I bet Rob would like it if I promo'd some comics.
Since I moved to New York, I gradually started to read comics again. I’m not saying this wouldn’t’ve happened anyway, as it’s probably more tied to me having a regularly paying job than where I live, but New York is a tremendously excellent place to shop for comics. There are at least seven comics shops below 50th Street in Manhattan, and three of them are short-walking distance from my office.
I’m actually making a conscious effort to limit my comics consumption, because buying individual issues only really makes sense if I love the book or if I’m a collector. And I’m not really a collector. I bag & box because they’re nice pieces of artwork, but I don’t expect my comics to be worth much of anything someday (I already missed the boat on my owning the first 12 issues of the X-Files comic back in the day; at one point, price guides claimed #1 was worth over $50, and while I highly doubt I could’ve actually found anyone to buy it off me for anywhere near that much, it was still pretty cool). So a lot of my comic-reading is done via borrowing stuff from Rob or occasionally buying trades (which, when Overstock.com has them, are very cheap there). But there are some books I like enough to buy as soon as they come out:
Powers (series two): This has my favorite art of anything I read, by Michael Oeming (I think that’s his name). Brian Michael Bendis writes this; the initial premise was that it was cops working the “super powers” division of a police department in a fictional (and non-Marvel, non-DC) city. Now it’s on its second incarnation, from Marvel instead of Image, and the script has been, if not flipped, certainly shaken a little. It’s still really good, though, and I think Bendis’s sense of pacing has improved somewhat, in terms of having fewer issues where very little actually happens to move along the story.
The Pulse: The other Bendis book I read, and so far a mild disappointment. I like the art, by the dude who drew Ultimate Spiderman (which I’ve read from Rob’s trades, and mostly like), but all the chicks kinda look the same (they’re all attractive), and Bendis really is the master of story arcs that build slowly and end abruptly. My bigger problem, though, is that it’s kind of a spin-off of his book ALIAS (no relation to the TV show), which is one of the best superhero-related comics I’ve read, and this book isn’t nearly as good. Man, ALIAS only ran 30some issues, I think he could’ve gone another two years easily before making this segue. Oh, and this book is about the gossip page of the Daily Bugle (the paper from Spider-man), and Jessica Jones, twentysomething and former superhero, is a consultant for it. It’s good, just not great.
Hey, what's with high-profile, talented nerd writers giving off kind of a stoopid vibe? Kevin Smith and Bendis both flirt with it, I dunno why. It usually involves swearing a lot and calling movies "flicks."
The Astonishing X-Men: I never regularly read an X-Men title before Joss Whedon started writing one, which makes me kind of a tool, but this series is very good. If they continue it with someone else after Whedon leaves (or pick up these stories in another book), I might keep going with it. I hope the rumors about Whedon doing X3 are true, even though I find it increasingly hard to watch or read interviews with him. There’s something off-puttingly dorky about him; it’s like the faux self-deprecation, I think.
Street Angel: I wasn’t 100% on this book after the first issue. After the second one, I was at 150. This might be the most purely enjoyable comic of all of these. Street Angel is a homeless thirteen-year-old skateboarder who fights the forces of “evil, nepotism, ninjas, and hunger.” Ethan and Rob have both talked this up. They are right. I'd say it should come out more often than quarterly, but for all I know it could take them that long to make sure it's that good.
Y, the Last Man: I don’t actually buy this one because I’m not caught up, but if I were, I would, partially just to keep it real with Vertigo. It’s about the last man on earth. All the women are intact. A little overly self-conscious, but a great compulsive read.
I also like Batman if his stories are good (I’ve sampled some Batman-family titles over the past few months, and none of them were very impressive), Garth Ennis if he’s not writing any western-related shit, Sam Kieth if he’s not writing awful dialogue, Hellboy from what little I’ve read, and Ultimate Spiderman even though I feel like I’m enjoying it out of ignorance.
I’m actually making a conscious effort to limit my comics consumption, because buying individual issues only really makes sense if I love the book or if I’m a collector. And I’m not really a collector. I bag & box because they’re nice pieces of artwork, but I don’t expect my comics to be worth much of anything someday (I already missed the boat on my owning the first 12 issues of the X-Files comic back in the day; at one point, price guides claimed #1 was worth over $50, and while I highly doubt I could’ve actually found anyone to buy it off me for anywhere near that much, it was still pretty cool). So a lot of my comic-reading is done via borrowing stuff from Rob or occasionally buying trades (which, when Overstock.com has them, are very cheap there). But there are some books I like enough to buy as soon as they come out:
Powers (series two): This has my favorite art of anything I read, by Michael Oeming (I think that’s his name). Brian Michael Bendis writes this; the initial premise was that it was cops working the “super powers” division of a police department in a fictional (and non-Marvel, non-DC) city. Now it’s on its second incarnation, from Marvel instead of Image, and the script has been, if not flipped, certainly shaken a little. It’s still really good, though, and I think Bendis’s sense of pacing has improved somewhat, in terms of having fewer issues where very little actually happens to move along the story.
The Pulse: The other Bendis book I read, and so far a mild disappointment. I like the art, by the dude who drew Ultimate Spiderman (which I’ve read from Rob’s trades, and mostly like), but all the chicks kinda look the same (they’re all attractive), and Bendis really is the master of story arcs that build slowly and end abruptly. My bigger problem, though, is that it’s kind of a spin-off of his book ALIAS (no relation to the TV show), which is one of the best superhero-related comics I’ve read, and this book isn’t nearly as good. Man, ALIAS only ran 30some issues, I think he could’ve gone another two years easily before making this segue. Oh, and this book is about the gossip page of the Daily Bugle (the paper from Spider-man), and Jessica Jones, twentysomething and former superhero, is a consultant for it. It’s good, just not great.
Hey, what's with high-profile, talented nerd writers giving off kind of a stoopid vibe? Kevin Smith and Bendis both flirt with it, I dunno why. It usually involves swearing a lot and calling movies "flicks."
The Astonishing X-Men: I never regularly read an X-Men title before Joss Whedon started writing one, which makes me kind of a tool, but this series is very good. If they continue it with someone else after Whedon leaves (or pick up these stories in another book), I might keep going with it. I hope the rumors about Whedon doing X3 are true, even though I find it increasingly hard to watch or read interviews with him. There’s something off-puttingly dorky about him; it’s like the faux self-deprecation, I think.
Street Angel: I wasn’t 100% on this book after the first issue. After the second one, I was at 150. This might be the most purely enjoyable comic of all of these. Street Angel is a homeless thirteen-year-old skateboarder who fights the forces of “evil, nepotism, ninjas, and hunger.” Ethan and Rob have both talked this up. They are right. I'd say it should come out more often than quarterly, but for all I know it could take them that long to make sure it's that good.
Y, the Last Man: I don’t actually buy this one because I’m not caught up, but if I were, I would, partially just to keep it real with Vertigo. It’s about the last man on earth. All the women are intact. A little overly self-conscious, but a great compulsive read.
I also like Batman if his stories are good (I’ve sampled some Batman-family titles over the past few months, and none of them were very impressive), Garth Ennis if he’s not writing any western-related shit, Sam Kieth if he’s not writing awful dialogue, Hellboy from what little I’ve read, and Ultimate Spiderman even though I feel like I’m enjoying it out of ignorance.