Quick question about Bone: I have the original collections, and the one-volume one, and am considering getting the Scholastics colored versions, but does the color detract from the book?

Also read the next volume of Casey/Ramos/Bachalo's X-men (the one that was supposed to be titled "Marauders." Interesting, as I was beginning to wonder why they formed an x-team filled with former villains. It was actually pretty fast paced and exciting, though I had the same problem with the art as I did with the Supernova's volume (and no way anyone new to the X-men is going to make heads or tails of what the heck is going on). This also seems to lead directly into Messiah Complex, so hopefully the next trade is a crossover collection. Anyone read Messiah Complex? Was it any good?

I thought Messiah Complex was just another in a long string of X-men crossovers that just plain suck. Brubaker is actually worse than Chuck Austen.

I'm not really disliking this yet, mostly because it hasn't crossed into any titles I've already dropped, and the scheduling has been spot on (take that, Spider-man people!). Granted, so far it's been Introduce Plot followed by lots of chasing and fighting and chasing and fighting with a few things tossed in, but it's not done yet, so I'm holding my opinion to see if Marvel, once again, has a completely underwhelming conclusion.

I don't know why, but for some reason I've been resigned to not trying The Goon. I already know the art is fantastic, but it's just never been something I thought I would like. But the whole point of my original post was to try some things that are just left or right of my usual tastes. So I'm going to give this a go soon.

I'm not a big noir guy, but I adored Gotham Central, the issues I've read anyway (into the 20s). Catwoman has been on my "to buy" list for awhile since I'm a sucker for Cooke's art, the character, and Brub isn't too shabby -- just haven't bought it yet. I slack, therefore I am.

I have "access" to the Miracleman issues, and that is another thing I plan to read sometime down the line.

That's great to hear. I've really enjoyed Tomine's work, so I look forward to reading that trade. His work is a bit emo or angsty, but for some reason I don't mind it at all. I was transfixed by Summer Blonde.

And that is very kind of you to offer. I'll send along my info straight away! I dig conspiracy type stuff, so this should be right up my alley.

High praise, indeed. I've never been keen to give this series a shot, but for that cheap, I don't see why not. I wish more people would adopt the Dave Sim phonebook (even if in manga size) approach to republishing comics. Makes it so easy to jump onto a new series.

Which made buying and reading the Bone: Giganto Volume such a no brainer. I plowed through about half of it, then put it down for a little while and then picked it up again to finish, and in the time between readings I kind of forgot what was going on. So, I'm going to have to start again, but from what I have read (about 80%), it really is a beautiful thing. This is one of those comics, like the Scrooge books, that I cannot wait to share with my future children someday.

Yeah, no shit. Some of those panels were absolutely amazing. He was definitely great here, though I would argue he's even better still in All Star Superman. I love the really wide panels Frank's using in ASS, but We3 really was something special. Between that, and Pride of Baghdad, I would be inclined to think that all comics starring animals would be incredible.

Yep, another series I know about, that I have planned to read for awhile, but just haven't gotten to yet. When I was going to read this a while ago, I opted for Planetay instead. I definitely want to read this with some notations, as I know a lot of the references in the background will go over my head.

The rest of the books you've listed, I've aware of, and would like to read. I'm just going to start adding books to my Amazon cart so that I don't forget to get them (which is often the case). Or take my ass to the library and see what's doing there.

And you shouldn't refrain from posting because we mainly talk about capes here. I know I've tried quite a few books due to your pimping, as well as other poster's pimping of books, and I always appreciate being turned onto some new stuff. A post a few years ago by JasonF convinced me to read Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (something I probably never would have done) and that book is one of my favorites. I hold it in the highest esteem, and I have this board and Jason to thank for that. I should probably send dude some chocolates or something.

If only they would collect more of the Scrooge stuff in phonebook-like volumes...

seriously, didn't Life and Times and the companion sell well enough? Why aren't we seeing more collections from the Rosa/Barks Disney eras?

Here is a pretty good discussion over at savagecritic about the state of comic fandom, more specifically online comic fandom. Nothing truly new is discussed, but there are some interesting points made.

http://savagecritic.com/2008/01/my-d...1-outrage.html

Here is another book that I can't recommend enough to check out if you are looking for something different. It's better than food.

After reading all the positive recommendations for Bone I'm thinking of picking it up. The complete collection is clearly the cheaper option but I'm interested in the colour versions as well. Are they the exact same (except w/ colour of course)?

I don't get this either. I can see Life and Times being the cream of the crop, thus getting the trade release first, but I would love to just get some of the other Rosa stuff in decent sized trades. Disney puts out the 60 page books or whatever, but I crave for phonebook volumes like you do.

I think the colored versions are exactly the same in content. The coloring is really good, but I actually don't think the book needed it. I think it works incredibly well in black and white, and since it's a fantasy book, it forces you to use your imagination a bit more. That could just be being used to seeing it in B&W though.

boredsilly -- glad you enjoyed the Scrooge McDuck stuff. Just in case you weren't aware, there's a second volume:



This collects a bunch of subsequent stories that Don Rosa did filling in various chapters in Scrooge's life. It doesn't hang together quite as well as a cohesive narrative, but the individual stories are lots of fun.

Also, you can't go wrong with any of Carl Barks's Scrooge stuff.

Sessa -- That Terry and the Pirates collection is great. It, along with the E.C. Segar Popeye collections (and the Eisner Spirit, if you want to count that) are my favorite collections of newspaper comics.

Holy shit is Scott Pilgrim awesome!

That is all.

