h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well if it tricked you into reading something very good thats not such a bad thing

I've stocked up on a lot of offerings from the local comic scene that I've discovered. Some I'm familiar with, others not.

Some of them have an intriguingly early-80s aesthetic. I thought people had mostly stopped using spirit duplicators and B&W photocopiers to produce their comics, but not everyone, by a long shot!

One general trend is that the narrative and page layout seems to be *much* more polished than the art actually is.

The new TV-series Once Upon A Time sounds kind of similar to the Fables comic book. Also it seems that fairytales might be the new thing to mine for movies and TV, instead of comics.

New Powers comic out! Woop, woop!

FB

I've bought and read quite a few graphic novels recently:

Thor (J. Michael Straczynski) - The run of the comic which the movie credits as inspiration, although it bore only a little resemblance as far as I could see. I prefer Straczynski's work on Fantastic Four, personally.
Northlanders: Sven the Returned (Brian Wood) - Actually borrowed from a flatmate. It went missing in the conservatory for quite a while and, in the meantime, Amazon has been recommending it to me a lot. When it turned up again, I decided to make time for it, and I'm glad I did.
Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and Other Stories (Mike Mignola) - The third in the series, and thoroughly enjoyable. I only wish I'd gotten around to buying it sooner.
Madame Xanadu Vol. 1 (Matt Wagner) - Bought because the first volume was relatively cheap, and because I want to find out more about the characters I'm reading in the current run of 'Justice League Dark'. I am a fan of the Vertigo sub-universe (of DC), so I was glad to read more about it.
Swamp Thing: A Murder of Crows (Alan Moore) - The fourth in the series. Again, it shed an interesting light on the current Swamp Thing comics I'm reading, especially since it introduces elements which I've seen returned to, and had thought were probably invented for the new work. It gave me a bit of a shock to think that it was just over 25 years old!

Now I'm on to my second Alan Moore in a row, the first volume of 'Promethea'. I'm enjoying the artwork in 'Batwoman', and I've heard a lot of praise for the artist, J.H. Williams III. When I discovered he had collaborated with Moore, I knew I had to pick it up!
After that, it's onto 'The Little Endless Storybook: Delirium's Party' (Jill Thompson) and then Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli's 'The Last Temptation'.

I have to say that some of the 'New 52' comics I'm reading are no more than passingly entertaining, but the latest plot twist in 'Justice League Dark' has amused me. Basically, the reasons why they were gathered appears to have been to protect the world from each other! It's not so much a superhero team as a self-help group: Justice League Anonymous, if you will. I can imagine them sitting in a circle in some rented church hall: "Hello everyone. My name is Zatanna, and I am addicted to magic..."

Based on multiple recommendations on this thread I have started reading Fables.

It is rather splendid I must say.

FB

Fables is really good. Utterly hooked on it.

FB

Just read an Ed Brubaker one-shot called "The Last of the Innocents", and really enjoyed it. It's a crime thriller, and the main character seems to all the other characters a cold-blooded schemer, while we see his inner thoughts which show his inner torment. The book is peppered with flashbacks to his innocent childhood, portrayed in Archie-style simplistic artwork and primary colours. It works really well.
Now I'm on to Neil Gaiman's "Black Orchid". I've been meaning to read it at some point, as I do with everything Gaiman has written, and when I saw that Black Orchid has appeared in the current 'Justice League Dark' comics which I'm picking up, I took that as my prompt.

Now caught up to the present edition of Fables.

Really folks if ya havenae read it do so. It is grand.

FB

A Chinese Life, by Li Kunwu.

700 pages with not much reward at the end. It was produced by a CP propagandist, and it shows. It could have done with a bit of editing, too, especially in later chapters.

I have been mostly reading the Hellboy back catelogue. It is really good isn't it.

I hope that Del Torro is able to find a gap in his schedule to make Hellboy 3. Not always that big on "threequels" (though recent Batman and Toy Story films bucked trend) but now having read a fair amount of the omics I beleive there is a huge and rich amount of stories that a Director as good as Del Torro would be able to make into a tremedous film.

FB

My next one's called Lucille (I think...a girl's name anyway...)

It's about two teenagers making their way round Europe. No idea what it will be like - I just picked it up for a pound because the cover was a bit torn and the drawing style looked interesting.

Sadly, I hear Ron Perlman said after the last one that he was "too old" to do another, as the make-up and stuff was too gruelling. Having said that, there's no saying he can't change his mind...

I think Perelman has changed his mind and is up for another, but that the vagaries of everyones respective schedules has made it difficult. Best chance seems to be after Pacific Rim has wrapped but they don't have a script so guessing it is unlikely.

FB

Onto volume 3 of Alan Moore's Promethea now, and it's rather reminding me of the novel "Sophie's World"*: large parts of it are thinly disguised lectures on very complicated subjects, but they're good lectures that really illuminate the subject, so I don't really mind. It does sort of make me think, however, that some might feel a bit cheated, if they were looking for an exciting superhero story, first and foremost. It would be like a Spanish friend of mine who bit into her first mince pie, and was disgusted to find that the contents was not minced meat, but sweet mincemeat! To adapt the analogy, Promethea is a bit like buying a mince pie, but then finding that it was actually a pork pie: dense and meaty, not sweet and tangy at all.

* And not just because the main character is also called Sophie!

Just finished reading Supergod by Warren Ellis. An arms race of created superbeings is chronicled. it is very good.

FB

Has the new Superman movie taken a lot of inspiration from Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid. I'm trying to decide wether to watch it.

Not read that one, although the name is familiar. Isn't the art by Mark Buckingham? Anyway, I wrote a review of the movie here, though: http://cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/man-of-steel-2013.html

Basically, I noticed one big change from what I consider as the 'traditional' Superman story: Superman goes public /before/ Clark Kent comes to Metropolis. Does that sound like an influence from the Waid version?