What Are You Reading?

[gunswordfist]

I read The Walking Dead Volume 14 two nights ago.

"If it's dead-- fucking kill it!"
"It's a motherfucking herd!"

Abraham dropped some good lines.

Things got dire, including a cliffhanger that I would considered the worst possible scenario (sad wise  , not bad writing wise since this is TWD and all.)

[Pharass]

Yesterday I read the first volume of Samurai Executioner.  Great stuff, but than I wouldn't expect anything less from the team that brought us Lone Wolf and Cub.

[gunswordfist]

Yesterday I read the first volume of Samurai Executioner.  Great stuff, but than I wouldn't expect anything less from the team that brought us Lone Wolf and Cub.

That's the one and only manga I've ever read. LOVED IT. I plan on reading the entire series and then it's "sequel" Lone Wolf and Cub.

Anyway, this weekend I read volume 2 and 3 of Deadpool & Cable Ultimate Collection. Boy, was that a lot of reading. Good stuff even though it got (understandably) weaking in the last few issues. Can't wait until next year so I can start/continue/finish all of Deadpool's other series from my library.

[gunswordfist]

Comic books I've recently read:
American Vampire Volume 1
American Vampire Volume 2
Batman Thrillkiller
Superman Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?/Superman/Swamp Thing/For The Man Who Has Everything...

I'm really loving the hell out of American Vampire. I see why everyone's screaming about Scott Snyder.

It was good to finally read some Batman Noir.

I loved reading WHTTMOT again and I got to read For The Man Who Has Everything...for the first time.

[gunswordfist]

This weekend I read:

Punisher MAX Volume 4 Up Is Down, Black Is White- This is the Punisher comic I've been waiting to get, the reason why I got into the Punisher comics and partial responsible for getting me into comics. I read a magazine article about what comic books should new readers or whatever get into and Punisher MAX was among them. They were talking about this story about how some up and comer gangster dug up and disgraced Frank Castle's dead family. That sounded so interesting. Also, Up Is Down, Black Is White is the sequel to MAX Volume 1, In The Beginning, my absolute favorite Punisher comic book of all time (and introduced me to my favorite comic book artist). It's not as good as In The Beginning but in the end, it was a good sequel and wrapup. I got to get Volume 5. Garth Ennis is the man.

Scalped Volume 2- This one caught my interest. I'm still not convinced that this series should be longer than 3 volumes though.

[Pharass]

Recently, I've read:

Le Collectionneur: Le Collier de Padmasumbawa by Toppi

The fifth book in Toppi's series about the mysterious Collector, I haven't read any of the other volumes in the series, but I'm pretty sure that they can be read independently from one another. The comic is about the aforementioned Collector,  a man who travels through the world searching for obscure artifacts, some of them imbued with mysterious powers. The story while quite good is really just an excuse for Toppi to show of his artistic skills and seeing as how Toppi's art is gorgeous to look at, I'm completely on board with this. The main character is quite interesting too: While he helps the downtrodden, he's also completely ruthless and doesn't really care if the artifacts he's after already belong to somebody.

L'Esprit du Vent: L'Homme Sans Visage

Another excellent installment in a series that's quickly become one of my favorites. The plot in this volume involves a disfigured former actor, a banker whose solution to solving poverty is too simply eliminate the poor, a hanging judge and other shady figures. Great read.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, unlike you above posters I haven't been reading any sophisticated stuff at all since my brain hungers for more mindless and cliche material that doesn't force me to think at all, since I have to do enough thinking for my college exams.

Not too long ago I read the Korean Manga/Manwha (whatever you want to call it doesn't make a difference to me, really) The Breaker. Its a completely cliche and mostly predictable martial arts shonen manga (or whatever the Korean equivalent for shonen is called, but its basically a shonen as far as I'm concerned) and there's nothing truly spectacular about it, but to be honest I really found myself enjoying it, not really because of the story or anything like that because like I said its mostly typical shonen stuff, but in terms of just execution, I feel that its at least done pretty well and is fairly entertaining IF you happen to be a sucker for many of those shonen tropes and cliches (which I guiltily admit I am in fact a sucker for). It sort of reminds of me HSDK back when that was actually a martial arts manga and before it became a full-on ecchi manga without any further point or purpose. In this case, though, the manga never forgot what it was and stuck to its guns as a shonen, and for that its at least a decent read for me.

I've been reading the sequel series New Waves, which is basically the "2nd act" of the full story-line since its already a planned trilogy, and like many sequels in brings many of its own improvements as well as its downgrades from first part. On the downside the most interesting character in the manwha who was pretty much the main character of the 1st part is barely present in this series because this part focuses more on his disciple. On the plus side the disciple character at least grew a pair and even though he's kind of boring since he's as goody-goody as you'd expect a typical shonen protagonist to be, he at least works well in combination with all of the supporting cast who are at the very least more interesting than he is (IMO). Also what's kind of nice is that he has lost his abilities in this part of the series, so he has to manage to survive tough encounters with enemies using nothing but his wits most of the time since he can barely do anything to physically damage them, and that actually leads to some pretty interesting strategies on his part and its a nice alternative to just having flat-out fighting all of the time. Overall its not bad.

Anyways, when the Summer rolls around I'll probably start reading good stuff again, but for now this is a nice little guilty pleasure of mine, and now that I'm caught up with the series I'll probably follow it for a little while to see where it goes.

