What Are You Reading?

[Avaitor]

After discovering that Fantagraphics has been doing exceptionally detailed hardcover releases of various Disney comic storyteller's works, I decided to treat myself to their first Barks release. It was a great purchase, as it has some of his best Donald stories brought to life with exceptional coloring restoration and strong paper to back it up. There's also a bit of a Barks biography in here, and some reviews for the stories included at the end.

They're also releasing editions for Floyd Gottfredson and Don Rosa's works. If I get some Christmas money like I'm expecting to, I think that I'll get the first Rosa edition next. I'm especially excited to hit volumes 4 and 5, as the Life and Times of Scrooge works are included in those.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So I was on a thread where people very angry at Civil War II and modern Marvel comics in general cried for Jim Shooter to come back to fix Bendis' bullshit. And I found his review of Miles Morales' first issue.

[Pharass]

Of the comics I've read since I last posted in this thread, the best one by far is The Art of Charlie Chan Hock-Chye by Sonny Liew. An outstanding book, one of those works that is well-deserving of the title masterpiece and takes the medium to new heights. This is the first comic by Liew I've read and I'm definitely checking out more from him (the superhero comic he did with Gene Yang looks interesting).

Another great comic was The Coldest City by Anthony Johnston and Sam Hart, which I recommend heartily to anyone who wants some quality spy-fiction, in the vein of John Le Carré.

Finally, I also read the first volumes of DMZ and Immortal Iron Fist respectively. Both were good and I'm interested in reading the subsequent volumes.

[gunswordfist]

Finally, I also read the first volumes of DMZ and Immortal Iron Fist respectively. Both were good and I'm interested in reading the subsequent volumes.

Alright!!! I love those comic books. It's why Iron Fist will be my favorite Marvel superhero to come to Netflix.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I picked up World Trigger again, and I'm currently in the middle of the Invasion arc. I was enjoying the Rank Wars well enough, but then it got interrupted by this story-line, and the big problem that I'm having with this one is how overloaded it is with characters. We have tons of characters, both familiar and brand new, who are all involved in this battle, which I get is for two reasons: to make the conflict feel large scale and because Osamu and Chika are far too inexperienced to actually be of enough use in this situation at this point in time. But it jumps around between too many characters who I quite frankly have no investment in yet, and the flow is all over the place. It'd at least be interesting to follow one of the more capable fighters of the main four, either Kuga or Jin, who I do actually have some investment in, rather than not having any central focus for this arc which really makes the narrative feel like a complete mess.

Im hoping that the future arcs can go back to feeling more focused. I'm all for giving other characters a chance to shine and grow on you, but overloading us with so much at once while barely giving any one single person that much screen-time or development doesn't really do any favors for anyone.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I got Walt Simonson's Thor omnibus from the library, a mammoth brick of 1130 pages, and plowed through a quarter of it this morning. Especially impressed by Beta Ray Bill. I wish the Thor movies had this level of gravity going in, because of all the ranges the MCU has, Thor's still not quite one they've managed to master.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I really liked Thor in AEMH and the very little of Marvel stories which I've read that feature him. It's a shame that the movies, while entertaining, can't seem to manage to capture the grandiosty and excitement of his stories from the comics, especially since Chris Hemsworth is not getting to utilize his full potential given how well he fits for that character.

[gunswordfist]

I got Walt Simonson's Thor omnibus from the library, a mammoth brick of 1130 pages, and plowed through a quarter of it this morning. Especially impressed by Beta Ray Bill. I wish the Thor movies had this level of gravity going in, because of all the ranges the MCU has, Thor's still not quite one they've managed to master.

Not to mention that his movies are average, at best.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been reading Green Lantern: Hal Jordan (the post-Infinite Crisis run), and I'm really surprised by how easily accessible it is, starting from a retelling of the origin story and progressing smoothly as a regular serialized story. It makes me realize that most of the superhero comic books that I've read have been one-off  stories or alternate Universe affairs, many of which I do legitimately like, but I'm still most keen to serialized story-telling that is more about telling fun stories as opposed to being more artistic and trying to explore deep concepts.

