Here’s where we talk about collected editions: TPBs, hardcovers, omnibuses, Absolutes… anything with a spine!
The Trades Thread: volume two
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Not your fault Vik. I can see how some of it works and it does have those neat moments plus great art.
Also, it was only £8, that’s what? Two issues now?
In other news, I won’t believe it until I have it, but I might have successfully nabbed a copy of Uncanny X-Men Omnibus 4.
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Brief Reviews
Gideon Falls Volume 6
It’s the end and I still couldn’t tell you what this book was all about and that doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter because this wasn’t a book for clear cut answers. It was all about hinting and alluding but never outright confirming.
And the art design is superb.
One last thing: Skritch. Skritch. Skritch.
Norse Mythology Volume 1
It isn’t original content but with the art roster this has? Doesn’t need to be. Russell, Mignola, Ordway, Thompson – every page is excellent.
It’s not a cheap buy but the hardback has excellent production values. Those values in turn show off the art to maximum effect.
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Karmen HC
So after enjoying issues #1 and #2 of the Image translation of this graphic novel I got impatient and ordered the original French HC from Dupuis so I could read the full story straight away. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
With a fantastical yet downbeat vibe that’s somewhere between Sandman’s Death and It’s A Wonderful Life (with a touch of Gilliam-esque bureaucracy thrown in when it comes to the otherworldly end-of-life-management group that Karmen is a part of) the story captured my imagination thanks to an immediately engaging concept (that sees a young female suicide victim fly unseen, ghost-like, around Palma, looking in on her loved ones and re-evaluating her life) as well as interesting, three-dimensional characters.
Not to mention the absolutely beautiful art from March that’s really well-served by the larger format. Here’s how it compares in size to the English-language singles from Image:
And here’s the kind of beautiful art you can expect:
Without giving too much away, the story develops beyond the fairly basic setup nicely, and by the end there’s some genuine well-earned emotion and some neat twists, making use of a variety of smart callbacks to some of the earliest scenes in the book.
That’s one of the reasons why I think the story works better in OGN form than divided up into single-issue length instalments – so if you’re on the fence about trying the series, I’d wait for the trade.
Hopefully Image will put out something as nice as this OHC in English, although even at regular size it would be worth a look – the gorgeous oversized presentation of this original version is just the icing on the cake.
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Usagi Yojimbo Saga v9 (the last of the Dark Horse issues before the series moved to IDW, bulked out by the Turtles cross-over collection) is now up on Books Etc for a mere £13.44.
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Nice one, have bagged it. Did want to try for the hardback but the second edition of v1 has gone unbelievably fast and v9 will likely be the same, especially with the added factor of Covid.
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Priest’s Deathstroke is really good. He’s great at making these elaborate master plans for his characters that end up being a ruse for a much simpler objective that open up unexpected avenues for the plot. In the first issue, a dictator hires Deathstroke to kill Clock King, the Clock King counters with the location of Slade’s kidnapped best friend/handler Wintergreen, when Slade goes to save him he loses his costume and has to use an older model Wintergreen had with him. It turns out the costume change was the true objective of the dictator’s plan because the old costume’s A.I. system can be hacked. Pretty ingenious stuff.
But even better is that Priest underpins the action with Deathstroke’s fraught relationships with his ex-wife and his two surviving children, Jericho and Ravager, adding moral complexity and pathos to the arch, Breaking Bad-style plans within plans. Jericho in particular is quite a complicated character. I’ve never read Teen Titans so all I know is people think he’s kind of lame but here he showcases his parents’ ruthlessness and knack for manipulation. He is also confirmed as bisexual; I think that was just hinted at before. Thankfully he has also lost the blond fro and mutton chops!
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This just arrived.
Eric Hall would be proud, it’s a suitable monster of a book.
If you’re keen but unaware the Cartoonist Kayfabe channel has done a video flick through of the book, and followed that with a series of 6 videos looking at some of BWS’ other work (having already delved into Weapon X some time ago).
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I have Uncanny X-Men Omnibus 4!
Used the buying from Amazon US via Amazon UK route. Not cheap but can work for isolated cases.
