Live-Post: Sunday Afternoon Comics - Belly Button Comix #1

European comics are so strange.

I try these days to pick up something a bit out of the ordinary when I'm dropping a bunch of cash on comics. Fantagraphics never disappoints as far as "out of the ordinary" goes. Weird biographical comics about a woman living in Paris. There's a lot of ennui and angst, which sometimes feels like a bit of a cliche in comics like this, until I realize that cliches become cliches because they are, for the most part, true. I feel ennui and angst sometimes. I wish I had comics to let it out into.

Last one for today. I've got Empire: Uprising and Annihilator to read, but I'm going to reread the stuff leading up to the new issues first. Also picked up an Atomic Robo graphic novel, a Rick Veitch graphic novel, and the Man-Thing movie prequel.

Live-Post: Sunday Afternoon Comics - The Empty #4

Dear Image Comics: Please stop publishing so many FUCKING AMAZING comics. I am very poor.

A strangely-bloody Disney post-apocalypse? The revelation of harmony in nature only after we've completely fucked everything up? Women with really long arms and really long necks race to save the planet! I'm still not 100% sure what's going on in The Empty, but I have an inkling, and there was a really great cliffhanger at the end of this issue.

Live-Post: Sunday Afternoon Comics - Material #1

The word "material" has so many different meanings.

Ales Kot is cranking out comic after comic. While I was in the store today with my pal Tom, I wondered just how many comics he could put out without his writing becoming too diluted. He appears to be doing okay so far. Material is made of material, of physical material, of written material, of matter-ial. The material of Material is material issues of our material world, materialized in the aforesaid material. Material. Material.

Live-Post: Sunday Afternoon Comics - Steven Universe: Greg Universe Special

Are you watching Steven Universe? You probably should be.

Greg Universe is an enigmatic character, for all that he's portrayed, sometimes, as a simpleton. I'm not sure this comic answers much of the enigma, but it does do a lovely job of representing what is wonderful about this "semi-background-but-really-actually-pretty-fundamental" character in the show.

Also, I had no idea that there were Steven Universe comics. So. Excited.

Live Post - Sunday Afternoon Comics - E is for Extinction #1

I just went out and spent $80 on comics. The pile I came back with doesn't really look like $80 worth of comics, but complaining about high prices and exchange rates will get me nowhere.

I've been looking forward to E is for Extinction since I found out it was coming out. Morrison's New X-Men was really the last time I enjoyed the merry mutants, so to see a series that extrapolates what might have been is such a treat. There's a nice lynch pin moment at the very beginning that sets up the whole series, and how it diverges from the Morrison saga. Wonder if we'll see Fantomex?

Stay tuned. Some more neat things coming up this afternoon.

Crosspost from Facebook

A little more coherent wrap-up of the comics I live-blogged earlier.

"To celebrate handing in my exam, I went out and bought some comics. Here's some things I think are pretty good:

ODY-C - retelling of Homer's epic set in space with an all-female cast. One of the most beautifully coloured comics I've ever seen, and written in Homeric verse. Supposedly. I don't know what Homeric verse is.

Intersect - I just wrote on my blog that when I read this comic, I feel like I'm taking part in some weird performance art. I thought I had a sort of general idea of what was going on, and then things got very weird, very fast.

Kaijumax - I actually don't know if I'm going to keep reading this one. I found it uncomfortable. It's set in a super-max prison for all those monsters from Japanese B-movies, and the art style is fairly cartoony, but it is played FUCKING HARDCORE LIKE OZ. And that's a bit disturbing.

Secret Wars - So, yeah, forget that Infinty Whatever movie stuff that's coming up in 2018/19 - Jonathan Hickman is telling the ultimate story of Marvel superheroes right now. I know that's a pretty hyperbolic thing to say, but it's really, really, really good.

The Surface - I'm convinced that writer Ales Kot is either having a very intense conversation with Grant Morrison, or he is Grant Morrison. This comic's use of the format is blowing my mind. As is Intersect, actually. Some very cool formal experimentation going on.

That's it. As you were."

Live Post - Wednesday Afternoon Comics - The Surface #2

Ales Kot is having a really intense conversation with Grant Morrison.

Or is Grant Morrison.

That's it for today. You should check out all the comics I've read today. Not a bad one in the bunch.

Live Post - Wednesday Afternoon Comics - ODY-C #4

Be warned. This comic is bloody. Bloody bloody bloody bloody.

(I was thinking of putting "good" at then of that string of "bloody"s, but I don't want to de-emphasize how bloody this comic is. It's amazing. But it's bloody. You've been warned.)

Live Post - Wednesday Afternoon Comics - Intersect #5

This is what's written at the end of this comic:

"The story so far:
You are reading a monthly comic book called 'INTERSECT'. The story seems deliberately obtuse and difficult to decipher, like a cipher. But there's something about it, and about you, that keeps you reading. You experience it, and you hold on to it.

Part of you is hoping that it will all come together in the end, that there will be a moment that makes you say, 'Ah, it all makes sense now.' Another part of you knows that would only disappoint you.

You live in a world that makes no sense whatsoever."

Yes I do.

You should read this comic.

Live Post - Wednesday Afternoon Comics - ODY-C #3

Yep. This is pretty bloody brilliant.

Live Post - Wednesday Afternoon Comics - ODY-C #2

(Sorry. Stopped for a tea break with my lovely wife.)

Fraction and Ward are doing something truly significant with this comic. I think everyone should be reading it. It is beautiful and complex.

