Sperg about comic books here

[Kornula]

For over 20 years, I've been saying that 99% of movies based on comic books get it wrong - mostly by thinking the comic itself is a "storyboard". That is a trap that the likes of Zach Snyder and just about every other director who attempted this genre don't get. However, 50 years ago, Mario Bava figured out how to adapt comics to film ... Danger Dialolik is an amazing example of how to do it right. (and the attached video states what I've been saying forever...)

 

[Owlman]

Can anyone tell me if Jeff Lemire's The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage is any good and if it'd be an okay introduction to The Question as a character? I keep seeing the cover while browsing comics online and it looks really nice.
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There's like one review for it on one of the places I usually buy comics and they gave it a 5/5 with a note that it's a good intro, but I'd like to hear from the thread. It being a Black Label release gives me hope that it's good since I've enjoyed most of the other releases put out under that label.

A good comic, but not good as an introduction.
Read Denny O’Neil’s run.

 

[Moguro Fukuzou]

A good comic, but not good as an introduction.
Read Denny O’Neil’s run.

I always love finding out about an interesting comic run and then seeing the ridiculous prices the collected versions are going for because its gone oop, no idea if it's even likely to get another release when it comes to DC (still waiting for whenever they feel like release the tpb of Morrison's Animal Man since I bought the tpb of vol.1 rather than the HC). Will look into the run even if it's online only which I have trouble reading compared to physical collections.

 

[Boston Brand]

I agree its probably one of the better Bat books right now and it's great Red Hood stuff, also I think it's a stand alone story in its own continuity, Jason's mom was killed by the Joker in new 52 ircc like in Death in the Family.


Considering some of the books they made in the 80's and 90's I don't doubt it, I can't imagine books like Namor or Aquaman would have sold well but their runs often spanned into the high 40 and 80's for the latter, and all the creative shifts like Byrne's art to Jae Lee's crazy run on Namor, which I recently had the pleasure of picking up recently and can't wait to read, or just replacing Aquaman with a different guy, him losing his hand or living in a flooded San Diego with locals residents being turned into water breathers etc all just to try to make it work.

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With rising tides lifting all boots I don't think it's entirely unlikely that they would give some leeway to projects and creators they personally like to find a audience in the newsstands and in stores etc.

If DC could end up marketing their Vertigo properties well, I think they would have appeal in bookstores etc and that could make up direct market losses but that's a far off

Oddly, Aquaman achieved his debatable pre-New 52 and pre-Rebirth/movie high point.in the 90s with the Peter David run... it's actually a pretty solid Aquaman-led sword-and-sorcery kinda deal. Loved that run growing up.

The guys point about there being more room flr experimentation in the 90s is true though... especially DC. This was the era DC had Steel, the entire Milestone universe, Hitman, Constantine, Resurrection Man, and dozens of others. To day nothing of multiple Superman titles and more than just Batman getting the love.

Too many people write off the 90s as a total loss for comics. Frankly, it may have been its last golden decade.

 

[JimiHendrix]

if i recall the author also stated his Constantine book WAS selling, infact it was selling pretty damn well. But someone high up didn't want it to sell well. They wanted it to sell Batman numbers and that simply wasn't ever going to happen.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

if i recall the author also stated his Constantine book WAS selling, infact it was selling pretty damn well. But someone high up didn't want it to sell well. They wanted it to sell Batman numbers and that simply wasn't ever going to happen.

that's like the final straw in marvel/dc comics corporate stuff being full retard.

 

[Getter Robo]

Somebody explain why the "Dark Knight" sequels are disliked. The batman army aspect is underutilized, but complaints about the art and general plot points always seemed excessive to me.

 

[sKr0n]

Oddly, Aquaman achieved his debatable pre-New 52 and pre-Rebirth/movie high point.in the 90s with the Peter David run... it's actually a pretty solid Aquaman-led sword-and-sorcery kinda deal. Loved that run growing up.

I was not trying to be flippant or dismissive but just highlighting that they have done a lot with the character, also that's good to hear because I ended up with about half of Aquaman Vol 5 and 6, I am hoping to complete it and read them because they do look fun.

