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Whats everyone reading?

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

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Colin YNWA

Steadily working my way through the Panini Doctor Who collections that I own. I love Iron Legion and Dragon's Claw the two Tom Baker collection with art by Dave Gibbons (in the main Mike McMahon's cyberman story is something else again). They are such fun and Pat Mills and John Wagner show once again they know how to turn out a yarn.

However its the Peter Davison collection written by Steve Parkhouse that is the absolute best. Its just superb stuff. All these stories are awash in nostaglia for me and I remember them almost panel for panel but there's something about Steve Parkhouse's Fifth Doc run that feels so significent and important.While Mills and Wagner did cracking yarns, Parkhouse makes the stories feel epic and vital. As if they were the stories that should have been on telly if they'd dared and had been able.

It all works so well as a single piece as well, even with a variety of lovely art as well. The only down point is I'm not sure we see any more of Shayde - which is a shame as the black domed sidearm was such a cool character.

Fungus

Working through the Fatale trades, just tremendous. Library books, always prefer physical to digital, you can't buy/store *everything* and it supports those libraries. You'll miss them when they're gone...
This interrupts my working through the Criminal books. Equally brilliant.

Gary James

Quote from: Fungus on 12 February, 2020, 12:01:45 AM
...you can't buy/store *everything*...
You do NOT want to how many books are surrounding me right now.  :P

And yes, libraries are important, but more for the specialist knowledge and abilities of the people working in them than the books. Go in with a ridiculous request - no matter how vague your memories are of a particular book, and irrespective of how long ago you read it, someone there will likely know the title you are (badly) remembering.

...unless its a stupid kids book you've been hunting down for thirty years to find out how it ends.

Dandontdare

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 11 February, 2020, 09:13:07 PM
Steadily working my way through the Panini Doctor Who collections that I own. I love Iron Legion and Dragon's Claw the two Tom Baker collection with art by Dave Gibbons (in the main Mike McMahon's cyberman story is something else again). They are such fun and Pat Mills and John Wagner show once again they know how to turn out a yarn.

I got John Wagner and Dave Gibbons to sign my Iron Legion at Thought Bubble last year. Dave leafed through it and said "Hey John, do you remember me showing you the first few pages I drew for this and asking if you thought they were any good, and you said 'no, not really'?" (John denied all memory of this conversation!)

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Dandontdare on 12 February, 2020, 08:33:45 AM
I got John Wagner and Dave Gibbons to sign my Iron Legion at Thought Bubble last year. Dave leafed through it and said "Hey John, do you remember me showing you the first few pages I drew for this and asking if you thought they were any good, and you said 'no, not really'?" (John denied all memory of this conversation!)

Ha! That's a fantastic tale - thanks for sharing.

Popped by to say just finished the Steve Parkhouse run of Doctor Who with the Colin Baker stories he did and it really is a quite marvelous tour de force from beginning to oh so self-referenial end. I'm not sure I quite enjoy the Sixth Doctor stuff as much as the 5th ...quite... I mean its superb and John Ridgway's art is devine throughout. The level of surreal whimsy is both its blessing and its curse however. It makes it an enchanting read but it doesn't quite carry the gavitas of the Davison stuff. Though Parkhouses run does work as a wonderful whole.

Dandontdare


Gary James

Quote from: Dandontdare on 12 February, 2020, 11:58:11 PM
that fucking penguin.....
There are some people - naming no names, and totally not me in any way, shape, or form because insert excuse here - would like nothing more than for Frobisher to be the companion on the televised stories. And for Susan to come back.

Colin YNWA


Hawkmumbler

Frobisher is the best companion in any medium, I will not be debating this fact.

Gary James

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 15 February, 2020, 10:54:30 AM
Frobisher is the best companion in any medium, I will not be debating this fact.
Better than Romana mk.II?

Any time there is an equal - not necessarily in abilities, but in intellect - the Doctor is improved. With the addition of someone who the Doctor can communicate with on a level slightly above the conversations we see with regular companions, things get really interesting.

sheridan

Quote from: Gary James on 12 February, 2020, 01:01:58 AM
...unless its a stupid kids book you've been hunting down for thirty years to find out how it ends.


Which book was that (obviously you don't know the title, but how did it begin)?

Gary James

Quote from: sheridan on 17 February, 2020, 12:44:03 PM
Which book was that (obviously you don't know the title, but how did it begin)?
It was a SF update of Robin Hood - the force fields which aliens(?) used were powerless against bows and arrows. That really is all I can remember for sure about the story, but I remember the book itself being a hardcover. I've been digging around for years (on and off), but there's nothing which ever jumped out at me in any lists I've pulled. The annoying thing is that there are at least a dozen really similar plots, but the one I'm looking for was in circulation c. 1990-1992, ruling out a few obvious ones. I want to say the same rough look as Hale's Black Horse books, but don't quote me on that... Not sure if it had illustrations or not.

To prevent these things from happening again, as it really is the most annoying thing, I have been keeping notes of everything I've read since around 2003.

Dandontdare

yeah, there's a book I remember from when I was about 6* - every few years, I try to Google it, and I think I mentioned it here once, but I still await the day when I have an epiphany in the Oxfam bookshop or village jumble sale!




* just in case - it was a book that probably came out in the 60s, or possibly very early 70s - it was about a kid who meets and befriends an alien. The title of the book (I think ) was the alien's name - multi-syllable nonsense word. I seem to recall the alien was large white and amorphous - rather like a brontasurus or a ball with legs/necks coming out.

TordelBack

Quote from: Gary James on 17 February, 2020, 12:58:08 PM
It was a SF update of Robin Hood - the force fields which aliens(?) used were powerless against bows and arrows.

By sny chance Douglas Hill's The Huntsman / Warriors of the Wasteland series? Early-mid '80s paperback so maybe too early, but there was definitely a HB copy in our local library.

Gary James

Not Douglas Hill. He's a name which has cropped up a few times, and I've gone over some (although not nearly all) of his writing - the book in question is much simpler in its plotting and characterization. A proper youth title, aimed at (and this is complete guesswork) nine-to-thirteen year olds. You know the stories where you can call the twists two chapters prior to them landing? That's pretty much the feeling I got from it.

It may not be a big or clever book on its own, but one of these days - when I do finally track it down - I can link it together with the DC Thomson Robina Hood strip, the Doctor Who episode, and DC's Outlaws mini-series as part of a narrative tradition of retellings set in the future. That's when I get things back online... (and no, don't hold your breath for that happening)