The Watchtower - A thread for all comics

[Arn X Treme]

the end of The Boys was good fun

That one has an erection, that one is clearly The Deep

I'm done with my local comic shop though, and for the pettiest of reasons. The prick is simply incalpable of putting books in a bag all facing the same way. fuckingtwat

These days you'll be lucky to get a comic in a bag!

[K]

It's a shame about Hellblazer, although Milligan's run has been pretty terrible sadly- a real shadow of the guy who wrote stuff like Bad Company, Enigma, Shade etc. I still think Garth Ennis' run was the highlight of it, he moved the character away from the over-elaborate wordiness of Jamie Delano, and turned him into more of a real person. A real person who spends all his time in the pub, drinking Guinness, but still more real.

It does feel like time to give the character a fresh start. He's pushing sixty and comes across mostly as a dirty old has-been in the current comics, unless he stumbles across a fountain of youth there's not many places for the character to go now, and the weight of continued history and continuity doesn't do long running characters any favours. However if the new version plays out like Justice League Dark then that'll be a fucking shame... always felt the character was at his best where he was finding quiet horrors in familiar places. My favourite issue is still the one-off that John Smith did where Constantine goes to the laundry.

Ennis’s run was good in places, but really uneven. The best bits were incredible, like the whole lung cancer arc, but a lot was maudlin and dull. I think it shared a problem with Jamie Delano’s version, in that Constantine was too passive, and often had very little actual influence on the story. He was more of an observer, which is a waste of a good character. In fact, that’s the problem with a lot of Hellblazer – Constantine is a great character, but often stuck into dull or inconsequential storylines.Paul Jenkins’ version was good, albeit a bit too gorblimey guvnor yore ‘avin a larf squire. That laundry one-off was great though, as was the Neil Gaiman one-off.

[Girth Certificate]

These days you'll be lucky to get a comic in a bag!

I meant 9 books jammed into a carrier bag :/.

I mean look at this fucking shambles, have some goddamned self respect!

Does anyone remember a run where the baddies were using dead bodies to test guns, and the main character had to free their souls. I thought it was Ennis and Dylan but I've reread punisher and Hitman recently and nothing.

Edit: oh snap was it hellblazer?

edit: fantastic, need to re-read hellblazer aswell

[Ork1927]

I meant 9 books jammed into a carrier bag :/.

Does anyone remember a run where the baddies were using dead bodies to test guns, and the main character had to free their souls. I thought it was Ennis and Dylan but I've reread punisher and Hitman recently and nothing.

Edit: oh snap was it hellblazer?

Pretty sure it was Hellblazer - possibly a story where Chaz was along for the ride. Possibly early Ennis?

Edit - It is issues 57 and 58 - Mortal Clay / Body & Soul - Ennis and Dillon

[moosegrinder]

Loving the new TMNT in all it's ridiculousness. Love the artwork and story, new direction and spin on it and they're rattling off the TPBs AS IT FUCKING SHOULD BE. YOU LISTENING, MARVEL!?

[Talvalin]

Worse at releasing TPBs than DC? That's impressive.

[moosegrinder]

I've never bought a DC TPB. Well, Vertigo but all the good Vertigo shit came out years ago.

I don't know what it is about DC that makes me apathetic, but I can't get excited about any of their 'big' titles. Reading through the New 52 I bought (and now regret) I don't think a universe wide reboot worked how it should have or how anyone wanted it to. Comics from 'smaller' (or should I say just 'other') publishers just seem to be more cohesive and easier to follow because there isn't a massive, convoluted, self contradictory universe surrounding them and also that they tend to be finite, you know you're going to get to the end sooner or later.

Look at The Boys. If that's ended like Pow mentioned then the TPB wil be out soon enough and I can put that series to rest. Planetary is another, I bought the 4th TPB and that's ended now, and it was awesome.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say that I haven't said before (as it's before 7am and my brain is all fugged up with sleep).

[Flub]

The New DCU just doesn't feel cohesive to me at all. I'm enjoying some of the titles but where before I'd be straight down the comic shop on release day scooping them up these days I find I'm just not excited enough to rush.

I'm actually enjoying Marvel more and my entire life up to this point has been as a mostly DC man. The new X-Men title with Scott in charge of a team of villains was excellent.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I don't actually read Spider-Man but I've just heard the spoilers for the 'shocking' and 'earth-shattering' new plot twist that will changes things forever!!!11 leading up to #700 and even by comic book standards, it's hilariously fucking awful.

