Thread for comics that you have read recently and have thoughts on, whether ongoing or self contained.
e…g :
Recently read the first volume of: The Sheriff of Babylon
Bang. Bang. Bang.
By Tom King and Mitch Gerads
Tom King is a former CIA operative who was on the ground during America’s occupation of Iraq.
The story have a great deal of authenticity involved to it, more so than a well researched book. The protagonist follows a contractor who has been employed to train the new Iraqi police force when one of his recruits is found dead.
Doing even the most basic investigative work or enjoying oneself is filled with red tape, talking with multiple US troops and kissing up to the various factions of Iraq which were held in check by Saddam.
The material doesn’t rub your face in the themes, it isn’t explicit but the way the story unfolds and the cartooning style of the artist just makes you understand what the protagonist is thinking or feeling.
Highly recommended, I’m pretty much buying whatever Tom King writes from now on.
I’ve heard really good things about The Sheriff of Babylon. Tom King’s Vision comic for Marvel has been getting rave reviews and I need to check that out as well.
I’m about 3/4 through the second Planetes omnibus, and both have been excellent. Hard-scifi take on near future space travel and the garbage men whose job it is to clean up space debris and obsolete satellites left in orbit around the Earth so they don’t cause a hazard to other things.
I’ve been reading Black Science by Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera.
Your dropped in the middle of the story and have to work out what’s going on. The writer - Rick Remender, is able to unfold the story and the plot while his inter-dimensional piercing science team and kids struggle to get home.
It’s like a good version of Dr Who mixed with Voyager with some depth evolving between characters while each dimension brings it’s own hardships and perils. It sometimes feels a bit like Star Wars too.
I won’t spoil too much but I recommend it for a sci-fi kick with action and complex themes of family and regret.
The art has a great fluidity and action to it. Like when the protagonist gets kicked in the face by a robot it really looks like he gets kicked in the face by the robot!
Every year since 2014, my local comic shop here in DC puts out a review and an analysis of their sales numbers for the previous year, where they break down the stats on how they earned their money. I have no idea if other people find this as interesting as I do, and obviously Fantom Comics, being in DC, is not your typical comic store, but it’s really cool how they break down their sales numbers to try and explain the sales and interest trends they see going on. I would love for other comic stores, especially some of the big ones in NYC, to do the same, since the whole comic industry seems pretty opaque in terms of numbers.
The Flintstones
Holy shit, I never thought I would be reading and praising this comic for the intellectual exploration and deconstruction of civilisation but I am. Topics addressed by this book - religion, science, exploration, consumerism, economics, animal cruelty, animal domestication, aliens, the prime directive (the Star Trek kind), absurdism, the media, colonisation, war, PTSD, art, fame, fortune, workplace dynamics, sexism, politics, pyramid schemes, fake medicine (vitamins).
It’s so freaking dense and incredibly well written. You can read this a few times and be rewarded even if you reread it within a few days and definitely in a few months. The book should be on the top of everyone’s list, especially on this forum.
I only described the trade with the first 6 issues, the next and final trade will be out in a few months.
Well I’m pretty much a nobody on the Internet but it’s definitely something I recommend you and everyone read it. I forgot to say in my summary above, the other themes explored are marriage, relationships, homosexuality, monogomy and their opposites.
One Piece turns 20 today. Certainly it has its detractors, particularly in this forum, but its influence can hardly be denied. I personally have been reading it for 15 or so and while I no longer read fan translations of the chapter the day it comes out, I still keep up when new volumes are published in german and enjoy going back on occasion and read some of my favorite storylines, Always outrageous and interesting settings and characters and it’s just so much fun to read.
Eiichiro Oda also put out the below statement/image saying thanks to the readers.
So the anime Made in Abyss had so many “what the hell is going on?” moments that I decided to dig into the manga this morning. I just hit chapter 23 and I don’t think I’ve ever read or seen anything so messed up.
Comixology currently has a bunch of Brian K Vaughan stuff on sale, so I picked up Paper Girls. I’ve only read the first issue so far, and it scratched my E.T./Goonies/Stranger Things itch, but going off of the rest of the covers it looks like it’ll go some crazy places. I’m anxious to get to issue #2!
Yeah you’re not going to believe where that story leads, it’s a massive spoiler if I tell you especially having only read issue #1.
I personally think the book is underrated. The art is great, almost every panel can be a wallpaper, I have a bunch of panels I just turned into wallpapers actually, even the most mundane of events (relative to other comics), is cartooned which such excellence. I would however recommend you read it in trades, it makes way more sense as it really has been plotted along the trade route rather than the issue route.
I haven’t read it yet, but everyone tells me I should, but getting the entire Death Note series in one omnibus edition for under $25 is a pretty awesome deal.
There’s some really good stuff in the Humble Bundle right now, particularly Giant Days. If I didn’t already own a lot of this physically I’d be jumping on the $15 tier.
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything not online, so I hit my local comic store and got volume one of Saga (which I never read despite the hype and podcast episode), Gotham Central (which I’ve heard good things about), and City (a manga by the same person who did Nichijou).
