Episode 1728 Talkback - The CGS 'Best of 2018' Awards Results Show... AND March 2019 Previews!

Adam_Murdough

Revealed here: the winners of the CGS 'Best of 2018' Awards, as chosen by YOU! Afterwards, we return you to your regularly scheduled PREVIEWS episode, in which we go through the March catalog for items shipping to stores beginning in May. (2:21:54)

Listen here.

nweathington

The awards went pretty much as I expected. I think I had three of my picks win, none of which I nominated, but that's pretty typical. Thanks again for putting the work in @Adam_Murdough! It's much appreciated.

Re: Middlewest, I've only read the first two issues, but I'm enjoying it so far. As far as the artwork, the covers are more painterly, while the interiors are standard inking and coloring, so there's a bit of a difference in how it comes across, but it's the same artist, so the figure designs are the same. It’s all good.

I read a lot of science fiction (or at least I did when I had more time), but while I enjoyed the concepts in Neuromancer well enough, I can’t stand Gibson’s writing style. Not interested in his Aliens III script.

For my money, Harrow County is the best thing Bunn has ever written, and Tyler Crook’s artwork is even better. Great series with a highly satisfactory ending.

Disney isn’t just doing monster stories, they're doing adaptations of lots of classic (public domain) novels—Frankenstein and Dracula are just part of the series. I know they’ve done Treasure Island and Moby Dick already. They appear to be original works, done in conjunction with Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Re: Ferdinand, I have to believe he was named after the bull in the Bugs Bunny shorts.

Mark_Engblom

Interesting awards. It seems very few of the nominated Indy comics made the final cut. Does that point to a larger trend within fandom, or is the sample size just too small?

After all the praise directed toward King's "Mister Miracle", I bought the trade to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, just like with King's "Vision" series, it didn't work for me....perhaps even less so than "Vision". The contrast between the "real world" parenting/marriage stuff and the insanity of the 4th World (complete with bombastic Kirby-eque narration) was just too jarring and difficult to reconcile one with the other. I realize that dissonance was probably the exact thing King was going for (to amp up the almost schizophrenic duality of Scott & Barda's lives), but it didn't work for me. The domestic stuff undermined the New Gods war scenes, and vice-versa. One thing that DID work for me, however, was the artwork by Mitch Gerads, who's doing amazing, next level stuff.

nweathington

Mark_Engblom said:

Interesting awards. It seems very few of the nominated Indy comics made the final cut. Does that point to a larger trend within fandom, or is the sample size just too small?

I'd say it's due to a lack of new big breakout indie titles this year, in addition to a pushback against Saga winning every year (much like the pushback against Todd Klein, even though he absolutely deserved it this year). But also it's very typical of how the CGS Awards go pretty much every year. It seems like the greater the participation in the voting, the more Marvel and DC titles win.

nweathington

Grass Kings is quite good. That reminds me, I still need to read the last three issues.

S. A. Check may or may not be a pseudonym, but I looked him up and there is a face to go with the name. He lives in Pittsburgh, and has written sci-fi novels, as well as articles for Previews and Bleeding Cool magazine. But to me he’ll always be Send A. Check. ;)

nweathington

One last comment, it was really nice to get the CGS Awards and Previews back together again after so long. ;) Previews!

Bryan

Thanks for being PwC @Adam_Murdough. Enjoyable as always. Most of my picks weren’t chosen, but mostly that didn’t surprise me.

Haven’t finished previews yet, but I heard @i_am_scifi mention Cemetery Beach. Having picked up the floppies I thought I might chime in for anyone else considering ordering the trade.

The world they’ve built in that book is really cool, but honestly the story is kind of your basic action / chase story. The art is great. The characters are interesting but you just don’t get very much of them. The world they’ve built feels underutilized. It’s still enjoyable and worth a read, but it’s not as compelling as the solicits sound.

Now, the ending did suggest there might be another mini to come, and perhaps that might retro-actively make me like this book better, but for me this is a solid borrow on the traditional buy / borrow / pants scale.

hauberk

nweathington said:

The awards went pretty much as I expected. I think I had three of my picks win, none of which I nominated, but that's pretty typical. Thanks again for putting the work in @Adam_Murdough! It's much appreciated.

Re: Middlewest, I've only read the first two issues, but I'm enjoying it so far. As far as the artwork, the covers are more painterly, while the interiors are standard inking and coloring, so there's a bit of a difference in how it comes across, but it's the same artist, so the figure designs are the same. It’s all good.

I read a lot of science fiction (or at least I did when I had more time), but while I enjoyed the concepts in Neuromancer well enough, I can’t stand Gibson’s writing style. Not interested in his Aliens III script.

For my money, Harrow County is the best thing Bunn has ever written, and Tyler Crook’s artwork is even better. Great series with a highly satisfactory ending.

Disney isn’t just doing monster stories, they're doing adaptations of lots of classic (public domain) novels—Frankenstein and Dracula are just part of the series. I know they’ve done Treasure Island and Moby Dick already. They appear to be original works, done in conjunction with Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Re: Ferdinand, I have to believe he was named after the bull in the Bugs Bunny shorts.

I won't pretend to be an uber fan of Gibson, but his Sprawl books, including Neuromancer are favorites. While I'm not terribly impressed with the adaptation of his Alien 3 script (so far), I've read the original script and it was infinitely superior to Fincher's offering. Worse still, the story would have dovetailed nicely with the filmed Alien 3 with only minor modifications (no death of Newt and Hicks before credits were complete). Alas, Sigourney was more important.

leftcoastlove

Another sprawling episode that lasted me for 4 different flights. I also followed along with a pdf of previews. So fun, thank you for the thought and effort.

David_D

nweathington said:

One last comment, it was really nice to get the CGS Awards and Previews back together again after so long. ;) Previews!

Monster

hauberk

@wildpigcomics I have/had similar fondness for the original Starblazers cartoon from our collective childhoods. Found them for rent a number of years back and managed to shatter a beloved childhood memory. The Suck Fairy made a visit somewhere between my childhood viewing and that more recent experience.

I would spare you that pain.

alienal

Is that how it really works (the more people who vote, the more DC/Marvel winners)? Isn't it more likely that most people who vote read DC and Marvel and no matter what the sample size DC or Marvel will win. Perhaps you should lower the amount of categories and vote separately for each group DC/Marvel/Independent (for example: DC's best writer, best series, best artist..., Marvel's best writer, best series, best artist, etc...Independent comics, best writer, best series, best artist,etc. Oh, wait that's sort of how Comic Book Page does it...nevermind.

nweathington

alienal said:

Is that how it really works (the more people who vote, the more DC/Marvel winners)? Isn't it more likely that most people who vote read DC and Marvel and no matter what the sample size DC or Marvel will win.

I would assume most CGS listeners, just like most comic book readers in general, are primarily DC and/or Marvel fans, yes. But observation of the voting over the years has led me to believe that during down years for Marvel or DC—that is to say when they’re doing something that turns off a significant portion of their readers, be it some event or reboot or what have you—a lot of those listeners don’t show up at the ballot box, as it were. Or in some cases it drives those listeners to check out an Image book or two, which is a big part of how Saga started winning. I'm sure there are other factors too, but without knowing the actual numbers, this seems to me to be the biggest driver of voting.