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

Sounds quite interesting. Must give it a go when I have finished Hellblazer, Lucifer and 100 Bullets (the three series I am flitting between at the moment).

FB

Have probably already mentioned this... but on reading the Sin City comics I am utterly amazed at just what a faithful reproduction the film was. Shot for shot, dialogue line for dialogue line.

Spose the comic is *incredibly* cinematic so it lends itself well.

FB

Coming to the end of "100 Bullets" and both excited and sad. It is great and really would be an amazing HBO show.

Come on HBO, do it, do it now!

FB

Right anyone read "DMZ"? Been lent the first couple of collected TBP editions along with a glowing recommendation and I wondered if any hootooizens had read it?

FB

I've read the first couple, and the reports you have heard are accurate thus far. My flatmate (from whom I borrowed them) has read further, and speaks highly of it.

Excellent! Does seem very intersting. I do like Super Hero comics but many of the more interesting ones I have read have been non super as it were.

FB

Now I have read a fair bit of DMZ I can heartily recommend it. Is ace.

FB

I've now read Volume 7 of "The Boys".

Yay! They're back to solid storylines and plotting, rather than the cheap 'shag everything' storylines they were faffing about with. I'll continue buying.

Who is that one by?

FB

Written by Garth Ennis. There's been a few Illustrators over the series.

Garth Ennis also did some Judge Dredd, before moving on to Preacher.

Am a big fan of Ennis' work so i'll have to give it a gander I reckon.

FB

I've just had a look at his wikipedia page, and he's responsible for a fair few comics. Some of them pretty good.

To me, he's most famous for Hellblazer, although Preacher seems to run a close second.

I must get back in the saddle on Hellblazer. I still have bloody loads to read but miles behind frankly.

FB

I've started reading "Superman: Red Son" and enjoying it so far.
By the way, is anybody else getting on-board with the "DC New 52"? I'm picking up four of them at the moment.

Not yet.

Red Son is my favourite ever graphic novel. I love it.

FB

Not yet finished with 'Red Son', but it's very good, as I have come to expect from Mark Millar.
It makes me wonder what went wrong with 'Wanted'. It was the first work of his that I read, and it put me off looking up any more for a long time. It's just so puerile, badly plotted and self-indulgent, the only good thing about it is the premise*, and especially the final panel .
In fact, it made perfect sense to me when I read that he had come up with the idea when he was about 12 years old. The whole thing reeks of teenage boy sensibilities.

* From what I gather, they actually changed the premise for the movie. I can't imagine what a pile of unmentionableness the result of _that_ must be.

I watched the animated film version of Batman Year One last night. It is surprisingly OK actually. Slavish follows the comic (no bad thing) and whilst obviously not a great work in the way the Frank Miller comic is, it is well worth checking out i'd say!

FB

MAUS - A SURVIVORS TALE
An incrediblty moving account of the Holocaust - the Jews are mice and the Nazis are cats - it sounds absurd but it works and gives a real insight into the experience of those who endured and survived the camps

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
Raymond Briggs classic about a elderly couple facing the end of the world and what it was like to live under the shadow of the Bomb - not very topical but it strikes a chord if you remember a time when you had to choose between "Protect and Survive" and "Protest and Survive"

and V for VENDETTA of course.

In my opinion, the reason Maus "works and gives a real insight into the experience of those who endured and survived the camps" is solely because it's very well written, and has nothing to do with them being portrayed as animals. In fact, it rather disappointed me by almost totally failing to use the animal motif/metaphor in any interesting way. The only place the metaphor is at all played with is right at the start of (I think) the second section, in which the writer is drawn as a human wearing a mouse mask, as he struggles with how to portray the horrors of Auschwitz.
I don't mean to imply that Maus isn't very good (it is very good). I just feel as if the whole animal thing only had the effect of tricking me into reading something I otherwise wouldn't have.