Of course, I'm only one volume in so it could get shitty later on (sort of like how Knightfall was great, but the follow-ups Kinghtquest and Knightsend were complete schlock), but I'm really enjoying the story so far, and plan to continue it.

Can anyone recommend any other serialized runs that are easy to get into from scratch, and are more traditional serialized story-lines? Stuff like this and Ed Brubaker's Captain America and Iron Fist runs are really what are most up my alley when it comes to comic books. In fact, I recently picked up the first two volumes of Ed Brubaker's Batman run just because I wanted to give it a chance since I liked everything that I've read if his work so far (I have yet to get around to those books, though). I also have the first volume of Mark Waid's Wally West Flash run, which I plan to get around to soon as well.

On the manga side of things I'm caught up with five WSJ series which I'm reading on a weekly basis (except for World Trigger, which is still on hiatus). The other four are One Piece, My Hero Academia, Black Clover, and Food Wars! One Piece and MHA are on fucking fire right now. Easily the two best things currently running in Jump. The rest are alright, but I must admit that my interest in them is waning a bit.

I have taken a break from my re-read of the early parts of One Piece, after having finished the Baroque Works Saga. I'm going to read through the first two volumes of The Black Museum, which have been sitting on my shelf for a while untouched, and then get back to One Piece. In the meantime, I have also been re-reading Psyren, which is easily Toshiaki Iwashiro's most successful series to date....which makes me sad since it's at best only a moderate success, despite how enjoyable it is. This makes me want to check out Kagamigami despite its early cancellation since I have heard good things about it, as well as his previous work, Mieru Hito. It feels like this guy has legitimate potential to do good manga, but never manages to have the breakout success and popularity needed to ever tell the complete stories that he wants to tell. I do genuinely hope that much like Kohei Horikoshi with MHA (which was his first big success after two or three failed Jump manga with early cancellations), Iwashiro finally manages to catch a big break with his next manga (assuming that he publishes it in Jump) since he really deserves the success, IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Can anyone recommend any other serialized runs that are easy to get into from scratch, and are more traditional serialized story-lines? Stuff like this and Ed Brubaker's Captain America and Iron Fist runs are really what are most up my alley when it comes to comic books. In fact, I recently picked up the first two volumes of Ed Brubaker's Batman run just because I wanted to give it a chance since I liked everything that I've read if his work so far (I have yet to get around to those books, though). I also have the first volume of Mark Waid's Wally West Flash run, which I plan to get around to soon as well.

I've been really critical of modern Marvel comics lately, but Vision by Tom King is extremely good. And while not as great, his current run on Batman has been refreshing after all the crap the Snyder run went through. And there's always Moore's Swamp Thing and Gaiman's Sandman in case you haven't gotten to them yet.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been meaning to read Sandman for the longest time now. I think I'll get around to it after I actually get through American Gods, which I've had for over a year and still haven't read yet (I keep forgetting that I have it since it's a digital download).

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll look into those as well.

[Foggle]

The Joe Kelly and Gerry Duggan Deadpool runs are extremely good IMO (with the latter being what I'd consider Marvel's strongest current offering), as well as Cable & Deadpool. Though he's usually just paraded around like a Looney Tunes character, Kelly and Duggan write DP with pathos and complexities that put almost any other superhero book to shame.

Also, the newest Power Man & Iron Fist series is awesome.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've read fragments of different Deadpool comics here and there, and generally have enjoyed all of it. One of these days I'll get around to reading the character's best runs properly.

And I could always do with some more Luke Cage and Iron Fist.

[Dreamer2]

I'm just gonna recommend Fables. I love it and it tells a great story. I'm only through volume 5, but its really good.

[Markness]

Somebody donated a huge chunk of Eyeshield 21 volumes (2-19) to the library I work at and my friend who works in the Young Adult section set them aside for me since she knows I am a manga reader. She did have to send one of the volumes away because it was damaged but the others are in good shape and I bought the first two volumes (library policy) of the chunk. I bought a cheap copy of the first volume on Amazon and will eventually get the others from my friend as well as a better copy of the one she had to throw out. I don't like American football but I like Murata's art style so I will read it.