I liked the pilot a good old-school fun action
So who picked (or should i say didn’t picked) up Joe the Barbarian
I kinda liked it but i know how Morrison stories work and you need to give them time to devlop and i realy think this is going to be a great series
[media=youtube]o_K6y8ihyi8"[/media] Day. Fucking. One.
“I’m the black Macgyver BLAGYVER”
Yeah, The Losers has quite the fine trailer. I’m looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to maniacally devouring all the TRADES, BABY to refresh my memory in preparation.
I highly recommend the Vertigo Resurrected book that came out last week. It’s got Warren Ellis’ Shoot (unpublished Hellblazer story that was censored due to subject matter and the fact that Ellis’ run on Hellblazer coincided with Columbine) published for the first time, and in color to boot. There are also a smattering of short stories from A-list creators (Morrison/Quitely, Azzarello, Risso, Milligan, Ennis, etc.). The short stories are from various Vertigo anthologies that came out in the late '90s or early 2000s, and they are pretty great stuff.
Shoot has been floating around on the internet for a long time, but there’s something special about being able to hold it in your hands as you read it.
100 pages for 8 bucks - it’s a good deal.
Damn, I missed this thread.
Yeah, I heard about that at my shop, but I thought they were referring to something a bit larger like a trade. I’ve never read anything by Warren Ellis or any Hellblazer for that matter, but it sounds like a hell of a deal considering the all-star talent that’s featured. Coincidentally, Azzarello has stated that he and Risso will be joining forces again soon. I can’t fucking wait, to say the least.
Yeah, it is a hell of a deal. Ellis is one of the best writers in comics and he’s definitely one of my all-time favorites. A good starting point with either Ellis and/or Hellblazer would be the Hellblazer: Haunted TPB. Check it out if you ever get a chance. That book was actually my first serious exposure to Hellblazer, too.
(Speaking of Ellis, this week I stumbled onto an awesome deal. Someone on Craigslist sold me an entire run of Transmetropolitan TRADES, BABY for only 20 bucks. Yup, twenty bucks! They say that a penny saved is a penny earned… I just came out on top.)
The next Vertigo Resurrected book should come out in November. It’ll collect The Extremist by Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever. This was one of Vertigo’s original miniseries when they launched the imprint in the early '90s. I didn’t discover until the early 2000’s but it was what made me become a hardcore Milligan fan as well as a Vertigo fan. To quote Jack Kirby, “Don’t ask, just buy it!”
DMZ and Greek Street are my shit… i love the nitty gritty feel of neo urban noir-ish titles… CANNOT! wait for Greek St. vol.2
Excellent work on the Transmetropolitan score, and Hellblazer: Haunted is duly noted.
So, I’ve been making a few cuts to my pull list, and I’m thinking that money would be better spent on something more Vertigo-ish. How does current Hellblazer fare? I’m still considering picking up Scalped, it seems like something I might enjoy. I can’t really tell. I feel so pretentious just saying the word “Vertigo.”
By the way, what was the Azzarello story in that Resurrected book?
Greek Street is cool but it sucks that it got canceled, like far too many of Milligan’s comics. And DMZ’s good stuff, too - I’m just horribly behind on it. I think I only have the first three TRADES, BABY. I’ve noticed Vertigo books tend to be tougher to find in 50% off bins. I should probably be more consistent about supporting them by buying the books when they come out new.
Scalped kicks ass. Pretty sure it would be right up your alley, carny. It’s a crime noir in a setting that isn’t totally contrived. I only have volume 1 but I’ve read it more than once. I’m just keeping my eye out for cheap deals so I can score the rest of the books one of these days.
Current Hellblazer is awesome stuff, too. Milligan’s been writing! But alas, I am behind on his run, too. I only have the first TRADE, BABY. But you can’t go wrong. I honestly feel that, pound for pound, Hellblazer has been one of the most consistently good ongoing series ever. Even baseline average Hellblazer is as good as or more interesting than most of the other stuff DC, Marvel, and even Image crap out on a normal basis.
The Azzarello story in the Vertigo Resurrected book is just a short story (8 pages, I think) from an old Vertigo anthology miniseries that came out earlier in the decade. Risso didn’t draw it; I forget who did, and I don’t have my copy on me right now. I think Risso might have drawn the Milligan short story in the book.
Also, have you guys been reading the Vertigo Crime sub-imprint of hardback OGNs? I’ve read a few of them so far and they have all been really good, well worth owning. Filthy Rich was by Azz. Ian Rankin wrote a Hellblazer one. Christos Gage wrote Area 10, which was a fascinating crime story about trepanation - the art of drilling a hole into the skull. Area 10 was probably one of the best things I’ve ever read from Gage, and I think he’s a very good writer, one of the best writers to rise to prominence in the past decade.