For the benefit of any poor fellows who still read it, I have encased this hilarity in several layers of spoiler tags for your 'protection', though really the only way to protect yourself is to not buy this shit because it is some chronically bad stuff that makes the clone saga and One More Day look almost good in comparison.

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE

HERE BE BADNESS

SERIOUSLY, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

Doctor Octopus and Peter Parker have swapped bodies at some point. Yeah, you're reading Otto Octavius, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Oh and Peter just died in Ock's cancer stricken body while Spider-Man watched and gloated about how all the beatings he'd inflicted on it were his own doing or some such shit, and goes off to be Spider-Man/possibly may have already been Spider-Man for ages.

Even better, they each had access to each other's memories so I guess that would mean Peter dies with images of all the times Doc Ock's lusted for his auntie's geriatric bod fresh in his mind.

Amazing scenes, etc.

Now maybe it's just me and I haven't read the series in years but isn't it kind of out of character for the bad guy in question, given their rampant egomania and all?

Eh, comics.

[Girth Certificate]

Lulz that should be the plot of the next movie, also Emma Stone gets shagged rotten.

[SeanR]

The New DCU just doesn't feel cohesive to me at all. I'm enjoying some of the titles but where before I'd be straight down the comic shop on release day scooping them up these days I find I'm just not excited enough to rush.

I'm actually enjoying Marvel more and my entire life up to this point has been as a mostly DC man. The new X-Men title with Scott in charge of a team of villains was excellent.

aside from the bat-family books, the rest of the NuDCU reads like a bad rip-off of... the DCU

[Anne Summers]

I've had Bone recommended to me so many times over the years, on here recently, from good friends and all sorts - always put it down as something I would get round to reading, but in no great hurry - looked fun but a bit abstract and whimsical for my tastes.

How stupid I was!

[Zappster]

I'm actually reading more DC titles than Marvel and enjoying the ones I'm still reading. No idea what happened to the Gail Simone that wrote Secret Six because most of her new 52 work has been really poor and consequently dropped. One of my favourites surprisingly has been Dial H by Mieville. A quirky, fun, multi-layered and really dense read every month.

Of the Marvel books I was reading, a few have been cancelled to make way for some new books which I'm not particularly interested in. The books I am looking forward to aren't out yet and possibly series I'd prefer to follow in trade *looks at Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers*.

As for the Spider-man spoilers. I've enjoyed the majority of what I've read of Slott's run since he became the sole writer of ASM, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and see how things play out through to the end of Superior Spider-man #1. Plus he's got Ryan Stegman drawing the opening few issues of Superior Spider-man which is always a plus.

[Arn X Treme]

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I don't actually read Spider-Man but I've just heard the spoilers for the 'shocking' and 'earth-shattering' new plot twist that will changes things forever!!!11 leading up to #700 and even by comic book standards, it's hilariously fucking awful.

For the benefit of any poor fellows who still read it, I have encased this hilarity in several layers of spoiler tags for your 'protection', though really the only way to protect yourself is to not buy this shit because it is some chronically bad stuff that makes the clone saga and One More Day look almost good in comparison.

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE

HERE BE BADNESS

SERIOUSLY, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

Doctor Octopus and Peter Parker have swapped bodies at some point. Yeah, you're reading Otto Octavius, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Oh and Peter just died in Ock's cancer stricken body while Spider-Man watched and gloated about how all the beatings he'd inflicted on it were his own doing or some such shit, and goes off to be Spider-Man/possibly may have already been Spider-Man for ages.

Even better, they each had access to each other's memories so I guess that would mean Peter dies with images of all the times Doc Ock's lusted for his auntie's geriatric bod fresh in his mind.

Amazing scenes, etc.

Now maybe it's just me and I haven't read the series in years but isn't it kind of out of character for the bad guy in question, given their rampant egomania and all?

Eh, comics.

But wasn't his illness effecting his mind at one point? Are they going to do the whole "he was out of it?"

[paddyo]

Got a massive hole in my life now that the boys has finished

Really enjoyed the ending, the whole trip has been amazing, what a story and what a bunch of characters... a true masterpiece

[c-cat114]

Just read the Spidey comic in question. in as much as it's in keeping with the craziness of Clone sagas and silly Carnage crossovers its a bold move. I hope it ends in a bold manner though rather than with a whimper.

