Oh, Comics! How I've missed you!

[trinityvixen]

Although I did make the effort to chat up the nice guy on the bus home from PAX (he was reading Terry Pratchett, watching Spooks and Chuck, and we talked about games we played at PAX), I really devoted most of my time to devouring comics on my iPad. I read a few middling-to-meh miniseries and then I started in on one of the two series I really want

Comments

[agrumer]

In what way did Kevin Smith not "get away with" making a comedy about God? Dogma got made, distributed, and did reasonably well at the box office. It didn't end his career or anything. The Catholic League complained, but they always complain.

[trinityvixen]

Relativity principle applies here. By "not getting away with," I mean he basically was hounded for months before and after for his anti-Catholic film. I perceived the howl to be greater than you did, I suppose. It was a furor felt down to even the local paper level, and the place I grew up? Not known for being furiously conservative about such things.

It's probably a question of time dilation. These days, I know not to take such howls seriously. (Like some conservative group actually bitching about Idris Elba being an Asgardian in Thor.) When I was in high school, it seemed a bigger deal.

[onefishonly]

Preacher was, I believe, the first comic series I read after Sandman, and the one that cemented the notion that "oh, I might like these so-called 'comics!'"

[trinityvixen]

Finished it!

I think I need to consume more comics this way--when I have them all together, without any worry about crossovers and what not going astray with the story, I really dig comics. Trade paperbacks for me!

[xannoside]

Preacher is just overall fantastic. It's really the first comic series that made me start noticing Western comics outside of superhero comics (in my defense, I hadn't read any Sandman at the time).

[trinityvixen]

Hey, whatever gets you to liking more comics is a-okay with me. I tried giving non-superhero comics to someone at work and he just decided to up and fall in love with the Hulk comics that were out at the time. Eh, no accounting for taste.

Preacher fucking rocked, though.

[fairest]

Did you give the bus guy your number? ;)

Oh, Preacher! I am so happy to hear you're enjoying it. I loved that series -- I read it back before I could afford to buy trades, which meant spending several subsequent weekends loitering around my local comic store working my way through the series on the sly. Color me unsurprised that it is totally your thing. :)

[trinityvixen]

I think I like the irreverence of it best, so I was a little less charmed as things got heavy towards the end. But I still like it. It's amazing how it still has the capacity to shock. I mean, the covers! I cannot believe those would go out among other comics covers. Some of them are just graphic, but I guess all of them are fabulous, so there's something there.

(And, oy! You with the teasing! Didn't I get enough of that this weekend? I exchanged e-mail addresses with the promise of potentially gaming with the dude. Nothing unseemly :P)

[ecmyers]

I doubt anyone could really write a non-comedic take on God that wouldn't piss off absolutely anyone who believes in him

Exhibit A: His Dark Materials. It pissed off a lot of readers, and the really controversial Church stuff was cut out of The Golden Compass film. Of course, the rest of the series was never adapted so they never actually got to the God part.

[trinityvixen]

Great example. I mean, as was pointed out above, the sound and fury is usually just that, so it's not like people don't get away with these things, it's just that they don't try to very often. About the most anti-God movie I've seen recently would have to be the lamentable remake of Clash of the Titans. I doubt very much, however, that anyone is complaining about the glorification of the violent overthrow of the Greek pantheon. Change it to an uncomfortably modern God--Jesus, Allah, etc.--and suddenly: uproar, script rewrites, abandoned projects.

[lithoglyphic]

I'm still really sad I don't get to see the sequels on the big screen.

[lithoglyphic]

Er, or any screen.