Whats everyone reading?

[Sideshow Bob]

Just going to make a start on Concrete : The Complete Concrete by Paul Chadwick...

I bought this volume on eBay for £22 ( it's huge & contains the original ten-issue series ), after hearing several people mention it on one of the other threads regarding Paul Chadwicks' artwork...
I thought the artwork was pretty special on various pieces that I saw over on CAF so thought I'd give it a try...
Looking forward to it....but honestly don't know what to expect !!....Don't often buy something without having any idea what it's about but 'nothing ventured' and all that !

[TordelBack]

Just going to make a start on Concrete : The Complete Concrete by Paul Chadwick...

It's a lovely book, the DH equivalent of the our own dear Titan reprints.  I have mos of its content in more compact and more complete formats now, but I can't bear to part with it.

[Sideshow Bob]

I take it its a 'worthwhile' read Tordelback ??
As stated earlier, I don't know anything about it at all, but 'heard' it was good on another thread, so thought I'd give it a try.....

There is some really good advice on reading material on this thread.....I've just finished Volume 1 of Locke and Key by Joe Hill after recommendations from Albion and Link Prime and absolutely loved it.....Thanks guys,  So much so, I've gone ahead and ordered Volumes 2 and 3...

[TordelBack]

I take it its a 'worthwhile' read Tordelback ??

It's pretty unique in tone and direction so it may not be for everyone (and the volume you have makes the Dredd Casefiles look 'complete'!), but it's brilliantly developed from an unsettling premise, and very well sustained across diverse storylines.  The art is frequently sublime, and there's more than a few intriguing thoughts to be had along the way.  One of my all-time favourite comics, with an endearing and believable central character. 

[Mabs]

I'm midway through reading Hawkeye: My Life As A Weapon Vol.1, and i dunno, i feel a tad underwhelmed by it. I had high expectations going in especially with all the positive words surrounding it. I'm just about to start #4 (The Tape), so hopefully things'll get more interesting.

I also finished Judge Dredd: Case File 11, the standout without doubt was Revolution and Oz. The latter was absolutely thrilling! I was on the edge of my sofa reading the Supersurf 10 race, so drokking thrilling - almost as same as watching  a live action race, no lie! And the finish was one i did not expect, but having said that it was very refreshing. How many times will the hero end up winning something like that in an American comic? [spoiler]In fact his loss increased my respect for Chopper ten fold.[/spoiler]

And how cool is this, by Steve Dillon?



Awesome stuff.

[Snuffers]

Just finished The Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks and starting on Strontium Dog Search and Destroy Agency Files 01.
Before I read any 2000AD whilst talking about my interest on it with a few people I knew who read it in the past, one said they were not so keen on Strontium Dog. This was the only story I had heard anything negative of in 2000AD and just from this one fellow. After noticing the legacy of Johnny Alpha on the comic I had to read it. I'm not far at all in it but I like it so far. I like the gimmicks with the weapons and the advantages of being a mutant being displayed for once. It's fun. I really love the early issues of the Prog (or Starlord) in this time being more focused on the novelty of science fiction and the adventure within. Yet there's still some darkness in there with the prejudice involved with mutants.

Alan Moore was fantastic. Goes without saying. Abelard Snazz = Extremely Fantastic. It's good to read something more comedic from him. Some very funny shocks!

[Mardroid]

After a hiatus from reading Case Files 8 while I concentrated on other books, I'm back reading it. And it's very enjoyable stuff! I'm on a time travel story now with vampires judges and a weird looking spider mutant thing. Interesting to see we're actually past that time-frame in the current progs! Heh.

[Spikes]

Just going to make a start on Concrete : The Complete Concrete by Paul Chadwick...

I bought this volume on eBay for £22 ( it's huge & contains the original ten-issue series ), after hearing several people mention it on one of the other threads regarding Paul Chadwicks' artwork...
I thought the artwork was pretty special on various pieces that I saw over on CAF so thought I'd give it a try...
Looking forward to it....but honestly don't know what to expect !!....Don't often buy something without having any idea what it's about but 'nothing ventured' and all that !

Good Man!
Those first ten issues are amongst some of the best Concrete stories (saying that, its all good, really), so as an introduction its highly recommended.
As Tordel points out its not yer standard fare, but its a quiet voice that sometimes grabs the attention, and then your hooked!
If you like these, then the collection of short Concrete stories he did for Dark Horse Presents (available in two collections, and readily available on E-Bay) would make an ideal companion piece.

Enjoy!

[Sideshow Bob]

Thanks Tordelback and Judge Jack...
I've just finished reading Concrete : The Complete Concrete and absolutely loved it !...A highly recommended read,  perhaps not to everyones' taste, mainly due to a perceived 'lack of action' I suppose, but for me it was very thoughtful and truly wonderful...

