My favorite not actually a comic book, comic book stuff
May 9th, 2008 by SusieI love comic books, that is pretty obvious, but I think I may like these things even more.
1) Marvel/DC
No I am not talking about the rival comic publishers, or their occasional cross company crossovers. I am talking about the youtube webseries starring action figures of both companies most popular characters. It started as a parody of, the hi I am a mac and I am a PC comercials. And it was funny. Superman played the uptight PC role and Spiderman was the laid back Mac. It worked as a parody of the comercial as well as poking fun at the characters and their respective companies. Observe
It is clear that the creator Some Random Guy, has a deep affection for the characters he has borrowed. As the series progressed more characters were worked in and the format shifted from the mac ads formula to a narrative. The Universe threatening crisis that concluded the first season was far more exciting and engaging to me than anything being published by either company right now. The second season Marvel/DC: Happy Hour has just started. I must admit I was more giddy about this than about the upcoming release of the Dark Knight.
2) Year One
This webcomic strip is currently on a long term hiatus, presumably so Matt Parkinson the creator can find work that will pay. The archive is definitely worth taking a look at. The first month or two of strips can be skipped unless you want to see how far his skill as a stripist(?) stripper(?) progressed. The premise is simple, all the marvel characters are children that go to school together. The charecthers are pretty adorable my favorite being the hyper and a bit dimwitted Speedball
Sometimes the strips are simple gags like Beast from X-Men morphing into Cookie Monster at the sight of a plate cookies. Other times they are dissections of the often ridiculously complicated Marvel continuity. Here is a strip featuring the kids from the school across the road.
3) Cat Tales. This a long runing series of fanfiction. There are currently 5 books and at least 2 spinoff projects. So far I have only read the first seven chapters of book one. It centers around a relationship between Batman and Catwoman, but whole batcast is featured. It is very well written and a pretty funny and compelling look into their heads. IUt also is conveniently available to download in PDF, making it easy to transfer to portable devices.
So that is it, my favorite comic related stuff. Ooooh! One more. Larry Niven’s essay Man Of Steel, Women of Kleenex. It was written in the seventies and deals with the problematic realities of procreation for Superman and Lois Lane. It’s funny y’all. It was collected in his short story collection All the Myriad Ways.
Tags: fanfiction, funny, webcomics, webseries
May 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I remember reading ‘Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’ back in high school and it blew my mind. I still find myself referencing it at least once a year to someone who has never heard of it!
I also totally concur about the Marvel/DC vignettes on youtube. Marty and I stayed up way to late the night that we discovered it, watching episode after episode until we fell asleep in from the the computer. I don’t have the stamina for full comic crisis events, but I am looking forward to watching all of these episodes.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I’ve started reading the Year One comics, and I’m enjoying them, but man, that guy needs a few lessons on webpage layout. Having to scroll down to see the comic when I click for the next one, and then have the next comic link even further down by scrolling? It’s like he doesn’t want people to actually read his comic. At least you can click to the next comic by clicking on the current one, so you don’t have to scroll down to the next comic link. I know that this doesn’t have anything to do with his actual comic, but if viewers have a hard time reading your comic, they’re not going to bother going back to read it regularly.