comics?

Discussion in 'Whatever' started by cornbluth, Oct 27, 2008.

  1. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    comics?
    Ahah, you see, this is just the veritable crux of the matter. Or, if you will,

    ..... as if they were embarrassed about a comic book from the ____'s looking like a comic book from the ____'s.

    Plus, if someone really wants to get in on revisionist comic history, then I suggest a reprinting of '90s-era X-men comics replacing the stylings of Liefeld 'n Lee with, say, Kirby or Byrne. ;)
     
  2. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    Sorry guys, I should know not to SB when surrounded by a fog of other issues. For completeness and clarity, I offer the following tidbits to decypher my many cryptic posts (this is NOT meant as an all-inclusive list, ha!), since this is not the Sick of Star Wars thread:

    GL = George Lucas
    OT = original trilogy

    And, for bonus points:

    The Han Shot First Scene From Star Wars Has Been Changed Again on Disney+*

    * Even though, as we all know, there was only ever one shot, and therefore no one was either first or second.

    [​IMG]
     
  3. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    To further the derail...

    This song often plays in my head when that puckered fellow up above comes up:
     
  4. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    comics?
    Unfortunately the scanner at work i was using has been moved to the bosses PC, which is a right pain in the arse to be honest. Whenever i get round to buying a scanner for home (which i've been meaning to do for ages) i will scan up plenty of goodies. I have plenty of creaking shelves full of rare wonders to share!
     
  5. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    Crops o' the Day:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Len and Bernie, '72.

    It took him over a year to shamble over from the House of Secrets to his new home, but 47 years ago this month...

    [​IMG]

    Get to know your dearly departed scribe and scribbler:
    [​IMG]
     
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  6. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    I was very dubious when I first heard about a direct sequel to Watchmen, but when i read the first chapter of Doomsday Clock I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Fast forward to the first collected hardback being published and I bought it on the strength of those first 30 pages. I'm glad to say I'm impressed with how they've merged it with the DC universe, and I feel they've done an admirable job following the style of Watchmen and not disrespecting the original work. I was glad to see the Joker in great form in the book, that was a treat, but I think my favourites are the new characters: Reggie Long (son of Malcolm Long), who becomes the successor of Rorschach and the unhinged criminal couple 'Mime' and 'Marionette' who the Joker takes a liking to.

    Anyone else reading Doomsday Clock? No big spoilers please!! I'm waiting for the second collected edition, so I've only read up to chapter 6, I think the regular publication is up to around 11 (out of 12, of course).

    [​IMG]
     
  7. skaldavsatanssol

    skaldavsatanssol Toy Prince

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    God, Moog. Don't tempt me.
     
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  8. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    Haha, bunch of purists around here eh? Its not like Alan Moore is going to be disappointed in you, he doesn't have to know.

    Watchmen will be fine, its memory remains intact even with this recent tinkering. Dont be like Stewart Lee and miss out on some prime entertainment :razz:

    Actually, Stewart appears in one panel of Doomsday, as a stand up comedian bombing in a seedy Gotham pub, who gets bottled in the face. It was a pleasant surprise to see him. Apparently he was flattered by the appearance, but hasn't read Doomsday because of his loyalty to Moore.
     
  9. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    Too funny that, back in the day, DC wouldn't allow Al and Dave to play in their established universe! Now they just won't let Al have what they promised him.

    I see your point, Joe, but FUCK YOU, DC, AND YOUR LENTICULAR ISSUES and REISSUES, TOO!

    *Cough*

    Really horks my tit.

    Excuse me.


    [​IMG]

    Lindelof has my blessing, so it's not like I'm standing on principle here.
     
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  10. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    Doomsday Clock #1 ( DC Comics, 2018 )​
    In this age of low sales, maximizing profit drives corporate comics. To exploit the collector’s syndrome known as “completist anxiety” and boost the bottom line, comic-book issues are sometimes sold in multiple versions, each with a different “variant cover.” Doomsday Clock #1 (which has seven cover options, each at $4.99) is the latest offering in DC’s attempt to monetize Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s celebrated 1986 graphic novel Watchmen, a comic that for decades after its release was respectfully (and shockingly) left alone, without prequels or sequels. Sadly, Doomsday #1 reads like an ill-considered Watchmen variant.

