Whats everyone reading?

[Trout]

Tales of the Buddha Before He Got Enlighted, by Alan Grant, Jon Haward and Jamie Grant.

http://www.renegadeartsentertainment.com/comics/tales-of-the-buddha-before-he-got-enlightened

It's funny, offensive and barely three quid.

- Trout

[SmallBlueThing]

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by, um, Jules Verne- just started this with the boys as their bedtime story after we became so bored with the final harry potter book we'd stopped reading anything. Judging from the first night, while 20,000 may not be seen as the most exciting book ever (so far), they're understanding and following it- which is quite impressive for their ages, i thought.

Im reading 'daybreak', by brian ralph- the drawn and quartered hardback promoted as "an art-house take on the classic zombie genre". It was almost worth buying just for the sheer amount of things wrong with that sentence, but as it happens it's quite fun if not exactly original, either from a comics standpoint, or 'the classic zombie genre', whatever that might reasonably be.

Oh, and DC's 'batman' from #515 onwards, better known as the doug moench/kelley jones issues (mostly). So far, incredible stuff. Man i love me some kelley jones...

SBT

[Ancient Otter]

Im reading 'daybreak', by brian ralph- the drawn and quartered hardback promoted as "an art-house take on the classic zombie genre". It was almost worth buying just for the sheer amount of things wrong with that sentence, but as it happens it's quite fun if not exactly original, either from a comics standpoint, or 'the classic zombie genre', whatever that might reasonably be.

You didn't find the first person view through the panels original? I'd disagree with Drawn & Quarterly calling it a zombie comic too.

[spoiler]The Drawn & Quarterly edition adds a extra section thus creating a new ending, very different in tone from where the original three issues end.[/spoiler]

By the way, SmallBlueThing, have you ever read Tokyo Zombie?

[SmallBlueThing]

Dont get me wrong, it's lovely piece of work. Ive been meaning to buy it for ages, and today it was either that or cf19. Im only halfway through at present, so will reserve judgement til i finish- my comments were more to do with the blatant pretension of the back cover line. But, i guess, the book's not really marketed at me- it's packaged to appeal to those for whom comics are those low-brow gaudy things that idiots buy.

SBT

[Radbacker]

just started another Culture Novel by Banks, Surface Detail which i think is one of his latest ones.  Confusing at the start as usual but can see it starting to turn into something more coherent.  More mention of the Idirian War which sound like an interesting time, has it ever been put to page or do you think it would sort of ruin it like finaly seeing the Clone Wars in Star Wars (which was nothing like what my 6 year old head dreamed up when i saw Star Wars (thats Star Wars not A New Hope), i always imagined resurected armies of bad arse light sabre weilding soldiers, where death on the battle field is not the end you just get put in a new body).

CU Radbacker

[QuickQuag]

Trying to get into Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. I've not read much of his stuff at all, and only saw The End of the Affair recently, but jeez this one's grim.

[Professor Bear]

The last couple of books in the Chimpanzee Complex trilogy, which are bafflingly terrible.
There's a bunch of pull quotes from Comicsbulletin and Forbidden Planet International that makes me wonder if I read the same book, so glowing and effusive are the reviews for what I found to be a poorly-translated, badly-plotted and ham-fisted eurocomic with some really clumsy characterisation and arbitrary changes in the course of the plot, like a character who comes back from space being told that she's a clone or a copy like the copies of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong who came back in an earlier book and then died shortly afterwards, yet the woman doesn't die, and several pages later the plot has changed to suggest she isn't a copy and never came back at all, or at least this seems to be the working assumption of anyone with a speaking part.
Nonsensical, dull, and utterly pointless, it says nothing about its characters, the sci-fi element is little more than a recycled second act from the movie version of Lost In Space, and while the art is fantastic, it's wasted on what I will refer to as "the story" only for reasons of clarity within the context of this review, but "the story" is terrible and makes no sense, displaying a logic that would be laughed at if it appeared in a  Jeph Loeb superhero book.
An awful, awful graphic novel series that I erroneously believed couldn't get any worse - and then the book physically fell apart when I turned the pages.  I am now done buying Cinebook products.

[Davek]

Trying to get into Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. I've not read much of his stuff at all, and only saw The End of the Affair recently, but jeez this one's grim.

Read Our Man in Havana few weeks back, didn't enjoy it that much to be honest.

