New Comic Book Day Megathread

[Hawkmumbler]

Art wise I was a bit taken aback by how grimy Isayama's style was, in contrast to the clean cut line's of the anime. As a result, alot of characters expresions are somewhat debatable, one character in particulare come's off badly (and her dumbed down personality doesn't help either). That being said though, it's still a rollicking good take of the Post-Apoc genre (which is seem's to be enjoying a second renaissance at the moment with more and more original concepts appearing) while retaining certain fantasy charms that would certainly appeal to fans of movies like Krull or Dragonslayer.

I'd give it a cautius reccomendation as the satire/ humour certainly isn't for everyone and the art is very marmite, but I for one really enjoy it and consider it a lesser modern manga classic.

[Ancient Otter]

I hadn't known there was a anime but I heard it's a huge success back in Japan and Paul Gravett was pushing it on his website and his 1001 Graphic Novels You Have To Read so I gave it a shot but was a bit underwhelmed when I first read them. I may give the first two a reread and plough through the next few volumes.

[Bobblehead]

Nice to see D-Gray Man there Hawkmonger! What do you think of it so far? (Assuming that you've gotten round to reading it yet!)
  Think im on volumne 23 so far,its enjoyable and I like the characters,but ill be damned if i know what the actual hell is going on half the time lol. The action scenes are very well drawn but it feels like the artist is drawing what he feels the scene would look like as if it was animated. Urgh,im not very good at describing this. Its very confusing half the time anyway lol. Just wanted someone elses thoughts on it,as i dont know anyone else whos read it.
As for new comics ive just picked up IDWs Dredd Year One,which is brilliant.Looks great,he actually acts like i want Dredd to act and theres some good action bits.Very solid mini-series and i hope they do more. I stopped on issue 3 of the regular IDW series,just didnt have the pennies to justify buying it 'in cse it got better'.
Also got Batman 19. Enjoying Snyders Batman,i think its upto 21 now? I only go Manchester once a month so im a bit behind atm. This story had some nice visuals but i kinda figured out who the villian was from the start and ive no idea what Zero Year is as mentioned by Gordon as I havent read Batman for years,can someone explain?
Didnt get many comics this month as I got Case Files 2,3,4,5 and Strontium Dog Books 1 and 2 for about £39 (including p+p!) off ebay,so got enough to read for a bit.

[Hawkmumbler]

D-Gray Man is worth the cover price for the art alone. Hoshino certainly has an eye for gothic detail that I find very visualy appealing. Story wise the first three volumes jogged along at a solid pace and I never felt rushed or out staying it's welcome, though indeed I feel she lack's the ability to draw fluid action scene's. So are you up the the Alma Kalma arc? That was a mind fuck and a half, indeed the chronology of the fight was all over the show. But at £9.99 RRP for 550+ pages, it's worth a punt. I've already ordered the second 3-in-1.

[Bobblehead]

yeah just finished that arc i think,ill be honest and say im not sure what was going on half the time lol.How far does the anime go? only 20 episodes into the anime too. It looks brilliant aye and i like the humourous little shorts at the end of each book
Im upto the part where theres a new kind of exorcist,hes just sucked an Akuma up using his arm weapon thing.Very odd.Gotta keep waiting for the library to buy the next ones in,takes a while so its been about 3 months since i last read it so i might need to re-read a few volumnes lol

[Hawkmumbler]

There wont be another volume after 23 for a long while. Hoshino hasn't been well for a while, and the series has been on hiatus for a year now. I believe it might even be dead now. Left incomplete.

As for the anime, it's 102 episodes long covering the first 20 or so volumes and a few filler.

[The Adventurer]

MY DIGITAL PULLS FOR 07-31-13

2000 AD 1843 - The prog is looking pretty good right now. A nice little follow up to last year's Trifecta by Rob Williams and Carl Critchlow. I was wondering how something as big as Luna-2 crashing into the ocean could just be forgotten. Ten-Seconders is taking a turn for the nuts, in a good way. Defoe is actually tolerable. Age of the Wolf seems to lack a little something, but it looks nice. Sinister Dexter is great, but ends a little suddenly. Hopefully it comes back soon.
JUDGE DREDD: YEAR ONE 4 (of 4) - A little behind on this one. Gotta catch up.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 251 - Worlds Collide concludes. This crossover has been as epic as hoped, seriously guys if you want to see All Ages done right. Read this!
WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP 35 - One Piece and Bleach are off this week. But we get a pretty fun one-off from Masashi Kishimoto about High School baseball, Bench. Kishimoto does Naruto, which I just can not get into, but his one-offs have been pretty great. Seriously, Narato is just a confusing mess but the guy clearly can write and draw good not confusing comics. So, what is the deal?!

