Sperg about comic books here

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Registration said:
I noticed that the only american comics I am reading right now are republications of euro materials in american format. The Cimmerian (Conan but with changed name due to american jews copyright law) and the captain harlock comic by the french.
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How is Cimmerian compared to good American Conan comics?
 
GranDuke said:
How is Cimmerian compared to good American Conan comics?
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They are comparable to Dark Hose's comics and better than vast majority of Marvel in my opinion. Cimmerian books are adaptations of Howard's stories in comic book form. Europeans take liberties with the source material, just like Dark Horse and Marvel did. In Cimmerian stories tend to be fast paced and more likely to discard superfluous details than Marvel and Dark Horse were. Conan tends to be a little bit more fallible and his enemies more threatening. They are not toning down nudity and violence like Marvel and to lesser extent Dark Horse did. Some stories covered by Cimmerian were not adapted by Dark Horse before Marvel took over the IP again. Another neat thing is that Cimmerian comics include original stories on last few pages, so you can compare them to comic book adaptation right away.

It's up to your personal preference ultimately. Most Cimmerian stories are short and sweet, usually at around 60 pages. Dark Horse books can be more fleshed out with attempts at continuity between different stories. Some elements added are from other Conan books, some are made up by comic writer. Quite a few Dark Horse stories go beyond 100 pages.
Either way, it's tough to go wrong with either Dark Horse or Cimmerian from Ablaze. I like European books slightly more. Among Marvel titles, I only liked ones written by Roy Thomas, especially old Savage Sword of Conan series.
 
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GranDuke said:
How is Cimmerian compared to good American Conan comics?
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I never read american conan comics, but two thing that I noticed in this american version of the european ones when I went and compared, is that the american version is kinda cropped to fit in the american format. And they add the sfx when it didn't exist in the original.
 
GoPro said:
They are comparable to Dark Hose's comics and better than vast majority of Marvel in my opinion. Cimmerian books are adaptations of Howard's stories in comic book form. Europeans take liberties with the source material, just like Dark Horse and Marvel did. In Cimmerian stories tend to be fast paced and more likely to discard superfluous details than Marvel and Dark Horse were. Conan tends to be a little bit more fallible and his enemies more threatening. They are not toning down nudity and violence like Marvel and to lesser extent Dark Horse did. Some stories covered by Cimmerian were not adapted by Dark Horse before Marvel took over the IP again. Another neat thing is that Cimmerian comics include original stories on last few pages, so you can compare them to comic book adaptation right away.

It's up to your personal preference ultimately. Most Cimmerian stories are short and sweet, usually at around 60 pages. Dark Horse books can be more fleshed out with attempts at continuity between different stories. Some elements added are from other Conan books, some are made up by comic writer. Quite a few Dark Horse stories go beyond 100 pages.
Either way, it's tough to go wrong with either Dark Horse or Cimmerian from Ablaze. I like European books slightly more. Among Marvel titles, I only liked ones written by Roy Thomas, especially old Savage Sword of Conan series.
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I actually prefer it to the Busiek DH with some exceptions.

Have either of you read the Mike Morcock comic adaptations?

Registration said:
I never read american conan comics, but two thing that I noticed in this american version of the european ones when I went and compared, is that the american version is kinda cropped to fit in the american format. And they add the sfx when it didn't exist in the original.
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You need to read Barry Windsor Smith's work with Roy Thomas at least. That stuff is awesome.

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jspit2.0 said:
Have either of you read the Mike Morcock comic adaptations?
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I did. The most recent French adaptation is probably the best. It improves upon source material quite a bit, but that's not exactly a high bar considering Moorcock's writing skills. Elric BD are solid pulp fantasy, but I much prefer Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Dark Horse comics from 90s.
 
read all of GCPD, was very good, especially liked the Joker and Mad Hatter stories.

no fucking idea why they decided to have a corrupt cop named Jim Corrigan.

as someone who only knows who Jim Corrigan is vaguely, such as, he was a cop, got shot, became the Spectre, was very fucking confusing with what a fucking asshole that character was. No idea why the writers chose literally the same fucking name for the same occupation.

other than that was really good though.
 
So...um...the long awaited "I AM NOT STARFIRE" comic by Mariko "Self-Insert Mary Sue Fan-fic " Tamaki dropped, and it's just like everyone predicted. Starfire's daughter Mandy is one of those super-fat goth chicks that haunt Hot Topics everywhere, and acts like a complete bitch. Teen angst is one thing, but when your character behaves like a turbo cunt towards Starfire, one of the biggest sweethearts in comic (especially the cartoon version, which this version is emulating) then you lose all empathy for Mandy.

