People were raving about Battlefields a lot not that long ago. I totally forgot to check it out, but thanks for reminding me. Need to see if my library has any copies.

A Game of Thrones comic is coming next month:

http://youbentmywookie.com/entertain...aptation-13436

I liked the Hedge Knight ones (hoping they do a 3rd).

Nice...

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The Art of Joe Kubert
Edited by Bill Schelly
List Price: $39.99
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (October 31, 2011)

A coffee table art book spanning all 70 years of this legendary creator’s work!

Joe Kubert is one of the great comic book artists. His career literally traverses the history of comics, beginning in 1938 when he became a professional at age 12, to today as one of the greatest draftsmen working in the field. Kubert is known and respected as much for his sinewy, passionate drawing as he is for his consummate storytelling skills. Over his 70-year career in comics, he has worked as an artist, an editor, a publisher, an entrepreneur, and a cartooning auteur. The Art of Joe Kubert is a deluxe, full-color coffee table book that honors this legendary creator with beautifully reproduced artwork from every phase of his career as well as critical commentary by the book’s editor, comics historian and Kubert biographer Bill Schelly.

Schelly’s text parallels the visual evolution of the artist’s work, tracing his life and career from his early days drawing Hawkman in the Golden Age, to his creation of Tor, his involvement in creating 3-D comics in the 1950s, his tour de force stints on DC’s war comics — Sgt. Rock, The Unknown Soldier and the groundbreaking Enemy Ace — in the 1960s, to illustrating the adventures of Tarzan in the 1970s. Show More And before finding a creative safe haven at DC Comics in the ’50s, Kubert drew for many smaller and more obscure companies, including Holyoke, Quality, Fiction House, Harvey, St. John, and others — all of which are represented, including a 50-page section of comic-book stories in the horror, crime, and SF genres from the pre-Comics Code era, reprinted in full color for the first time.

Although Kubert is known for his contributions to pop culture icons such as Tarzan and Sgt. Rock, he has also invested his creative energy in more personal projects over the last 20 years, including journalistic and historical graphic novels such as his Eisner Award-winning Fax from Sarajevo and Yossel: April 19, 1943, all of which are illustrated along with Schelly’s insightful analysis that places these later, more mature works in the context of Kubert’s career. 224 pages of full-color comics and illustrations

So I'm going through last month's comics, which is pretty much at the end of the old DC Universe. I'm not sure if I should feel happy that at least they gave creators some time to tie up plotlines, or if I should be ticked that they pushed out multiple issues with obvious fill-in artists (so the top tier, I guess, could move on to the new universe stuff) and then, in an editorial, asked me to thank them for the privilege.

I don't collect Doom Patrol but I like Giffen's wrap up. Robinson's JLA wrap up seems like sour grapes (please feel sympathy for Donna Troy, even though I misused her in my title for the past year or so!). Jeff Lemire (Superboy) and Bryan Q. Miller (Batgirl) having shortened runs is criminal, but I'm sure they'll knock their DCnU stuff out of the park, pity I won't be there to see it, at least not in floppy form. JSA pretty much shows us why what was once one of the best franchises that DC had now has no title... man has that book gone downhill. Legion's coming back, but that didn't stop them from having a legion of fill-in artists anyway.

It really does seem like DC just ran themselves into the ground before starting up their new universe. Look at what should have been the flagship titles.

1. Marc Guggenheim on JSA just was not a good fit; he and Robinson crippled Alan Scott, then he gave him that lantern costume, he crippled Mr Terrific and brought half a dozen new heroes in with no explanation, AND made the team grim and gritty. It was like he pretty much came in with no understanding of the characters and just wanted to write his own story, which is not good on a team built from legacy characters.

2. Robinson's JLA had editorial interference and a d-list team that acted out of character, had way too many thought balloons, and had the same storyline over and over (oh, another insanely powerful villain who can turn teammates against them; hey, I hope we have some guest stars that can save the day!).

3. JMS had that whole Superman Grounded year-long story, which I haven't read but didn't seem that interesting to me and I have yet to find someone who really liked it. Before that was World of Krypton, which got summarily swept under the rug.

4. Ditto for that Wonder Woman in an alternate reality/new costume story. I still have no idea how this one ended. (I realize WW is not a huge selling title normally but it got a ton of hype)

5. Brightest Day: I've only collected the trades, but it doesn't seem like much is going on at all.

6. Johns and Manapul on Flash: certainly an incredible creative team, but did anything really happen in 12 issues? Did they know they were just going to tread water until Flashpoint?

Certainly Green Lantern (under Johns) and Batman (under Morrison) were doing well, and that's why they're not changing much. But intentionally or not, they made some terrible editorial decisions on some of their big titles at the exact same time. You'd think they would've cleaned house in that department before doing a relaunch, but we'll see. I already see some #2s have different artists.

Sorry for the semi-rant, DC's been the only floppies I've been getting and now there's a huge void (I'll still get Legion, and I started Marvel's Alpha Flight). I'm also intrigued by digital. I'm past the point where I really need the individual issue in my hand as a collector (hence my going to trades a long long time ago), and I mainly started getting monthly issues again to kinda keep up and out of a sense of nostalgia. But of the stuff I've collected in floppy form and the stuff I've collected in trade/HC, only a fraction of that is stuff that I really need to keep on my bookshelf, and they take up so much space, with little resale value. I'm not on board with paying full price for digital, but if they have the occasional 99c sale I can see myself picking up runs, since really, I just want to read comics, not collect them.

I don't think he's writing any DCnU books, disappointingly.

