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I was just about to start a new thread entitled "The Great Satan Steals Some Comics", when I saw this one.

As a lifelong Marvel-reader, and equally lifelong despiser of Disney, this is terrible news for me. I cannot, in all honesty, buy into something that is owned by the Disney Corporation. So I guess I stop buying the comics.

I'm one of those people who refuses to allow my children to watch Disney movies- I don't need to explain why, you all know why they are meaningless, stupid, horrible, culurally homogenising arse-wank of the lowest order.

So, my love of Marvel comics (specifically Spidey), versus my hatred of Disney? Well, I can go without the comics to be honest.

Shame it wasn't SEFTON Disney buying the company- I'd be alright with that.

A sad, sad, day.

Steev

Am I the only one who is actively turned off by writers from other media suddenly trying their hand at comics? Like Alan Moore "writing songs", it's a red-headed stepchild at best.

I have little time for Ian Rankin- my elderly mum reads him and says he's "lovely", which tells me all I need to know really. Constantine has had his day- the most recent stuff I've read has been pure pastiche- and not even good pastiche at that. Everything you need to read was published by the time Ennis left.

What next? Dan Brown writing Swamp Thing?

Or maybe I'm just SPECTACULARLY grumpy today...

Steev

*yeah, Stevie knows that Mr Cave hasn't recorded a decent album in nigh 20 years, but that doesn't invalidate the argument

Noooooooooooooooooooooo! I quite liked all the Grinderman stuff, plus bits of various recent albums.

- Trout

How long ago were Boatman's Call and Murder Ballads? I've been deeply dissappointed by everything he's done since. I used to be a major admirer of Mr Cave- but recent efforts and interviews have revealed that he's actually a bit of a twat.

Steev

Due to "tidying up the rest of the house" before my mother-in-law arrived a couple of months ago, which co-incided with a mammoth prog-reread/ sorting/ bagging/ boxing session, our bedroom looks like The Mighty Tharg grew to giant size, came round our house, lifted off our roof, parked his arse over our bedroom and quite literally shit 2000ADs into it.

Steev

No, I'm not an SFX reader, more a Deathray man. I suppose Bendis would say that, wouldn't he? Take a look at the cover of Ult. Spidey #1- that perfectly round head is replicated throughout the comic, and isn't just an attention-grabber. It really does throw you out of the art- picks you up by the scrotal sack and heaves you out of the panel, such is its awfulness.

There's so much wrong with the comic that there aren't enough words in my computer. Why they've done this to a title that was seen by many as "Spidey's only hope" following the- er- "controversial" OMD/BND over in Amazing, is anyone's guess.

Thankfully, I have really enjoyed Amazing since One More Day, so it doesn't upset me as much as I imagine it does all those other people who rant on the Internet.

Steev

I'm not a subscriber (yet), but I did get a surprise on Saturday, when I returned home from London at ten pm- then ten minutes later, my neighbour knocked on the door with a massive stack of envelopes. Inside were 45 copies of 1651, each one addressed to a member of the board, only with my address on them instead.

I was so overcome that I immediately set fire to them all and stood laughing, crazily, as they burned.








Note: The above is untrue.

Steev

Aside from Flesh, I also picked up the first issues of 'The Marvel Project' and 'The Ultimates 4' (or 'Ultimate Comics Avengers' as it now appears to be called) and (sigh, here we go again) 'Ultimate Comics Spider-Man'- after I'd picked myself up from being floored by the sheer vomitous hideousness of Marvel's new Ultimate cover-designs, I gave these a read last night.

The Marvels Project, on first go, appears to be MARVELS done all over again, with slightly less-impressive art and stilted dialogue. We're back in '38/'39 at the start of the Marvel Universe, back with the creation of the first Human Torch, and the Second World War is once again threatening. Once again, it's told by an "outsider"- only this time, one with a twist. It's much as you'd expect, and- excepting one magnificent sequence of the Sub Mariner attacking some Nazis which includes one of the best panels I've ever seen in a Marvel comic- pretty bland.