Silly, but you can hardly blame a comic for being silly. Art wasn't amazing either, but there were some nice panels. The cover for 700 looks amazing though.

[DLNY]

I go in every six to eight weeks to my local comic shop and I'm almost too scared to this time as I don't want to see what Marvel has done to all my favourite titles especially the X-Men after the AvX debacle. And I understand Hellraiser is finishing soon and relaunching with a new No.1 *sob*

[Broker]

Little bit I wrote about my The Sentry on my blog: http://wp.me/p2xG7N-2Y

I read it for the millionth time the other day, if anyone hasn't read it before I genuinely couldn't recommend it any more.

[rumblecat]

I'm confused. It's the best graphic novel you've ever read, but you wouldn't recommend it..?

[Zappster]

Yeah, I was confused by that. I suppose Broker meant that he couldn't recommend it any more than he already is.

[Broker]

Space added

[Tangent]

Broker I love The Sentry too. So many good things about it.

The way they introduce the most powerful hero in the Marvel universe out of nowhere, and tie him into existing continuity perfectly.

The way the heroes are fucking terrified of the bad guy. They are just waiting for annihilation.

A hero to be loved and feared in equal measure. And not feared in the Hulk sense, who usually does the right thing at the end of the day. And I mean properly feared, by the most powerful heroes out there.

The way the artwork changes across each edition. Each art direction beautiful, different and completely appropriate.

The Sentry's effect on the Hulk is brilliant.

A Fantastic Four plot line I actually liked.

As well as all this, in many ways it's a love letter to the history of Marvel, taking us through the swash-buckling sci-fi era of FF to the optimistic action-packed honesty of 90s Spidey to the dark side of modern Hulk.

It's just a shame Sentry was wasted beyond this story arc. I read Siege and was gutted they used him so cheaply there.

[JoeK]

I'm about to start a bit of market research in the hopes that there's enough interest in the original to warrant a Kickstarter to get a lovely glossy graphic novel printed up and sold. The original author has given me his blessing to start to put the feelers out (and thankfully all the original rights are back to him now - they were originally with Dark Horse), but it's obviously a costly business, so don't want to go through all the work before getting an idea of how much interest there would be about it.

Anyhoo, the question is do folk here use many dedicated comic forums at all? And if they do which ones would they recommend popping along to to ask the questions?

Ta

[Zappster]

The main ones for me are the comicbookresources forums. In my experience, whenver I've looked for comic book talk on the net, it's very heavily in favour of Marvel books, then DC, Image and a long way behind those are the books from the other publishers. So if it is relating to a former Dark Horse-published series don't be surprised if the responses are minimal.

[JoeK]

The main ones for me are the comicbookresources forums. In my experience, whenver I've looked for comic book talk on the net, it's very heavily in favour of Marvel books, then DC, Image and a long way behind those are the books from the other publishers. So if it is relating to a former Dark Horse-published series don't be surprised if the responses are minimal.

Yeah, I don't expect it to be some sort of huge mega-seller, but it's by Ricardo Delgado who does the Age of Reptiles stuff which is pretty well known and popular enough so whilst it's completely different I do think there'd be enough of an audience to make it worthwhile. However - and it's where the market research comes in - I'm incredibly biased when it comes to the thing, as it's left a huge impression on me...heck, I even commissioned a figure based on one of the main characters

Comic was called Hieroglyph - small bit of info about it HERE

Of course, it kind of depends on whether the thorny issue of rights have reverted back to the original artist - as far as I'm aware they have, but I'm most definitely not going to fuck about with this sort of thing!

[Girth Certificate]

Might be worth posting on bleedingcool, maybe get some exposure.

[Girth Certificate]

[Arn X Treme]

Age Of Reptiles was the phrase that coloured me interested.

[sandman]

Anyone used cheapcomics.com?

They seem to be european - are the comics in english? Is the delivery fast?

[JoeK]

Age Of Reptiles was the phrase that coloured me interested.

Well, I don't have any pics of the dinosaur things from the comic (and there are some of his trademark lizard drawings in it...boy, are they big!), but these couple of pages might give at least some sort of a taste as to what to expect...