And see? It's Wednesday.

Live Post - Saturday Afternoon Comics - Intersect #4

Ray Fawkes is freaking me out with the most beautiful art. Reading this comic feels a bit like taking part in a piece of performance art.

Edit: I just realized that it's not Saturday. I swear, just for a moment there, I really did think it was.

Live Post - Saturday Afternoon Comics - Secret Wars #2

I hate it when reviews ready really hyperbolically, but I'm going to go ahead and say the Jonathan Hickman is telling the ultimate Marvel U story, something Crisis-esque.

Yeah, okay, maybe too much. But y'know what? It's really, really, really good.

Live Post - Saturday Afternoon Comics - Kaijumax #1

This comic was seriously off-putting. Think Oz meets Saturday morning cartoon. No, wait, how about Oz if everyone was wearing giant rubber monster suits. But in a comic. There's a volcano with a face. It's set in a maximum security prison for the giant monsters of Japanese B-movies.

It's gonna be a thoroughly unpleasant comic to read. But, y'know, in that Preacher kind of way.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 19:28

Okay, done, it's definitely dinner time.

The re-org went okay, and it was only a minor one, really. I've moved the Avengers subcollection and the Flash subcollection into the storage room, put the Steve Gerber subcollection onto the shelves holding my active collection (I'm working on a book proposal on Gerber for Sequart right now), and in the space I have on my shelf now, I've put my BIONICLE MOCs. That's a whole other blog....

I'm left now with the Shadowline Saga and DC One Million comics to put away into the active collection. I've had the One Million stuff organized under each individual title for a while now, but that makes no sense in context of the series. They're all going to be filed together now. I'll have to change that in the database too.

Was it fun? Was it simply a way of getting more page hits? (I hadn't thought of that until just now). I don't know. It was an exercise. The collection's a big part of my life. This is how I spend time with it.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 18:59

I've just moved all the end boxes of the Storage collection back into place, and I'm starting on the separate Superman and Batman-related titles collections. I was right, there was no room for those last few letters. Since we've moved here, I've been slowly upgrading my longboxes into drawer boxes (I'll make that into a link later), which make accessing the collection much easier. I'm hoping to get a few more with some research money I've just been awarded.

Still sitting at 9996. Surely there's four people who haven't read my ramblings about comic collecting today who really should.

The Superman stuff is fun. I always want to sit down and read about 10 Superman comics when I'm flipping through them. Some of the old 60s and 70s stuff is super-weird. I've yet to give that era of Batman a fair go, but I feel overdosed on Batman a lot of the time. Like Wolverine at Marvel.

Okay, back to it. Dinner time soon.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 18:39

Got held up. My Mum called. She calls every Sunday and we chat and do a trivia quiz from the Toronto Star. The whole family does it, and then at Christmas we tally up the results and see who's won. It's usually my youngest brother Peter. He has a remarkable mind for useless trivia. Or my Dad. I think my middle brother, Kevin, won once. My Mum and I are happy to participate. (that was sarcastic. A bit).

So here's something interesting. Right now, at about twenty to six on April 5th, 2015, my blog is 4 views away from 10000. I'm pretty happy with that. I know, in the grand scheme of things, that's a drop in the bucket compared to a lot of bigger blogging sites and bloggers, but the fact that anything, even a list of links, that I've shared is of interest to even one person, let alone 10000 is pretty amazing.

I'm hoping it'll tick over soon. I've been watching all day. Yep. My life is just that exciting.

In collection news, I'm rapidly running out of space. I think T - Z might have to wait until I get a new box or two.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 18:07

Running out of room. And steam. Must be dinner time soon.

I've come across the old Epic "Shadowline Saga" stuff, which I mentioned in my first "Secret Wars" post. So, of course, they're out and ready to be read. I guess I don't have to limit everything to once a day. Just means I'll re-read them when I reach them in-project.

My music was so loud I almost didn't hear the alarm I've set. Moon Duo, Ween, Syd Barrett, Cream, MGMT...yeah, it's that kind of afternoon.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 17:47

I was just filing Jonathan Lethem's re-imagining of  Omega the Unknown. I just picked up a hardcover collection of it at my local Chapters for 8 bucks. It pays homage to Steve Gerber's bizarre little 70s project, one of the great mysteries of superhero comics. Gerber fell out with Marvel well before the original series ended, and he, to his dying day, never (at least to my knowledge) revealed how the story was supposed to end. I think Marvel had someone finish it up in Defenders some time later, but Gerber (and co-writer Mary Skrenes) never revealed what was meant to happen.

At this point, I think whatever we've imagined is going to be better that what was. But then again, it was Gerber, and he's never disappointing.

Live-Post: Reorganizing my comic collection, Sunday, April 5, 2015 @ 17:26

My shoulders hurt. Already.

Collectors, you know that shuffling of comics you have to do from box to box to make room, where you have to gauge whether or not you've left enough room to flip through, and you seem to go back and forth through your collection scrimping and scraping for room to house these frakkin' 6 books from THE LETTER B!!!

Sorry. Having trouble making room up there in the early alphabet. And I don't want to end up in box 20 with a few inches of space that really needs to be in box 3. I'll quit if that's the case. Too bad Battlebooks. (I just googled around for a link to Battlebooks, and I couldn't find anything. Weird. They're like those Lost Worlds gamebooks, but in comics form and with comic characters. Shi vs. Captain America. That sort of thing.)

Okay, see you in 15.