    Moore’s labyrinthine writing and wide-ranging political concerns (American paranoia, Reagan-era politics, superheroes’ fascistic appeal) require great clarity to work, but writer Geoff Johns and his team have few literary-visual aspirations. At times, it appears as if Johns is trying to one-up Moore, confronting the elder’s status as arguably the best writer in mainstream comic’s history; Johns plays usurper by rewriting (unsuccessfully) several parts of the original, such as the famous opening monologue of Moore’s anti-hero Rorschach. The art also reads like a hostile parody, an over-rendered version of Dave Gibbons’ attractive, clear take on a 1970s DC house style. Making things even less legible, Doomsday reimagines John Higgins’s peculiar and unexpectedly bright original coloring as a slog of dense and muddy shades.

    [​IMG]

    Though I’m not one of the many who venerate Watchmen as a “sequential art” masterpiece, if one wanted to demonstrate its greatness, a comparison with Doomsday Clock might offer compelling proof.

    - Ken Parille, 11 June 18
     
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  11. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    Ah, i wouldn't know anything about that, im a bit insulated and ignorant of most new releases and behind the curtain stuff. I just pick books up and give them a go, almost in a innocently childish fashion. Most of that grown-up stuff passes me by!

    In the same way, I try not to watch trailers for films or read too much about them before i go to the cinema.
     
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  12. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    Well, I didn't get that vibe from it at all. It seems very respectful of the source material to me. I thought it was a blast and I was thrilled in a way to be back with those characters again.

    Maybe I'm just dumb, or at least less picky than many fans seem to be! ;)
     
  13. skaldavsatanssol

    skaldavsatanssol Toy Prince

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    This made me crack up. I met David Gibbons at a Con once and he was a fucking cool guy. Being a juvenile obnoxious dickhead I asked him to sign Watchmen using my name "Gabriel is cool" and he opted for writing "Gabriel is cool?" instead which was even better.

    On a slightly unrelated note - I'm definitely no Moore purist but let me at least say, that as you guys here know he has the capacity to be humorous as well. I feel like many casual fans use strawman arguments to write him off as a grumpy, bitter prick due to his vocal criticism of adaptations, constant legal battles etc. but hey his early stuff with DC, the final volume of LoEG, Top 10 and this:

    all prove him to be a man capable of having a laugh.

    Perhaps I will give the Doomsday a try albeit if so illegally :twisted:
     
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  14. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    comics?
    I'm all for fun, Joe, it's just that Batman wrasslin' with Rorschach and a love triangle between Clark, Doc Osterman and Laurie (or whatevs) just doesn't sound like the opiate for me. Plenty o' yarns out there for me to get my giggles on that don't trade on closed loops and bringing the superhero back to the anti-superhero cannon.

    I love the random-grab method, too, by the way, and swore off trailers many a year ago - I absolutely love not knowing what I'm in for!

    And Moore has always been a hoot, spot-on, Gabie!


    EDIT: A possibly unnecessary clarification - that quoted snippet in your last post, Joe, are the words of Ken Parille, not me! :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2019
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  15. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    Fair point, i might of agreed with you if i hadn't enjoyed the damn thing as much as i did. I was very dubious going in myself, but it won me over quite quickly.

    Yeah, no worries. I got that.

    Damn man, i'm quite jealous of that. I think the only comics creator i've actually met in person was Gilbert Shelton. It was a great experience, he was genial and generous. He did a quick drawing for everyone along with his autograph, which made the queue to meet him take ages but it was more than worth the wait. He was telling stories and generally being a fine fellow. I have three of my paperback collections signed by him, each with a drawing of a topic that i suggested.
     
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  16. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    Moore being hilarious...

    ...about something serious. Love the Cockrum line.
     
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  17. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    This is a strong opportunity to post some choice Moore rebuttals, or perhaps even my own rebuttal of those rebuttals, but.... nah. ;)

    Instead, enjoy this.
    Rare first Marvel Comics book has sold at auction in Dallas for $1.26 million US


    Talk about a pristine condition example of Timely's Marvel Comics! Obviously a key issue for any fan (and just plainly a really great comic from a golden age), but look at that copy, too. I mean, price and sale aside, I just like thinking about the life such a comic has had, and a random postal worker picking this up off a newsstand and squirreling it away (obviously to take very good care of it). I still think reading and enjoying comics is the way to go, but cases like this aren't quite the same thing.
     
  18. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    ^ Thanks for the report! Smaller fry:

    Space Riders: Vortex of Darkness #1

    Landing at your local this Wednesday.
     
  19. skaldavsatanssol

    skaldavsatanssol Toy Prince

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    Pretty fantastic, thanks for sharing
     
  20. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    [​IMG]
    November 20, 2019

    [​IMG]
    Tom Spurgeon, 1968-2019
    [​IMG]
    By Douglas Wolk

    [​IMG]
    Tom Spurgeon, the writer and editor of The Comics Reporter, died November 13, at the age of 50. For the second half of his life, he was an extraordinary presence in American comics, as a chronicler of the medium and the industry around it, a critic, a convention organizer, and a nexus point for the comics community.

