Whats everyone reading?

[chris_askham]

I read the first couple of Essential X-Men recently and really didn't think they were all that bad. Of course, I didn't originally get into the X-Men until around the Fall Of The Mutants era, so that probably makes all the difference. I can read these old stories and take them for the dodgy 70's and early 80's Marvels they are.

[The Legendary Shark]

Finally got around to reading the complete V for Vendetta, something I've been meaning to do since Warrior folded some time after the end of the last Ice Age. I remember it being better, to be honest, and, somewhat sacrilegiously, I think the movie had a better ending. Even so, still well worth reading.

Next up, I just found a couple of GNs from way back in the early to mid 70s that I'd forgotten I bought from a remainder store when I was a callow youth: Yragael Urm and Lone Sloane - Delirius by Philippe Druillet. I remember these being mad as a bluebottle's nightmares...

[SmallBlueThing]

Leggy Shark, re V for Vendetta- the movie's just better than the comic, full stop.
SBT

[Radbacker]

  Just got a call from the local book shop informing me they have a noce fat copy of Dance of Dragons waiting there for me to pick up, see if i can knock off work a bit early topday me thinks.

CU Radbacker

[JAMESCOR]

Picked up the latest les sentinilles by dorsian and breccia my French is dodgy but the books look great it's basically war wounded transformed into iron men types during world war one

Got the latest l incal too drawn by laddron even if my French was up to scratch I am not sure it would make much sense the moebius ones did not either it is a truly beautiful book though.

[HOO-HAA]

...Especially the demon bear saga he did with bill sinkywinkywankywitch. I also loved his early captain britains; which on recent reread i thought didnt stand up so much as wobble about groping for purchase, but were fun all the same.
But those xmen... I utterly fell for the whole jean grey saga, and that paul smith issue when scott meets her looky likey at the airport long after her death- well, that fuelled a years worth of tragic girlfriendless unread poetry. The hellfire club, wolverine in japan, magick the limited series, happy happy times.

I always thought the 80s New Mutants had a real Satanic Panic vibe about them...

[HOO-HAA]

Leggy Shark, re V for Vendetta- the movie's just better than the comic, full stop.
SBT

Oddly, the V movie was a dealbreaker for Moore. He thought they had pissed all over his story and turned his back (and wallet) on Hollywood for good. Which is a shame because, no matter how much they played around with V, the WATCHMEN movie was pretty much panel-by-panel true to his comics.

[radiator]

V for Vendetta movie better than the comic? Give me a break - the film was shite! A woeful pastiche of the original work.

[SmallBlueThing]

Yeah, but it's still better than the comic. One of those rare movies that, if i happen upon it, i have to watch all the way through. And as soon as it ends i want to watch it again. It's also probably the only film upon which my wife and i completely agree. Oh, that and moulin rouge.
SBT

[Dandontdare]

[As a young teenager, I idolised Chris Claremont. That run on X-Men with John Byrne and then Paul Smith and John Romita Jnr (with poor old Dave Cockrum threaded through) was absolute bliss from the age of about twelve to fifteen. It's such monumental tragic/Romantic hogsbollocks, that I defy any teenager not to fall for it. It was our version of Twilight. Wordy, with crap characters and massive pronouncements of undying love, the returned dead and a big fight every issue.

A few years ago I bought Essential XMen 1, to see what the adult me thought of it, and- well, basically it's the only one of Marvel's black and white Essentials series that I've given to my youngest as a colouring book.

You're playing my tune, SBT!  I loved Claremont's X-Men when I was a teenager, for all the reasons you cite, but subsequent re-reads were near agony, and I really cannot handle any of his newer stuff.  His '80s New Mutants OTOH hold up quite well.

I also loved the Claremont/Byrne X-titles, but find them really hard going now - Big hair, big muscles and soapy plots. I think it's not always a good idea to revisit fave comics from the past - That's why I was happy to get rid of that Secret wars book - that was a happy memory that should not have been revisited!

I've just got through Elephantmen vol 3, briliant stuff; and also picked up vertigo's The Exterminators -- a slight but interesting tale about bug sparayers vs mutant cockroaches.

[TordelBack]

I Shall Wear Midnight:  I love Prachett's Tiffany Aching books, I even prefer the character to Sam Vimes, and this one is off to a great start as our heroine contemplates the sharp end of adulthood. 

