Whats everyone reading?

[TordelBack]

"reminds me of a comic book written by someone with only a cursory knowledge of comic books. "

That's exactly it: he's heard of SF, but that's about it.  Spoilers, I guess, follow:  The coastal cites of the world are deep under water, Washington DC has been rebuilt far inland, and 90% of the world's population is dead of a engineered virus, but an apparently bone-dry London is still packed with shoppers, and the survivors of a genetic underclass eat foie gras at ambassadorial receptions after driving there in a hot tub in the back of a limo.  Lasers fire 'rounds' that 'thud' into bodies, and everyone important has up to a dozen clones, able to pass themselves off as the original sufficiently well to fool an enhanced interrogation, but no-one seems to care if these copies suffer or die (indeed that seems to be their main purpose), or even once question what exactly they are.  A villainous PotUS is (naturally) the most genetically enhanced cyborg in the world, but our secretly baseline-human hero, with artificial enhancements cobbled together in his parents basement can take him in a straight fight. 

Most criticially, the villains' evil masterplan is [spoiler]to kill off the remainder of the impoverished slum-dwelling human underclass by booby-trapping exclusive and expensive gadgets sold in high-end Elite shops[/spoiler].  No thought whatsoever has been put into the premise of this book.

More generally, and leaving aside the nerdy nitpicking, the reader is clearly supposed to despise the baddie tube-grown genocidal Elites for their arrogance and superiority, but our hero never tires of, or indeed pauses from, telling us how he's the strongest and fastest, traits he acquired through equally artificial and privileged means.

Leaving aside the easy-reading angle (it's large print and chapters are 2-3 pages long), which is probably a significant mark in its favour, I just can't understand the appeal of this guy - this is lazy, lazy stuff.

[I, Cosh]

Sounds like that sort of really old SF where no thought is put into the cohesion of the world described, just some cool sounding stuff stuck on top of a generic thriller or adventure story?

Lasers fire 'rounds' that 'thud' into bodies

One for Thog's Masterclass for sure.

[Ancient Otter]

Can't speak for World of Aldebaran series (yet...) or Chimpanzee Complex but I was extremely happy with SPOOKS 1 and 2, so much so that i'll be picking up the next two volumes at TB. Very entertaining indeed, makes me wish more Dorrison was available in English (Both Long John Silver and Crusade or on my pull list but not quite yet. Also, please can we have Les Sentinels, Cinebooks?!)

The next big series by Xavier Dorison to be released in English will be The Third Testament starting in October from Titan Books. This was a huge hit back in Europe about 10 years ago. Cinebook are releasing the XIII spin-off series XIII: Mystery, volume one is by him. I've read Sanctum by him which was released by Humanoids, it's alright, not great.

[Hawkmumbler]

With Master Keaten soon to be released i've finaly picked up the first volume of Monster by Naoki Urasawa. From this first volume i'm uncertain as to where it's going but if it's anything like 20th Century Boys i'm in forma blast.

Also, is it me or are Viz splashing out at the moment with all these colour spreads in their releases? Lovely anyway.

[Mardroid]

Not sure if this hould really be in the Comic megatheread, but considering I downloaded it as a volume, I'll put it here:

The New Deadwardians Vol. 1

Parallel Earth. Vampires and zombies, but really a mystery story at heart rather than a horror (although there's a bit of that too) and great for it.

[TordelBack]

Returned at last to my first-time read of The Invisibles, as the library has finally acquired a rather spiffy Deluxe Edition Vol. 2.  Some of this I'd already read, but seeing as it was the excellent Sheman story, I was happy to do so again - Lord Fanny is by far my favourite character, and I love Jill Thompson's art. 

I thought this run (up to issue 25, I think) worked far better than the earlier material, with a strong central plot around Sir Miles and his prisoners allowing the side-stories and deeper threads to play along without feeling too disjointed or directionless.  Really enjoyed Morrison stretching his legs with copious pages of occultobabble, sprinkled with clever insights (including a one-page recap of Zenith Phase IV  ).  I just wish I could get along with his in-story proxy King Mob, who I find very irritating. 

Greatly looking forward to the next volume, this is a superb comic, and I'm glad I've saved it until my dotage to savour.

(The 'Deluxe' justifier here appears to be extensive pitch-notes and outlines for the series, in which Morrison rightly abases himself before Gaiman as inspiration before hurtling off into the arrogant self-involved aggrandisements that make him such a loveable oaf).

[Colin YNWA]

One of GMozz's I'm still to read as it was around and about in my wilderness years and like so much from that period I've not got around to.

I will one day and its the kinda reviews like that which make me want to get to this sooner rather than later.

[radiator]

Working my way through Stephen Fry's latest audiobook, More Fool Me. Despite being a bit disappointed with The Fry Chronicles, I had been looking forward to this volume as I presumed it would deal with a more interesting period of his life, after all Fry writes and speaks with great eloquence about mental illness and addiction. Sad to say that this book feels very much like a contractual obligation jobbie and a shameless cash-grab. Almost an eye-watering quarter of the entire running time is spent recapping the previous two books at insane length. It literally reads like a student trying to bolster the word count of an essay. As for covering his 'drug hell' story so pointedly teased at the end of the previous book? He did coke for a long time during the 80s and 90s, then stopped doing it. That's about it.