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That’s what I did with the Inferno Omnibus too. Managed to get Uncanny 4 from eBay.
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Reckless Volume 2 has arrived.
Also have a copy of Frankenstein Alive, Alive!
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Reckless Volume 2 has arrived.
Yeah my copy came yesterday too. Hoping to get to it this weekend.
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Before Watchmen: Minutemen was pretty good although didn’t really justify its existence. I didn’t think it would though and I was just looking for great Darwyn Cooke artwork and retro storytelling; it delivers in that department. I particularly like how it fleshed out the two least appreciated Minutemen, Silhouette and Mothman. That’s all it really adds though. The rest of the storyline mainly makes explicit stuff we already figured out from the original
I started the Silk Spectre mini included in the same volume but it’s nowhere near as good. I’m guessing Cooke just plotted it and Amanda Conner wrote the script. Not sure if I’ll finish it. Won’t be getting any more of these, I bought this for Cooke not Watchmen.
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Before Watchmen: Minutemen was pretty good although didn’t really justify its existence. I didn’t think it would though and I was just looking for great Darwyn Cooke artwork and retro storytelling; it delivers in that department. I particularly like how it fleshed out the two least appreciated Minutemen, Silhouette and Mothman. That’s all it really adds though. The rest of the storyline mainly makes explicit stuff we already figured out from the original
I started the Silk Spectre mini included in the same volume but it’s nowhere near as good. I’m guessing Cooke just plotted it and Amanda Conner wrote the script. Not sure if I’ll finish it. Won’t be getting any more of these, I bought this for Cooke not Watchmen.
Most of the Before Watchmen minis were similarly disappointing. Dr Manhattan was the only one I thought was genuinely good.
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Reckless: Friend of the Devil
I enjoyed this but it wasn’t quite the knockout of book one. The story felt a bit mechanical in places and took a while to really get going. It also felt a bit familiar, reminiscent of other stories that have played with similar ideas.
With this team it’s still a very solid comic of course: some of the smaller details of private eye work are great, and I think Sean Phillips’ looser-than-usual art style works well for the rough, pulpy tone of this series.
And I also love Jacob’s colours that play a big role in setting the mood. There are some standout pages here that really grab you.
But overall it didn’t quite wow me like some of their work has in the past. I guess they’re bound by their own very high standards these days.
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Went looking for Monsters from Amazon.ca and only found it from 3rd party sellers – U.S. sources.
Tried another source, Chapters/Indigo, and found it there. Decent price, but nervous about the shipping (like Purolator and a couple of others only come when I’m at work, won’t leave it even if they could, so I have to drive way out of my way to pick-up within 5 business days).
They use Canada Post, who have parcel box-thingie in my lobby. Works for me.
Anyways…Got my Criminal Deluxe vol. 1 today from Amazon.ca. It is indeed the 2021 printing and not the 2017 printing as listed (seems everybody is listing it as that).
I have it, even though I was worried during this whole process.But I was at work today, and they sent me a picture of my delivery. Not at my door (I’m okay with, and trust people on my floor), and also not in the mail area, inside adjacent to the lobby (I guess I’m okay with). No, fucking outside by a service door for the building.
I can forgive Birth defects, or your mom drank while pregnant, even a failed Kurt Cobain attempt.
But come on! Kinda want to say something, but hate to screw with someone’s job.While other countries have vol. 2 released on Tuesday (May 11th), Amazon.ca has nothing but 3rd party selling (and how nice of someone from France willing to wait for the new printing and then sell it to me for $244.37 – but with Free Shipping! Va te faire foutre!)
Chapters has an out-of-date “ships in 3-5 weeks” (I suspect from the 2017 printing that’s long gone) with a not great price.
Amazon.com has an okay price of $49.99 (vol. 1 is $33.99!), but then add 13.75 to ship, and times that total by 1.21-ish. Yuck.Think I’ll just order from Chapters, even if I have a nagging feeling in ‘3-5 weeks’ I’ll get an e-mail saying sorry, and then Sold out in the U.S.
