The 2017 Reading Thread - THE ULTIMATE EDITION - May

Torchsong

I finally blew my goal to read a comic book every single day. The world just got in the way. That's not going to stop me, though...Too Many Books Out There!!! :)

Rules are simple: Log everything you've read this year. Just edit your existing post or you (and we) will get confused trying to keep up. Bold the stuff you really dig. At the end of each month I'll start a new thread and you can pick a "winner" from your favorite books. You can focus on just trades (which is usually what I do), or just write about the good stuff you've read, or go completely nuts (like I plan to this year) and log EVERYTHING you read.

January Lists: http://thecomicforums.vanillaforums.com/discussion/3887/the-2017-reading-thread-the-ultimate-edition-january#latest
February Lists: http://thecomicforums.vanillaforums.com/discussion/3899/the-2017-reading-thread-the-ultimate-edition-february#latest
March Lists: http://thecomicforums.vanillaforums.com/discussion/3915/the-2017-reading-thread-the-ultimate-edition-march#latest
April Lists: http://thecomicforums.vanillaforums.com/discussion/3933/the-2017-reading-thread-the-ultimate-edition-april#latest

Torchsong

January Winner: Sensational She-Hulk: The Return (Marvel)
February Winner: Vampirella Masters Vol. 1: Morrison & Millar (TPB)(Dynamite)
March Winner: Holy Corpse Rising Vol. 2 (Seven Seas) (Manga)
April Winner: Supergirl Vol. 2 (Peter David Run) (DC)

May Books:
Wonder Woman & the Justice League Vol. 01 (DC) (TPB)
Haunted Horror Vol. 2 (IDW)(HC)
Motor Girl Vol. 1 (Abstract Studios) (TPB)
Batman Vol. 2: I Am Suicide (DC)(TPB)
Revival Vol. 8: Stay Just a Little Bit Longer (Image)(TPB)
Tokyo ESP Vol. 8 (Vertical) (Manga) - Final volume went out with a bang rather than a whimper. Great series all around.
Monster Musume: I Heart Monster Girls Vol. 4 (Manga)
Legionnaires Vol. 1 (DC) (TPB) - Great intro for anyone into the Post Zero Hour version of the Legion.
Young Justice Vol. 1 (DC) (TPB) - Some of the pop-culture references are a bit dated now, but still a fun book that hearkens back to a time when Bart Allen wasn't taken quite as seriously, Robin wasn't a prick, and well..hell...they just did a book for the *fun* of it.
Star Wars: Shattered Empire (TPB) (Marvel)
Bubble Gun Vol. 1 (Aspen) (TPB)

luke52

January winner: Doctor Strange: The Oath.
February winner: Aquaman vol. 8
March winner: X-O Manowar #1
April winner: Doctor Strange

May books...

American Vampire vol.8 as good as ever. Vampires done right.
I Hate Image FCBD 2017
Divinity 3: Escape from Gulag 396
Divinity 3 #4
Ninjak #25-27
Immortal Brothers: The Tale of the Green Knight - one shot
Valiant FCBD 2017
X-O Manowar #1-3
Britannia: We Who Are About To Die #1-2

mwhitt80

May, boy this is a tough one for me...
Legion of Superheroes (1984) 1-5
LoEG: Nemo River of Ghosts - the last of the Nemo Trilogy and I need to sit down and put my thoughts together on the second life of the League up to this point.
OVC - Bite the Hand
Bane Conquest #1 - Bane is like Batman of the underworld. Don't mess with Gotham cause the delusional psychopath might break your leg but Bane will make death seem merciful.
Bug #1 - this was an odd love letter to Kirby. I'm interested in seeing what the what is happening.
Mother Panic #1-5 - here's an interesting case of book getting better after the first issue. This was by far the weakest Young Animals starting title, but has improved. It was/is trying to mix a super hero with Simon Dark, but it is not working yet, not sure if it will. I would still give it a borrow if you are looking for a Gotham book and it's a slow week (and you don't want to read Simon Dark). Don't rush out to buy it, but it is moving in a more positive direction.

mwhitt80

Mid month bump
@nweathington how was Cap White?
@Torchsong I guess my reading of legion has inspired your reading?

nweathington

mwhitt80 said:

@nweathington how was Cap White?

It was good, but it didn’t blow me away. It was a new story, but thematically, emotionally, tone-wise it felt as if I’d read it several times already. In that way it was somewhat similar to Spider-Man: Blue, but Blue still found a way to be fresh and gripping, whereas White felt a bit redundant. I think Blue is still far and away the best of the series with DD: Yellow being a somewhat distant but clear second-best, and Hulk: Gray and White fighting over third place.

Torchsong

mwhitt80 said:

@Torchsong I guess my reading of legion has inspired your reading?