[sheldipez]

Everyone gave in on weekly pulls these days? Anyway thought I'd keep this thread alive and plug my favorite monthly at the same time, and admit I'm still a big Spidey fan by the looks of it.

Batman #23 - Zero year continues, backup story has a young Bruce Wayne in Russia
Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #2 - Essentially Superior Spidey meets Scarlet Spider - SIBLING RIVALRY - PART ONE - to read PART TWO you have to buy...
Scarlet Spider #20 - Don't you just hate when comics continue arcs over multiple different series?! Can't complain too much as Scarlet Spider is good fun.
And for yet another dose of Web crawling action:
Astonishing Spider-Man #97 - I've been buying Astonishing for a good while now, half of the time I'm not sure why as sometimes I've read/own two of three comics included (this is one of those 3-in-1 reprints that Panini put out) but I like to support any comic put on UK newsagents shelves when I can. This issue has Amazing Spider-Man #696, Web of Spider-Man #129.2 and Scarlet Spider #4 - I've only read #696 so not bad.
The Incredible Hulks #19 - another panini 3-in-1, started buying this since #17 when they started reprinting the run leading up to the Indestructible Hulk relaunch, haven't read any of these and Marc Silvestri is on pencils, who I like a lot.

The best for last:  The X-Files Season 10 #3 - "Believers," Part 3 of 5: The Acolytes are seeking Scully's lost son, William, and Dana realizes there's more than meets the eye to her abductor, known only as the Deacon. Meanwhile, Mulder uncovers more of the truth than he can handle when an old, cigarette-smoking "friend" pays him a visit. 'Nuff Said

I've noticed Chronos Commandos: Dawn Patrol #2 is out this week too - I meant to pick this series up.. may have to TPB it - dinosaurs v Nazis too good to pass up.

Edit: Star Wars #8 is out this week too!

[The Adventurer]

2000 AD 1845 - A little too much Pat Mills for my tastes. I've yet to really be taken in by Slaine, and this history lesson, while I'm sure its got fan's thrill receptors off the charts, just leaves me cold. Though it does remind me that Clint Langely sure can draw, when he's not making incomprehensible photo comics.
ASTRO CITY 3 - Oh man, this series is just as good as it ever was. Though Brent Anderson uses some oddly clashing digital coloring effects that sometimes don't work with the artwork.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 3 - Some people are complaining that this series is a bit weak. But oddly enough I find its campiness kind of endearing, and right with the spirit of the show. Dan Abnett ownzone.
EAST OF WEST 5 - This book is pure magic. Last issue was nuts.
RESIDENT ALIEN: SUICIDE BLONDE 0 - Its nice to see this comic make a return appearance, the first mini-series was fun. Very quirky and different.
SAGA 13 - Oh man, this comic is so good.
SAVAGE DRAGON 190 - Love love LOVE the 'digest' experiment Larsen has gone for this issue. I think it works amazingly well. Unfortunately only the 'standard' edition was made avalible digitally. Which is very displeasing.
STAR WARS 8 - Easily the best Star Wars comic I've read in a long ass time.
WALKING DEAD 113 - Full confession, I've been feeling kind of meh about this series lately. And I'd stopped picking up my issues the week off, instead waiting a month for a price drop. So I actually picked up issue 112 this week. Then I read it. Then I immediately bought 113. Finally, it feels like something interesting is starting to develop.
WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP 37/38 - You know these WSJ 'Double Issues' seem to end up some of the thinnest. Occasionally Japan skips a week due to holidays, so the English edition does the same. So this is it for the next two weeks (though we're suppose to be getting a Naruto special issue next week, but I don't like Naruto very much). Content wise my worry about the book starting to thin out has bore fruit. The current line up seems mighty thin at a paltry 150 pages. Still a good deal, but not nearly as good as it was during the earlier parts of the year.

[Davek]

Just read The Invincible Haggard West, one shot by Paul Pope in advance of Battling Boy in October. Art was great, story a bit to 'super hero' for me - am hoping Battling Boy puts a twist on the genre.

[Colin YNWA]

Before going on holiday I got my haul, seemed like a lot of titles. Anyway went away read them and here's what I think upon my return (some of these are a bit out of date now).

Collider 1 was a pretty good start. Quite a nice 2000adesque set up and well executed, not too sure if the tough, hard arsed old school led will cut it, but its certainly earned enough time for me to find out more.

Got Batman Annual 2 and Animal Man Annual 2 both good, the latter much more meaningfully so.

Uber 4 sees the comic still tittering on the brink of being dropped. The story is okay, but not really going anywhere and the art is still terrible. Superior Foes of Spider-man 2 is close to being good but is trying to hard to be one of the better modern US sitcoms and I hoped and thought this could be so much more. I'll decide on this one next issue.

