have been done with a single Peter Parker. Except lose me as a monthly customer, it seems.

Post by **Best First** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:32 pm

do you think they actually unmasked him in CW just to make his position so untenable they couyld justify pulling the crap they did?

Still, at least IDW haven't pulled the same crap with Transfor...oh.

Buffy was awesome this month. Yay Dark Horse.