Whats everyone reading?

[Link Prime]

Top Ten Compendium

Been humming and hawing over this purchase, but I might just fill-in the missing Moore penned back issues from my collection of the run instead.

[Colin YNWA]

Top Ten Compendium

Been humming and hawing over this purchase, but I might just fill-in the missing Moore penned back issues from my collection of the run instead.

Recently got a really good on a complete run of Tom Strong comics which are now on the read spreadsheet. That reminded me I do need to try to do similar thing with Top Ten and catch up on the Alan Moore stuff from my wilderness years.

[JohnW]

if I'd known it was this bad I'd have quit at the same time Moore did.

Ha! Looks like I got out from under just in time.
I liked Top 10 well enough, and anything that failed to enthral me I put down to me rather than Moore. I just assumed that the man could do no wrong.
Twenty years later and I'm reading the Miracleman Omnibus ('the Original Epic by the Original Author'), which is showing me what a young Alan Moore was doing with (I gather) a minimum of editorial restraint.
All I can say is, if I wanted purple prose gushing off the page, I wouldn't be reading comics.
I'm not saying it's bad, but for a primarily visual medium, this is just too damn wordy.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Top Ten Compendium

Been humming and hawing over this purchase, but I might just fill-in the missing Moore penned back issues from my collection of the run instead.

I reckon that would be the best thing to do with Top Ten. Some of the Tom Strong issues Moore didn't write are pretty good, but I wouldn't say that about any of the Top Ten ones.

if I'd known it was this bad I'd have quit at the same time Moore did.

Ha! Looks like I got out from under just in time.
I liked Top 10 well enough, and anything that failed to enthral me I put down to me rather than Moore. I just assumed that the man could do no wrong.
Twenty years later and I'm reading the Miracleman Omnibus ('the Original Epic by the Original Author'), which is showing me what a young Alan Moore was doing with (I gather) a minimum of editorial restraint.
All I can say is, if I wanted purple prose gushing off the page, I wouldn't be reading comics.
I'm not saying it's bad, but for a primarily visual medium, this is just too damn wordy.

I'm with you there, my favourite Alan Moore comics are V For Vendetta, Watchmen, Tom Strong, Top Ten and his Swamp Thing run (though I haven't read any of his 2000AD era material since I was in my teens, and plan to reread them soon), but I bought the Miracleman omnibus and struggled with it at times, it's packed with a lot of fascinating ideas but I found some of the prose exhausting to read.

[Colin YNWA]

Yeah I said much the same about Miracleman not that long ago. Its a good comic, but its not aged as well as much of his work and has been surpassed by other creators since. However much this work influenced those works, doesn't mean that the original hasn't been surpassed.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Yeah I said much the same about Miracleman not that long ago. Its a good comic, but its not aged as well as much of his work and has been surpassed by other creators since. However much this work influenced those works, doesn't mean that the original hasn't been surpassed.

I agree with absolutely everything you wrote there, I'm keeping my omnibus edition as one day I hope to own all of what's considered to be his major work (I'm missing Promethea Books 3 - 6, Providence, Neonomicon, From Hell and Lost Girls* at the moment) but while I can absolutely imagine rereading Swamp Thing, Halo Jones, and Top Ten, I doubt I'll ever go back to Miracleman.


*And I'm not sure if I'll get Lost Girls to be honest, I've read about twenty pages of it and aspects of it made me feel deeply uncomfortable.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

Batman - The Long Halloween by Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale - Thirteen issue series that makes Batman in to a 40's style film noir, or that was my take on it at least. I really liked Sale's art, he's great at making people look big and bulky but also realistic, and there's some really strong splash pages. The script is largely good too, it occasionally wanders in to cliched territory (Bats going on about Catwoman having nine lives, some of the gangsters' dialogue) but it certainly kept me gripped, and I liked the way they introduced a lot of Batman's most famous villains (The Joker, Scarecrow, Soloman Grundy, etc) but they didn't feel ridiculous or cartoonish. I failed to predict who the killer was as well, but didn't feel cheated, and in general felt very satisfied with the ending.

[Tjm86]

Amtrak Wars Patrick Tilley.  Started many moons ago but kinda fizzled out. Thought I'd give it another go.  Not bad as they go.  Definitely Brain Candy and not in the same league as Mission or Fade Out.

An interesting take on the old Native American / Coloniser conflict.  Set in a post apocalyptic landscape.  Hi tech 'Amurricans' versus the native Mutes.  The first volume was more of a bounce back and forth between the two cultures where the second volume is far more centred on the Amtrak Federation.

Pretty standard totalitarian high tech fare to be honest.  Enough to keep interest going with fairly interesting characters.  Maybe it's just a case of right now needing something that isn't really going to engage the brain cell too much.

On the comic front I'm on a bit of a DC kick at the moment.  Working my way through Identity Crisis.  An interesting crossover miniseries in the standard 'event' format DC seem to like.  Stems from having recently read Infinite Crisis then Final Crisis (just because I'd never read them really ...) and found in the case of the latter that it kept being referenced.

