Whats everyone reading?

[Colin YNWA]

Was it just me that assumed this series probably grew out of the abandoned threads of American Gothic?

That's a very neat observation.

The other trick that could be used is making the narrator at the end (names escaping me entirely) unreliable. So kinda the Ukkoisation of the last issue if you like. 

[Old Tankie]

Just read Clean Room, episode 2, Vertigo book by Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt. Really enjoyed it.

[Professor Bear]

And indeed, the vampires where a plot thread lefting dangeling too many. Being built up as that big a threat then dissmised in a single speech box, not good at all. Let's see this Sidhe/Vamp war we where foretold!

My theory is that Edgy read Paul Cornell's Vampire State - in which Dracula, after bombarding the country with exploding vampires shot from cannons located within his castle on the moon, invades Britain with an army of vampires before engaging in a final battle with someone wielding Excalibur - and decided to abandon certain plots in his own work since the last word on "vampires invade Britain" stories had clearly already been written.

[Colin YNWA]

Archie and the Afterlife (and soon to be followed by the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). Issue #6 where Sabrina the Teenage Witch's origins are unveiled is a work of art.

Riverdale has always been a second-hand cultural reference for me but this is good stuff.

Yeah I got turned on to this by Link Prime here (I think it was sorry if I've got that wrong) and its great stuff, absolutely great stuff and I have no history with Archie comics at all beyond a very vague awareness. Its just a shame that its so in frequent. I trade wait it digitally... though that will be quite some wait so I might end up just getting the floppies in digital. I think its up to issue 8 now, the trade just covers the first 6.

It was Colin, good memory.
Really good in fact, as the last issue of this published was number 8 in May, so you could be waiting a while for that next trade.
I truly adore it and will never drop it from my pull list, but the shipping schedule has been deplorable.

So turned out I hadn't downloaded Dept of Monsterlogy onto my device and since there was no wifi available to me when waiting for my daughter to do her ballet class I decided to reread this since it was on my device and bloody hell it was better than I remembered. its such a shame that the brilliant Francavilla has become such a (justifiably) renowned cover artist cos brilliant as he is at that it his storytelling that really makes his art sing.

The story is just superb and even though I knew it was coming the bit with Vegas (Archie's dog) still brought tears to me eye.

[Apestrife]

Read the deluxe ver. of The Dark Knight Saga. IMO it adds/holds up really well. Even Dark Knight Strikes Again, which I may find a bit more fascinating than I should, but I can't help it liking it how accurate it turned out to be regarding the internet among other things.

While Batman fights fear with fear in TDK, in TDKSA he fights fads with fads through igniting a revolution through tights (much more daring than Guy Fawkes masks). Also, Miller was writing a big robo-frog-brainiac destroying Metropolis (more or less New York) in TDKSA, 9/11 happened just outside his window. This while he in his (out of it) mind writing a narrative making use/fun of how people are being more concerned with pop culture than actual issues. While that (for example talking heads clashing over wether there's to be a concert or not, cluttering that an asteroid is on it's way) does bleed into the narrative, I think some tears also did. With that, I'm really impressed he -somewhat- held it together.

I mean. While nothing like the "9/11 outside my window" scenario, I'v gone through some pains myself recently. Been drinking a cup of coffee extra, and taken longer naps than usual, longer walks. Slowing down a bit. Basically: I'v tried to chill. I even managed to "waste" two hours having a laugh at chronic gamer girl (the brilliance that is Ilana Glazer) on youtube the other day. But nothing productive.

Regardless everything that made Miller to plot Holy Terror, he instead kept on writing Wayne bullying Dick Grayson for "not being able to cut the mustard" and then dropping him -his former Robin- into an active volcano hidden underneath the batcave (Grant Morrison quite aptly labeled the story cocaine comics in a pod cast), this while everyone on earth is cheering over having defeated corruption thinking they'll getting a fresh start unaware that Superman is posing the question to his daughter Lara what they should do with earth.

As said: "I may find a bit more fascinating than I should.", but I can't help it. Especially not given what must'v been a Batman-like dedication of Miller to finish it.

[Citi-Def_Joe]

The Suicide Squad run written Adam Glass, 3 volumes in so far pretty good
Deathstroke vol 1 legacy - awesome action great art and so much violence!

[LukaszKowalczuk]

Army of Darkness: Oldschool and Ash vs the Classic Monsters. Didn't enjoy it at all. Poorly executed license stuff, only good think about them is that they were part of Humble Bundle, so i didn't spend too much money...

[Colin YNWA]

Considered writing this in the old (very old by the look!) thread OR starting a new one, but given the ... emotions... even mentioning this stuff can cause figured just slipping it in quietly here would be the best. Finally got around to reading 'Before Watchmen' Minutemen / Silk Spectre (hey I waited for the trade and then it had to get to the top of my too read 'pile) and it does an amazing job of both proving my case of 'some people might do some good stuff with this' and at the same time the alternative 'why bother, what does it acheive' point made by others.