It also continues the theme that began in TFC, of Fry fawning over various 'eccentrics', luvvies and establishment figures, many of whose pathetic 'shocking' behaviour apparently amuses the author no end, but makes the reader want to punch everyone involved very hard in the face. I mean, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Keith Allen being loutish ***** to some innocent punters in the Groucho Club is hardly the stuff great anecdotes are made of. I guess you had to be there?

Apparently the last third of the book is padded out entirely with diary excerpts. An apt title for a book if ever there was one.

[Dog Deever]

Tried to order Dept of Monsterology from a local bookshop with an unused book token, but alas no. I ended up getting Chew vol 1 (after the write up in the Meg) and The Ballad of Halo Jones (so I could reread it without having to dig out piles of boxes)- so it certainly wasn't all bad.
I liked Chew a lot overall, though some of the dialogue was a little cringey in a very few places, there's a lot of fun ideas thrown in there and I'll be keeping an eye out for the rest of it and look forward to seeing how it develops.

[Dandontdare]

I love Chew - it just gets more and more bonkers as it goes along with weirder and weirder food-based powers. I got vols 7 & 8 recently, I think it's gong to run to 10 books in all.

[TordelBack]

More 'new' Morrison for me courtesy of the library, The Filth.  This is already one of my favourite Morrison comics, and I only read it last night.  In very large part this is because it is an utterly beautiful thing - the clever, clean, wordy packaging of the complete TPB wraps around what has to be one of the greatest artistic achievements in comics: several hundred pages of stunning design, consistent characterisation, revolting visualisations and ridiculously sustained detail from Chris Weston on pencils, and Gary Erskine on inks.

The story is simultaneously touching and disgusting, convoluted and straightforward, but the art... bloody hell. It does that Weston thing of combining dazzlingly stark realism with corrupting insanity and unsettling costumes, and it does it for page after page after page.  It's as if Killing Time had been bred with Canon Fodder and their offspring magnified a dozen times.

I know we harp on about this a lot in this parish, but how Chris isn't one of the most lauded and fought-over artists in the history of comics is beyond me: this mammoth slice of work alone puts him on a level above all the other quasi-realist pencil monkeys, even Bolland or JH Williams III, as far as I'm concerned.  No-one else is delivering this level of quality in this kind of quantity.

Many kudos go to Erskine and Hollingsworth (on colours) too - a perfectly meshed team. 

How I have overlooked this book for a decade (?) I have no idea.

[Professor Bear]

I suspect the US market just doesn't know what to do with him.  Any monkey with a manga fetish and a copy of 3D Max can draw the superhero stuff, so there must surely be doubts about wasting talent like Chris on such a project.

[Tiplodocus]

More 'new' Morrison for me courtesy of the library, The Filth.  This is already one of my favourite Morrison comics, and I only read it last night.  In very large part this is because it is an utterly beautiful thing - the clever, clean, wordy packaging of the complete TPB wraps around what has to be one of the greatest artistic achievements in comics: several hundred pages of stunning design, consistent characterisation, revolting visualisations and ridiculously sustained detail from Chris Weston on pencils, and Gary Erskine on inks.

The story is simultaneously touching and disgusting, convoluted and straightforward, but the art... bloody hell. It does that Weston thing of combining dazzlingly stark realism with corrupting insanity and unsettling costumes, and it does it for page after page after page.  It's as if Killing Time had been bred with Canon Fodder and their offspring magnified a dozen times.

I know we harp on about this a lot in this parish, but how Chris isn't one of the most lauded and fought-over artists in the history of comics is beyond me: this mammoth slice of work alone puts him on a level above all the other quasi-realist pencil monkeys, even Bolland or JH Williams III, as far as I'm concerned.  No-one else is delivering this level of quality in this kind of quantity.

Many kudos go to Erskine and Hollingsworth (on colours) too - a perfectly meshed team. 

How I have overlooked this book for a decade (?) I have no idea.

You've got me hankering for a reread of this again.

Satanist, which page is it that you have?

[Satanist]

Cannae post photo in work but I think its the last page from issue 2. The one with the giant spunk flying down Rodeo drive killing folk. I've had it up in my hall for years and can't wait to see which of my sons realises first that its not giant tadpoles.

Out of all the art on the wall its my wifes favourite piece. Weirdo.

Met Mr Morrison few years back and he said to me it's the work he's proudest of but I bet he says that to all the fanboys.

Hmm I think Im due a re-read as well.

[Boo]

I'm reading Journal of the Plague Year which is a collection of three short stories set on earth either shortly before or during a mystery plague which wipes out pretty much everyone. My favourite is Orbital Decay by Malcolm Cross which centres on the team in the international space station who see what's happening on earth. They try to work on a cure but the isolation and paranoia results in one of them becoming a murderer. It's really claustrophobic and very creepy.