    Born December 16, 1968, Spurgeon grew up in a media-immersed household in Muncie, Indiana: his father was a newspaper editor and reporter, and his mother ran a public-relations business. In high school, Spurgeon was his class president; in college, at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, he was a lineman on the football team. According to the cartoonist Dan Wright, his friend for over 40 years, Spurgeon initially planned to go to law school after he graduated, but decided to attend Illinois' Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary instead. He never went into the ministry, but the pastoral impulse stayed with him.

    After several years at seminary and a brief stint working for QVC in Pennsylvania, Spurgeon moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1994, to become the managing editor (and later executive editor) of The Comics Journal. Eric Reynolds, then the magazine's news editor and now the associate publisher of Fantagraphics Books, says he and Spurgeon bonded quickly, and remained close ever after: "He was probably my best friend in the comic book business. He was a really good conceptual thinker, and had a really good eye for hiring talent for the Journal, but he was also a procrastinator. I was the reporter, and more detail-oriented than he was. But we complemented each other really well."

    The Journal won four consecutive Eisner Awards for Best Comics-Related Periodical, from 1996 through 1999, and Spurgeon quickly gained a reputation in the comics community as a mensch and a wit. ("He pretty much won Halloween every year," Reynolds recalls. "One year, he was Big Boy, from Bob's Big Boy--he somehow made an actual giant hamburger that he took to a party.") Spurgeon could be difficult, and liked to argue, but seems to have rarely fallen out with anyone for good. If he challenged you, it probably meant he trusted you to rise to the challenge.

    In that spirit, he convinced a number of his friends to make creative and professional leaps. As Dan Wright was approaching 30 and working as a graphic designer, he says, "I told Tom that I wanted to do something beyond a provincial approach to art. Tom said, 'you know, Dan, you should think about syndicated cartooning. You might have to learn how to write, but you've got the chops to do it.'" After Spurgeon mailed Wright books of classic comic strips to study, Wright developed a Christian-themed funny animal strip, initially titled Bobo's Progress and later Wildwood, and brought Spurgeon in to write it with him. It was syndicated by King Features from 1999, the year Spurgeon left the Journal, to 2002.

    Spurgeon collaborated on the 2003 biography Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book with Jordan Raphael, who had met him as a summer intern at The Comics Journal in 1995. Once the book was published, Raphael built this web site as a vehicle for Spurgeon's writing, funded by advertising. The Comics Reporter launched October 11, 2004, with Spurgeon's thoughts on a recent bestseller chart, an annotated pointer to a news announcement, an obituary for Christopher Reeve, and some slyly worded links to stories elsewhere ("Edmonton Paper Celebrates Four-Page Graphic Novel; Dave Sim Develops Face Tic").

    The Comics Reporter is where Spurgeon really made his mark, and he continued to post here almost every day for the rest of his life: news items, reviews, commentary, provocations, announcements of comics shows, and birthday congratulations to seemingly everyone associated with the medium. Some of his best writing here was personal writing, about the intersection of comics with his own life. In his interviews, he asked tough, complicated questions that almost invariably drew out long and thoughtful answers. Even his service journalism (holiday shopping guides, tips for enjoying Comic-Con International) was often a delight to read.

    Spurgeon had strong opinions--his writing could flicker from withering dismissal to infectious awe in a few lines--and open eyes. He had a bottomless reserve of knowledge about and enthusiasm for every kind of comics he could get his hands on, including newspaper strips and editorial cartoons. When he mentioned creators on The Comics Reporter, or linked to their work, they felt seen and championed. In particular, he made a habit of advocating for promising cartoonists who were just starting out, connecting them with gigs and raising their profile. He reserved some of his most stinging comments for his assessments of his own work, including The Comics Reporter; nonetheless, it won Eisner Awards for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism in 2010, 2012 and 2013.

    While The Comics Reporter was running, Spurgeon continued to write elsewhere, sometimes about comics and sometimes not. (For a while, he wrote business articles for a pharmaceutical trade magazine edited by his friend Gil Roth.) Spurgeon began work on an oral history of Fantagraphics Books, We Told You So: Comics as Art, in the mid-2000s; it spent around a decade in limbo before it finally appeared in 2016, co-credited to Michael Dean. ("That book was a great testament to our friendship," Eric Reynolds says, "because I think it would have ruined a lot of less strong friendships.") He also wrote the text for the 2011 art book The Romita Legacy, about the artists John Romita, Sr., and John Romita, Jr., but noted in 2013 that he'd "never seen a copy of that Romita Legacy book--long story, all my fault."