A very 'gentle' tale despite its' bizarre origin....and it certainly throws up some questions about who is 'more human' than a seven foot tall, 1200 lbs man made of concrete ? ....And the artwork......wow......despite its' simplicity,  the emotion conveyed by Paul Chadwicks' drawing is amazing....The unrequited 'love' and the slow acceptance of his 'role' in the world.....just amazing stuff...
Will now look out for the 'companion pieces'...

Cheers

[I, Cosh]

After discovering he'd recently written a third, I decided to revisit Alan Garner's early kid's fantasy novels The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. The spare, stripped down prose which really marks out his later work isn't yet in evidence but the same focus on landscape and place emerges fully formed. Where some of his other books use geology as a way for events to resonate through time, here it's the real world and myth which intertwine as a the young protagonists encounter a succession of figures from British and European folklore.

Almost all his books are set within a very small area around Alderley Edge in Cheshire and the same places come up again and again, to the extent that I was quite pleased to spot a passing reference to Thursbitch, the central location (and title) of a later book. I grew up in (actually outside) a small village myself and this idea of every field and hill having a name and a history, if you can find the right person to tell it, has a powerful allure to it and the one instance where the children's guide admits that they've passed beyond the boundary of his knowledge carries a strange weight.

If there's a criticism of these books it's that the young heroes are too often passive observers of events. They do ultimately make the important decisions themselves but I'm not sure how kids raised on Harry Potter would take to this less self-reliant pair. In saying that, Gomrath contains an excruciatingly claustrophobic tunnel-negotiating sequence which I always retain memories of but forget where it actually comes from until I read it again.

Also rapidly running out of unread material from the other great (happily still living) American wit David Sedaris, whose collection When You Are Engulfed In Flames is pant-wettingly funny...

On mounting an expedition to a far off library branch to nab a copy of the aforementioned third volume I stumbled across a copy of this. With TB's testimonial fresh in my mind, I snatched it up. This was a fortunate bit of synchronicity as it turned out Boneland had disappeared from the shelves, could not be found and has since been expunged from the catalogue. I've read a handful of the stories so far and I'm enjoying the breezy tone but am having a hard time figuring out where it sits on the fiction/memoir scale.

[TordelBack]

...am having a hard time figuring out where it sits on the fiction/memoir scale.

It's an odd collection, as some (the Princeton Address, most obviously) are fiction, but most are supposedly comically exaggerated memoir: certainly his family tales (my favourites) are all internally consistent.  I'm not sure it matters, but I can't help but hope that some others (the Man in the Hut, That's Amore, Aerial and The Understudy) are at least partly fictionalised. There was some sort of issue with one of his first (and best) pieces The Santaland Diaries (not in this collection), where his memoir of working in Santa's Grotto in Macy's got him into hot water and ended up being published as fiction, probably for legal reasons (he makes a lot of people very recognisable, and quite unlovely).  He's done an amazing reading of this one. 

I suspect that everyone's memories are actually a mish-mash of truth, lies and convenience, but all the more so if you try to make a really good story out of them.

In this collection, The Monster Mash, the one set in the business end of a coroner's office, is the one that throws me the most.  Although he alludes to this gig a few times elsewhere, it just seems wildly out of character for a guy who comes across as so squeamish and fastidious elsewhere.

Loved that Alan Garner stuff as a kid.  Will have to revisit.

[Mabs]

I'm currently reading Akira Vol. 5, after this one i'll just be one volume away from owning the whole set! Woohoo! 

[sheldipez]

Just finished my Marshal Law: The Deluxe Edition; superb stuff. I think Marshal is overdue a comeback, there's so much happened in the DC/Marvel universes since then for Mills & O'Neill to mock.

[Mabs]

Just finished my Marshal Law: The Deluxe Edition; superb stuff. I think Marshal is overdue a comeback, there's so much happened in the DC/Marvel universes since then for Mills & O'Neill to mock.

Without doubt! Can you imagine the (delightful) carnage that Mills and O'Neill could unleash right now? Lol! I would love to see a comeback from the leather clad one!

Here's my review by the way, if anyone missed it on the other thread.

http://nexuswookie.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/marshal-law-deluxe-edition-review/

One of the best comic collections i have had the pleasure of reading this year. Period.

[Radbacker]

recently finished reading Matter by Ian M Banks, not too bad but the first of his books I've read that I haven't absolutely loved, the end just kinda bummed me out. I suppose it was just pushing the point that SC is very dangerous business, also got a bit lost on what that final threat was? some kind of ancient weapon or an actual Alien?
Reading the latest Retro Gamer at the moment, about the only computer game mag I get these days.

CU radbacker