Comic Books / Graphic Novels thread

[Guest bitroast]

yeah, it's a difficult one to comment on having only read the translations, when the work derives so heavily from that "stream of consciousness" style and keeps itself cryptic.

I didn't really like the writing in The Incal for the same reason. Felt very sort of random and not following a concise story, more just felt like an output of things happening ala "and then this happened." "and then this happened". The Airtight Garage reminded me of that a little.

It was never the writing in moebius works that attracted though, but obviously the incredible artworks. Understanding and starting to appreciate the writing is the icing on the cake :)

[Guest bitroast]

 

Nice nice!! :)

I am having second thoughts about saying the writing isn't great. Upon A Star is really nicely written, not as stream of conciousness-y as airtight garage (which was the one that made me think the writing is a bit weird). Alot of the stuff makes more more sense the more you read all his work.. Like they bounce ideas off each other and take on similar themes from different angles.. It rewards digging deeper :)

 

Moebius work needs time to digest most of the time, his books are more on the grower side. He made a couple of more accessible stuff though, which are also great. Did you guys read The Aedena Cycle? It's so good. I was also amazed by the last Arzach, which (in the like of the last Garage Hermétique with Major Gruber) was a return to the character of Arzach, in which was supposed to be the first volume of a new series, where, unlike in the old Arzach books, characters speak. It might be the last book he made. Pretty sad it had to stop like that.

 

 

oh my. just finished the English book Upon A Star (which collects The Repairmen, Upon a Star, Aedena Cycle and Celestial Venice).

Aedena Cycle is so great. like some religious propaganda book against contemporary living?? Celestial Venice was beautiful as well.

This strips have really clicked with me.. they're so beautiful..

[ghOsty]

Just finished Fell vol. 1 - Feral City. It's a nice, nasty crime book with a sort of unhinged David Lynch meets Silent Hill 2 vibe.

 

Have another Red Bull and finish this shit

 

Warren pls

 

 

That sounds pretty cool, might have to look into this title.

[Guest bitroast]

been catching up on a lot of Simon Hanselmann's stuff, his comic series Megg Mogg and Owl.

Australian artist who I sort of known about for a good while through people and whatnot but due to disassociation with said people never really put much effort into checking it out (totally my own dumb decision..)

 

anyway, there's a great collection of the comic out now on fantagraphics - http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/megahex-pre-order--4.html?vmcchk=1

comics also get posted online - http://girlmountain.tumblr.com/

and on vice - etc. http://www.vice.com/read/megg-mogg--owl-episode-1

 

a lot of it is stoner humour, but it sort of plays on both sides of it (ie. the funny, and the deeply upsetting side as well).

recommended reading :)

 

 

 

//

 

 

 

[tec]

 

Just finished Fell vol. 1 - Feral City. It's a nice, nasty crime book with a sort of unhinged David Lynch meets Silent Hill 2 vibe.

 

Have another Red Bull and finish this shit

 

Warren pls

 

 

That sounds pretty cool, might have to look into this title.

 

 

Just got this, it's pretty cool, did they ever do a volume 2? Can't seem to find a mention of it anywhere.

[doublename]

 

 

Just finished Fell vol. 1 - Feral City. It's a nice, nasty crime book with a sort of unhinged David Lynch meets Silent Hill 2 vibe.

 

Have another Red Bull and finish this shit

 

Warren pls

 

 

That sounds pretty cool, might have to look into this title.

 

 

Just got this, it's pretty cool, did they ever do a volume 2? Can't seem to find a mention of it anywhere.

 

 

There hasn't been a second volume. I want to believe though.

[tec]

Eurgh, I enjoyed it but that's frustrating. The Richard Nixon nun thing needed to be explained!

[ghOsty]

Picked up issue #2 of The Fade Out... This series is off to a pretty good start. The historical researcher Brubaker hired for this series has really paid off in keeping the feel authentic, this issue makes a lot of references to the situation in Hollywood during the era with RKO studios and Howard Hughes etc. The essays at the end of the issues have been interesting as well. The noir feeling murder plot continues to thicken, and I think this may be one I'll continue to collect individual issues of.