The Ult. Avengers is more in the style of The Ults 1 & 2, thankfully. It's lack of a numeral at least means I don't have to spend the rest of my life feintly perturbed that I'm missing the '3' trade. Millar seems to have gone minimalist with the dialogue this time, which means it's a brief read. This, coupled with the paper Marvel seem to be printing everything on these days, makes the comic seem insubstantial. It's lovely and white and I'm sure those for whom the "art is the thing" are loving it- but for a luddite like me, who wants my cash to buy something that feels worthwhile, it's bordering on "flimsy". A fairly good read, all told. I'll pick up the collection when it appears in six months.

The new Ult. Spidey is an abomination. Apparently, something called "Ultimatum" happened, killing millions of New Yorkers and necessitating the reboot of a perfectly good title, with a ridiculously crap artist. There's the stink of manga about the whole thing, and when in costume, Peter Parker's head now apparently swells up to a perfectly round balloon shape that is at once distracting and revolting. Never before have I been so offended by an artistic choice- but this pissed me off no end- after years of glorious Bagley and even that guy who followed him, this is just a bad joke. Gwen Stacy's back too. I'm several trades behind in the original series, so I have no idea if that's a new development or something familiar. Last I knew she was murdered by a symbiote. The Kingpin reappears, [spoiler]only to be immediately killed by someone looking a bit like Mysterio[/spoiler], so I don't know what that means. And the comic is pitched much lower than the "classic" Ultimate Spider-Man. Hate it with a passion. But, being a Spidey completist, I'm doomed to see it through its hopefully short run.

Oh, also picked up the Amazing Spider-Man annual. The US one, not the Panini UK thing. Claims to be "The Wedding Issue", but marvellously isn't. Cracking little story, with an unprepared-for twist that threatens twisty-turny clone shenanigans are just around the corner. Only this time, I hope, done for entertainment not for sales.

Other than that, I'm reading a book about Lake Monsters. It is good.

Steev

I would attempt a proper review of this, but I feel it's futile: New readers would probably find it overly-simplistic and clunky, old readers like myself may find it impossible to disengage the nostalgia circuits and do anything other than claim every page to be shiny paper orgasm.

Frankly, it's brilliant. As brilliant now as it was back then, when it was the number one reason to read the comic in the first place. Having it all in one place (despite it missing the belated, underrated, Legend of Shamanna for no proper reason other than "people didn't like it". Ptch! I did) is more than we deserve. So many quotable lines, so many big, bold pictures of dinosaurs ripping people to shreds.

I do, however, have some queries with the package.

1) Okay, so the pages have been sourced from later printings- notably 'Best of 2000AD monthly', I guess. But wouldn't it have been better just to white-out the "From the 2000AD archives" tag that was hastily pasted onto the art? Sticking the back of a fag packet over it before scanning would have been preferable to having it there. Somehow, it just looks cheap, and throws you out of the aforementioned nostalgia, thinking "oh, I'm not reading the original, just a re-reprint". I know it's stupid, but it actually annoyed me.

2) Who's idea was it to stick a "censored" panel on the back? It's the only censored panel in the whole thing, as I recall (my reread hasn't got to the end of book one yet, I only got the thing yesterday), and flies directly in the face of all the dinosaury-mayhem that the casual reader may anticipate on picking this up.

3) Pat Mills's intro is magnificently grumpy- and fair play to him! And I agree with everything he says- including his call for 2000AD readers to bombard Tharg with demands for further Flesh drawn by Ramon Sola. Yes please! Sola is the unsurpassed master of dino-grotesquery and even a short return to Trans-Time's operations would be welcome. Especially if "greytoned" by Mr Dayglo again.

Brilliant strips in a pretty-good package, that would have been a hundred percent better with just a little bit more thought.

