Comic books

[redsplitwig]

I'm trying to get to the bottom of my read pile of trades lately and I thought I would post about some of them on here.  I already posted about the Walt Simonson Thor book and now I'm reading some Warren Ellis books I got a while back.

Aetheric Mechanics: A Graphic Novella.  Sort of a Sherlock Holmes story with a science fiction twist.  A Dr. Watson character returns from war to find a London filled with flying machines and fantastical crime.  He helps the Sherlock Holmes character solve the murder and more.  I don't want to give away too much if you are going to buy this, but it's a good read though kind of short.  This is part of Ellis' Apparat books from Avatar Press.  There was a collection of the first four called Apparat: Volume One and since then I've gotten Crecy (about a historic battle between England and France, written in a very post-modern way with a narrator talking to the reader) and Aetheric Mechanics.  The next one that's coming out is called Frankenstein's Womb, I think.  They're all good one off stories with different artists.  I don't think the newer ones will be collected since he's calling them graphic novellas and keeping the in print at Avatar.  Aetheric Mechanics had a cool story and I'm looking forward to Frankenstein's Womb.

I've still got Ellis' Freakangels and Black Summer to read and a bunch of other stuff.

[franks.]

I like Warren Ellis a lot. Haven't heard of Aetheric Mechanics but will check that out. Still waiting for that last issue of Planetary, durn it.

Today I re-read Final Crisis. Last ish comes out this week. On first read I thought this series was disconnected and made no sense. On second read, it's much, much clearer. He does sort of the same thing as in Batman RIP where part of the end happens at the beginning. Anyway, Grant Morrison is nuts.

[Kim Kelly]

Doesn't he practice chaos magick (the vestigial "k" is for kooky!) or something silly like that?

[redsplitwig]

Doesn't he practice chaos magick (the vestigial "k" is for kooky!) or something silly like that?

I think that's Alan Moore, but I could be wrong.

[erechoveraker]

No, Grant Morrison is a warlock too. Or at least he was.

Now he just writes stuff that doesn't make any sense. TA-DAA!

[erechoveraker]

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6586371.html 

[Kim Kelly]

Somebody played waaaaaay too much D & D as a kid.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Just bought this for my kids on Ebay. I ended up reading it myself and learning an embarrassing amount of information I did not know before. Maybe it's time I read one of Obama's books.

I also bought my 5-year-old the Obama/Spiderman comic book.  I learned a lot from that one as well.

[snogrog]

Warren Ellis' Fell is just plain awesome, and Ben Templesmith on art puts the book over the top. Too bad it's basically done. It's been almost 18 months I think since the last issue and don't think there will be a new issue anytime soon.

And yes, Final Crisis is really getting much better than what I originally thought of it. Apparently Morrison's Mister Miracle mini-series he did as part of his Seven Soldiers project has A TON to do with it and that was written in 2005, so you gotta respect the man for at least having a plan...

Also, I'm reading the hell out of anything Green Lantern I can get my hands on, and going to go through the entire James Robinson run of Starman again because it's just too good.

[Kim Kelly]

I really liked Fell too and wondered what happened to it. 

[JonFromMaplewood]

Ha!  I posted something a few entries ago and the comic book fanatics just ran right over it like it wasn't there. They know a non-comic-book person right away.

I feel like Flounder at the beginning of Animal House when he said to the poker players, "You guys playing cards?"

[franks.]

Warren Ellis' Fell is just plain awesome, and Ben Templesmith on art puts the book over the top. Too bad it's basically done. It's been almost 18 months I think since the last issue and don't think there will be a new issue anytime soon.

And yes, Final Crisis is really getting much better than what I originally thought of it. Apparently Morrison's Mister Miracle mini-series he did as part of his Seven Soldiers project has A TON to do with it and that was written in 2005, so you gotta respect the man for at least having a plan...

Also, I'm reading the hell out of anything Green Lantern I can get my hands on, and going to go through the entire James Robinson run of Starman again because it's just too good.

I read that Mister Miracle series when it came out and could not figure out why Darkseid was a dude running a club and a different guy was Mister Miracle. Haven't re-read it, but Final Crisis is finally making that one make sense. But I mean how do you foreshadow a DC main event crossover two years previous with a weirdo miniseries inside the Seven Soldiers series? I'm impressed. 

Key to enjoying Grant Morrison's current superhero work is realizing that EVERYTHING is fair play and in some part of continuity. The guy made Bat-Mite and all of the sci-fi Batman stories fit into current, mainstream, 21st century Batman. I think that's awesome any way you slice it.

I came to the new run of Green Lantern late, but the last few months I've been devouring 'em. Also, the GL stuff in Final Crisis is a lot of fun.

If he wants to be a magician, good for him. He writes excellent comics.

[Kim Kelly]

You know what, I love the Superman/Batman comics. I even liked Li'l JLA and Li'l Injustice League arc. I'm not kidding.



Loved it!

[erechoveraker]

Dunno if I posted this here, apologies if I did - but I really liked Morrison's Batman run. It fell apart at the end, and was plagued by some bad art here and there. But for the most part, it was lots of fun, and felt very much like good Batman stories were before we got the franchise of Batman, you know? Pre-Burton movie era Batman even.

And yeah, tying in all the stuff he did, pretty slick.

I think he's the kind of writer though who needs an editor to reign him back in sometimes, and a lot of the time doesn't have that. He certainly is capable of writing really great stuff, that's for sure.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Jon, I think most comic fans are kind of embarrassed by the pure crassness of the Obama comics, though by the time I'm 70 it will probably feel like cool kitsch in the same way that tons of comics from the 40s and 50s do now. 

On the other hand, I just bought the stupidest Obama shirt I could find.  It's got puffy silver lettering and has Obama in a Superman costume doing a slam dunk.  I think a tiny John McCain was photoshopped into the crowd.  The back has the accidental Obama-goatse pic designed by Alex Ross (cartoonist not music journalist), which I think has been photoshopped too, plus his signature.