They just released the Legionnaires collection. In about a month I'm expecting the Superboy and the Legion trade to hit. I've got an entire shelf devoted to Legion books and I *still* haven't read all of the myraid storylines/genres! :smiley:

CaptShazam

I am hoping that the Legion "Five Years Later" will get collected in trade soon.

mwhitt80

@Torchsong how have you not read hand that bites yet?

Torchsong

mwhitt80 said:

@Torchsong how have you not read hand that bites yet?

Right now if I bought no more titles and started in on my "to read" stack...I might be done by next year. :smiley:

nweathington

Arrrggh! My post has disappeared to “your comment will appear when approved” limbo. I don't think I can recreate it from memory.

mwhitt80

nweathington said:

Arrrggh! My post has disappeared to “your comment will appear when approved” limbo. I don't think I can recreate it from memory.

That happens to all my most insightful and thoughtful posts.

nweathington

mwhitt80 said:

nweathington said:

Arrrggh! My post has disappeared to “your comment will appear when approved” limbo. I don't think I can recreate it from memory.

That happens to all my most insightful and thoughtful posts.

Well, that explains things. ;)

Got caught up on Paper Girls over the holiday. I had missed an issue and finally remembered (wrote a note on my phone) which issue so I could pick it up at the shop. Such a good book.

CaptShazam

January Winner: West Coast Avengers Omnibus vol 1
February Winner: New Teen Titans Omnibus vol 2
March Winner: Winter Soldier: The Complete Collection
April Winner - Three way tie - Strangers in Paradise Omnibus book 2, Astro City: Family Album, and Epic Collection Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon" - with art by Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan....tough to beat that group.

May Books:

Comics:
Walking Dead Compendium #1

Books:
The autobiography of James T. Kirk
Marvel's Black Widow: From Spy to Superhero
The Caped Crusade: Batman and the rise of nerd culture
Star Trek Costumes

ChrisBeckett

CaptShazam said:

...Epic Collection Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon" - with art by Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan....tough to beat that group.
...

Imagine having to rank the artists in that book, and realizing one of them has to be the 5th best. What?!?

nweathington

ChrisBeckett said:

CaptShazam said:

...Epic Collection Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon" - with art by Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan....tough to beat that group.
...

Imagine having to rank the artists in that book, and realizing one of them has to be the 5th best. What?!?

Just in terms of my personal, totally subjective preference:

1. Kirby
2. Buscema
3. Colan
4. Steranko
5. Romita

bralinator

nweathington said:

ChrisBeckett said:

CaptShazam said:

...Epic Collection Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon" - with art by Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene Colan....tough to beat that group.
...

Imagine having to rank the artists in that book, and realizing one of them has to be the 5th best. What?!?

Just in terms of my personal, totally subjective preference:

1. Kirby
2. Buscema
3. Colan
4. Steranko
5. Romita

Ditto.

ChrisBeckett

Okay, okay, okay. I could do it.

1. Kirby
2. Colan
3. Buscema
4. Romita
5. Steranko

But it's like the Murderer's Row lineup of the Yankees. HYPERBOLE! METAPHOR! EXCELSIOR! COMICS!!

*note: with the exception of Kirby, those rankings could shift slightly, depending on the day of the week.

-chris

nweathington

ChrisBeckett said:

Okay, okay, okay. I could do it.

1. Kirby
2. Colan
3. Buscema
4. Romita
5. Steranko

But it's like the Murderer's Row lineup of the Yankees. HYPERBOLE! METAPHOR! EXCELSIOR! COMICS!!

*note: with the exception of Kirby, those rankings could shift slightly, depending on the day of the week.

-chris

Oh, sure. I was just did it to see how hard it really would be for me to rank them. Surprisingly it only took a few seconds, and it was very clear-cut for me.

Now, if I had to rank them according in terms of their importance to/influence on the medium, it would be a little tougher. I think it would go something like:

1. Kirby
2. Buscema
3. Steranko
4. Romita
5. Colan

But I could certainly see the case for putting Romita above Steranko because of his position as Marvel's art director, for the Romita’s Raiders program, and because of all the licensing artwork he did which made him sort of the “face” of Marvel for a period.

mwhitt80

nweathington said:

ChrisBeckett said:

Okay, okay, okay. I could do it.

1. Kirby
2. Colan
3. Buscema
4. Romita
5. Steranko

But it's like the Murderer's Row lineup of the Yankees. HYPERBOLE! METAPHOR! EXCELSIOR! COMICS!!

*note: with the exception of Kirby, those rankings could shift slightly, depending on the day of the week.

