Comics and Graphic Novel General Discussion!

[Chaosmaster8753]

Recently finished All Star Superman vol. 2, good read. Speaking of the DC reboot, I think I might want to check out most of Geoff Johns' stories, I'm really liking his work on Green Lantern.

[max_cady]

The three graphic novels I ordered just arrived.

I started reading the GL Corps GN, pretty good stuff..

[SOUP]

The new DCU launced today. I haven't picked anything up, but I subscribed to a few of the new series. I probably won't start receiving them for about 2 months, but they'll start with the #1 issues. It's a bit of an annoyance to be 2 months behind all the time, but it's way cheaper than buying them from comic shops, and I don't have to worry about missing out on any issues (my local shop's pretty unreliable). They also give you one title for free if you order more than 4 subscriptions.

It took a while to decide what to go with, but I narrowed it down to these in the end:

Batman: I used to get this one, but stopped around the time that they "killed off" Bruce Wayne. The whole Batman line got a bit convoluted at that point, so I just stopped reading DC alltogether.  I've heard a lot of good things about Scott Snyder, so that's why I opted for this one.

Nightwing: I've always been a fan Dick Grayson. I don't really know much about the writer, so I'm hoping this one turns out well.

Batgirl: I'm not a huge Batgirl fan, but I've heard nothing but good things about Gail Simone, so I figured this would be a good point to jump on.

Justice League Dark: I really liked Peter Milligan's run on X-Men a few years back, and the cast seems pretty interesting.

Green Lantern: Another title that I used to read pretty regularly. I stopped reading before all the Darkest Night stuff went down. I like Geoff Johns' work, so I'm pretty sure this one's going to be a safe bet. 

Action Comics: This one's solely on the strength of the other Grant Morrison stuff I've read (including All-Star Superman).

A few other series look interesting (Justice League, Wonder Woman, Flash, Blue Beetle), but I'll wait for the reviews to roll in on those.

[SOUP]

I've been reading through X-Factor from the beginning (2005 relaunch), before I work my way through the past 3 years that I missed out on.
I'm remembering why (outside of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing), it's my favourite X-title out there. The art's a little inconsistent (pretty much a revolving door of artists for the first bunch of issues), but the writing is top-notch, and the cast is full of really interesting characters. It all reminds me more of Buffy The Vampire Slayer than any other super-hero title. There's a much bigger emphasis on character interaction than drama. The entirety of issue 13 is just the team getting individual psych evaluations from Doc Samson.

[Chaosmaster8753]

Most recent mini-series I finished:

[max_cady]

I finished up reading the first graphic novel of Secret Six and it's a mostly "what the heck am I reading?" page turner.
One minute, Catman is having a fistfight with Batman over him eating a burrito, then Bane being overprotective towards Savage, there's Ragdoll having a creepy sister, a huge amount of B-list villains trying to kill the entire team over a weird card.

[SOUP]

@max_cady: I've heard nothing but good things about Secret Six. I'll have to check it out sometime from the sounds of it.

I've still been reading through Peter David's run on X-Factor. I'm up to the recent Second Coming crossover bit. Outside of the Secret Invasion crossover with She-Hulk, this books been solid gold. Issues 39 and 40 were pretty mindblowing.

[max_cady]

Two titles of DC's new 52 reboot have bothered me a lot.



Red Hood and the Outlaws... Starfire is now the equivalent of a superficial whore who'll sleep with anyone for no reason whatsoever...

And Catwoman... First off, why? And second... who drew that? The laws of human anatomy have been literally raped in that one single panel.

[SOUP]

Have you read any of the other new 52 titles?

[max_cady]

Haven't read either the new Batman and the new Detective Comics.

I have read the new Justice League comic which is actually a pretty cool reboot.

Read the new Suicide Squad, still have no idea what's going on...

I wanted to read the new Action Comics, but... I can't get past the image of Superman just casually wearing jeans to fight crime.

[SOUP]

I'm still waiting on my subscriptions to start showing up. I added Justice League to my pull list at the local comic shop.
I'll give some impressions whenever they do show up (probably not until partway through next month).

As far as Superman's look in Action Comics goes, I think I like it more than what I've seen of George Perez's work on Superman.  Jim Lee's take on the new costume doesn't look too bad though.

[George]

I haven't read comic books, just because of how hard the publishers make it for people to get issues. Right now I'm enjoying some Manga. I have decided to read most of the popular titles.

So yes, that means I have read Naruto from 1-554. I was never a fan, everyone said that the US dub was a bad reputation of the franchise. So I decided to read it on my off time (aka before going to bed). Well, now that I have technically read up to the newest chapter, I can give you my thoughts on the franchise right now.

I think they have good concepts, I like how they keep old characters and they don't just become 'obsolete' (See Dragon Ball Z and Bleach. Most of the main characters from the early chapters mean shit later). They live in a world with rules, though they have fucked this up a few times. Spoiler: The Pain arc, seriously... wtf was that ending? Naruto changed a villain with reason? The dude fucking destroyed the whole village, took bodies of people and used it as puppet? All he needed was someone to give another opinion? Seems bullshit and cheesy. Not to mention Resurrection all the people? Stupid excuse to not kill off main characters.

Right now its in the 3rd Ninja War arc and its moving way too slow to be doing it slowly.

Other than that, I'm also reading 'Fairy Tail', I'm in character 57. Its basically a One Piece rip off... no seriously, look at the art:


Art is very similar and the comedy reminds me of each other. Instead of being a pirate crew, in Fairy Tail they are mages.

[max_cady]

I'm a bit worn out on Manga right now.

I stopped caring about the Naruto manga, because it never seems to end. I started following the animated series for a while, but I kinda gave up on it. It is too friggin' slow to develop, the manga is even worse, it feels like minimal plot exposition then two characters duke it out for three or four chapters and the battles get so damn repetitive.

It's like watching two professional and highly experienced chess players sizing each other out. It gets boring reall fast.

The same with Kenichi. Loved the cartoon, I was following the novel, OK. But I am getting sick of this: Two characters duke it out, almost always we get to a flashback with the villain retelling his friggi'n life story... Jeez.

[SOUP]

I like manga, but it's a pretty big investment of time and money to get into any particular series.
The only one I've really put much time into is Ranma 1/2 (All 36 volumes of it).
That said, I really enjoyed the whole thing.

Back to comics though, I've started reading Generation Hope. I mainly picked it up because I enjoyed the whole character arc of Hope Summers, and I've heard a lot of good things about the writer. It's pretty solid so far. Even though the cast is pretty much all original characters, they've done a good job of making them all interesting from the get go.

[George]

Yeah, it is a big investment. Though I wouldn't have read all those Naruto chapters if it wasn't free. The Android app 'Mango' is really good.