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Indie and Creator Owned Talk
Zhurrie
Posts: 617
Instead of creating individual threads for the indie/creator owned comics I'm reading and loving and probably only having a small percentage of people that have read it to chat with I thought it would make sense to have a more open Indie/Creator-owned chat thread. Especially since everyone seems to think I am only critical of everything,the problem is that the majority of discussions don't touch on what I love about comics so I figured I'd try to create a solution. :)
Dancer from Image almost lost me in the first issue when it went from being an amazing straightforward spy comic to a sci-fi twist but issue #2 stole me fully back to the story. This was an off-the-rack surprise for me!
The Strange Talent of Luther Strode trade blew my mind! This may be the best thing I've read in the past few weeks!
Creator Owned Heroes #1 from Image is like a showcase for some upcoming creator owned books to help get them some exposure and I loved everything about this! Steve Niles' new tale "American Muscle" was actually the draw for me but "TriggerGirl" ended up intriguing me more even though American Muscle seems OK with some cool art. There were some great editorials that really hit the nail on the head and give me even more faith than ever that Image is on the right track and really set up to become something special.
Extermination #1 I thought was terrible. (I can't have all positives) This was basically a Batman pastiche with a main character that was only missing the ears and instead of fun or sly winks and nods was like a sledgehammer of groan to the forehead and the partner/villain about as insipid as they come. I'm not sure who this book is for but it wasn't me.
Mudman #4 really brought things back around and back to a great direction after #3 kind of faltered. Loved it and I love Grist entirely. This a fun book I think fits about anyone young or old and regardless of the usual reading habits. LOVE.
and last from this week Steamcraft #1. I'm a sucker for Steampunk and the pickings are slim especially with Lady Mechanika shipping once a decade. This was a complete unknown and off-the-rack pick up after I flipped through and the B&W pencil art transported me instantly. Wow! This is like a Sherlock Holmes/Steampunk kind of thing with a decent twist. My only minor gripe was the C'thulu-ish monster/villain which could have been more original or even more generic and probably been just as impactful. But that is a minor quibble, I really enjoyed this and want to read #2 right away!
(also a shout out to last week's Double Jumpers #1. Fantastic fun across the board and I pre-ordered 4 copies to get the sketch cards and they were beyond cool! Great guys and a great new book!)
I know, you may be blown away with all this positivity from me... I do actually love comics just maybe different fare. I'd love to hear what you are reading and other people's thoughts on these and more, with less advertising and exposure, word-of-mouth often being the only way of finding out about what's good, or great!
Dancer from Image almost lost me in the first issue when it went from being an amazing straightforward spy comic to a sci-fi twist but issue #2 stole me fully back to the story. This was an off-the-rack surprise for me!
The Strange Talent of Luther Strode trade blew my mind! This may be the best thing I've read in the past few weeks!
Creator Owned Heroes #1 from Image is like a showcase for some upcoming creator owned books to help get them some exposure and I loved everything about this! Steve Niles' new tale "American Muscle" was actually the draw for me but "TriggerGirl" ended up intriguing me more even though American Muscle seems OK with some cool art. There were some great editorials that really hit the nail on the head and give me even more faith than ever that Image is on the right track and really set up to become something special.
Extermination #1 I thought was terrible. (I can't have all positives) This was basically a Batman pastiche with a main character that was only missing the ears and instead of fun or sly winks and nods was like a sledgehammer of groan to the forehead and the partner/villain about as insipid as they come. I'm not sure who this book is for but it wasn't me.
Mudman #4 really brought things back around and back to a great direction after #3 kind of faltered. Loved it and I love Grist entirely. This a fun book I think fits about anyone young or old and regardless of the usual reading habits. LOVE.
and last from this week Steamcraft #1. I'm a sucker for Steampunk and the pickings are slim especially with Lady Mechanika shipping once a decade. This was a complete unknown and off-the-rack pick up after I flipped through and the B&W pencil art transported me instantly. Wow! This is like a Sherlock Holmes/Steampunk kind of thing with a decent twist. My only minor gripe was the C'thulu-ish monster/villain which could have been more original or even more generic and probably been just as impactful. But that is a minor quibble, I really enjoyed this and want to read #2 right away!
(also a shout out to last week's Double Jumpers #1. Fantastic fun across the board and I pre-ordered 4 copies to get the sketch cards and they were beyond cool! Great guys and a great new book!)
I know, you may be blown away with all this positivity from me... I do actually love comics just maybe different fare. I'd love to hear what you are reading and other people's thoughts on these and more, with less advertising and exposure, word-of-mouth often being the only way of finding out about what's good, or great!
Comments
I would like to say that Dynamite is so uneven in what they publish. It's all helter skelter.
Some of their books are ok to good, a few are really worth reading, and many are borderline amateur.
I’ve expressed my adoration of Mud Man, also. Again, it has that relatability factor like the early issues of Spider-Man had. I’ll buy anything Grist does.
I buy a lot more indie/creator-owned books than Marvel/DC books. Just going through some recent purchases, there’s Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Stuff of Legend, Mouse Guard, Reed Gunther, Sixth Gun, Rachel Rising, RASL, The Goon, and there are plenty of others.
Rarely do I last more than 2-3 issues of any Dynamite book. It has to be something really special to even get me to pick one up.