Have been reading Slaine Treasures of Britain (better than I thought it would be, although hard to take in another Arthurian interpretation). Have just started volume 1 of Books of Invasion (finding it hard to get into as the art is almost too good, if that makes sense???).

[SmallBlueThing]

Not sure if this should be here, or in the 'dc new 52' or 'animal man?' threads- but anyway, i received my latest batch of comics from various suppliers (A Place In Space being, for the mumblety month in a row the speediest at getting comics through my door after ordering via ebay- less than 36 hours this time). This batch included animal man 12, swamp thing 12, dial h 2&3, wonder woman 11 and american vampire: lord of nightmares 2.

The 'rotworld' storyline, beginning in this month's swampy and animal man is further pushing my favourite shambling muck-encrusted mockery of a man (well, next to large48 anyway) down avenues that i dont really want him to go. While the very last thing id want is more rick veitch/ nancy collins/ doug wheeler-esque odes to the very soul of plantkind and do, in theory, appreciate a return to the pre-moore monster/ anton arcane centric swampy, i cant help but feel this particular iteration of the book is lacking substance or direction. Animal man reads just like swampy (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) which is hardly surprising considering the two books are co-plotted and scripted by the same writers, while the art is very much the current house style. S'okay, i guess, though swampy himself looks bloody ridiculous and is an affront to wrightson's original design. Some sloppy bits too, when a 'gator' becomes a 'croc' and one other bit that stuck out but which escapes me now.

Wonder woman continues to be consistently surprising and brilliant, while dial h has been officially dropped- i struggled through ish 2 and gave up partway through 3. It's unreadable, with some stupid ideas that im sure mieville finds hilarious and painfully-contrived 'wacky' heroes- and again suffers from boring art.

Best of the new comics that landed on my mat was lord of nightmares 2. Im not especially following the parent title (i have the first trade, but wasnt overly impressed) but luckily this reads perfectly well on its own, and is fun and serious enough to make me go against my personal 'no vampires, unless by (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) marv wolfman and gene colan' rule. If i had to recommend a single comic this month that wasnt 2000AD or TWD, this'd be it.

The next batch of new titles will be frankenstein: agent of shade 12, nightforce 6, walking dead 101 and then the first round of #0s.

SBT

[judgeblake]

Reading Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Conrad -
Apparently hugely influential, tells the story of how the hero and the story of the hero has permeated culture, myth, religion, psychology etc I heard writers/directors like Christopher Nolan for instance have been influenced by the revelations in this book. Finding it hard to find time to get some reading of this book in though due to the fact I'm looking at Dredd Case Files as well as my bath being on the blink (alot of reading time lost lol).

[Frank]

Reading Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Conrad -
Apparently hugely influential, tells the story of how the hero and the story of the hero has permeated culture, myth, religion, psychology etc I heard writers/directors like Christopher Nolan for instance have been influenced by the revelations in this book. Finding it hard to find time to get some reading of this book in though due to the fact I'm looking at Dredd Case Files as well as my bath being on the blink (alot of reading time lost lol).

Skim read it, you'll still get the gist. It's like all those books that promise to explain that there are only six/seven/twelve/twenty basic stories (they can't agree), upon which all others are based. On one level they're quite interesting; on another, their observations border on the blindingly obvious.

If you ever watched Star Wars as a kid and thought the Empire were a bit like the Nazis and the Rebellion were a bit like the Allies, there's not much Campbell can teach you. If you're already familiar with or are currently reading some of the stories he discusses, his comments will be more interesting.

[JOE SOAP]

Reading Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Conrad -
Apparently hugely influential, tells the story of how the hero and the story of the hero has permeated culture, myth, religion, psychology etc I heard writers/directors like Christopher Nolan for instance have been influenced by the revelations in this book. Finding it hard to find time to get some reading of this book in though due to the fact I'm looking at Dredd Case Files as well as my bath being on the blink (alot of reading time lost lol).

More than likely the result of a publishers blurb or just people waffling that the book's reponsible for every film involving a central character. It's a book propagated by studios and Lucas for decades. It's not bad or unworthy of a read but you could get as much from a bullet-point version.


Nolan: I've never read Joseph Campbell, and I don't know all that much about story archetypes.


http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/pl_inception_nolan/



Stick with the Dredd Case Files, you'll learn more about how a central character doesn't need to fit neatly into the catch-all Hero with a 1000 Constipations.

[Zarjazzer]

Apartment 16 an okay and slightly scary modern horror. Dungeons and dragons comic book fun quite fun very fast plot and not too much time for character but I found it engaging.