And I’m willing to do this all again with Fatale! (need that too)
Hopefully I’m just over-reacting1 user thanked author for this post.
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Off Road
This early Sean Murphy OGN from Oni was a fairly simple and quick read but quite enjoyable.
A meandering story about three young male friends who get stuck when they take a new jeep off-road, it has the feel of a tall tale that’s vaguely rooted in reality somewhere, but with a lot of bullshit and exaggeration layered on top. In a good way.
The characters are fun dicks and the art is an interesting mix of fairly simple cartooning with some hints of Murphy’s more sophisticated later style. Especially when it comes to his vehicles which he clearly loves to draw.
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Really liked Batman: Universe. I bought it for the Nick Derington art but ended up enjoying Bendis’s story too. I haven’t liked a Bendis comic since Dark Avengers, and this was almost as good as that (with even better art). The Bendis-isms in the dialogue do a get bit much by the end but otherwise this was a top notch comic. Reminded me of a long JLU episode.
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Yep, Batman Universe was joyous.
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All right, time to crack open BWS’s Monsters….
I started reading it last night too. I know some others have bought it as well – we should compare notes when we’re done.
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At least you don’t have copies of both the initial printings and the new reprints of the OHCs on your shelf. I mean, if someone did that and bought both, then they’d really have a sickness, right?
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I read Monsters last weekend and I thought it was stunning. It’s horrifying and heartbreaking in equal measure with BWS’s art was as accomplished as you’d expect. If you can squint you can see the bare bones of the original Hulk proposal (the father character particularly) but it moves far beyond that to deal with the potential monster that potentially lies within everyone.
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The Secret Service: Kingsman TPB
After realising the other day that I’d still somehow never read this I ordered a copy and it arrived today. I picked it up after work and didn’t put it down again until I was finished. I think it’s one of Millar’s best and most entertaining books, and Gibbons’ art is great too.
The Bond pastiche stuff all works, the class aspect is a nice twist that goes far beyond superficial dressing, there’s lots of good action and it’s very funny too – all the various sci-fi/geek references made me chuckle, especially the very funny opening scene.
They should make a movie of this or something.
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Fun enough. Williams and Fraser make for a good creative team.
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The Bond pastiche stuff all works, the class aspect is a nice twist that goes far beyond superficial dressing
The class aspect is what the second movie was missing. That’s to me the main thrust behind the idea and without it it just became a Bond pastiche which is something we’ve seen many times.
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I’d recommend watching the first one. Egerton and Firth are very good in the roles and the action set pieces are a lot of fun.
I think the problem the sequel had is the comic and first film basically end with the lead reaching his destination as a super spy, so you can’t really go back and replay that even though it’s the most interesting element.
It’s a bit like Johnny Storm ‘growing up’ for the 376th time in the FF comics.
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Sounds good.
I had always planned to read the comic before watching the movie, which is part of why I haven’t seen it yet. Now I’ve done that I’m keen to give the movie a look.
And it looks like it’s available on Disney+. Great.
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100 pages into Monsters. It’s slow-moving, the focus has just shifted to the main character (Bobby Bailey, the military experiment subject), so still unsure what to make of it. What’s clear though is that this is a comic by an artist in complete control of his craft, pouring his heart and soul into each page. While I have issues with some of the dialogue (it can be a bit repetitive, I think it could’ve been trimmed down substantially) I am eager to see where the rest of this unpredictable narrative goes.
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Today’s the 20th anniversary of the release of New X-Men #114, so I re-read the Grant Morrison run for the first time since it finished.
Still great, especially compared to what came immediately before and after, with a few bits that don’t quite hold up (the “Beast pretends to be gay” stuff is very odd). The art is more consistent than I remember: the Kordey issues are rushed, and I don’t think the Bachalo ones fit with the tone of the book, but Jimenez works great once he comes on.
The big thing I noticed is how the transition to the climax of the story feels very rushed. It feels like he had those last two arcs planned out the same as they always would have happened, but there should be another dozen or two issues before we get to them.