-chris

1. Kirby
2. Buscema
3. Steranko
4. Romita
5. Colan

That's my ranking. Those guys were good.
My importance ranking is different

Kirby
Romita
Buscema
Steranko
Colan

Romita is #2 because of his influence as art director and more importantly his influence on the licensing arm. It was his Spider-Man that was on everything until the 90s; I feel like his licensing models are still used in at least 1/4 of all of Marvel's licenses

nweathington

mwhitt80 said:

Romita is #2 because of his influence as art director and more importantly his influence on the licensing arm. It was his Spider-Man that was on everything until the 90s; I feel like his licensing models are still used in at least 1/4 of all of Marvel's licenses

Buscema is my #2 because of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Practically every artist I've talked with who came into the industry during the ’80s and beyond read that book, digested that book, and got their basic training from that book.

I put Steranko in at #3 because of his influence on comic book storytelling. But like I said, I could easily swap him with Romita.

mwhitt80

nweathington said:

mwhitt80 said:

Romita is #2 because of his influence as art director and more importantly his influence on the licensing arm. It was his Spider-Man that was on everything until the 90s; I feel like his licensing models are still used in at least 1/4 of all of Marvel's licenses

Buscema is my #2 because of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Practically every artist I've talked with who came into the industry during the ’80s and beyond read that book, digested that book, and got their basic training from that book.

I put Steranko in at #3 because of his influence on comic book storytelling. But like I said, I could easily swap him with Romita.

I forgot about how to draw comics. That was such a huge book for artists. There is no telling how many times I've heard it brought up.

Edit: but to my point as to why Romita at 2. His Spider-Man is on the Pizza hut box I got tonight. It's only been 50 years.

CaptShazam

My preference:

1. Colan - regardless of the book or company, everything looked amazing. What put him over Kirby for me, is that his work is just as good or even better in black & white.
2. Kirby
3. Buscema
4. Romita
5. Steranko - the reason he is 5 is simply because of the 5, I have seen the smallest amount of his work.

mwhitt80

I love Gene Colon. Putting him at 5 had more to do with the fact he was an amazing black and white artist (essentials!) But most of his stuff was in color.

Steranko maybe the best/most influential story teller on the list. He did stuff artists still can't/don't do, here's another case of "it's only been 50 years". And boy if he was a quarter of the artist his ego thinks he is, we'd not be talking about Kirby. I really love Jim Steranko.

nweathington

mwhitt80 said:

Steranko maybe the best/most influential story teller on the list. He did stuff artists still can't/don't do, here's another case of "it's only been 50 years". And boy if he was a quarter of the artist his ego thinks he is, we'd not be talking about Kirby. I really love Jim Steranko.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way really could have been titled How to Draw Comics the Jack Kirby Way, because that’s essentially what the book was. In that sense Kirby will always be the most influential artist in comics. I mean, Steranko started out by working over Kirby’s layouts in order to learn storytelling. Hard to know if he would have gotten where he did without having Kirby as his starting point.

mwhitt80

Agreed. Mostly...
I love the NBA, it's all based on layers. The league's 7th man today would have been a superstar in the 70s and 80s.
Kirby is like every NBA innovator ever. He taught people that they could crazy pass, lay up, shoot a 3, block a shot, dunk a ball, and play Five games in one night.

Steranko, he took what he learned (from Kirby) about story telling to another level. Would he be as innovative without Kirby, the answer is a definite no. However he took story telling through comics art to somewhere else.

Here's where we hit pause. When we talk about Jim, we talking about a handful of comics. Most of those are in the shield Omnibus. Jack did his innovation over decades, he helped create billion dollar universes, created genres, wrote and drew hundreds of books. Kirby is King. He inspired every artist to some degree.

Jim will never be Jack. Like Kobe will never be Jordan. Even though he was physically better than Jordan and built everything he did on the foundation Jordan created. But even though Kirby is King it doesn't mean Jim didn't elevate what he learned, like Kobe.
But the analogy falls apart pretty quickly because if Kobe was Jim, he would have only played for 3 seasons and we would never know what his peak was.

nweathington

I agree with that. I was talking strictly about which was most influential, not which was the best.

As far as Steranko’s potential, Kirby didn’t hit his peak until after he’d been creating comics for 30 years. But then again, perhaps Steranko wouldn’t have had that arc of growth Kirby had. I think it’s pretty safe to say Steranko didn’t have the same drive and intense focus as Kirby. Perhaps he would have plateaued pretty quickly. Who can say?

bralinator

mwhitt80 said:

Bane Conquest #1 - Bane is like Batman of the underworld. Don't mess with Gotham cause the delusional psychopath might break your leg but Bane will make death seem merciful.

Are you still picking this up? I didn't get the first issue, but noticed Nolan's art looks fantastic.

mwhitt80

My next dcbs order hasn't shipped yet. But I'll let you know