 

Edited October 29, 2014 by ghOsty

[Guest Little Lord Faulteroy]

been catching up on a lot of Simon Hanselmann's stuff, his comic series Megg Mogg and Owl.

Australian artist who I sort of known about for a good while through people and whatnot but due to disassociation with said people never really put much effort into checking it out (totally my own dumb decision..)

 

anyway, there's a great collection of the comic out now on fantagraphics - http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/megahex-pre-order--4.html?vmcchk=1

comics also get posted online - http://girlmountain.tumblr.com/

and on vice - etc. http://www.vice.com/read/megg-mogg--owl-episode-1

 

a lot of it is stoner humour, but it sort of plays on both sides of it (ie. the funny, and the deeply upsetting side as well).

recommended reading :)

 

 

 

//

 

 

 

 

Oddly enough i'm also currently reading Megg, Mogg & Owl :D

Thanks to Simon Hanselmann i discovered the awesome comics of Michael Deforge & Patrick Kyle.

Simon Hanselmann, Patrick Kyle & Michael Deforge did a big Book-Promotion-tour through the USA last month, where they promoted their freshly published books.

Megahex, Distance Mover & Lose #6.

They are all worth checking out! :)

the last couple of months i also discovered some other American cartoonists, and i'm really enjoying them... for instance CF, the drawings of Jonny Negron, The drawings of Lala Albert, Mickey Z etc...

They're all awesome!!

 

Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

and some shops:

 

http://motherbooks.storenvy.com/

http://michaeldeforge.bigcartel.com/

http://pricetapes.storenvy.com/

etc...

 

:)

Edited November 1, 2014 by Little Lord Faulteroy

[Guest bitroast]

Nice! Yeah i've read recently pressed michael deforge collection and yus he's got a great style.

[Echolalia]

Halfway through Frank Miller Robocop compendium of his screenplay for Robocop 2. Very similar to the film to be fair, some of the OCP adverts are directly the same. Worth reading as it the art style is like some dripping candle wax version of Detroit. Pay attention to the state of Robocop's car, something the film missed.

[prdctvsm]

http://kingtrash.com/ants/

 

[Lucas]

 

 

oh my. just finished the English book Upon A Star (which collects The Repairmen, Upon a Star, Aedena Cycle and Celestial Venice).

Aedena Cycle is so great. like some religious propaganda book against contemporary living?? Celestial Venice was beautiful as well.

This strips have really clicked with me.. they're so beautiful..

 

 

Yeah the Aedena Cycle is one of my favourite Moebius. It's way easier to get into it than in some other books of him, still it's deep and mysterious enough to make you want to read it again from times to times.

 

I had the same feeling about the last Arzach (oh wait it's spelt "Arzak" on this last book), although I just read it once so far. I don't know if you heard about it but it's quite recent, it was supposed to be the first part of a new series (with dialogues, in opposition to the original Arzach stories) but it ended up staying unfinished. It's great, can't wait to re-read it when I return to my family for Christmas (quite a lot of comic books there!).

 

As for the Garage, I just re-read the first book (or anyway the big one with the character of Jerry Cornelius, not sure about the chronology of this series). True that this way of writing can seem a little bit overdone from times to times. I read that he wrote a part of it being under the influence of psychedelics or something and I guess this vibe is quite obvious. But I like how the story evolves from this chaos into something more focused eventually.

 

Yesterday I started to read again the last book of the Garage, "Le Chasseur Déprime" and it's clearly more cohesive as the older stories. Well at some point Major Gruber (without a "t" in this book...) get trapped into a succession dream levels (quite hard to explain) and it gets kind of abstract but it still feels more consistent (maybe mature would be the word). I just saw it doesn't exist in english but if you can grab one somehow it worth it alone for the crazy art.