However, I think it's a huge mistake bundling this in with the Discworld list as "No. 38", since the four books (Nos. 30, 32, 35, 38 - good grief, how very accessible) are a fantastic tweenager-friendly series all of their own, and you get no sense of this from the paperback dress on my edition.  The only thing distinguishing this as being for 'Younger Readers' is the larger print, especially as the text dives straight into matters sexual, with [spoiler]the Cerne Abbas giant's willy (Discworld equivalent) and a miscarriage[/spoiler] in the first 25 pages.

I presume the publisher is playing on the compulsion to read 'the new Discworld novel!', but I think younger kids might be missing out on a thought-provoking treat.

[Colin Zeal]

[As a young teenager, I idolised Chris Claremont. That run on X-Men with John Byrne and then Paul Smith and John Romita Jnr (with poor old Dave Cockrum threaded through) was absolute bliss from the age of about twelve to fifteen. It's such monumental tragic/Romantic hogsbollocks, that I defy any teenager not to fall for it. It was our version of Twilight. Wordy, with crap characters and massive pronouncements of undying love, the returned dead and a big fight every issue.

A few years ago I bought Essential XMen 1, to see what the adult me thought of it, and- well, basically it's the only one of Marvel's black and white Essentials series that I've given to my youngest as a colouring book.

You're playing my tune, SBT!  I loved Claremont's X-Men when I was a teenager, for all the reasons you cite, but subsequent re-reads were near agony, and I really cannot handle any of his newer stuff.  His '80s New Mutants OTOH hold up quite well.

I also loved the Claremont/Byrne X-titles, but find them really hard going now - Big hair, big muscles and soapy plots. I think it's not always a good idea to revisit fave comics from the past - That's why I was happy to get rid of that Secret wars book - that was a happy memory that should not have been revisited!

I've just got through Elephantmen vol 3, briliant stuff; and also picked up vertigo's The Exterminators -- a slight but interesting tale about bug sparayers vs mutant cockroaches.

I think the Mutant Massacre storyline holds up very well and can still be read now without any problems. The only slight problem for me is that the trade ends without finding out exactly the full impact of the injuries on the X-Men characters, but that's a slight quibble for me.

[Colin YNWA]

Without wishing to turn this into a Claremont X-Men thread I'm with the 'I really struggle with his stuff' team.

When I first collected I lapped his stuff absorbed it, loved it and looked on with lust at the issues I didn't have. Oh how I wanted those Paul Smith issues and the few Romita Jr ones I didn't have. Each one I didn't own gained this weird heighten significance.

When I returned to comics the Essential volumes put pay to that envy and also alas any nostalgia I had for his work. I even struggled to make it through the Byrne and Austin material. His plotting was generally fine, well when he didn't drift off and leave things unresolved, but his scripting and dialogue I just don't like any more. At all. In the end I gave up half way through the Paul Smith stuff and just skim read the rest. 

It was like my teenage self finally getting to kiss Kirsty Walsh (The bar maid at the Fox and Hounds) and finding out she was a bit of a rubbish kisser (I should point out I never kissed Kirsty Walsh and have no knowledge of how good a kisser she is!I also doubt she still works at the Fox...)

[ming]

I Shall Wear Midnight:  I love Prachett's Tiffany Aching books, I even prefer the character to Sam Vimes, and this one is off to a great start as our heroine contemplates the sharp end of adulthood. 

I've got that in the pile to read; first is Unseen Academicals (just started that) and then Philip Palmer's Version 43 (having picked up Red Claw on the recommendation of someone in this thread, and enjoyed it immensely*)

I loves a bit of Pratchett, me.




* Except for one brain-manglingly annoying detail: one of the scientists in the book, dealing with the business of describing and classifying all the alien life they encounter, repeatedly uses 'genuses' to describe more than one genus... Why couldn't someone have pointed out that the plural of genus is genera and thus help preserve the tattered remnants of my sanity?  (I only make a fuss about this as biological systematics is kind of the business I'm in)

[HdE]

Thanks to everybody who shared their views and memories of Chris Claremont's previous works. I genuinely, sincerely find it interesting to hear what you guys think about this stuff.

I'm still chewing my way through 'X Men: the End' - and I think I've worked out what my problem with his writing is. It's like he has loads of ideas, and some of them are GREAT ideas... but the execution of them is what spoils them for me. It struck me as I was reading the second half of what was the first mini; There's a goodly stack of pages devoted to set-up, but when the obligatory action arrives, it's full of really cringe-inducing dialogue. I can chalk some of the guy's delivery down to my own personal tastes, but when I was reading this comparatively recent series, I had to remind myself that it wasn't a much, much older book.