Whats everyone reading?

[Dandontdare]

Black Dossier is probably the weakest of the LOEG books - The "date" titles advance the main story, but BD is stuffed with extras/filler (depending on your viewpoint)

[Mabs]

Hmm, I'll still have a look seeing as its available, and probably catch up with the dated ones later. Cheers Dan.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Porcelain - A Gothic Fairy Tale (Improper Books) Read/Wildgoose



Porcelain made a bit of a buzz at Thought Bubble '12 due to an enormous amount of free samplers gushing like a flood from the Improper Books table. It's a tactic that paid off as I don't think I saw a single person that year that wasn't wielding one - it was a mesmerising little booklet thanks mainly to the beautifully fluid artwork of Chris Wildgoose and the delicate muted palette of colourist Andre May. Even without the intriguing setting and the haunting white porcelain automatons it would be a buyer. They didn't have any copies there though and it wasn't until the spring after at Maidstone's Demoncon (the fifth one) that I snagged an issue off of Chris Wildgoose who seemed alarmed that it was such an easy sell. It easily justifies the hype - and as a statement of intent for new publisher Improper Books it is thoroughly convincing. A stand alone story in a mysterious universe - writer Benjamin Read wisely sticks close to the main characters and allows only slight peeks at the world outside the walls of the house where lives the only man who can make Porcelain move... With a boisterous cockney urchin as our guide the narrative rattles along at a brilliant pace to a startling conclusion. The almost heavy-handed "a gothic fairy tale" subtitle is perfectly apt as this is just what Porcelain is. An absorbing and thoroughly professional-looking book with not a panel or speech bubble (cap permanently doffed to letterer extraordinare Jim Campbell) seems out of place. I was sat opposite Improper Books at the next Thought Bubble - and their endless tide of samplers this year was to promote Read & Wildgoose's next offering: Briar. Even without reading the freebie I'm thoroughly sold.

[TordelBack]

Black Dossier is probably the weakest of the LOEG books - The "date" titles advance the main story, but BD is stuffed with extras/filler (depending on your viewpoint)

Really can't agree with this.  There is virtually no filler or extras in the BD, unless maybe you count the Pornsec Jane insert and the cutaway of the Nautilus (which I don't, 'cos they're fab).  On the contrary the linking story presents and resolves two central mysteries (one related to the fate of the League post-War and why obvious fictional candidates of the period like James Bond, Harry Lime and Bulldog Drummond aren't in it, and one related to the nature of the League's world itself), while the pastiche pieces set out the composition and activities of the various incarnations of the League in often hilarious fashion.  It's an enormously dense book, and provides a coherent structure for all the other League books and spinoffs, which makes those books much more satisfying in turn.  It even makes sense of those endless microtype gazetteer entries in the back of Vol 2.

Far from being the weakest League book, I'd say it's the strongest after the first volume, and the one I keep returning to.

[JOE SOAP]

The only bad thing about The Black Dossier is that it ends. It is really unique.

While we're on the subject:

Roses Of Berlin isn't out yet, but the next League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen chapter by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, River Of Ghosts, will complete the Nemo trilogy begun by Heart Of Ice.

[Mabs]

I still haven't had the chance to read The Black Dossier, but going on the thoughts from you guys I must say I'm looking forward to reading it.

Noticed Porcelain too, another title I'm dying to read. As for now, I'm halfway through Judge Dredd: Fatties and so far it's been one hell of read! So much fun - Plus I also got to see the famous line below Tordelback's avatar! Now I know where it's from! 

[TordelBack]

Complete Casefiles 15:  My first venture into Casefile-buying for some years, thanks to a timely book-token from my last surviving aunt (pay no heed to Bertie Wooster and Ampney Crucis, sometimes aunts are gentlemen).  I remembered the post-Necropolis period as being a bit of a thrill-desert, but I was (as usual) wrong. Most of this book is rock-solid, and aside from a few art-dips on some of the shorts, the only noticeable slump is the rather familiar and overlong Bill Bailey Citidef story (even this can be improved by imagining the block is named after Manny Bianco rather than the song, hence the beards). 

Most interesting was how sloppily enjoyable some of the early Ennis stories are (I still love Emerald Isle, and Dillon's Dredd looks really terrific here), and what a good slice-of-life-in-the-Meg story Midnite's Children is.  This latter was rather overshadowed by its showier running mates in the early Megazine, but it's a very good yarn all in one place and I'd quite forgotten how it plays out. 

An intelligent choice was made to run Death Aid all the way though and then run the 'Death Aid Interlude' fill-ins after it, and it works well.

A very good collection of lesser-known Dredd, although as usual I could have used a breakdown of story credits.

[TordelBack]

Quick addendum to my thoughts on Casefiles 15:  the colour Hicklenton art on Black Widow, a story I didn't rate at the time, is mesmerisingly great.  In fact the story (I can't quite decide whether it is by Wagner or Grant and the book isn't telling: Wagner, I think) is pretty good too - certainly an improvement on the original Nosferatu story.

[Daveycandlish]

Just finished reading Long John Silver Book IV. Didn't go the way I expected but still a blooming marvellous read. This may very well be my favourite Cinebook in the whole range and that's some stiff competition. Highly recommended with wonderful art.

[Ancient Otter]

Just finished reading Long John Silver Book IV. Didn't go the way I expected but still a blooming marvellous read. This may very well be my favourite Cinebook in the whole range and that's some stiff competition. Highly recommended with wonderful art.

Out of curiousity, what's the book paper like? I just got the new Scorpion volume and it's gone to a more glossy paper like the 2000AD collections.

[Frank]

Another vote for The Black Dossier as an audacious piece of conceptual gymnastics and audience-perception-shattering genius. Its astonishing scope and ambition redefines the series as something other than The Avengers with public domain characters, and establishes the theme of the primacy of stories, ideas and imagination over copyrighted characters.

The apparently fixed point of Orlando, who is nevertheless constantly reinventing him/herself, and the deaths of the other (less transformed) league members serve to highlight how Quatermain and Mina aren't even the same characters they were in the first series, never mind those Moore and O'Neill rescued from literary obscurity - it's their stories which endure and prevail.

It's the efforts of the creators which do all the blazing in this world, rather than corporate owned characters, who can be taken away by the highest bidding publisher and 'reinvented' by  opportunistic young hacks, as Moore and O'Neill once were themselves, or adopted into other more lucrative but less sympathetic formats by the likes of (shudder) film studios.

[HOO-HAA]

Wrapped on PSI Case Files 1.

About halfway through Rennie's Dredd Vs Death on Kindle and loving it. Not really a Dredd book, per se; more a MC1 book: equal time is given to Anderson and DeMarco.

Also working my way through a lovely paperback edition of Aliens: Genocide by David Bischoff, which is a lot of fun.

[Mabs]

I've started reading The Black Dossier which I borrowed from my library. You can understand my surprise when I found this in the inside page:



Clearly it's Kevin O'Neil's signature, but how did it manage to get inside a library copy, or did the library purchase a signed copy? And how much would it be worth? I'm seriously thinking about keeping this one!  (Just kidding) but still, it's not something you see everyday.

[Dark Jimbo]

Presumbaly the library bought a signed copy without realising and assumed that was maybe the previous owner's name scribbled inside. If you don't hang onto it for yourself you're a better man than I, Mabs. 

[Mabs]

Presumbaly the library bought a signed copy without realising and assumed that was maybe the previous owner's name scribbled inside. If you don't hang onto it for yourself you're a better man than I, Mabs. 

It's very tempting Dark Jimbo, but I don't wanna deprive some poor sod from encountering a really unique reading experience!