I’d forgotten how relatively minor a character Quentin Quire was in this run, and how completely different he is to the character who’s around these days. The Stepford Cuckoos come fairly fully-formed though, as does Glob Herman. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the other students from this era show up on Krakoa now. I’m surprised we haven’t seen Ernst/Cassandra Nova at all.
Anywhere, well worth revisiting.
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Today’s the 20th anniversary of the release of New X-Men #114
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100 pages into Monsters. It’s slow-moving, the focus has just shifted to the main character (Bobby Bailey, the military experiment subject), so still unsure what to make of it. What’s clear though is that this is a comic by an artist in complete control of his craft, pouring his heart and soul into each page. While I have issues with some of the dialogue (it can be a bit repetitive, I think it could’ve been trimmed down substantially) I am eager to see where the rest of this unpredictable narrative goes.
I’m at the same point now, around 100 pages in and the first act of the story has just ended. And to be honest I’m finding it really uneven.
The art is fantastic but sadly the writing isn’t up to the same standard. It’s not just overwritten – BWS fills pages with about twice as many words as you need – but it’s also incoherent in places, especially when it comes to times and dates.
For example, early on, captions tell us that a scene set in April 1964 is fourteen years after the previous scene, which was June 1949, so the caption is a year out; then after that, one character writes a letter that’s clearly dated ’65 rather than ’64, with no reason given. In another scene we’re told that a character is visiting the next day, but they then turn up a week later instead, again with no explanation for the change. All minor mistakes but together they feel confusing, like you can’t trust the book to tell its own story.
Another thing that I’m finding grating is the regular device of having speech balloons overlap panels and lead from one to the next, but in a way that’s often really unnecessarily confusing in terms of what order to read the various speech bubbles. This kind of panel progression is very typical:
And there are also some production errors where parts of the text have been cropped out altogether.
This stuff is all a real shame as the art is really, really good – beautiful, detailed, refined pen and ink stuff. And when the art tells the story alone it really flows. I love this page, for example:
But most of the time the writing (and lettering) feels like it’s really getting in the way of itself, and is undermining what should be a fairly straightforward story to understand.
It’s a shame as I really wanted to love this.
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@DaveWallace yeah Monsters can be confusing in places. I like most of it but I’m often finding myself having to reread to pick up on a minor timing/plot point. The dialogue itself can be vague. When Sgt. MacFarland is tells his wife: “The story is he [Tom Bailey] went crazy and he shot up 4 of his buddies. Killed them all. Tom Bailey was Bobby’s father, and Janet’s husband, and he murdered Poppa.” I had to read that like 5 times to get that MacFarland was talking about his own father. I thought maybe BWS had left out the word “his” and meant that Tom had killed his (Tom’s) father.
I wonder if he wrote a script beforehand–either full script or the detailed storyboards that many cartoonists do–or showed it to anyone before going to finished pages. Some of the mistakes seem like things I pick up in revision and after showing the work to friends/family. The clarity issues are all relatively minor but they add up.
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Yeah, it feels like a book that could have done with a separate edit from a third party.
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Alright, I’ve finished Monsters. The issues Dave and I mentioned persist through the whole thing–plot points/timing can be vague, there’s WAY TOO MUCH dialogue, the ordering of the speech bubbles can be tricky–but… BUT… this is still a gorgeous book, by one of the god tier masters of English-language comics.
The story that is being told, although it could’ve/should’ve been sharpened, and maybe didn’t need to rely on such extensive flashbacks for every principle character (the Tom/Oskar flashbacks near the end should’ve been combined into either just Tom’s or just Oskar’s recollections imo), is often very moving. This is a story about the trauma of WWII on the men who fought it and their families, about how fate often separates us from the people we need most, and the solution BWS offers his characters is both tragic and, in a spiritual sense, hopeful. Maybe this is not the only world. Maybe we can make things right elsewhere.
I’m glad this book exists. That BWS could’ve tinkered with it a bit more to achieve perfection will always be regrettable but sometimes the imperfect works by a master are the ones you go back to most often. I already feel like I want to reread it, now that I know the horrors driving these characters and where the story leads.
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Yay, SpeedyHen have just sent off my copy of All New Wolverine Omnibus.
