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Offline Snupes

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FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« on: August 18, 2015, 06:24:39 AM »
Why didn't I make one of these forever ago?

I've been reading the New 52 Batman run (2011 - ) (written by Scott Snyder, art Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion). The art is its weak point so far by far. It's not terrible, but at best it can really only be called "passable", less and less so the more humans there are in-panel. Once stuff gets weird, though, in issues #5 and #6, then the art actually starts getting interesting, mainly due to how they just start becoming exaggerated. However, assuming it goes back to being about regular Batman stuff, it's probably going to be bland unless Scarecrow shows up at some point. That I would be interested in.

The Court of Owls storyline has not been super fascinating, and...well, Batman summarized how I feel better than I could have.

In other news, I read Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (1988) (art by Brian Bolland) because it's a comic legend. It wasn't anything super special, but it was good. Has some great Joker art, as well as some of his best lines in the franchise. "You're doing what any sane man in your appalling circumstances would do. You're going mad." As well as the whole speech at Batman:

"You see, it doesn't matter if you catch me and send me to the asylum...Gordon's been driven mad. I've proved my point. I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else. All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up like a flying rat?"

Finally, the wonderful "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" line that assured the Joker would have a hundred thousand backstories from that day forward.

That's all for now, but I plan to keep this updated. But we all know how well that works out.

Any other fellow comic nerds, feel free.
There are cigarettes in joints. You don't smoke it by itself.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2015, 08:03:53 AM »
Good thread idea, Snupes! I'll have a bunch of titles to talk about soon, hopefully.

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Offline Ghost Spaghetti

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Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2015, 04:22:39 PM »
I used to read Sonic the Comic back in the day. The last comic books/ graphic novels I read were Jericho seasons 3 and 4 of which the first was much better.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2015, 09:48:00 AM »
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth (1989)

Grant Morrison and Dave McKean team up to deliver a Batman story that isn't quite a Batman story, mainly because Morrison is more concerned with the origin story of the asylum itself, and its founder Amadeus Arkham's descent into madness and eventual hospitalisation there. In essence, the story takes the Arkham namesake back to its source, and adds a Lovecraftian (read: purple prose out the ass) take on the Batman character and his major villains. Morrison draws considerable inspiration not just from the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft's own life, but also from tarot, astrology, the works of Lewis Carroll, and even Wagner's late masterwork Parsifal. Meanwhile, Dave McKean's fantastically cold, dark, and industrial artwork, which is for me the real star of the show, paints the asylum in expressionist shadows, cold blues, and violent reds, framed in collages of rust and grime, bent nails, and old surgical tools. It has a very tactile quality because of its layeredness of materials, and the pencilled portions of the art avoid committing to solid lines, furthering the sensation of madness in the air, making pervasive its thoroughly Lovecraftian sensibilities.

Batman is, as you may have guessed, not the main character. Well, he is, but he shares top billing with Amadeus Arkham, through whose journal we learn of the founding of Arkham Asylum (which itself is arguably a main character) and the madness that consumed him the longer he stayed there. Their characters and arcs are also given a hint of the parallel, and while I will avoid spoilers it should be noted that the take Morrison offers on the psychology of Batman is much darker than in typical treatments. From page one, the question of his sanity lingers in the air, and only grows more urgent as he deals with the constant harassment of such villains as the Joker, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter, all very much reimagined in design while maintaining their essential qualities. It's in the lettering also that these characters really come to life, Gaspar Saladino uses distinctive lettering for each speaking character, from Batman's inverted black-on-white speech bubbles, to Joker's red free-form scrawl.

While Morrison's text can come across ham-fisted (and it should be made clear that this could either be knowing homage to Lovecraft or simply his own shortcomings — based on previous experiences of his work I'm going to say it's a little bit of both) it is brimming with fascinating ideas and revolves around a dense network of symbols and references, bringing the world and myth of Arkham to an elevated level of vividness, and is also great simply to look at thanks to Saladino's fantastic lettering. As I said before, McKean's artwork is the main draw, every panel so full of character as to make all one-hundred pages work simply as a visual feast, and not just the panels but the great composition of each page, which is always strikingly detailed.

So, I really like it. I'm a big fan of Batman, particularly more psychological takes on the character like The Killing Joke, which also gives a great take on the Joker, and this one is kind of in the same vein, taken to what may be extremes for some people. If it sounds like something you'd enjoy, definitely check it out, but if you're looking for the typical “Batman is a badass genius who kicks everyone's ass because Batman” kind of story, you'll probably want to give this one a miss.