[Guest bitroast]

umm, can you provide a pic/sample/screenshot of the most arzak you're referring to? can be blurry or whatever i'm just not too sure which i've got and am a bit confused by the names / releases, what is what etc. i have no idea :) !!

[tec]

Took a punt on The Absence by Martin Stiff because I liked the cover, it was surprisingly good.

 

 

[Lucas]

with pleasure ;-)

 

I couldn't find great pictures but here we go :

 

 

 

 

This edition is in a pretty large book, very pleasant to read. The drawings and colors also contribute to that. Originally this book was released (in 2009) with the text and dialogues being separated (one page with drawings and next to it the page with the corresponding text). I kind of slept on it when it was released that way but now I think about it I'm pretty sure it's a very interesting way to format a comic book.

[Guest bitroast]

oh wow that looks great.

had a quick search and saw no mention of english translation!

hadn't even heard of it to be honest before now..

 

the idea of comic book with no words and words on next page seems a bit weird. like your eyes would constantly be darting around and not following the story fluently. if you were into that idea of having comic strip clean with no words, maybe you print the page with no speech bubbles, but have like a clear plastic overlay page for every page with white speech bubbles + text to flick through :)

[Luka]

almost finished nausicaa. so glad this was recommended - thanks!

 

just picked up incal, before the incal and hoping for a final incal preorder for xmas :)

hoping more moebius works get re-released in english.

[Guest bitroast]

nice one.

I struggled to follow the story in The Incal but the artwork doesn't disappoint at all. i'm sure i'll re-read it some point and see if opinion changes..

[Lucas]

Well I remember being a little bit disappointed or say overwhelmed by the Incal when I first read it, but since that time I read it two or three times again and it's really one of those things I find always better each time I read it. It's very dense and can seem absurd but a lot of the details make sense to me somehow. Jodorowsky looks pretty crazy though, I saw an interview of him once and seeing him speaking made me think there must be some serious stuff happening in his head the whole time. By the way I really like how relaxed Moebius seems to be based on interviews I saw of him.

 

I read "Le Bandard Fou" yesterday, it's a pretty nice one.

 

 

[

 

 

 

I think this one is translated in English right?

 

Soon I'll have re-read almost everything from Moebius the french institute of Leipzig has to provide. I start to feel limited in this library because it just has french things (pretty good collection though, a lot of classics and also more modern stuff) so I guess I'll have to subscribe to the city library soon and start to read non-french comics again. I have a couple of Crumb books at home, two Charles Burns and one Daniel Clowes, but I know them quite well now.

[Guest bitroast]

 

I think this one is translated in English right?

 

 

yep!

altho, long out of print and expensive... it's out there tho

[Soloman Tump]

I have incal and I live it. I didn't realise there was a before and after incal story! Made my day!

[Rubin Farr]

Batman: Death of the Family Hardcover with latex Joker mask featuring real hair.

 

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/batman-death-of-the-family-book-and-the-joker-mask-set

[ghOsty]

Batman: Death of the Family Hardcover with latex Joker mask featuring real hair.

 

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/batman-death-of-the-family-book-and-the-joker-mask-set

 

That mask is neat, too bad I already have the book...

[Soloman Tump]

Picked up volume 4 in the Justice League Dark New 52 TP series. Struggling to pay attention to whats going on - this series started off with promise but has generated into standard DC mess with fuck all interesting stuff going on apart from "oh noes! the world is gonna end!" shit, and my interest in all of the characters has pretty much dropped to zero. The Swamp Thing included in the story does nothing to add to my interest - he's just there getting thrown around doing nothing.

 

I'm gonna stick with the main Swamp Thing story though, still seems pretty good and is keeping me entertained.

Was a bit annoyed that they have concluded Animal Man already - surely there was enough promise to keep that going for a while longer.

 

DC generally seems like a mess to me - they keep starting new stories / closing series off prematurely, have joined some stories together and dropped others altogether. Seems like a bit of a logistical clusterfuck with about 5 versions of the justice league all going on at once.