This thread was just the thing I was looking for. I've recently been getting back into comics, but I've had a hard time figuring out what to pick up. I was never really into superheroes, which is why I read Watchmen and The Long Halloween for the first time within the last year (and I enjoyed both). I tend to like comics that are more adult, but not simply filled with sex and violence. Some other books I read in the last year that I liked were Black Hole and Batman: Hush.

Are there any fans of Matt Wagner's Grendel here? I'm really enjoying the new series, Behold the Devil (the third issue of which comes out this week). I didn't realize how much I missed this character (as written AND drawn by Wagner) until I saw his grand entrance at the beginning of BtD #1. This is some of Wagner's best work to date; if you compare an issue of BtD to Devil by the Deed from the mid-80s, it's immediately apparent how far he has come as an artist (strangely enough, though, I wasn't a big fan of his recent run on Batman). The only negative things I can say are that the issues feel too short (lots of two-page spreads), and I hate having to wait for the next one. There's also a TPB/hardcover of Wagner's two Batman / Grendel minis from the '90s coming (hopefully) next month.

Here are some of my favorite comics:

Mage: The Hero Discovered and Grendel, by Matt Wagner
Sam & Max: Freelance Police, by Steve Purcell (very infrequently published)
Liberty Meadows, by Frank Cho (seems to be on hiatus)
Sin City, by Frank Miller (some of it, anyway)
Breathtaker, by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel
Dawn, by Joseph Michael Linsner (primarily for the art)
Gregory, by Marc Hempel
Uzumaki, by Junji Ito (a superb horror manga)
Blade of the Immortal, by Hiroaki Samura
Pure Trance, by Junko Mizuno
Claymore, by Norihiro Yagi

Based on this thread, I think the next thing I'm going to pick up will be Grant Morrison's Me3.

Cool Ralph, welcome back into the fold. When you get around to reading We3 do post your thoughts about it.

As a pet owner, I'm scared to read We3. I'm worried it will make me cry like a little girl.

Great to here. I dig the series so much.

I have the Bone issues, a few trades, 2 copies of the One Volume & I'm getting the hard cover color versions. The ironic thing is that I've only read the first few issues of the series when they were first released. In my opinion the color looks great. They did a top notch job. This is no cheap coloring process. Very nicely done on glossy paper.

Anyone reading DMZ?

I read the first three trades the other day and really enjoyed them. Although I will admit that sometimes I couldn't quite figure out what was happening for a few pages and had to go back. It wasn't always clear who was who. But that was probably my own misreading, not a problem with the art or writing.

Count me as another turned on to Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and the follow-up by this board. I think the largest Barks-only collections are the two Greatest DuckTales Stories trades.

Some of the Gladstone Giant albums like Flintheart Glomgold have a lot of content in them, but still not phone book-sized.

Last year I picked up a slim volume called "Uncle Scrooge Adventures Barks/Rosa Collection Vol. 1: Land of the Pygmy Indians/War of the Wendigo," which paired an original Barks story with Rosa's follow-up story. Other than the fact that it was only two stories, I thought it was a great concept, but I have never seen a vol. 2.

I have the originals as well (although not the one-volume), and have been a fan since the beginning. I'm also a pretty strict purist, be it in movies, comics, or whatever. Having said that (and I'm ready to turn in my Comic Geek Card with this statement)...I feel Bone actually looks better in color. They did such a great job with this release that I feel like it actually improves on the original. Jeff Smith did such a great job with the artwork, story and dialogue that's it's a classic no matter what; but the color makes the characters just leap off the page. The colored versions make you hope that somebody gets their act together in Hollywood and greenlights however many animated movies need made to tell the tale, and make them look exactly like these colored versions.

I've read bone from the very beginning (first print of the first issue, not book), and I like it better in color too - the only knock against these color reprints is that the art on each page is about a quarter inch smaller than the B&W version - not a big deal, but it's there.

Another Rainbow published some very large, very expensive Carl Barks collections a couple of decades ago. They are also called "Carl Barks Library", unfortunately this is the same name as some of the softcovers.

This is what I'm talking about:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Carl-Barks-Libra...QQcmdZViewItem

I just read Wolverine Evolution. Imagine my disappointment when I took it off my shelf and saw that it was written by Jeph Loeb. Surely I knew this when I ordered it, but I must have forgotten. I bought if for the artwork anyway as I'm pretty sure I never saw interior work by Simone Bianchi. Writing-wise I thought it was dreadful. Pointless. Drivel. I'm sure I could come up with other words to describe how much I don't like Loeb, but those'll do. Bianchi art was nice enough though it didn't inspire me to buy any of his future work.

After the suck that Wolverine Evolution was I needed something to help me recover and pulled Beyond Palomar, the latest collection of Gilbert's Love & Rockets, off my shelf and dove right in. Ahhhhhh....I feel much better now.

Where Evolution represents the stretched out tripe that passes for comics these days Beyond Palomar sits comfortably as a paragon of how to do always interesting, touching stories with style and depth.

I can't remember a Loeb story I actually enjoyed. Luckily he's always paired with quality artists that gloss things up enough that readers don't notice how bad the actually story is. It's so pretty to look at. And he frequently throws in so many guest stars and fight scenes that the books become fanboys' wet dreams. Sorry, but that's not good writing. Sorry for ragging on Loeb, I'm the idiot who bought the book. Oops, make that books. Apparently I couldn't decide whether I wanted it in color or b&w, 'cause I found both versions on my bookshelf. Yikes, what a fool I am.

If you want a good indicator of how low Loeb has sunk, check out Ultimates 3.

And don't forget Ultimate Power #9.

I just noticed that vol 2 is in my next shipment from DCBS.