Steev

Walking Dead, obviously. The best, most consistent comic ever produced- horror or no. I've recently finished volume 10 of the trades, and once again it affected me in the same way that all the best horror fiction does. It resonates, repeats on you, coming unbidden to mind in the middle of food shopping causing involuntary shivers, makes you genuinely concerned about the characters, and ultimately giving you a zombie-like hunger for the next one.

It's beyond and above criticism- the best written, best drawn comic I have ever read, never puts a foot wrong and always succeeds in scaring the absolute hell out of me, while at the same time making me consider the wider picture. There's always at least one "moment" in each trade that genuinely drops my jaw and sends my heart to the pit of my stomach. The gap between trades is almost unbearable.

Moore's Swamp Thing issues are okay- I personally don't feel time has been kind- a reread recently had me laughing at Moore's purple prose and some of the techniques he used, which were "new" back then, now jump out at you as being overused and "cheesy". Even The Curse suffers from being so right-on as to be unreadable and the plot-centric knife display, blades-out in the most hideous impaled-kids accident waiting to happen stylee, is completely Little Britain stupid, and massively wrong in tone. I think the best age to enjoy Swampy was when I was 13, to be honest.

In truth I've almost always been dissappointed by horror comics. Walking Dead aside, I can't think of many that have succeeded in actually scaring me or doing anything beyond what EC were doing in the fifties: yuck yuck gags and puns.

It depends what you want from your horror, I guess.

But yes, Something Wicked was great!

Steev

The Droid Life poster has finally kicked my arse into gear to get a sub- even though, as the monthly payment is the way I'll go, I'll have to pay an extra £3 for it. Worth three pounds I think!

Going to do so on Saturday- so I eagerly await several weeks of progs not arriving, doubles and mounting frustration at the insane unfairness of the whole world!

But I may try not to let my previous experiences with magazine subscriptions colour my judgement...

Steev

Hi Dogbolter- welcome to the board! Dunno how much your progs are worth- I'm sure someone will be along in a minute to give you exact totals- but if you do frame 'em, keep 'em out of direct sunlight!

As for Flesh, it did indeed come back. In fact, Rebellion have just issued a lovely complete Flesh collection, comprising Books one and two. Pick it up at this website, from various online retailers, or if you have legs and can use them, go to a shop and buy it!

Now go and buy prog 1650 from your local newsie and indulge in some zarjazness.

Splundigs,

Steev

As I've said many times before on here- EVERY newsagent in the country CAN get 2000AD and the Megazine. Just go in and order it. If they say they can't get it, they are lying- and the thought of a phonecall to their supplier is too much like hard work. In that case, I'd simply tell them that if they can't be bothered to do it, you can't be bothered to shop thee anymore and will take your custom to their nearest rival. Then come back at night and piss through their letterbox.

No, don't do that.

I'm continually amazed at the trouble people seem to have getting the prog. I've been buying since prog one- and barring two or three years when I subscribed, have always bought from my local newsie. I've never had a single problem. Just go in, and order it. It really works!

Steev

Looks zarjaz! Slaine wallpaper duly downloaded.

Hope to see the site expand as the weeks go by!

Steev

Re: Camel spider, you should try googling "Basra spider" and see what comes up! There's footage of one eating a lizard that I'm still not sure isn't faked- but if it isn't, is reason enough to move to the fucking moon.

Does anyone know the outcome of that brief story a couple of years ago, where those people in a council house up north claimed a camel had come home in a a soldier's backpack and was loose in their house. That's camel spider, obviously. Not a camel. Heh. The press reported it with a noticable "they're just after rehousing" tone.

Steev

On the subject of creepy crawlies I heard or read that while we are asleep spiders often crawl in and out of our mouths.

You can go right off some people.

Ah, that sounds like a new twist on an old urban myth!

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/whileyousleep.html

It all started with an experiment to see how powerful the Internet was in spreading bollocks:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=147405&in_page_id=2

Steev