Posts Tagged ‘free comic book day’

I have issues

January 31st, 2009 by jason

Comics read since last time:

JLA 70-71
Scalped 12-18
Spider-Man: Swing Shift
PVP (this week)

I’m halfway through The Obsidian Age arc, finishing off the first trade just in time to return it to the library on the due date, and haven’t yet started the second trade, so I’m still not sure where it’ll end up. Our heroes are stuck in the past, and in the present, the alternate JLA is facing the press, in a scene very reminiscent of when Captain America introduces Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. There are questions about where the “real” JLA is, which the Atom fields like a pro, only stumbling when a question gets asked by the reporter with the most invested in the answer: Lois Lane. I love team books, even though you can get pretty tired reading them. You increase the power level exponentially by having all these characters team up, so you need to up the potential catastrophe. It actually gets a little farcical. How does anyone actually get anything accomplished when disaster strikes constantly, the type of disaster that can only be averted by the JLA? And that’s what this new JLA is facing: crisis-level disasters. One of the things I love about team books is the changing roster of the team. I miss the covers with the faces bordering the artwork, showing the rollcall, especially when it was a team-up of teams.

One of the best series to come from Vertigo in a long time is Jason Aaron’s Scalped. Part film noir, part hard-boiled detective story, part police procedural, Scalped continuously amazes me issue after issue. I’ve been reading it in trades, the third trade being the most current. Vertigo has been doing a good job of keeping the trades of their series coming out at a good clip, nearly keeping pace with the single issue releases. Six or seven issues come out and bang, a trade is on the shelves by the time the next issue is released. Along with the recently cancelled Exterminators, Scalped is the cream of Vertigo’s crop–which probably means it’s the next to get the axe. I wonder if we’ll see it get translated to another media soon; I can see it picked up by Showtime or HBO for a series.

I read Spider-Man: Swing Shift, the Free Comic Book Day issue from nearly two years ago. It was the first part of the first trade of Brand New Day, acting as a lead-in to the new Spider-Man continuity. Dan Slott’s stories of Brand New Day are probably my least favourite, as they seem to be a rehash of what he did with She-Hulk, particularly with the love triangles. I’d heard lots of complaints about Swing Shift. I’m not sure what there was to complain about, because there’s hardly anything there. I guess it really is a case of you get what you pay for. But, in essence, it fulfilled its mission; it introduced us to what Brand New Day was going to be.

I caught up on this week’s PVP, mostly one off strips after the arc with Brent meeting the 10th Doctor. Enjoyable as always, although Brent’s new chin is taking some getting used to. It’s interesting to look at the changes in the characters over the years, and how the designs have evolved. The chin is almost a minor change in comparison, but until I get used to it, I’m going to stumble a few times when reading the new strips.

Podcast #004

May 8th, 2008 by Martin

In this, the fourth ReadComics.org podcast, we talk about Starman, Brian K Vaughan (Ex Machina and Y, The Last Man, Runaways), Suburban Glamour, free comic book day, Sandman, starting a comic book library, and the Hi, I’m a Marvel… and I’m a DC parody on youtube.

Marty, Florence and Jason are joined by Susie via Skype.

Listen to the ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #004 (54 min, 25 MB)