[gunswordfist]

Last week, I read:
Amazing Spider-Man: Matters Of Life And Death- This was actually my first real venture into Spider-Man, shockingly enough since I love the character so much but before that all I read was the Civil War story where Aunt May was shot, #1 which was in the back of one or two comics that weren't Spider-Man and the story Deadpool Classic made fun of. Anyway, yeah Dan Slott has me hooked. This book had everything: Spider-Man going through rough times, good action, competent villains, someone dying and a good amount of laugh moments. I was laughing pretty hard during some of the parts.

Agents Of Atlas volume 1- Good to read a Marvel team back that's not a lineup of recycled names. This was decent enough for me to give volume 2 a try.
To....yesterday:
2 volumes of Amazing Spider-Man- OK, I stupidly read these out of order. These were the first two Spidey comics in Dan Slott's run, the comic above was the third. Well I'm caught up now good.

Friday night:
Scalped High Lonesome- Okay, I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY liking this series now. Got to see why Nitz cared so much about those FBI agents.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So, unlike you above posters I haven't been reading any sophisticated stuff at all since my brain hungers for more mindless and cliche material that doesn't force me to think at all, since I have to do enough thinking for my college exams.

Not too long ago I read the Korean Manga/Manwha (whatever you want to call it doesn't make a difference to me, really) The Breaker. Its a completely cliche and mostly predictable martial arts shonen manga (or whatever the Korean equivalent for shonen is called, but its basically a shonen as far as I'm concerned) and there's nothing truly spectacular about it, but to be honest I really found myself enjoying it, not really because of the story or anything like that because like I said its mostly typical shonen stuff, but in terms of just execution, I feel that its at least done pretty well and is fairly entertaining IF you happen to be a sucker for many of those shonen tropes and cliches (which I guiltily admit I am in fact a sucker for). It sort of reminds of me HSDK back when that was actually a martial arts manga and before it became a full-on ecchi manga without any further point or purpose. In this case, though, the manga never forgot what it was and stuck to its guns as a shonen, and for that its at least a decent read for me.

I've been reading the sequel series New Waves, which is basically the "2nd act" of the full story-line since its already a planned trilogy, and like many sequels in brings many of its own improvements as well as its downgrades from first part. On the downside the most interesting character in the manwha who was pretty much the main character of the 1st part is barely present in this series because this part focuses more on his disciple. On the plus side the disciple character at least grew a pair and even though he's kind of boring since he's as goody-goody as you'd expect a typical shonen protagonist to be, he at least works well in combination with all of the supporting cast who are at the very least more interesting than he is (IMO). Also what's kind of nice is that he has lost his abilities in this part of the series, so he has to manage to survive tough encounters with enemies using nothing but his wits most of the time since he can barely do anything to physically damage them, and that actually leads to some pretty interesting strategies on his part and its a nice alternative to just having flat-out fighting all of the time. Overall its not bad.

Anyways, when the Summer rolls around I'll probably start reading good stuff again, but for now this is a nice little guilty pleasure of mine, and now that I'm caught up with the series I'll probably follow it for a little while to see where it goes.

If you want good comics that don't need you to think, Nextwave.

As for myself, I'm starting The Contract With God trilogy. Gotta get some Will Eisner in my brain.

[Hime]

For now, I'm reading Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, spinoff from Madoka Magica.

And how they twisted every single part being a magical girl is horrifying enough

[gunswordfist]

Over the weekend I read Deadpool V. 6 I Rule, You Suck, Deadpool Vol. 7, Space Oddity and The Walking Dead Volume 15.

LOL @ the aliens having Halo guns in Space Oddity. I instantly recognized that. Also, the moon that got high off of snorting planets he destroys was something else.

Thank GOD Volume 15 of The Walking Dead finally got here. I've been waiting since last year for that. In this volume minor characters got fleshed out. They're covering all bases. Looks like the main threat to the group will be from within again. If this goes down like they are hinting, things could get messy. Also, fuck yeah at my 2 favorite characters surviving. They were pretty much the main targets throughout this book but they made it.

[gunswordfist]

Over the last two days I've read Scalped V. 6, Scalped V. 7, Static Trial By Fire and G.I. Joe Cobra. All good.

[Daxdiv]

I read the first volume of Animal Land, the manga Makoto Raiku, creator of Zatch/Gash Bell is currently working on. I got to say that this story made me feel things. With Manoko, the main tanuki of the series trying to save the baby from death because it was the only thing left that resembled a family to her. But then there's my favorite character's back story. So far Kurokagi the Wild Cat is my favorite character. At first he was a hunter that hunted for his own food, then after he hunted down a vixen that turned out to be a mother that was nursing her young, and then when the young took to him, he just left him there. Then the next day he saw that by leaving the baby vixen behind, it died. Because of that he vows to protect the village of the Tanukis. He noticed the baby human and told him that he was weak. But after the baby convinced the other Tanukis to take care of the wounded Kurokagi, he decided that he will not only protect the Tanukis, but the human boy that can talk to the animals as well.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh, I didn't even know he had a new one.

Makoto Raiku is kind of underrated, in my opinion. He has a completely unique style and way or storytelling and nothing ever quite goes the way you would expect it to. I'll definitely keep my eyes out for this one.

[Daxdiv]

Yeah, I was told by a few people on another board I go to about this series and since it did have an English release, I decided to pick it up. So far there are only 3 volumes with an English release and I know that there are 8 volumes in Japan right now. He doesn't work for Shogakukan anymore ever since he sued them for losing a bunch of his art and said that they mistreated their Manga artist. Because VIZ was associated with Shogakukan, that's why Zatch Bell manga was cut short in America. Now he works for Kodansha.