Victories 4, FF 10, Fatale 16 and Sex 5 all continue much as before, all very good. Sex being the pick of the bunch. Its 'controversial' side seems to be masking what is really a very good, intelligent story about a superhero trying to come to terms with leaving one purpose behind and find another. Probably the best of the bunch this time (though I've picked up X-Men Legacy as back issues and that would top the lot I suspect.).

The rest is all about endings really and a varied bunch they are too. Caligula 6 ends this series really well, all be it absolute nonsense. The other planned ending all also work. Judge Dredd Year One 4 and Batman inc 13 I which I discussed a while ago and was great, more than great. The more curtailed stories don't fair quite so well. IT Girl 12 wraps things up with what felt like fun fluff, but might deserve a second read at some point as I'm not sure I did it justice. Planet of the Apes Cataclysm 12 seems to provide a really compressed set of events that which reveal quite what a fun ride this series might have continued to be if it'd only found the audience it deserved. Didn't work too well as a comic book itself but did a job of cramming a heck of a lot in.

The lose of these great series was somewhat mitigated by getting some more of the rarely seen these days continuation of Daryl Gregory's Apes 'ongoing' title in Planet of the Apes Spectacular 1. The next part will come when it comes and I'll wait and while this series is still good, even if the art has dropped considerably, it needs to wrap up sometime 'soon' as its irregular appearances in these specials isn't doing it any favours. Still at least we're getting a proper conclusion.

[Link Prime]

Uber 4 sees the comic still tittering on the brink of being dropped. The story is okay, but not really going anywhere and the art is still terrible.

I'm still enjoying Uber, and was genuinely looking forward to sitting down to read this after a much improved issue 3.
Gillen's comments in the back are an interesting read too, and his revelation that the run could be an ambitious 60 issues long is intriguing. Ample scope for some unexpected developments to come.
The art though...don't want to bad-mouth a guy who obviously has some talent, but it's really not to my taste. It seems, frankly, amateurish. Imagine what this comic could be like with say, Darick Robertson on art duties? Shame.

[Colin YNWA]

Uber 4 sees the comic still tittering on the brink of being dropped. The story is okay, but not really going anywhere and the art is still terrible.

I'm still enjoying Uber, and was genuinely looking forward to sitting down to read this after a much improved issue 3.

Yeah just didn't think issue 4 really kept up that standard of improvement. It didn't do anything, or add anything really either in terms of story or character. Things just progressed, a little. Its a shame as, as you say, it has such potential which is why I don't want to give up on it and in a few issues start hearing that its reached that potential... just really testing my patience at the moment.

[The Adventurer]

My Pulls for the Week of 8-21-13

2000 AD 1846 - Current line-up ticks along, with Rob Williams and Edmund Bagley's Ten-Seconders being the stand out strip. IMO
FABLES 132 - New arc, new dangers. Last month's cliffhanger was kind of disappointing because I was hoping Prince Brandish was finished. He a bit of a dud villain IMO.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 23 - Final issue. Apparently this is the first time in quite some time where there will be no Legion of Super-Heroes title. Its quite troubling when one of DC's most interesting and storied franchises can't find an audience. More DC mismanagement.
SONIC UNIVERSE 55 - Back from Worlds Colliding, this story will be the first Sonic the Hedgehog story I've read not written by Ian Flynn. So it'll be interesting what this new writer is capable of. These Archie Sonic comics have been obsurdly good. I keep saying this, but frankly I don't think anyone else produces such perfect All Age titles right now. Light enough for kids, dark enough for adults. Its the perfect mix.
WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP - NARUTO SPECIAL - Welp. I make no bones about loathing Naruto, so having an entire issue dedicated to the guy isn't really lighting my world on fire. Japan's on holiday this week, its either this or nothing. This issue did reprint the Naruto Prototype story. Which, all things considered was pretty interesting as a stand alone one-shot. Still not a fan, but there is a nugget of entertainment here. In the pilot story at least.

[Colin YNWA]

LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 23 - Final issue. Apparently this is the first time in quite some time where there will be no Legion of Super-Heroes title. Its quite troubling when one of DC's most interesting and storied franchises can't find an audience. More DC mismanagement.

To be fair to DC, which I do less and less these days, they have tried loads of different things. I personally am a big fan of the Waid relaunch and the subsequent Shooter issues (if you ever want to read a bad last issue the mess they made of that when they aborted Shooters run about 7 issues early is a sight to behold, such a shame.)

Giving it back go Paul Levitz, whatever the politics behind that was, was surely trying to tap into its loyal and passionate fan base.