The Luther Strode trade really doesn't have much in the way of extras, a couple pinups by other artists. Some other of my top picks (but weren't read/released this week): Saga, Rust, Craig Thompson, Guy Delisle (although his stuff can be hit or miss for me), Drawn & Quarterly, Nathan Jurevicious (Scary Girl, more art but also a gn), and a ton more. Most excited for Iron The War After to release but it just got pushed back.
In the US it seems like indie/co graphic novels do very well usually with a non-comic crowd. It's funny because at university kids will pop in the LCS for a gn but never consider or care about a comic book. I think many still just instantly think comic=superhero and it is a hard sell to get people past that even when you show them something amazing. It seems daunting to them to get into and understand. The comic fans that aren't afraid to try a non-superhero book or a few Image titles are always more likely to jump in on a suggestion. I don't see it changing a bunch in the US but Image gives me hope. Craig Thompson helped a good bit in some areas. I still am the "indie" guy at my LCSs and pretty much the only one but I've turned staff and regulars on to a few titles and slowly it is changing where I see them order 2-3 of a book I pull for the shelves. I'll take that :)
This year I was lucky to be at the Yves Chaland retrospective at fumetto.ch
To see his original art was just a bliss.
edit: you might be able to find some short stories in issues of Heavy Metal - since he did work for the French Métal Hurlant
What I've been hitting lately are the Kickstarter indie books that have caught my eye.
Just helped Modest Medusa's second book get funded, as well as a book called Sullivan's Sluggers that looks absolutely incredible, a reprint of an out of print title called Daisy Cutter, and I'm hoping against hope that Mark Dos Santos will get his artbook funded because it'll be amazing.
We should start a Kickstarter thread to share our adventures in Kickstarting ;)
For me it is all about Saga #4. I have re-read #1-3 so many times now that it is by far the most re-read monthly I have ever owned. When you re-read them after reading the newest one you catch new things and realize that this series will need at least 300 issues to possibly touch on everything that has been introduced (sometimes subtly) in just 3 issues. I hope this sprawl begins to slow and we start digging in though or else it will need 1000 issues. Not that any of that would be a bad thing IMO!
Snarked I dropped at issue #3, Chew I "Omnivore Edition wait" for ;), Cassanova had just gorgeous art but I wasn't a fan of the tale, Reed Gunther is a complete unknown to me, never even flipped through a copy... I'll have to.
Reed Gunther is a western with a little supernatural, a lot of action, and a whole lot of humor. It’s a fun book.
If you look at the "Look Inside" example here http://www.amazon.com/Petrograd-Philip-Gelatt/dp/1934964441 or the preview images here: http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/04/03/preview-petrograd/ any panel with a lot of wording stands out especially if it is a page with a lot of red/black washes and color. I really think just a tiny bit of transparency would have tied it all together so much nicer.
Not to go on too much but this is something near and dear to my heart as I love typography and layout and unfortunately it is one area, lettering, that doesn't get much attention. With it mostly being digital now and especially indie books where budgets might be tighter and more likely to be lettered by someone a little less skilled or knowledgeable about the finer points and maybe more of a writer or artist knocking it out, lettering sticks out to me when it is done brilliantly in an indie title. This isn't terrible but it was enough to bug me and stick with me as the first thought when that title is brought up.
I’m generally not a fan of opaque word balloons. As a designer, I have a major problem with anything that potentially makes the text more difficult to read. With a font as condensed as the one they used, it wouldn’t take much background noise to interfere with the readability. I agree that integrating the text into the artwork is a craft and can add much to overall quality of a book, but I think that clarity should be the first priority.
Now, what if they had printed on a cream colored paper instead, used the same font in the caption boxes as they used in the word balloons, and used thinner borders on the balloons? Do you think that would have alleviated some of the problem you have with it?
Snarked would be a book I'd probably still pull at say $2.99 but it was pricey and just not interesting enough to pull me in for the cost. I do love his art though.
It is impossible not to see shades of Lost in the central mystery of the story, but I suppose any spooky thing with an airplane flight will create those comparisons now. But even if some of the There Is a Big Mystery and a Sinister Organization Here plot feels like the network shows that attempted to replicate Lost's success, I feel like the more we learn about what seems to be this shadowy organization of telepaths, the more distinctive this series will be. But I am absolutely on board and look forward to the next one.
If you like Langridge’s art, you should check out The Show Must Go On, if you haven’t already. I got the mini-comics from him at a con, but they’ve been collected along with some other material in a book that came out a few months ago. It may be more to your liking.
@nweathington tell me about it, but people like Craig Thompson and even some great digital folks that use custom created fonts do some wonders and keep hope alive. I have not checked that one out, I was happy to find he had done a few pieces in the Jim Henson Storyteller HC that came out a little while back. Loved those. I'll look into it!
And Saga #4 blew me the fk away again. Fiona is hitting her stride with the digital inking and the damn thing just makes me want more and more the instant I finish the last scrap. This is THE comic I have waited my entire life for. It is like someone crawled in my brain and plucked it out. Entirely perfect in every way for me.
I read the 3 Story one-shot too. It didn’t have the emotional impact as the graphic novel, of course, and it didn’t really add anything to the story. I got the impression that the one-shot was made up of scenes he’d thought of when working on the graphic novel and just edited out during the writing or thumbnail stage. Still, it was nice to revisit the character.