Saddam Hussein

Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2015, 02:05:11 AM »
By popular demand, I have read Watchmen, and by kind-of-popular demand, I will now review it.  Before I do, though, I should mention that when this was first recommended to me, I wasn't too keen on reading it.  That was largely due to the shadow cast by its writer, Alan Moore.  I know that we have some Moore fans here, and they have voiced their strong disagreement with me whenever I've touched on this subject before, but it's my honest opinion that Moore comes across as arrogant, pretentious, far too self-serious, and an all-around bitter and grumpy old hipster.  The kind of person who simply "hates fun," to paraphrase beardo.  So I wasn't all that optimistic about this comic, so widely touted as the ultimate deconstruction of superheroes, and vaguely wondered if it was going to be something like Birdman, where their idea of parody was turning to the camera every five minutes and saying, "Hey, superheroes are stupid!"

I needn't have worried.  Watchmen is indeed a deconstruction of capeshit, but one that's consistently smart, entertaining, suspenseful, and never so shallow or petty as to simply sneer at the genre it's riffing.  The characters are the best part, with every one of them being memorable and distinctive in their own right, and a different "take" on superheroes, so to speak.  Nite Owl is basically what would happen if Batman woke up one day and realized that what he was doing was pretty silly, Ozymandias and the Silk Spectre turn themselves into franchises in true capitalist fashion, Rorschach is the unpleasant, yet logical conclusion of what one of those simplistic superheroes from the Golden Age of Comics would eventually end up being like, etc.  Speaking of Rorschach, the shit-ton of mockery that the Internet recently piled on Ted Cruz for saying that he was one of his favorite superheroes really wasn't deserved.  I never thought I'd be sticking up for Cruz, but for fuck's sake, Internet, he didn't say that Rorschach was his role model, or someone that he wanted to hang around with.  Is there some new rule that we can only like characters if we personally agree with everything they say and do?

If I have a problem with Watchmen, then it's in the last few issues.  I don't like how Ozymandias is portrayed once it's revealed that he's the main antagonist.  It's hard to describe my issue with him, but the best way to summarize it briefly would simply be that Moore is too soft on him.  The harsh, realistic "rules" that govern Rorschach, Nite Owl, and the other heroes don't seem to apply to him, and it feels like the internal consistency of the story's logic is sacrificed to show off just how awesome, cool, badass, and untouchable he is.  He's almost like a villainous Mary Sue.  Also, his scheme is nowhere near as brilliant and flawless as everyone treats it.  It's reliant on quite a few major assumptions on what the governments of the world will and won't do in response to the crisis he creates, and its eventual success feels more like a result of luck than careful planning.

But like I said, that's really my one big criticism.  This was fantastic, and it's easily the best comic I've read so far.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2015, 02:10:25 AM by Saddam Hussein »

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #5 on: August 27, 2015, 01:35:59 PM »
Secret Wars (1984)

One of Marvel's big event comics from back in the day, and also one of the most hilarious examples of bad comic book dialogue I've ever read. I don't really have much to say about it other than the story is a bit of a slog that tries to tell a lot of little stories in addition to the main plot and has the feeling of meandering without purpose. The art is perfectly okay for the most part, sometimes the facial expressions of the characters combined with the terrible dialogue have me laughing out loud for minutes at a time. I think this will probably appeal to people who like DragonBall Z, it has the same kind of enjoyably idiotic quality, but it's not really worthwhile otherwise.

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Offline Snupes

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Re: FES Comic/Graphic Novel Club
« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2015, 06:28:36 AM »
The Rise of Apocalypse (1997/1998, written by Terry Kavanagh/James Felder, art by several)

Basically a miniseries, four issues, detailing Apocalypse's birth and rise. I loved these comics as a kid, so I was excited to revisit it.

Too bad that, holy fuck, it's horrible. It's got bad dialogue, atrociously bad exposition where characters narrate their every action, bizarrely bad art...all it has is a good concept, but they could not seem to do anything with it. Fortunately, the art improved in the final issue when Anthony Williams and Al Milgrom were contracted to help out, but the same can't be said for the writing.

Honestly, I don't have a lot more to say than that. It's not worth it. An hour not well-spent. I don't recommend this to anyone.

Also, I want to know how exactly the pharaoh pronounced this.
There are cigarettes in joints. You don't smoke it by itself.