Comic Book Discussion Thread V.17

[thoughtsone]

If you were going to recommend any classic series or mini, what would you recommend? Let's keep this from the Bronze Age forward, Golden/Silver Ages are too hokey for me.

Thanks.

Transmetropolitan?
The Goon is pretty good.
Some of the new Valient series are pretty good.
the TMNT newer series is pretty dope
Shutter from Image is fun
Sandman is always awesome
Chew

 

[thoughtsone]

Comixology having sales all the damn time is not doing me any favors. Read the zombi-punisher arc, was pretty decent. Keeping up with Saga and East of West and Tokyo ghost because they are awesome.

RAI and Divinity are coming out soon, those should be fun.

 

[Minnja]

Got a free Kindle Fire (7 inch?) from work. What's a good app to use to buy/read comics off of? I had one on my phone and laptop a while ago but I forget what it was called

 

[thoughtsone]

Got a free Kindle Fire (7 inch?) from work. What's a good app to use to buy/read comics off of? I had one on my phone and laptop a while ago but I forget what it was called

Comixology has an app but it only lets you read what you buy off amazon or comixology. There is cbreader for other formats (i think)

 

[Lovestorm]

I was reading up on comicbook happenings yesterday and it turns out that DC are having another relaunch after the failed SJW reboot with the new 52. They appear to be trying to weave various elements of the pre-new 52 continuity back into it, but how much things will change i'm not sure.

 

[Lanx]

Saga is... a long saga, still lots of "oh shit" w/ every issue
East of West is pretty yawn, I've gradually not cared about it for the last year, I don't think the story has gone anywhere in that time frame.

Comic that gives me the "WTF" is Darth Vader. I'm not a SW fan really, of course watched the movies, read the books, played a game here or there, and the comics always looked like trash.

However, Kieron Gillen, and Salvador Larroca are killing it, I look forward to this more than anything so far. Especially having read the crap that is DK3

 

[val_lixembeau]

Descender and Black Science are still fantastic.

Love the hell out of Black Science. Especially the alternate universe versions of the characters. My one nitpick against it is that I sometimes find it difficult to distinguish some of the characters because their design/appearance is a bit too close and maybe too realistic. If they had gone a bit more classic comic booky and clearly separated people by colour and shape I could read more smoothly.

 

[val_lixembeau]

Got a free Kindle Fire (7 inch?) from work. What's a good app to use to buy/read comics off of? I had one on my phone and laptop a while ago but I forget what it was called

Comixology is pretty much dominant for buying (and some publishers [like Image] even allow some non-DRM cbr sales on Comixology). It has a "guided view" for small screen devices which try to follow the panels in a comic. This is most likely to be well maintained since they were bought out by Amazon. If I remember right, this is called "Comics" in the app store.

On Android I use PerfectViewer as a reader. It's very regularly updated, but not always bug-free. I like the way it switches to double-page mode if you rotate into landscape and I use the network browsing features to read books off my server. I usually read on a Nexus 9 and it is speedy on there with local files and tolerable for files over wifi. PerfectViewer is completely free, but if you like it, you can buy the donation versions instead of the free version.

Many people love ComicRack. It has a ton of options and is very advanced. You can keep your library on a PC and view it from mobile clients. It's kind of like having iTunes and AirPlay for comics. It's library features are probably the strongest of any comic software out there and many sophisticated digital comic readers support it. More casual readers may find it tough to learn. For me, unless I used it on a regular basis, I would forget how to do things.

Not directly applicable to the Kindle Fire, but on Windows I use Cover on a Surface Pro 3 (which has a screen exactly the size of a regular comic!). If you don't pay you can only have a very limited number of books in your library but this is not a problem if you open books from your filesystem instead. Probably the best Modern-UI comic app on Windows.

 

[thoughtsone]

Saga is... a long saga, still lots of "oh shit" w/ every issue
East of West is pretty yawn, I've gradually not cared about it for the last year, I don't think the story has gone anywhere in that time frame.

Comic that gives me the "WTF" is Darth Vader. I'm not a SW fan really, of course watched the movies, read the books, played a game here or there, and the comics always looked like trash.

However, Kieron Gillen, and Salvador Larroca are killing it, I look forward to this more than anything so far. Especially having read the crap that is DK3

I find Darth Vader pretty good, its just some of the issues are to formula and you know he isnt going die lol. But its very good for a SW book.

East of West though I disagree I mean in the last episode we learned more about Death, saw who Crow was related to and get to see if the chief is gonna go the route, and the entire no word issue with the assassination attempt was pretty awesome, I don't know I do think it would benefit from double size issues, as the short issue length hurts the presentation.

Do you enjoy tight short arcs, or longer sprawling ones, I only ask because DV is like 6 issues or less an arc, whereas Saga is like 12ish and East of Wast is about 20.

 

[highkicknomore]

Batman 51 was pretty good. Tied up loose ends and set a different tone for the new team taking over. Snyder has been hit and miss for. Liked Court Of Owls and Endgame. The rest were meh.

Last page spoiler:

Spoiler

 

[Lanx]

Do you enjoy tight short arcs, or longer sprawling ones, I only ask because DV is like 6 issues or less an arc, whereas Saga is like 12ish and East of Wast is about 20.