I'm a big fan of Darwyn Cooke and so this was the only volume I was fussed about. Of the two stories Minutemen is by far the best and most gripping. Its the most interesting story and beautifully realised. The trouble is its a little too reverential and tries to pay hommage a little too much. In and of itself its a great story and a nice exploration of the characters from the original. Its just I found the motifies and ideas it drew from the original a little jarring. It was as if (not surprisingly) Darwyn Cooke couldn't just relax and tell his story, he had to make it a thing, an tribute to its source. I really feel it'd have been better served by just being a tribute to The Watchmen by just being the very good comic it so nearly is. By the end the circular motifys were driving me spare. It needed the confidence just to know it was a great comic, it didn't need to be a fitting tribute.

Silk Spectre felt a little less refered and honour bound, it still did it and was at its weakest when it did. It just wasn't as stronger story.

The way I see it if the creators had the courage to get past the obvious blocks to writing more about the characters from Watchmen they needed to have the courage of there convictions and just go for. Do something different, after all writers of this quality don't just try to bury into previous say Batman stories, they try to do something fresh, reinvent it. If Mr Cooke had just of had the same mentality here instead of holding the original in such untouchable esteem this could have been blinding, as it is its just pretty good.

[The Legendary Shark]

I'm currently reading The Paragon Annual, 2016 - and so should you be!

[Radbacker]

The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester, haven't finished it yet got about 60 pages to go but have to comment early, well this is some outstanding old SF, picked up the classics version while I was in Perth. Im not a big fan of old SF as it usually dates pretty badly but man this thing is a page turner, aside from a couple of nasty gender issues (a bit gender skewed and the female characters tend to get abused a bit but I think that may be purposeful) it could've been written last year.
The hero (not) of the story is so....I don't know, he's a total c&*t but I'm finding myself rooting for him, am I now a bad man too? I didn't know old SF could be this good anything else out there I'm missing by only reading stuff written in the last 30 years or so? recommendations please.

Cu Radbacker

[ThryllSeekyr]

The Stars My Destination used to be written into my sig if anybody remembers.

Not sure if the novelisation you read was written before the poem, but there's one and Slough-Feg that band and not the evil long undead-sorceror from Slaine who wrote a song taking lyrics from the poem or something like that. That the book you read might have been based on.

Tiger-Tiger

[Hawkmumbler]

I've just started my big re-read of Eric Powell's The Goon, in a lovely big library edition. No, seriously, it's a fucking massive book.

I could kill a dog with it.

[Mardroid]

'Ive started on Ro-Busters the Complete Nuts and Bolts volume one.

I got it at FP during the Southern Contingent catering last week. I was going to get the digital version, like I did the ABC Warrior volumes, but on seeing it, the temptation was too much.

Lovely volume. A good read so far. I'm new to this as I was not reading Starlord or the early progs when the strip was originally published. So I got into ABC Warriors first.

Couple interesting things I noticed:

• Ro-Jaws used to be almost as tall as Hammerstein. (I prefer the little version but its interesting to see how the strip evolved.)


• Hammerstein's humanoid head appeared quite early in the strips run, much earlier than the war memoirs that introduced ABC Warriors. And it looked quite different. And he also claims it was shot off in combat hence the replacement.


• A tough ABC Warrior avoiding a building fire. (He had Ro-Jaws with him though.)

[Hawkmumbler]

An odd aquisition, FB Manchester where selling off Nexus omnibi for dirt cheap prices. Sadly by the time I got their only volumes 1, 4 and 6 remained, so I nabbed the first one to give it a try.

It's bloody good fun, but VERY Flash Gordon. I can practically hear the queen soundtrack when I read it.

[TordelBack]

The Stars My Destination...
The hero (not) of the story is so....I don't know, he's a total c&*t but I'm finding myself rooting for him, am I now a bad man too? I didn't know old SF could be this good anything else out there I'm missing by only reading stuff written in the last 30 years or so? recommendations please.

As noted many times in these halls and beyond, Gully Foyle is a masterpiece of an anti-hero and Stars My Destination is hands-down one of the best SF novels ever written, and the perfect place to start exploring the 'classics'.  I've never met anyone who didn't love it, even people for whom it was the only SF book they ever read, and I've lent so many copies out without expectation of their return that I've no idea how many times I've actually bought it. 

Five classic SF novels for you that are personal faves of mine, although not all as old as the Bester:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin (1974).  Imagine a world where The Legendary Shark is reviled as a totalitarian materialist.  The truly brilliant story of an exceptional man discovering that anarchy is not necessarily the same as freedom.   

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke (1979).  Clarke's masterpiece IMHO, the gripping story of the attempt to build a space elevator in a thinly-disguised Sri Lanka.   

Gateway by Fred Pohl (1977). Humanity explores the bizarre interstellar travel network of a vanished alien race.  Has plenty of sequels, and very loosely follows on from the world of Merchants of Venus but stands up perfectly on its own. 

Foundation (1951) and The Caves of Steel (1953) by Isaac Asimov.  Almost anything Asimov wrote prior to the 1980s is worth a go (over 200 titles!), but these two stand at the start of his Foundation and Robots series respectively, while both are fabulous books in their own right.  Foundation is a linked series of short stories commencing an epic galactic history (never finished, just to warn you), while Caves of Steel is a detective story built around the Three Laws of Robotics.