Now would be a good time to grab that box of Kleenex

[kali921]

People.

People, people, people.

There is a fantastic article up over at Robot 6 called Three Comics That Made Us Cry. Get your tissues out, friends, because some of the examples are completely going to make you lose your shit

Comments

[thehefner]

Oh MAN, good call on The Slavers. I just flipped through it, and that last page always makes me tear up. Chills every time, just heart-wrenching. I'm not sure I could stand it if Ennis always went to that dark a place inside him, but it's certainly a great sight better than his more juvenile work. Did you read THE BOYS PRESENTS: HEROGASM? Man, I'm just getting bored now, Garth. Get back to PUNISHER already.

That said, I have yet to read his final arc. Was it worthy of his run?

Whoops, forgot one.

[kali921]

The last page of The Slavers: speaking as a woman? There, but for the grace of the Greater Construct of Your Choice, go I. I don't know of a woman who's read that and didn't choke up. It was so effective because it's so plausible.

I meant to also include Ennis' Punisher: The End. Those last pages of Frank walking to Central Park? Hallucinating (or really seeing, it's not clear) Maria and the kids while he's DYING OF RADIATION SICKNESS?

Holy SHIT.

I don't bother reading The Boys. I hate it and you know I hate it and on this we are probably very much agreed.

Re: Whoops, forgot one.

[thehefner]

Pretty amazing, considering it was written by a man. Particularly a man who frequently makes (light of) anal rape in his comics.

Yet another one.

[kali921]

Also, Agent O'Brien's redemption made me cry. You know why that was so brilliant? She was so repellent when she first appeared in the first arc. She was disgusting, she was twisted, she was damaged beyond all hope, and she started off SEEMINGLY as a typical non-MAX-Punisher screwed-up-female-as-blackly-comic-relief character that you couldn't wait to see gone from the story.

And then.

Then either Ennis decided "Wait, there's a human being underneath this, let me see if I can show that" or it was his plan all along to change our perception of her by gradually showing her reclaiming the shreds of her honor and going down fighting the bastards until the last, but either way, EFFING WELL DONE. She was still repellent, obnoxious, and emotionally diseased, but she was human and I felt for her.

Ennis is so weird. He either writes women as twisted, malevolent caricatures or he writes them as gut-wrenchingly effective and then they worm their way into your heart. For every issue of The Boys, there's also a Kit, a Tulip, and an O'Brien.

[lienne]

...Okay, I am very interested in #3. Frank Castle being awesome? Hell yes. "Violent bastard doing violent bastardly things to protect/avenge a vulnerable person" is one of my favourite tropes.

[kali921]

Pretty much ANYTHING with Frank Castle is Frank doing things to protect the vulnerable. In most stories, the vulnerable and the innocent are abstract, intangible. In this story? Very much embodied.

[lienne]

AWESOME.

Where would you suggest I go to find this thing on the Internet?

[kali921]

All of Garth Ennis' work on MAX Punisher is traded - each six-issue arc has been traded and is easily available. I can suggest other avenues later. Warning, though: you're going to dark places if you start reading Ennis' MAX Punisher, and not in a fun way. No. I would not call reading MAX Punisher enjoyable. It's moving, gripping, horrifically affecting, but it is NOT enjoyable. I don't think a writer has ever beaten me up so badly as Ennis has in his work on the MAX imprint.

Keep in mind that Frank isn't violent because he likes it. He's violent because he is a force of nature, and because he's chosen to do what he does and he will do it until the day he dies, and even then, if you've read Punisher: The End, he will go down fighting to the last second while dying of radiation sickness.

"Hardcore" doesn't BEGIN to cover it.

[outlawpoet]

On Seth Rogen: There is not CGI in the world enough.

[suburbfabulous]

You know, I quit comics on June 26th, 2001. I was laid off from my job at NASDAQ, and my life as a deep-pocketed bon vivant was effectively ended forevermore

[kali921]

Oh, do tell me! I can't wait to see your choices.

There are more, of course - these are just the ones that immediately came to mind. Rucka's Wonder Woman made me tear up, but in a way that was triumphant, knowing that I was watching history being made both in-story and out-of-story.

Trautmann's Mademoiselle Marie story in Checkmate made me cry from the SHEER AWESOME of the claw hammer scene. "You wanted to know my name?"

(Also, you need to write a series of biographical posts. I did not know that you worked for NASDAQ! As usual, I love you and am deeply intrigued.)

[suburbfabulous]

I don't talk about NASDAQ much. There just isn't much to tell.
I had no idea what I was doing there, from the first day of work to the day they let us go (140 total, 100 or so from my building...the driveway out of the corporate park looked like a perfect video for REM's "Everybody Hurts.")
I think my managers, co-workers, and even any casual observers shared that feeling.
I could find a number of them online, I'm sure; I'm quite adept at Facebooking and the like...but what would I say?
"Hey, it's been eight years. Do you miss me yet?"

Wait.

[kali921]

This:

"Four years grounded, and suddenly I could fly again."

That is one of the best things that I have ever seen written about sequential literature. Ever.

[neo_prodigy]

Does that mean Rogen won't be playing Green Hornet? Cause I'm really really okay with that.

[kali921]

I believe that the Green Hornet project has been consigned to the Dustbin of Narrowly Averted Catastophes!

[jellied]

See- I'd rather him be Green Hornet than Cap.