I used to be against arcs, but like you said DV is very tight and easily flows, i think it's mainly b/c of Gillen. I'm not trying to hug his nut either, while many ppl I've talked to love his wicked and divine, it lost me a year, just feels boring. And 90% of the stuff he does for Marvel feels like a paycheck, i'm not hating, get that chedder Gillen, as long as he produces 6 crap shits like fear itself, to a good run of young avengers.

But no i haven't read the latest East of West, haven't gone to my store yet, are they pulling it tight now? Don't you feel the issues before that Hickman let the world run loose? like the world got away from him and is taking over his story but he hasn't fleshed it out enough to be a star.

But yea I'll take one long ass good arc, heck I consider Planetary just one long arc and we waited 10 years for that to finish, and it was great.

 

[The Echo]

Got a free Kindle Fire (7 inch?) from work. What's a good app to use to buy/read comics off of? I had one on my phone and laptop a while ago but I forget what it was called

I got a Kindle Fire 7 as well and I recommend ComiCat. It's an app that you can find on Amazon and it's meant specifically for Kindles and such. It's a great app, very easy to use and has a very nice UI. However, it does cost $3 (a small amount, but may turn some off) so if you want something free I suggest ComicRack. It's free and has a lot of options for managing your library. I use it on my computer. More advanced with the options but maybe a little less user-friendly then ComiCat. Both of these support and recognize any comics you may download, not just ones you purchased legitimately. Can't go wrong with either.

 

[Minnja]

I'm using Comixology. Can't complain but I read that it eats up the internal storage pretty quick and that you can't store them on an SD card. So I'm guessing that means I need to delete from storage to free up space when the time comes? Since its account based if I delete from storage I should just be able to re download whenever right?

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Comics have fallen off since Secret Wars has ended.

Both companies aren't putting anything that special out.

At least marvel has the Star Wars books

 

[Pem123]

Comics have fallen off since Secret Wars has ended.

Both companies aren't putting anything that special out.

At least marvel has the Star Wars books

because DC, Marvel and Image comic is still the one that dominate comic book industry.

both DC and Marvel comics sales are probably small percentage of their total revenue, why bother ?

since Spawn, i never really that excited about American comic book, my bookshelf are dominated with novel and Manga.

 

[val_lixembeau]

Comics have fallen off since Secret Wars has ended.

Both companies aren't putting anything that special out.

If you mean giant event crossovers with lots of hype, I see what you mean. But if you just mean enjoyable books, then I think I found your problem right here

Personally, the only books I'm reading right now from the Big 2 are Criminal and and Astro City. Even then, those are from Icon and Vertigo. (oh yeah, and Miracleman, but I don't really count that as a Marvel comic)

Image is putting out a bunch of great science fiction flavoured books right now; Elephantmen is probably my favourite. And there are Invincible and The Walking Dead if you want to go more mainstream. It's shocking how good Image is nowadays if you remember anything about the books that they published in their early years.

Dark Horse puts out a couple of Conan books that are still very good, even after over ten years and changing creative teams.

There is the Valiant reboot that is bringing a lot of classic concepts back into the spotlight. I'm interested to see how Harbinger and Hardcorps will work in todays more PC environment.

If you don't mind going into back issues, Avatar has published a lot of awesome work from Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis. RIght now they are publishing Mercury Heat by Kieran Gillen that is promising (but hasn't had enough issues to quite hook me yet).

Dynamite has a lot of interesting licensed properties. Their James Bond is excellent so far. And Devolution (and original property I think) by Rick Remender is fun in a Mad Max meets Escape from New York kind of way.

 

[Minnja]

Last time I read Spider-Man I got up to right before Spider-Verse started (which I read reviews of and it sounded pretty good)

Completely missed the Secret Wars and restructuring of the universe. Started up again with Amazing Spider-Man and am caught up in that. Pretty OK. Love the new suit. I think Mister Negative is a pretty under appreciated villain. I thought the whole Zodiac thing was pretty MEH. Leo seems like a total tomato can and that whole cult is hard to take seriously.

And from what I understand they are doing Age of Apolocypse and Civil War AGAIN? Guess they gotta take advantage of the movies but hard to believe they will be that good

Started the IDW TMNT series. Only in issue 6 or so and loving t so far.

Guess it's a good time to get into Marvel right now because of the rebranding. Thinking about maybe getting into Avengers or one of the X-Men series.

 

[thoughtsone]

Started the IDW TMNT series. Only in issue 6 or so and loving t so far.

Its so much better then I thought it would be. Quality.

 

[Minnja]

Man I'm like addicted to the TMNT series. I was going to buy a volumn or two a week but I'm reading like 5-6 issues a day and want to read even more (the volumns have been 4 issues each so far). Slash just appeared fuuucucucjcjjk I want to keep reading but gotta sleep.

 

[kuromusha]

Man I'm like addicted to the TMNT series. I was going to buy a volumn or two a week but I'm reading like 5-6 issues a day and want to read even more (the volumns have been 4 issues each so far). Slash just appeared fuuucucucjcjjk I want to keep reading but gotta sleep.

Dude, get the IDW collections. They have 2 out so far and go up to issue 20. They also include one-shots and micro series. The next one comes out this August and it's going to include the City Fall arc.

You should also pick up the Batman crossover. It includes the IDW turtles and the last issue is coming out this month.

Have you seen the trailers for the new games? It's based off the IDW comics