To be fair it's not bad.  As a rule I've never been blown away by DC.  There characters just seem too one dimensional at times.  That said I've always found that some of the more esoteric, experimental stuff winds up on their imprint.  I know I've banged on about the pre-Vertigo Wasteland series with fantastic David Lloyd artwork and some downright creepy tales (as well as some batshit crazy ones).  This has got a bit more staying power.

[JohnW]

Batman - The Long Halloween by Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale

I read this in the midst of a Batman binge many years ago and thought pretty well of it. The same goes for its sequel, Dark Victory, even though I understand that bat-cognoscenti have a low opinion of that one. Honestly? I couldn't tell one from the other at this distance, and I've gone right off Batman, along with Loeb and Sale and all their works.
Catwoman: When in Rome was the last thing of theirs I read, and off it went to the charity shop in short order. I still have their Daredevil: Yellow on my shelf because I remember that it looked nice, but I think it's inertia and nothing more that keeps it in my possession. My all-embracing enthusiasm for comics of every genre has vanished. I'm so anti-superhero stories now it isn't funny.

What am I reading myself? Hefty big interchangeable books about the war in the Pacific.
Oh – and Complete Case Files 7. This is the stuff from 1983-84, when I was lukewarm about the prog and was drifting in and out.
Now I'm thinking that it wasn't just me in the grip of a long post-Apocalypse War letdown. A lot of these stories are pretty substandard.
'The Highwaymen' from Prog 353, anyone?
I'm sure 'The Haunting of Sector House 9' has its fans around here, but I'm not one of them and never was.*
And I wish nothing but happiness and prosperity to Kim Raymond, but I can't help deploring that he was ever given Dredd stories to draw.
Let me just emphasise that it's not as if this stuff is genuinely bad, but I'd come on board in the summer of 1981. Need I say more?

*Judge Omar's turban does not suggest Justice Department's inclusion of Sikhism but looks instead like a low-rent stage magician trying to sell his audience on Oriental mystery.

[Le Fink]

I'm sure 'The Haunting of Sector House 9' has its fans around here, but I'm not one of them and never was.

BURN THE HERETIC!

(I really like Brett Ewins's Dredd. But yeah can't disagree on Kim Raymond.)

[Le Fink]

Batman - The Long Halloween by Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale

It was good art-wise but I found the story a bit repetitive and it felt like it took too long to be resolved. I've not read much Bats other than Frank Miller's efforts, but I did enjoy Paul Pope's Batman year 100. Quirky, bit different and worth a look. Tried reading the first massive Morrison omnibus recently but didn't get too far.

[Le Fink]

while I can absolutely imagine rereading Swamp Thing, Halo Jones, and Top Ten, I doubt I'll ever go back to Miracleman.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contains my favourite Moore, although it becomes more obscure and less entertaining (for the less hardcore, i.e., me) as it goes on. Kevin O'Neill on good form too.

I do revisit the first couple of books of Miracleman from time to time. I like the 'alien suit' and warpsmiths concepts, the world building and storytelling is pretty good. I can leave the final Olympus part. Maybe not his best but still worth a re-read... Captain Britain, anyone?

In Hell though ... not sure I'll be reading that one again.

[JohnW]

... Captain Britain, anyone?

In Hell though ... not sure I'll be reading that one again.

Yeah – Captain Britain deserves to be taken off the shelf.
I mean, I paid for the thing, didn't I?
I think I liked it, but it was a long time ago and all I remember is that I had a streaming cold at the time.

But From Hell now?
Oh my.
That's something I believe I'll always go back to, even if I don't quite have the same stomach I had when I first read it.
This is the story that caused Moore to change his religion and it damn near did the same to me. I hadn't been reading much in the way of comics for years and I hadn't read any Alan Moore since The Killing Joke had come out. The Alan Moore stories I was used to had rhythmic circularities and synchronicities. Even as they grew more elaborate there was still something to remind me of Future Shocks gone by.
And then I read From Hell.
Oh my.

The wretched death of Mary Kelly: the Ripper is having some blissed-out blood-soaked epiphany in which his victim's body becomes the purest expression of the divine.
The next morning one of the cops on the scene opines about the same body, "Makes you think there's naught to us but shit and mincemeat."


From Hell.
"I made it all up, and it all came true anyway."

[Le Fink]

I'm glad you like it. I found it grim as hell. Much to admire - particularly from Eddie Campbell - but once might be enough.

[Colin YNWA]

I'm glad you like it. I found it grim as hell. Much to admire - particularly from Eddie Campbell - but once might be enough.

Yeah I know 'From Hell' is increasingly regarded as Alan Moore's greatest work, but I didn't get on with it and I say that as a big Eddie Campbell fan.

There's a lot to appreciate in there and its clear I'm missing things that others get from it, but art aside it left me cold. I found so little pleasure in reading it and worked through it as I felt I should. I was almost self consious for not enjoying it. But I found it a slog. All the craft in the world can't replace a story you enjoy.

In part its that I find Ripper stories grate with me. I see the fetchisation of the ripper and the conspriacy theory that circle the brutal crimes almost distasteful. So I did have that in my mind as I approached the work and I do wonder how much that coloured my view... quite a lot I imagine.

Anyway if my next 'series' of posts project comes to pass I'll return to this in more detail soon.