They’ve just sent out my copy of Criminal Deluxe v2 as well. Huzzah!
Hurrah. I gave up and got from Books etc. Now I feel disloyal to the hen!
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Alan Moore’s 2000ad digital trades are on a half price sale at the 2000ad shop: https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/on-sale
I suspect many have already read them but if not it’s a good price to pick them up.
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I read Batman: Kings of Fear by Scott Peterson & Kelley Jones. Bought it for Jones but the story is pretty cool, Scarecrow doses Batman with a new fear gas and uses a hostage to force him to go under psychoanalysis. He gets Batman to envision a Gotham without Batman, where Bruce Wayne uses his wealth and influence to turn Gotham into a city of the future. Peterson bites off a bit more than he can chew though because he doesn’t really address that point satisfactorily after Batman gets his head straight and defeats Scarecrow. He does come up with a good fix for what use Batman is when his rogues gallery keeps coming back. Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, etc are the exception; the recidivism rate for Gotham criminals who get caught by Batman is under 2%.
Jones is the real draw and he’s fantastic, especially paired with colorist Michelle Madsen who douses his Gothic linework in neon greens and purples. It’s just gorgeous. If I was in charge of DC, I’d have her recolor the Moench/Jones run from the 90s which was seriously let down by subpar early digital coloring.
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I liked Kings of Fear. I think I said at the time I reviewed it that Peterson did a good job of capturing the feel and tonality of the Moench/ Jones/ Beatty run. It felt like it could almost be a part of that body of work; far more than Gotham After Midnight did, for example.
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Hellblazer: City Of Demons TPB
Picked this up as one of the few Murphy books I haven’t read yet.
The story is ok – it revolves around a load of people getting transfusions of Constantine’s demonic blood and going all weird (is this a thing that’s been established before in the Hellblazer comics? It was a bit under-explained here) but the art is decent, there are some funny lines, the London setting is established nicely, and there’s a suitably adult tone to proceedings that puts this squarely in the Vertigo camp rather than the more family-friendly DCU version.
Plus, this collection also includes a fun little Christmas-themed short text story with illustrations, all by Dave Gibbons.
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The Twilight Children, featuring Darwyn Cooke’s last ever artwork, is a bit of a mixed bag unfortunately. Cooke’s art is great, and Dave Stewart remains his best colorist, but Gilbert Hernandez’s story is too vague to be satisfying. It’s a magical realist yarn about strange glowing orbs that appear in a small coastal town, periodically making people vanish, blinding people, and unleashing deadly blasts of energy. Meanwhile, a mute young woman with snow-white hair arrives in the town, and she seems to have some kind of connection with the orbs.
Very little ends up being explained. There’s some connection between the orbs and the moon. The moon may have sent the orbs as revenge because one of the men in the town was once her lover–does this make him an alien? A spirit? Another celestial body? It’s unclear. I’m all for art that’s abstract and open to interpretation, my favorite artist in any medium is David Lynch after all, but there’s got to be some kind of entry point for the reader and here there just isn’t one. There doesn’t seem to really be any themes running through the work, the characters are sketches rather than full people, and at 4 issues the whole thing’s too short to build up a real sense of mystery. I usually love stories like this but, on the writing side of things, I was thoroughly disappointed.
I also finally read Silver Surfer: Parable which is just excellent. Moebius’s art is as great ever, rendering images of pure awe in his simple, elegant style, and Stan Lee’s script is both bombastic and a heartfelt plea for humanity to think for itself instead of following self-serving leaders and religious fanatics.
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I’ve not read a huge amount of Constantine either, but I think he gets a blood transfusion from a demon fairly early on in, as part of Delano’s run.
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I’ve not read a huge amount of Constantine either, but I think he gets a blood transfusion from a demon fairly early on in, as part of Delano’s run.
Yep, first storyline and it’s the demon Nergal. It’s only mentioned once more in Delano’s run though, I think, and nothing big comes of it; Ennis digs it up again though when the King of the Vampires tries to bite John and his half-demon blood burns his jaw clean off. Ennis does some more stuff with it, and since then it’s been part of the lore here and there, whenever a writer thinks of something interesting to do with it or wants to use it as a deus-ex-machina save.