The guys point about there being more room flr experimentation in the 90s is true though... especially DC. This was the era DC had Steel, the entire Milestone universe, Hitman, Constantine, Resurrection Man, and dozens of others. To day nothing of multiple Superman titles and more than just Batman getting the love.

Too many people write off the 90s as a total loss for comics. Frankly, it may have been its last golden decade.

When I think of DC and the weird shit they were doing I don't think of Vertigo but Pirhana Press. It astounds me that Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children got 36 issues. I love the series but I could not imagine the balls it would take to try to say that this was a good return on investment in 90's.

Frankly I love the children's picture books aesthetic but what a weird, bizarre trip of a comic.

if i recall the author also stated his Constantine book WAS selling, infact it was selling pretty damn well. But someone high up didn't want it to sell well. They wanted it to sell Batman numbers and that simply wasn't ever going to happen.

So thankfully there are some numbers on Comichron before DC split with Diamond and it looks like it was sitting at the 16,000 mark around issue 5 and it look like it was plateauing, not the greatest success, but not unworkable.

 

[Kornula]

Has anyone read the DC alternate Universe Graphic Novel: "Red Son"? I recall being underwhelmed with the graphic novel, but was blown away by the animated feature.

Oddly, I'm in the minority. The majority (according to idiots on rotten tomatoes anyway) believe the opposite, the source is amazing but the animated is crap.

If you know both versions, what is your take? Do you like the animated and find the original ...meh..or the opposite?

 

[JimiHendrix]

i don't usually read marvel but saw last night Spider-man: Spider's Shadow was out. It's a What If were Peter never gives up the Symbiote Suit and becomes Venom.

read the first issue. It was fine. I just enjoy What If type stories.

Oddly, I'm in the minority. The majority (according to idiots on rotten tomatoes anyway) believe the opposite, the source is amazing but the animated is crap.

I only saw the animated movie, never read the comic. but from DC's track record of animated Adaptions (Hush) i'm willing to bet money the comic is better.

 

[sKr0n]

Has anyone read the DC alternate Universe Graphic Novel: "Red Son"? I recall being underwhelmed with the graphic novel, but was blown away by the animated feature.

Oddly, I'm in the minority. The majority (according to idiots on rotten tomatoes anyway) believe the opposite, the source is amazing but the animated is crap.

If you know both versions, what is your take? Do you like the animated and find the original ...meh..or the opposite?

I would always read the comic rather than watch the movie, 90% of the reason I read comics is for the art, not the characters, the sad thing about a lot of these DC movies is that they are direct to streaming services/dvd so they are made by the same cheapish animation studio in Japan so they look mostly the same. But on the other hand the comics are so wildly different in composition and tone and style that they don't even meld in the same genres a lot of the time and the movies I have seen really don't distinct and try to translate the style or the tone of the art which is a shame because that's at least half of the storytelling in comics.

As far as Red Son is concerned I have not seen it but I heard they took out the twist ending which sucks, DC has a bad habit of trying to make the movies it's own universe and mess with the stories rather than just have stand alone movies adaptations. They end up adding Superman having a gay conversation with Batman to A Death in the Family and took out the Joker and Ayatollah Khomeini team up

 

[Kornula]

I would always read the comic rather than watch the movie, 90% of the reason I read comics is for the art, not the characters, the sad thing about a lot of these DC movies is that they are direct to streaming services/dvd so they are made by the same cheapish animation studio in Japan so they look mostly the same. But on the other hand the comics are so wildly different in composition and tone and style that they don't even meld in the same genres a lot of the time and the movies I have seen really don't distinct and try to translate the style or the tone of the art which is a shame because that's at least half of the storytelling in comics.