The story is as predictable as the tides:
Girl grows up in the shadow of her superhero mother
Girl rebels by becoming goth and eating herself into a size 3XL (there are scenes where she inhales food)
Prettiest and most popular girl has crush on goth water buffalo
Blackfire shows up and forces Mandy to fight to the death
Mandy's powers coincidentally trigger after Blackfire kick's Kory's ass
Mandy manages to beat Blackfire, despite Blackfire having more experience and training than her, as well as more powerful starbolts than Kory.
Pretty popular girl admits feelings for Hot Topic manatee
Mandy's super hero name is just "Mandy" and her outfit is just her same dumb Siouxie cosplay
Her father is never confirmed for no reason at all
THE END

I'm surprised the art (which fluctuates between "OK" to "shit") wasn't smudged from all the squirting Mariko did as she wrote it.

Feel free to witness the CancerAIDS for yourself: Mariko's wettest dream
 
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Water-T said:
So...um...the long awaited "I AM NOT STARFIRE" comic by Mariko "Self-Insert Mary Sue Fan-fic " Tamaki dropped, and it's just like everyone predicted. Starfire's daughter Mandy is one of those sper-fat goth chicks that haunt Hot Topics everywhere, and acts like a complete bitch. Teen angst is one thing, but when your character behaves like turbo cunt towards Starfire, one of the biggest sweethearts in comic (especially the cartoon version, which this version is emulating) then you lose all empathy for Mandy.

The story is as predictable as the tides:
Girl grows up in the shadow of her superhero mother
Girl rebels by becoming goth and eating herself into a size 3XL
Prettiest and most popular girl has crush on goth water buffalo
Blackfire shows up and forces Mandy to fight to the death
Mandy's powers coincidentally trigger after Blackfire kick's Kory's ass
Mandy manages to beat Blackfire, despite Blackfire having more experience and training than her, as well as more powerful starbolts than Kory.
Pretty popular girl admits feelings for Hot Topic manatee
Mandy's super hero name is just "Mandy" and her outfit is just her same dumb Siouxie cosplay
Her father is never confirmed for no reason at all
THE END

I'm surprised the art (which fluctuates between "OK" to "shit") wasn't smudged from all the squirting Mariko did as she wrote it.

Feel free to witness the CancerAIDS for yourself: Mariko's wettest dream
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I strongly recommend anyone who is a fan of so bad it's good comics give it a read. It's so badly written I'd question if it was a parody comic if we didn't know the writer.

What's interesting/potentially kind of funny is the few pieces I've seen advertising/reviewing it are saying it's part of DC's young adult line, usually prefacing it with the actual young adult books they've recently published. Now, I admit I've never read any of those books and I'm not exactly an expert in what constitutes YA language, but XXL Gothfire says fuck and shit multiple times, which they don't even allow in mainstream comics without some kind of warning. It's a small thing overall, but just another example of how this is fanfic for Mariko and not an actual YA book.

Just some other funny highlights for people who don't want to read it:

Gothfire's best friend is a super genius anarchist, written in a way that I think Mariko thought was snarky. I don't know if Mariko actually knows what an anarchist is, because best friend is written way more like a stereotypical nerd. He tells Gothfire off for not wanting to go to college and skipping school, and he spends all his time in the library studying. You know, those classic anarchist traits.

Gothfire spends the majority of the book not going to college. Eventually, Starfire does some parenting and makes it clear she has to go, but it never felt like Gothfire really learned why going to school was important, so the beginning/middle of the book is fairly front loaded with a general "screw education" vibe. Not exactly the message you want to give to a YA audience. Gothfire doesn't even really have any real ambitions, she just wants to go off to France and exist. I at least expected her to want to go there to be an artist or writer, like in most fanfic.

The only other member of the Titans that really has any sort of personality is Raven. She's barely in it, but I don't think it's a coincidence the traditionally gothy member of the team is shown being cool.

Speaking of Titans, Starfire surprisingly comes off surprisingly okay. She's basically a carbon copy of her cartoon counterpart, but I was expecting her to be written more like a villain who tries to make Gothfire act bubbly and happy, or just a complete absentee parent. Probably the worst part of the writing is Starfire apparently never told Gothfire anything whatsoever about her culture. Although I don't know if Gothfire ever even asked.

