Whats everyone reading?

[Syne]

I have just finished The Scar by China Mieville.

It was no where near as good as Perdido Street Station but still not a bad read.

I'm going to have to read some Mieville, and soon. M. John Harrison, mentioned above, seems in the same vein, but I'm a little intimidated by the density of Mieville's prose.

[PreacherCain]

Orbital vol 1

D'oh!  I confused Orbital with The Champanzee Complex - both Cinebooks, but very different stories.  I hold out hope Orbital may still be good even if tCC was not.

I really liked the Orbital books. I was wondering what to make of that Greg Land comment!

[GordyM]

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

It's all about the excess and craziness of Holywood during the 70s and 80s when the old guard were replaced by the likes of Coppola, Scorcese etc. Fascinating stuff.

[SmallBlueThing]

Can we briefly retitle this thread 'what were you thinking of reading, but quickly gave up because it's so shit'? Then i can talk about EPIC COMICS' CLIVE BARKER'S NIGHTBREED series from the early nineties.

Ye gods! I dug a bunch of these out of a longbox recently, with a view to a read, as the director's cut of the movie is at last crawling towards wider release. Last night i waded through the mud that was #13 to #16, otherwise known as 'Nightbreed Vs Rawhead Rex', and it might just be the worst comic ive read this year. Decade. Life.

An Aleister Crowley- alike black magician cant have children with his long-time slave, so he decides to bring Rawhead back to life as a surrogate 'son', by feeding the corpse the newborn baby of nightbreeds bloody bones and sathan. It works, up pops rawhead (with baby living in gullet), magician panics and shotguns its bollocks off- accidentally also shooting his slave girl in the vagina. However, the shotgun blast transfers rawhead's massive sperm into her and a (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) hybrid child is conceived.

Meanwhile, nightbreeds peloquin (a bisexual wolverine character, whom epic thought might leech some of wolvie's popularity. He didnt.) some goth with a burning, paralysing, 'hand of glory', that moon-faced one and bloody bones- literally a pink shape/cushion with a face- rack down the kidnappers and try to get the 'breed child back.

All this would be as far beyond bollocks as it's possible to get, if it werent for the art going that bit further. Ten artists work on the four issues in total- with five on #15 alone. The painters are the worst, with whoever does the last few pages of #15 being particularly awful. But mark texeira, who kicks the series off, being pretty close.  so many styles are on show here- imagine the early 2000AD dredd ethos (circa day the law died) only drawn by a combination of people who sent pictures to the nerve center, and a cat with paint on its paws.

You wont be surprised to hear this was written by dan chichester- responsible i believe (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) for all those dreadful HELLRAISER comics epic also put out at the same time.

Utterly lacking in merit and notable only for venerable old ricardo villagran inking the final issue- fresh from dc's star trek maybe- lending a mainstream respectability to it all in the final stretch, which immediately increases its ludicrousness a hundredfold.
Yes, i stand by this: nightbreed vs rawhead rex is the worst comic story i have ever read. I am ashamed to have it in my collection.

SBT

[Radbacker]

i've got a couple of the earlier Nightbreed comics i picked up somewhere that picked up after the movie and it had a guy who could fill his mouth with all sorts of cutlery and shards of broken crockery and munch down on people, it was prty cool sad to hear the series went to shit. (actually cant of been that cool if thats all i remember about it)

Finally had time to devour my goodies from my last trip to the big smoke.  I've just finished Chew V1 & V2, man thats some fine tasting comic, utterly bizzare but completly engrosing i can safely say i have never read the likes of it. A true original.  Finished FAbles V11, V12 and V13 this is becoming my favorite Vertigo ongoing you'd really think after the War and taking the Homelands back there'd be nothing left to do but it keeps on trucking and doesn't suck. Not to blaspheme but I think Willingham is up there with Wagner in the writting stakes, anyone got any sugestions for more of his stuff? Also giving HItman a go, heard good things and Ennis giving the finger to the DC universe sounds good, V1 took a while to grab me but was into it by the end, half way through V2 and really enjoying it.  Next up Inviincable V6, super heroes done right, always enjoyed this just have to get my collection up to date.

CU Radbacker

[judgefloyd]

hah, I've read a Lynda La Plante novel and lived to tell the tale.  To be fair, her story* wasn't illustrated.

Now I'm re-reading The Boys slowly and alternating it with James Lees-Milne's memoir 'Another Self'. I'd heard that he was a terrific writer, great snob but aesthetic genius etc.  So far he just seems to be a self-obsessenarcissitic  snob with no self-awareness - every stupid thing his family do is brilliant in some vague way because they're rich.  He's like Quentin Crisp but without the wit.
  The Boys, on the other hand is almost all genius.  A bit over the top at times, but Ennis being lovable most of the time.
*I say 'story', but it was more like a bookfull of tabloid headlines strung together by someone who just can't write (or as La Plante would say 'just; can't; write'.  I was cheered by seeing the semicolon make a comeback then depressed to see she didn't have a clue how to use it)

[Professor Bear]

In theory, Rawhead Rex vs Nightbreed sounds like it should be the most awesome crossover of all time!  It still might be, as , well, how can I put this..?  Here goes: my critical faculties and SBTs at some point take a divergent path...
Wow, who would have thought that it was that easy to disagree with SBT without coming off as a massive jerk?  I wonder if [spoiler]NAME REMOVED BY MODERATOR[/spoiler] was aware this is actually possible?

[SmallBlueThing]

Prof, believe you me- if you love nightbreed as much as me and are as much as a gushing fanboy of rawhead as me (have the top of the first story page in books of blood signed by barker and have done the hair extensions of the woman who used to be the little girl in the movie) a team-up SHOULD be a mouthwateringly jubilant thing- but my christ, it's bad. Reams of tugid captions, appalling art- just shitness. In fact, prof, if you pm me your address and if you promise to send them back, i'll send them to you so you can see. I really want someone else to read them so i can prove it's not just me.

SBT

[JOE SOAP]

On a related note: some fans discovered a vhs copy of the full version of Nightbreed:






http://www.clivebarker.info/morenightbreed.html

[SmallBlueThing]

Or you could come along to the southern contingent get-together next week and i could just give it to you.

If you even live in england- with this board, i lose track of who's who and where people are- and you're probably in ireland or scotland like most people here anyway.

SBT

[Syne]

Apparently thanks to a petition the film rights holders of Nightbreed [whichever Hollywood bastards they are] have green-lighted a dvd/blueray realease including the extra footage: but the fans have to raise the funds first. Or something like that.

I've just recently started reading Barker. The Hellbound Heart was pretty good, volume 1 of Books of Blood was okay, but I'm actually liking Arabat the most. I have nothing against gore, but I find his more playful surrealism more diverse and interesting.

[Ancient Otter]

The Chimpanzee Complex is featured in the 1001 Comics You Must read Before You Die book. Thoughts on that anyone?

[Davek]

Reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. 

And also read issue 1 of The Scarifyers today.  Was OK - felt a bit like one of the Holmes adaptations by Edginton and Culbard.  Hopefully subsequent issues are released regularly.  Was actually surprised to see this on the shelves at FP Leicester today ... may be something to do with the glowing review on the FPI blog.