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Speaking of John, Spurrier’s second trade was awesome and while I’m glad the storyline was wrapped up, it’s still such a shame that he didn’t get to continue. John is left in a very interesting place at the end there.
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I finished Usagi Yojimbo Saga v9 today, which is the end of an era really. Not only the last Dark Horse Usagi stories but also the last Usagi stories to be published in black and white. I’m not normally a fan of black and white comics – I can find hard to discern detail in a lot of them – but I’ve never had that problem with Usagi, so I was a bit disappointed that it was moving to colour for IDW.
However, I have to say, this volume makes the case for it. The linework in these final black and white stories is increasingly sketchy and scruffy, especially compared to earlier volumes, where Sakai was a master of neat linework. It’s not bad by any stretch, but it does have a sense of feeling a tad rushed perhaps. Compare that to the Turtles cross-over story that this trade Saga double-dips on (which must surely have been a test for taking Usagi to IDW), which has the usual neat line and does feel enhanced by the colours.
As for the actual stories, well, they’re good, but they’re not the best UY tales going. As mentioned, this Saga double-dips on the TMNT collection, so there’s only two digests of new material. Both see Usagi hanging around with Inspector Ishida, who is a fun character… in moderation. Whenever Usagi’s with him, it’s to do a mystery story, which is fine in the general mix, but two solid digests of that (and I think the tail end of Saga 8 was as well, IIRC) is a bit much. I was itching for Usagi to get back on the road.
The first digest is a string of independent stories with a connective theme, one that isn’t resolved and I worry will get forgotten in the publisher move. The second digest is all one story, The Hidden. Usagi is no stranger to long epic stories, but while this is an epic in length at seven issues, it doesn’t justify that. It feels quite drawn out and padded. I wonder if that’s down to editorial interference – these issues had a numbering rebrand where the main series numbering was minimised and they promoted it almost as a mini-series.
The subject matter of the story is a little outside my UY comfort zone too: it deals with the burgeoning Christian movement in Japan and its persecution, something UY has touched on before. While it is a valid historical element of the period, I always find a bit odd being brought into the series. It’s not that I’m Christian (or particularly anti-Christian) and I couldn’t tell you if Sakai is, but it’s just a bit odd to find out that Inspector Ishida is. I don’t know, maybe it’s because Usagi’s world is usually so foreign that having a staple part of my world enter it feels like it’s breaking the magic somehow. Either way, it doesn’t really warrant seven issues.
Overall, it feels like the Dark Horse era of Usagi has gone out with not a bang but not quite a whimper. Maybe a fizz?
Onward to the IDW series, I guess.
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Outer Orbit TPB
This was an OK read that grew on me a little bit the more I read it.
A light-hearted mismatched buddy-comedy sci-fi space romp (in terms of tone, think something like Millar’s recent Space Bandits), the book is less about the core plot – which involves the two leads chasing after a femme fatale and a mysterioys idol macguffin while outrunning the law – and more about putting the characters in funny/silly/action-packed situations and wringing some laughs out of them.
The division of labour for the creators is unusual – both Zach Howard and Sean Murphy write, and they also alternate art for different scenes depending on which of the two leads is most prominent, and collaborate on art for the framing scenes that run throughout. And while that sounds like it could be jarring, they’re actually similar enough in style that you barely notice the transition.
Overall, it’s fairly frothy and insubstantial stuff, but it gave me a couple of laughs and the art has its moments. Disposable fun.
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I’ve been waiting out a lot of this out-of-print stuff on ebay and elsewhere as I didn’t want to pay too much for them. Usually I find that if you’re patient even relatively rare stuff comes along at a decent price.
I often use search sites like this one to compare prices without too much effort. Between places like ebay, Abebooks and Alibris you don’t usually have to wait too long.
Oddly enough Music Magpie often turns up some hard to find stuff at a reasonable price.
(As a guide for these books specifically, I think Outer Orbit was about £8, I paid just over £10 for Off Road, £7 for Hellblazer and about £4 for that Star Wars issue.)