As far as Red Son is concerned I have not seen it but I heard they took out the twist ending which sucks, DC has a bad habit of trying to make the movies it's own universe and mess with the stories rather than just have stand alone movies adaptations. They end up adding Superman having a gay conversation with Batman to A Death in the Family and took out the Joker and Ayatollah Khomeini team up

Every single change in the animated "Red Son" is amazing IMHO. I usually avoid the graphic novel/comic film adaptations for the same reasons you do..but in this case, the ending works. It really shows us exactly what would have happened if Superman landed in the USSR - and bought socalisim/Marxism to be genuinely helping the masses. Which he tries to do..and fails miserably. It shows exactly how and why Socialism fails every time...which totally surprises me as DC is super pro socialisim.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

On a whim I decided to re-read The Dark Knight Returns, which I haven't read since high school. Didn't care much for it back then because I had a hard time piecing together the themes of an overbearing media, the Cold War, and the return of Batman. When I was a kid it all felt a little discombobulated, and it didn't help that I had just read Watchmen, which had some similar themes but felt a lot more coherent. Also didn't help that I just wanted to read about Batman beating people up and not the constant interruptions by the news channels.

Now though? It's all clicked for me. Maybe it's because I'm older and have more experience with the overzealous 24 hour news media as well as modern events being eerily similar to the events in the book, but it all started to make sense. If anything, The Dark Knight Returns is just as relevant now as it was back when it was written. I also adore how Frank Miller characterized Batman as a guy who's clearly not mentally well but is just sound of mind enough to where he's still an effective crime fighter.

 

[Commander X]

Among other recent discoveries was that I had in my possession a copy of the graphic novel "Badger: Hexbreaker" that I hadn't realized was still in my personal library. An oversized European-style album from First Comics, one of those 80s-era experiments in the GN format, continuing the story from Mike Baron's series about a crime-fighting martial artist who suffers from what was then known as multiple personality disorder, and introducing a new character.

Vietnam vet Norbert Sykes, who was tipped over the edge during his time in a Pathet Lao prison camp, shares space in his head primarily with "The Badger" a costumed vigilante who can talk to animals and is a master of Shōrin-ryū karate, among other fighting styles, some of them abtruse and obscure. The Badger is given to vigilante justice via his warped perspectives, to quote one blurb he

metes out bloody justice to jaywalkers, ticket scalpers, indifferent teenaged fast-food clerks - in fact, any-damn-body he feels like because he's CRAZY!

His other personalities include "Emily", a broken nine year old girl conditioned to accept horror, "Max Swell" an architect, cosmopolitan man-about-town, and campy gay gentleman, "Gastineau Grover Depaul", a black streetfighter and Vietnam vet from Chicago, self described "seventh son of a seventh son and the hootchie-kootchie man", a dog named "Leroy", the dog young Sykes' stepfather had killed, and "Pierre" a psychotic, homicidal French veteran of Dien Bien Phu. While in an asylum, Sykes ended up in the room next to "Ham", who claimed to have been a 5th century Welsh druid who'd spent centuries in a magic-induced coma and required the Badger's assistance to escape. Ham turns out to be a real wizard and used his wits and magic to quickly build a fortune for himself and take up residence in a castle outside of Barneveld, Wisconsin. In exchange for bodyguard services, Sykes gets to stay on as a boarder. Acting as a mediator, moderator and occasional enabler of the chaos that ensued at the castle was Daisy Fields, a caseworker and clinical psychiatrist Ham had hired as his personal assistant as he navigated the 20th century.

This particular story showcases, besides lively art by Bill Reinhold, Baron's love of Hong Kong action cinema, a riot of martial arts sequences. In the regular comic, the Badger's defeat of a killer martial artist and his master has made him eligible to compete in the once-a-century martial arts tournament held by the mystical Black Lotor Liu Hu society, where the winner's prize is whatever they wish for. Along the way, he meets Vietnamese martial artist (and veterinarian) Dr. Mavis Davis, and they hit it off. Meanwhile an old foe of the Badger is lurking along for the ride.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Among other recent discoveries was that I had in my possession a copy of the graphic novel "Badger: Hexbreaker" that I hadn't realized was still in my personal library. An oversized European-style album from First Comics, one of those 80s-era experiments in the GN format, continuing the story from Mike Baron's series about a crime-fighting martial artist who suffers from what was then known as multiple personality disorder, and introducing a new character.