Given the fanfiction nature of the story, I expected the romance to be played up way more, with the super pretty and popular love interest fawning over Gothfire and constantly talking about how awesome she is. There's...really none of that. If anything, it's actually the other way around, where Gothfire constantly talks about how awesome and pretty love interest is, and then they just sort of end up together at the end. Love interest is actually a pretty crappy character overall, she lets her friends make fun of Gothfire and shows up at Gothfire's house just to take a selfy of her with the Titans to post to social media. She does eventually admit she was wrong and apologizes at the end of the book, but it comes off as pretty insincere, and more of an "I'm sorry you caught me doing something wrong" type of apology. I admit I was losing steam by the end so maybe I glazed over it, but I don't even remember her really saying anything nice about Gothfire.

I admit this is more of a nitpick, but Beast Boy is only ever referred to as Beast. He only shows up like twice in random background scenes and he's his usual green self, but I did wonder if Mariko got him confused with the X-men character.
 
chatting with gal I sporadically fuck about various stupid shit
the general subject of Venom comes up for some reason and she's like "eww you like Venom wtf" and I'm all "no, it was the Nineties, it was a different time!"
 
GoPro said:
I did. The most recent French adaptation is probably the best. It improves upon source material quite a bit, but that's not exactly a high bar considering Moorcock's writing skills. Elric BD are solid pulp fantasy, but I much prefer Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Dark Horse comics from 90s.
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Apropos of nothing, I've never been able to take the character of Elric remotely seriously ever since he was parodied as Elrod of Melvinbone in the Cerebus comics. Where he, I say he, talks inexplicably, that is, without explanation, son, in the style of Foghorn Leghorn.

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Come to think of it, this is the sperging thread so I feel a sperg coming on. Who here read the Cerebus comics? They were something on a whole different level, written month by month by Dave Sim who I understand actually went mad from writing it. The series chronicles the life of an aardvark named Cerebus. And no, this isn't a world of talking animals. Or even talking aardvarks. They're all human except for this aardvark walking around. Okay, mild exaggeration - there is an elf, but nobody believes elves are real and kind of sort of Cerebus isn't the only aardvark (but this is spoilers and also sort of accurate and sort of not). Anyway, when I say it chronicles his life, I mean that - the series ran from 1977 to 2004 and over 6,000 pages. Given how meticulous the art is in Cerebus, that's even more amazing. What I'm just now discovering is how absurdly and unrealistically hard it is to find images of these comics in an image search. Like there is so much good art and all I can find are occasional fuzzy and poorly chosen snapshots. I don't know why - I guess because it ended before the Internet era really hit and because it's not famous enough to really be a big Internet thing? I might scan a few pages of mine.

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Sometimes the comic is hilarious and fast-paced. Sometimes it is almost heart-breakingly sad. At other times, Cerebus does almost nothing. In fact, there's a run of months where he literally just sits in a chair depressed whilst the author fills in philosophical rants on the feminisation of modern society. Male-female relations are a significant theme of the series. As a teenager properly brought up to reject all notions of sexism, I found his diatribes on feminism etc. uncomfortable reading. As an adult in the world of today... anyway. So the comic is much like real life in that sometimes nothing happens for long stretches and other times it's all action. Sometimes Cerebus is someone we admire and other times, we're almost yelling at the page for him to not make the mistake we can see he's about to.

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There's also a LOT of economics in the comic. A very major plotline has to do with inflation and debt. This is a great deal more fun than you might think.

The parody characters... I barely know where to start. There's Lord Julius, a blatant Groucho Marx insert. Fuck it, I think I'll have to scan these things myself if I want to find decent examples. There's "the bug" who is kind of a Tick expy but he's so insane that he rotates through a carousel of parody heroes from Captain America to Wolverine to the Sandman (he forces the Elric character into goth-drag to be Death).

Frankly, Cerebus the Aardvark is one of the greatest achievements in comics, imo. An insane mix of talent and willpower. So... anyone else read these?
 
Overly Serious said:
Frankly, Cerebus the Aardvark is one of the greatest achievements in comics, imo. An insane mix of talent and willpower. So... anyone else read these?
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I read the first volume and High Society a long time ago. I've been meaning to get to the other volumes. I remember Elrond's line "As the only last member of a dying race in this temple, I demand you arrest the kid in the bunny suit."
 
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