    For most of the early years of The Comics Reporter, Spurgeon was living in Silver City, New Mexico, relatively physically isolated but a prolific correspondent. "Tom kept in touch with everyone--people from kindergarten and seminary and his college fraternity, and all the different lives that he'd lived," says Caitlin McGurk, Associate Curator and Assistant Professor at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. McGurk also credits her own career path to Spurgeon's encouragement: "Tom took me seriously, and the fact that he took me seriously meant that other people took me seriously."

    In 2011, Spurgeon had a near-fatal medical crisis, about which he wrote a remarkable essay on this site. His friends observe that his brush with death had a profound effect on him, and that after he recuperated, he became more serious about what he wanted to accomplish with his life. He moved to Columbus, Ohio, in March 2015, to take a job as executive director of the annual convention Cartoon Crossroads Columbus; he had friends waiting there to help him unload his U-Haul truck full of longboxes.

    Almost immediately, Spurgeon became a fixture of the city's comics community. "Showing up was important to him," McGurk says. "Tom showed up to everything. If there was an obscure Turkish comics scholar giving a brown-bag lunch talk on a Tuesday, Tom would show up. At parties, he would find his place to sit for the evening, and he would just hold court."

    Spurgeon had a broad range of enthusiasms he could discuss with the same robust, informed intelligence he brought to comics--history, movies, basketball, theater, horse-racing--but he was most interested in the people he was talking to. "No matter what the conversation was," McGurk says, "he would interrupt at some point and say 'how are you doing, though?' Emphasis on the you. He wanted to know about people's lives, even if he didn't know them very well."

    In the Columbus years, Spurgeon wrote somewhat less for The Comics Reporter; often, it was mostly links and images. One feature he took care to update, though, was "Comics By Request," in which he catalogued and commented on projects and creators in need of money. And, even more than before, he devoted his gifts to watching out for comics creators' health and well-being. An unrealized goal he often brought up with friends was starting a union for cartoonists.

    Back in 2012, Tom asked me if I would write a short obituary for him if he were to die while The Comics Reporter was still running ("like if I got eaten by a shark on my way to San Diego Con 2015," he wrote). It's strange to have words that aren't Tom's as the first ones readers encounter at a site whose voice was so completely and extensively his. It was a relief, though, to learn that The Comics Reporter will be preserved by several different online archives. You may be reading this a few weeks after Tom Spurgeon's death, or years later, or long after everyone who knew him is gone. If you're coming to this site for the first time, I urge you to explore it, so you can see for yourself why we have reason to envy each other. You have our future, but we had Tom.

    Photo Credit: Photo by Tony Amat Copyright 2013 SDCC
     
  21. toothaction

    toothaction Team Tsubu Staff Member

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    It's that time of year...

    [​IMG]
    This is the big one, folks! We’re offering a blanket 40% discount on just about everything, for one day only, at Fantagraphics.com. This includes everything from backlist deep cuts (a great time to fill those bothersome gaps in your collection) to brand new releases! New this year, we’re adding free domestic shipping on all orders of $75 or more!

    This is hands down our biggest sale of the year, so if there’s anything you’ve been waiting to pick up, now is the time! There’s no code needed, just be sure to visit Fantagraphics.com before midnight Pacific Standard Time on Monday, December 2nd!
    A spectacular opportunity to pick up gifts to satisfy the youngest to the oldest in your clan, and a fine excuse to smarten up your own dag shelf while you're at it.
     
  22. skaldavsatanssol

    skaldavsatanssol Toy Prince

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    Has anyone read Terror Assaulter: O.M.W.O.T (One Man War On Terror)? Saw it recommended in Kayfabe's "Outlaw Comics" video and I gotta say it's probably the best comic of the century and should replace Watchmen in Time Magazine's list of 100 greatest novels. It's being published by Fantagraphics so you really have no excuse to skip this one.
    [​IMG]
     
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  23. badteethcomics

    badteethcomics Post Pimp

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    It satisfied me for sure
     
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  24. skaldavsatanssol

    skaldavsatanssol Toy Prince

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    I think any book where the lead simultaneously has casual gay anal sex whilst jerking his partner off and crash landing a plane at the same time would satisfy anyone.
     
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  25. The Moog

    The Moog Die-Cast

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    Said the actress to the bishop!
    No, wait ....
     
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