Vietnam vet Norbert Sykes, who was tipped over the edge during his time in a Pathet Lao prison camp, shares space in his head primarily with "The Badger" a costumed vigilante who can talk to animals and is a master of Shōrin-ryū karate, among other fighting styles, some of them abtruse and obscure. The Badger is given to vigilante justice via his warped perspectives, to quote one blurb he


His other personalities include "Emily", a broken nine year old girl conditioned to accept horror, "Max Swell" an architect, cosmopolitan man-about-town, and campy gay gentleman, "Gastineau Grover Depaul", a black streetfighter and Vietnam vet from Chicago, self described "seventh son of a seventh son and the hootchie-kootchie man", a dog named "Leroy", the dog young Sykes' stepfather had killed, and "Pierre" a psychotic, homicidal French veteran of Dien Bien Phu. While in an asylum, Sykes ended up in the room next to "Ham", who claimed to have been a 5th century Welsh druid who'd spent centuries in a magic-induced coma and required the Badger's assistance to escape. Ham turns out to be a real wizard and used his wits and magic to quickly build a fortune for himself and take up residence in a castle outside of Barneveld, Wisconsin. In exchange for bodyguard services, Sykes gets to stay on as a boarder. Acting as a mediator, moderator and occasional enabler of the chaos that ensued at the castle was Daisy Fields, a caseworker and clinical psychiatrist Ham had hired as his personal assistant as he navigated the 20th century.

This particular story showcases, besides lively art by Bill Reinhold, Baron's love of Hong Kong action cinema, a riot of martial arts sequences. In the regular comic, the Badger's defeat of a killer martial artist and his master has made him eligible to compete in the once-a-century martial arts tournament held by the mystical Black Lotor Liu Hu society, where the winner's prize is whatever they wish for. Along the way, he meets Vietnamese martial artist (and veterinarian) Dr. Mavis Davis, and they hit it off. Meanwhile an old foe of the Badger is lurking along for the ride.

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the badger is a gem and i should read more

 

[jorgoth]

Just reminder that Batman and Robin used to sleep in the same bed, or at least wayyyyy too close together.

View attachment batman-robin-in-bed-together-e1308928955169.webp

Maybe that's why Dick keeps dumping his girls. I mean if you reject Batgirl and Starfire you're probably a homo.

 

[Kornula]

I would always read the comic rather than watch the movie, 90% of the reason I read comics is for the art, not the characters, the sad thing about a lot of these DC movies is that they are direct to streaming services/dvd so they are made by the same cheapish animation studio in Japan so they look mostly the same. But on the other hand the comics are so wildly different in composition and tone and style that they don't even meld in the same genres a lot of the time and the movies I have seen really don't distinct and try to translate the style or the tone of the art which is a shame because that's at least half of the storytelling in comics.

As far as Red Son is concerned I have not seen it but I heard they took out the twist ending which sucks, DC has a bad habit of trying to make the movies it's own universe and mess with the stories rather than just have stand alone movies adaptations. They end up adding Superman having a gay conversation with Batman to A Death in the Family and took out the Joker and Ayatollah Khomeini team up

Do give "Red Son" a watch and let me know what you think. I seem to be in the minority for loving this adaptaion.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

He apparently tried to get it turned into a TV show starring himself... but I assume the network execs couldn't stop laughing when he started describing the idea, "You see, I'm this buff, tall badass with super-powers- uh, no, this isn't a comedy..."

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

But of course IDW thought it worth publishing.

Is Michael Chiklis struggling to find TV work these days?

Edit: I just noticed, 'cover by the Sharp Bros'. It took more than one of them to make it look that bad?

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Druuna



Between the overt sexual imagery and wonderfully drawn aesthetic due to science fiction inspiration, this was probably one of Heavy Metal’s best stories that they included in their comics, back in their hey day.

Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri knows how to draw realistic women in a very unrealistic dystopia about trying to live in a world where truth and honesty does not matter, and instead it’s controlled by a bureaucratic, militaristic government who destroys anyone that dares to go against the status quo of what’s considered righteous and just.​