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Awesome! That site will actually be pretty handy for picking up text books for my uni course too
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No worries. Yes, of all the price-comparison sites I’ve used, that’s the most straightforward and comprehensive. It doesn’t list Speedyhen though, so always worth double-checking there too.
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The replacement printing of the Grant Morrison Superman omnibus is here…
…now with added speech balloons!
Well done to DC for correcting the initial error.
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Haha wow, Sholly Fisch gets billed over Morales for writing some backups.
I think it’s because their name got missed off on the first print/edition.
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Probably best to leave Fisch off, honestly. They didn’t bill Travel Foreman or Ben Oliver or Cully Hamner either. I get the writer-first billing is easiest and highlights who’s guiding the story/characters which is what most fans are there for, but it’s kind of silly to do it with a backup strip writer over the main series artist.
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Haha wow, Sholly Fisch gets billed over Morales for writing some backups.
I think it’s because their name got missed off on the first print/edition.
Not only that, but when it was included inside it was spelled wrong.
I think DC have pretty much addressed every criticism of the first version with this reprint. They’ve even reordered the issues to match the TPB reading order (rather than the initial release order of the singles) so it’s far more than just restoring the missing words from that page.
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Rereading Garth Ennis and John Mccrea’s The Demon. Artwork is visceral but the rhyming couplets that all of Etrigan’s dialogue is in is pretty hard going at times. Overall though it’s fun to dip back into this.
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Rereading Garth Ennis and John Mccrea’s The Demon. Artwork is visceral but the rhyming couplets that all of Etrigan’s dialogue is in is pretty hard going at times. Overall though it’s fun to dip back into this.
I read the issues included with Hitman vol. 1 and remember thinking it felt pretty obvious Ennis didn’t have any interest in writing Etrigan’s dialogue that way.
He says in the intro to the first Demon volume that he bought a rhyming dictionary but didnt use it once. Also, I think one of the storylines in the second volume has Etrigan lose his ability to rhyme.
I find the rhyming hard going as the rhythm and structure change pretty much from page to page.
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Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness Vol. 2 Hardcover – Jan. 25 2022
Experience the Legionnaires’ far-flung adventures leading up to the great darkness saga!
The second volume of the Legionnaire’s incredible run is here!
Discover the answers to these intriguing mysteries in Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness, an astonishing collection of action-packed episodes from acclaimed talents Gerry Conway, Paul Kupperberg, E. Nelson Bridwell, J.M. DeMatteis, Jim Janes, Steve Ditko, Jim Sherman, Frank Chiaramonte, Dave Hunt, and more! This second and final volume collects The Legion of Super-Heroes #272-283, The Best of DC: Blue Ribbon Digest #24.
Final? Did a quick search and this catches up to two previously released Deluxe Hardcovers.
LSH: The Great Darkness Saga (issues #284-296 and Annual #1) – Nov. 2010
LSH: The Curse (issues #297-313, Annuals 2 & 3) – Sept. 2011I would order today, but both out of print and hard to get.
Surely DC has plans to reprint these soon, right? Right?Then what of past that point? That’s up to the name change when the Baxter title started and #314-325 were Tales of the LSH. That’s a Hardcover right there.
The Baxter series ran for 63 issues and 4 Annuals. 4 HC’s or 2 Omnibuses.
You can have my money DC. But why do I get a headache thinking about it?1 user thanked author for this post.
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Tom Strong is brilliant, probably top 5 Moore for me. I think it’s as deconstructive as a book like The Authority or Ultimates but optimistic rather than cynical. Tom has a wife and kid, a healthy sex life, he shares his technology with his city, current science informs the stories… It often gets labeled as “retro” but I think that’s doing it a disservice. It’s as forward thinking as anything else Moore’s written.
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It could go either way I guess. Just have it a pure Moore collection, including the short stories from the anthologies. Or the full #1-36. Or maybe just all the Sprouse illustrated issues. I would almost be happy with either, but at the same time would be upset about what we didn’t get. The only logical answer is to expand the page count and stick an extra $25 on it.
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