Main Menu

Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

sheridan

Quote from: Apestrife on 25 May, 2018, 08:16:01 PM
Just got through League of extraordinary gentlemen Vol 1-3, Black Dossier and the Nemo trilogy in time for the last and 4th volume starting next month.


What now?  Fourth volume of League or Nemo?  Not heard about that yet!

The Adventurer

Quote from: sheridan on 04 June, 2018, 12:36:10 AM
Quote from: Apestrife on 25 May, 2018, 08:16:01 PM
Just got through League of extraordinary gentlemen Vol 1-3, Black Dossier and the Nemo trilogy in time for the last and 4th volume starting next month.


What now?  Fourth volume of League or Nemo?  Not heard about that yet!

Yup. Six issue series finale Coming in July.

Issue 1 Solicitation text
QuoteAfter an epic twenty-year journey through the entirety of human culture, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill conclude both their legendary League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and their equally legendary comic-book careers with the series' spectacular fourth and final volume, "The Tempest." This six-issue miniseries is a celebration of everything comics were, are, and could be. Opening simultaneously in the panic-stricken headquarters of British Military Intelligence, the fabled Ayesha's lost African city of Kor, and the domed citadel of 'We' on the devastated Earth of the year 2996, the dense and yet furiously-paced narrative hurtles like an express locomotive across the fictional globe. This is literally, and literarily, the story to end all stories. Here's how it begins.



Issue 2 Solicitation text
QuoteOpening with a 1919 death match between two American superhumans in the ruins of Utopia, the second issue of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's final volume of the beloved comic series takes its readers on a breath-taking ride over a waterfall of storytelling styles, from a startling 21st century Lincoln Island and its current incarnation of the legendary Captain Nemo, through a New York coping with an ageing costume-hero population, to a London where a drastic escalation is commenced by the rejuvenated sociopath controlling MI5. All this, and a further reprinted adventure of 1960s super-team The Seven Stars, awaits in issue two of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume IV: The Tempest.


THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

sheridan

That'll take us to the end of the year (assuming they get published one a month, which is quite a presumption for those of us who were on board from the first series!)

According to the press release from Gosh! this will be Alan and Kevin's last comics work.

sheridan

Quote from: sheridan on 04 June, 2018, 01:20:47 AM
That'll take us to the end of the year (assuming they get published one a month, which is quite a presumption for those of us who were on board from the first series!)

According to the press release from Gosh! this will be Alan and Kevin's last comics work.

(I know Alan has retired from comics before, but I think this is a first for Kev?)

Apestrife

Finished reading Charley's war omnibus 1-3 the other night. Insanely good. --That's all I have to say about that.

Not really. But I could go on forever on why it's such a fantastic read, especially in the really nicely collected books of late. I think what got me the most is how much Charley ages when faced with horrors. Especially with the memories of such which haunts him. Felt really sorry of the kid.

Colin YNWA

Just finished Bouncer by Jodorowsky and Francois Boucq and its 400 plus pages of hardcovered western delight. Okay so maybe the last two volumes included here (it collects the first 7 volumes of this French series) get a little over excited in developing different and interesting characters but even then is sustains it ability to entertain.

Its the tale of a one armed gunfighter, starting off as the bouncer (hence the terrible title) in a saloon in a deadend, backwater town. The town seems to only be there to support the rail road that goes through it, but in 'reality' seems to have enough going on around it to attract every greedy landowner and bandit in the state to its doors to hassle and molest the locals. And Bouncer is often all that stands in their way.

He's a great character too, like all good western heros riddled with guilt, flaws, a constantly broken heart and whiskey... he feels so much more vulernable than similar characters and really is a delight to read his tale. A tale awash with tension and high adventure and family striff that would have Shakespeare jotting down notes for ideas. Indeed the pull and tension of family are a common and well used theme throughout this volume.

Its hard bitten and dusty and not for the faint hearted, but by george its great. The art is just sublime and Moebius on Blueberryesque, just hot and hard and with storytelling and character just supremely delievered. Often the pages are left with little or no text as the art just pulls you along with the story and its inhabitants.

Basically if you like western comics and don't own this you are missing something vital from your collection.


Professor Bear

I was at the merger point in my 1980s Eagle re-read and figured I may as well do a complete read of the SCREAM! run, seeing as there's only 15 issues to track down, and its abrupt ending certainly left me wanting more than the Eagle's continuation of the 13th Floor and Monster storylines - though there's some (unlettered) pages of Eric Bradbury's Dracula File from what would have been Scream! #17 in the back of Hibernia's collection of the strip, should you be able to track down a copy.
Unlike other decades-old UK comics I've dipped into over the years - like The Crunch and Tornado - Scream! has a consistency of vision that made it feel like a book that was taken before its time, and given the enduring love of all things ghastly and gross that continues even into modern children's comics like the Phoenix, it feels like this could still be going today if IPC hadn't decided to teach striking plebs a lesson, and if it hadn't matured alongside its existing readers like 2000ad did.  I know that sounds like a bit of a balancing act, but I think it could have been pulled off given how many other supernatural-themed comics would emerge over the decades after Scream! folded, particularly in Eagle and 2000ad, but even as filler in odd places in Fleetway/IPC's roster, like that vampire story in Wildcat, or that creepy as fuck thing about the evil doll in toy tie-in The Supernaturals.
The art, of course, is fantastic, with the usual suspects like Kennedy, Senior, Bradbury, Casanovas, etc turning in a blinder alongside brief sightings of McCarthy, Dillon, Ewins...  I'll risk a dis on modern childrens' comics creators here, but kids these days have been utterly bloody robbed by not having Ortiz churning out spider apocalypses and shark maulings for them on a weekly basis, and that was my main takeaway - that younger readers deserve something like this to get their teeth into rather than the anodyne and unoffensive tosh they're latterly offered.

