Jonathan Lethem is writing a miniseries on forgotten Bronze Age hero Omega The Unknown. I like it, although it does not offer what you would call instant gratification. Good quirky artwork, too.

Also, Godland published by Image. If you like the cosmic Kirby era, you will go crazy for this. There are three trades available, should be easy to find.

I just picked up the first issue of Pax Romana, which looks very odd. I think the guy who writes and draws does it in Photoshop, and the lettering is not the usual comic style (it's more like a term paper, actually). Lots of text, but it's compelling. The guys at Graham Crackers sold me on it based on what I like, but I haven't read it yet. I would still recommend it just because it's so different.

I enjoyed the Marvel Zombies series. Lots of fun and good to look at.

I'm also the proud owner of a boot of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, which I would recommend to all serious comic nerds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancelled_Comics_Cavalcade

Till recently, I really never blinked at comics, but thanks to a friend of mine, he has made me get all obsessed with them. I can't stop reading ACME! Have just finished reading Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Have just started PALESTINE in the gaza strip by Joe Sacco.

I can't wait to get home most days and read them.

These are all graphic novels, but close enough.

Chris Ware. Aything.

Art Speigelman. The Maus series.

Blankets by Chris Thompson (I think that's his first
name...)

I've actually got a pretty good collection of Marvel stuff from when I was a kid, like X-men from 150ish to 220ish and scattered other stuff from the same period. Does anyone around here remember those early New Mutants titles? For a while there they had some guy doing crazy, crazy art for such a mainstream comic. It was all angular and abstract looking, coming out of the frames and such. I remember thinking that stuff was really cool. Anybody know who I'm talking about? Sadly the books are at my parent's house some 800 miles from here.

Bill Sienkiwicz (sp)

Sadly, I remember every New Munats issue, 1-100. I can also tell you the plot of any Xmen issue 1-300. I wish there was a job where I could use these skills.

In other news, anyone reading The Twelve from Marvel? It's about 12 WWII heroes who were frozen at the end of the war and thawed out today. It's on the second issue, so they're all just sitting around right trying to get over the fact that all of their families are dead.

The Code is Almighty wrote:Bill Sienkiwicz (sp)

that's the guy. I lost touch with Marvel around the time when they decided that everything had to be involved in a cross title mega story, requiring the purchase of about a billion comics every month to follow everything. I got through Secret Wars II but when they pulled that shit again with the Marvel Mutant Massacre I tuned out.

Rachi wrote:Have just started PALESTINE in the gaza strip by Joe Sacco.

Joe is Da Man. I interviewed him as part of my thesis, and he was a super nice, intelligent, and helpful person.

He was my neighbor, very briefly. I would see him in the supermarket on occasion.

My favorite stuff of his is collected in But I Like It, which is a lot of stuff from his Yahoo! comic and some other stuff from the Village Voice.

My wife named the new motorcycle Schulz.

projectMalamute wrote:

The Code is Almighty wrote:Bill Sienkiwicz (sp)

that's the guy. I lost touch with Marvel around the time when they decided that everything had to be involved in a cross title mega story, requiring the purchase of about a billion comics every month to follow everything. I got through Secret Wars II but when they pulled that shit again with the Marvel Mutant Massacre I tuned out.

Yeah, there were a lot of bad years with all the marketing and the crossovers. The big story thing just started again at Marvel and DC after DC put out Identity Crisis. Marvel followed them with Civil War. Both were really good, they realized that they need to use quality writers on these kinds of things. DC is starting to get out of hand; Infinite Crisis was ok. 52 and Countdown are absolutely horrible. Thouh, the Sinestro Corps story in the Green Lantern titles was pretty damn good.

Marvel just did it's first Xmen crossover in ten years, Messiah Complex, and it turned out pretty decent. You can tell that they won't to repeat the same mistakes again.

The thing I'm pissed about is what they just did with Spiderman. They revealed his identity in Civil War, and I thought that was really interesting; him wanted by the government and on the run. So now they just did this One More Day/Brand New Day story where he makes a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May. The catch is that he's no longer married to Mary Jane. So, Mephisto snaps his fingers and it's like they were never married. And, coincidentally, nobody remembers that he revealed his identity, just that someone did but they can't recall who. Shitty.

The Code is Almighty wrote:The thing I'm pissed about is what they just did with Spiderman. They revealed his identity in Civil War, and I thought that was really interesting; him wanted by the government and on the run. So now they just did this One More Day/Brand New Day story where he makes a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May. The catch is that he's no longer married to Mary Jane. So, Mephisto snaps his fingers and it's like they were never married. And, coincidentally, nobody remembers that he revealed his identity, just that someone did but they can't recall who. Shitty.

Yeah, i think a lot of people are pissed about that (including me). Especially because so far Brand new Day has been pretty shitty. I heard a rumor that when you blow up what Mary Jane whispers in Mephisto's ear in the issue where they made the deal, she says "because i'll remember everything," implying that she actually knows what happened and, i dunno, swore she'd never tell and live tortured for eternity like that or something? I dunno, i'm guessing if that's true, they did that as a failsafe in case the current status quo falls on its ass. Frankly, it's so boring right now (whereas i was pretty much in love with all of Back in Black) that i'm just about done and may (god forbid) spend my comics money on actual quality books that i've been meaning to get into, like Transmet and Y: The Last Man. GODDAMMIT, MARVEL, I WANT TO SPEND MY COMICS BUDGET ON SHITTY MAINSTREAM SUPERHEROES I GREW UP WITH AND YOU'RE DROPPING THE BALL AND FORCING ME TO START READING CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SHIT. FUCK YOU.