I'm definitely more cautious about buying much of the DCnU titles coming out in September. Since I rarely buy Marvel since all the titles I was interested in were $3.99 titles, and I just don't buy at that price point unless it's super-duper special, DC pretty much scuttled my DC buying habits, and now I have to declare some choice in which books I now want to hitch my comic buying habit onto, and it's only about 10 titles, and that means I'll be buying half as much as I did before the DCnU relaunch. DC might have done better by just launching their own version of DCUltimates line of comics instead of going for the total quasi-relaunch idea with their existing characters.

I just picked up a load of TPBs off GoHastings recent 40% off book sale, including John Byrne's Next Men Premiere Vol1 HC for only $7!!! What a steal!!! And what a great book! I'm so glad I picked it up. Too bad that series run was so short- but isn't that the way it is with good things.

It wasn't that short! It ran 30 issues back in the day and -- in case you're not aware -- Byrne restarted it through IDW recently. The 9th (and final) issue of the restart is due out next week; it wraps up the whole story, although Byrne has said he's going to do a series called "Aftermath" set in the same world and using some of the same characters.

There's so much focus on the DC reboot that I somehow overlooked the news of Mark Waid writing Daredevil. I picked up the first two issues last week and highly recommend them. Nothing groundbreaking, but lots of fun. And "fun" is something that has been lacking from Daredevil for a long time. Nice art from the current guy (can't recall his name offhand) with some art from Marcos Martin in upcoming issues!

Upon hearing news that a TV series is in the works, I finished the first volume of Powers and was very impressed by it. I liked the set up and how Walker origin story and how he came to be. However, I was disappointed by the ending.

I'll start the second volume soon...

The Walker origin story? I though that doesn't come into play until much much later, how many issues did the volume collect?

Finally got around to reading the first jumbo hc of the wolverine-led x-force which I've heard nothing but good things about. So far so good. Also re-read my Absolute New Frontier, which is not really in any kind of DC continuity but still made me miss the old DC universe. Also forgot how great it was, since it's been a while. I think I'll crack open my Absolute Justice next, which is probably almost completely the opposite.

What I meant was that I finished all 37 issues of the first volume of Powers. I believe the second run of the series was 30 issues.

So this will teach me to read the solicitations more carefully...

I've been reading Avengers Academy in trade form, so when the Avengers Academy trade Arcade Death Game was solicited, I ordered, thinking it was part of the series. It contains:
Avengers Academy Giant Size #1 (so far so good!)
Spider-Man (1990) #25
Marvel Team Up (1972) #89

You know what they all feature? Members of the Avengers Academy, maybe, or maybe old tales of their staff? No, they all feature Arcade. That's it. And I already read Spider-Man #25, back in... 1990 or so. This seems like a new low to me. 14.99 cover price for this. They couldn't just throw this in with the next Avengers Academy trade? Bad enough that their trades and select HCs are collecting 3 to 4 issues at a time now. I know it's my own fault for preordering this, but this is ridiculous to me. Who demanded that they reprint these issues? Ugh... I'm probably the only person on the planet that bought this.

Here's the first review that came up when I searched for the issue online:
http://comics.ign.com/articles/116/1166173p1.html
The tagline: "Want to save $8? Don't buy this comic book"

Finally read Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. Wow. That just about blows away every other comic I've read not called Sandman. I can only imagine reading those when they first came out. It's like Alan Moore turned comics from entertainment to art in one series.

Now I'm going to dive in to Tintin.

It really was that revolutionary, IMHO.

I'm sure that's slighting many talented writers and artists throughout the preceding years, but Alan Moore made a lot of us go, 'wow'.

I was a voracious mainly DC reader from the 1970s onward, and Swamp Thing was actually my favorite character from his Wein and Wrightson origins. Reading Alan Moore's take on the character was like waking up from a great dream and finding yourself in an even better one.

DC had a great run from the mid-80s to the early 90s that started with Swamp Thing.

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and Animal Man, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis' Hellblazer, Watchmen, V for Vendetta... that's just an insane amount of amazing comic books.

And of course The Dark Knight Returns.

I hope you have read Alan Moore's run on Miracleman. As good or better than his work on Swamp Thing. Horribly rare to find because the rights mess has prevented any reprinting, but very easy to find on Google if you know what I mean.

I'm about to give some of those books a run too. I looked at some of the art, and it holds up surprisingly well.

Wait... you just discovered Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and now are about to dive into Tintin?? I'd kill or die to be able to experience both sets of comics for the first time all over again.

I read Moore's SWAMP THING in its first run. To say it was mindblowing when it first came out is understatement of the century. And I discovered them at the spinner rack of my local Circle K (Aahhh, where I road my bike to for 20 minutes just to get my comics fix... where [MiddleAgedFart]10 bucks got you 10 comics, a Snickers, and a Coke [/MiddleAgedFart]...)

You ever read Jamie Delano's HELLBLAZER?

I didn't just discover Swamp Thing or Tintin. I've known about both for years (actually did read some Tintin when I was a kid), but somehow never got around to giving them the proper reads they deserve. I knew that Moore's reputation in America started with Swamp Thing. But I had read Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and I assumed that Swamp Thing was just a jumping off point to those other works. Boy was I wrong. I like his Swamp Thing run more than anything else I've read of his.

Hellblazer is next on my list.

Best superhero movie ever???

WHITE LUKE CAGE!

http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2011/09...e-is-brilliant

Also, the talk of Miracleman gives me an opportunity to brag that I have the entire run. It is the most prized possession. I plan to be buried with it.

I love when you guys get on classic tangents like this, it gives a noob like me a ton of suggestions.

Is Miracleman truly gone forever for someone like me, or could it be settled someday?

Saying it's convoluted would be an understatement. If you want to know:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle...ter.27s_future

If you really want to read it, at least for the foreseeable future, your best bet is to "obtain" them digitally.