Best bits:
Library of Death!  Short and sweet terror tales often lacking a killer payoff but always aiming to put the shits up their readers.
Realising Nightcomers - siblings in a 1970s muscle car travel the country solving supernatural mysteries just like their dead parents did, one of the siblings is trying to settle down into a normal life but has psychic powers of an unknown origin - is basically the first season of the indestructible shit-meets-wall homoerotic incest fantasy series Supernatural.
Tales From the Grave - started out a bit cold on this, but by the end it was one of my favorites.
Utter, utter bastard Dracula - none of your wishy-washy romance fantasy figures here, he's just a complete and utter monster and all the more entertaining for it.
The slow realisation that Max the computer is a bad 'un.

Apestrife

Corto Maltese: Tango

Corto visits Buenos Aires in hopes to help an old friend of his, but things complicated. Only 60 or so pages long, but very sweet. Really like Pratt's use of perspective in the book. The close up on the game of pool in the beginning of the book especially comes to mind.

The Legendary Shark

The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey.
An eye-opening book indeed, written by the founder of the modern Church of Satan. In this church, Satan is not worshipped as a personification of evil, nor even as an entity or being but as a simple dark force of Nature. There are no human or animal sacrifices, no obligatory orgies, no drinking of blood. There are "magical" rituals, though, and not used exclusively to wreak evil either but to bring to people that which they deserve; help for good people and harm for bad people. It is basically a religion based on indulgence rather than abstinence with its own version of The Golden Rule: do unto others as others do unto you. Based on selfishness rather than altruism, one can see why materialistic people would find the Church of Satan attractive.
In the end, though, it is still a religion like any other; promising its members privileges in return for allegiance.
Still a fascinating read, though, and well worth the time of anyone interested in occult (or hidden) knowledge.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Hawkmumbler

Quote from: Apestrife on 03 August, 2018, 04:58:38 PM
Corto Maltese: Tango

Corto visits Buenos Aires in hopes to help an old friend of his, but things complicated. Only 60 or so pages long, but very sweet. Really like Pratt's use of perspective in the book. The close up on the game of pool in the beginning of the book especially comes to mind.

Ah man, i'm so far behind on these Corto collections, I really must make it a priority to get caught up!

von Boom

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 06 August, 2018, 09:02:29 PM
The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey.
An eye-opening book indeed, written by the founder of the modern Church of Satan. In this church, Satan is not worshipped as a personification of evil, nor even as an entity or being but as a simple dark force of Nature. There are no human or animal sacrifices, no obligatory orgies, no drinking of blood. There are "magical" rituals, though, and not used exclusively to wreak evil either but to bring to people that which they deserve; help for good people and harm for bad people. It is basically a religion based on indulgence rather than abstinence with its own version of The Golden Rule: do unto others as others do unto you. Based on selfishness rather than altruism, one can see why materialistic people would find the Church of Satan attractive.
In the end, though, it is still a religion like any other; promising its members privileges in return for allegiance.
Still a fascinating read, though, and well worth the time of anyone interested in occult (or hidden) knowledge.
This made the rounds at my school in the 80s. You had to keep it out of view from the teachers, but it was required reading for anyone playing D&D at the time. I don't remember much of it, but I remember feeling I was having the piss taken out of me.

The Legendary Shark


I can email you the pdf if you like, VB.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




von Boom


BPP

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 06 August, 2018, 09:02:29 PM
The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey.
An eye-opening book indeed, written by the founder of the modern Church of Satan. In this church, Satan is not worshipped as a personification of evil, nor even as an entity or being but as a simple dark force of Nature. There are no human or animal sacrifices, no obligatory orgies, no drinking of blood. There are "magical" rituals, though, and not used exclusively to wreak evil either but to bring to people that which they deserve; help for good people and harm for bad people. It is basically a religion based on indulgence rather than abstinence with its own version of The Golden Rule: do unto others as others do unto you. Based on selfishness rather than altruism, one can see why materialistic people would find the Church of Satan attractive.
In the end, though, it is still a religion like any other; promising its members privileges in return for allegiance.
Still a fascinating read, though, and well worth the time of anyone interested in occult (or hidden) knowledge.

Did you hear about the time John McCrea funded the Church of Satan in belfast?*


(* it's quite possible - nay highly likely - John McCrea didn't have a clue what was going on)
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd

The Legendary Shark

No I hadn't. I'll have to have a Google.
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]