The Bronx Kill by Milligan was probably my favorite of the ones I’ve read so far, though. That one is basically about a writer who is searching for his missing wife, only to find that the skeletons in his past may have something to do with the wreck his life has begun.
I think the most recent one to come out is A Sickness in the Family by Denise Mina. I gotta get that. She’s pretty great. She’s a crime novelist but did an impressive year’s run on Hellblazer a couple years ago. I’ve read one of her novels twice because I loved it that much.
Honestly, Hellblazer is probably something I could definitely get into, but it’s one of those things that doesn’t really interest me without a good read to hook me. I know that sounds presumptuous, but hear me out. For example, with Criminal and The Walking Dead, I have two amazing titles that also happen to involve two niches that I never get tired of: noir and zombies. I’m sure Hellblazer is interesting, but I feel as if I’d need to be invested in the story before I could buy it.
So, I went to my shop and he was out of Vertigo Resurrected. The only other shop around here is this weak board game store and I don’t know if their pretension meter is high enough to carry it. I didn’t pick up Scalped either, because you said you’d only read Vol. 1, and I was hoping for a suggested issue to start at. Goddamn, I hate jumping on points.
It’s funny that you mention Christos Gage. I just dropped Hama’s ARAH for the vastly superior Cobra series that he’s cowriting with Mike Costa. I really hope it’s the start of a long run, because it looks amazing. I wish I’d been buying it all along, because it’s basically the way I’d approach writing G.I. Joe.
That reminds me, are you buying Incognito individually or waiting for the…trade?
Now that Greek Street is done, Incognito/CRIMINAAAAAAAAAL!!!11 are the only series I will buy at full price at the store as soon as they are released. Everything else, I will wait for the TRADE, BABY or take a chance that I can find in a quarter bin six months down the line.
You should check out Scalped because I’m pretty sure you’d like it. Just start with volume 1. It’s only like 10 bucks for the first 5 issues. Even so, I’m sure any random issue off the racks would be enjoyable, like 100 Bullets was enjoyable no matter what you read. Sure, you might be lost in terms of knowing all the back story and characters’ relationships, but I think comics like that are good enough where it doesn’t matter if you don’t know everything. You can still get into them just because they are strong stories executed with a high command of craft that they inspire you to seek out more. That’s how I discovered SLEEEEEEEEEPER!!!1! for the first time: just picked up a random issue of Season One because the cover looked cool. Had no idea what the eff was going on but loved it so much I tracked down the rest of it.
For Hellblazer, I would usually say that the hook of the title is the creative team. John Constantine is one of those characters in fiction that is sharply defined, but somehow still malleable enough that people can tell all sorts of stories with him. Kind of like Batman, in that regard, only with a better ratio of quality per issue. I would actually consider him a rather noirish character. Although he may not usually deal with crime like in typical crime stories, there’s a hard-boiled element to the world he inhabits.
Excellent. We gotta do our part and help support Brubaker’s endeavors. I love how he’s always quick to encourage his readers to buy the comics, reminding us that the noir/pulp essays aren’t reprinted in the trades. I can’t blame the guy, he has to make a living and those essays are extremely interesting to someone like me.
I’m almost positive I’d like Scalped too. I just don’t want to begin reading, get invested in the story and have it end. This is what happened when I found 100 Bullets. By the time I’d started reading, 100 Bullets was around 80-90 issues in, so I just started slowly into the trades. Now if I want to read 100 Bullets, I have to wait until I have extra cash for a trades. So, I read up on it and apparently the current issue is just wrapping up an “arc” of sorts. I really don’t like that word. Anyways, it seems like Scalped #43 might be a good place to start. Now it’s just a question of whether I’d prefer to start on current issues that I can afford, or wait a while and start at the beginning through the trades.
That’s exactly what happened with me and Daredevil. I’d recently discovered Sin City and I was blown the fuck away, so I was on a Miller binge. Of course, by then, even I had heard of his Daredevil run. Ironically, to be as well-known as it is, his run was fairly difficult to find in a collected edition and I couldn’t exactly afford single issues. So…one Wednesday, I just walked into the comic store and looked at the newest issue of Daredevil. It was #105 with a beautiful cover by Marko Djurdjevic with Mr. Fear’s mask reflecting a very pissed off DD. I bought it almost completely on a whim, with no indication of whether or not I’d enjoy it, and here I am today hopelessly addicted to both Daredevil and Ed Brubaker. Thanks, Mr. Fear.
I guess that’s probably true with any title that’s been around as long as Hellblazer. Good writers will come and go, so it might be better to read individual trades from familiar faces.
Is it true that the essays/backmatter aren’t reprinted? I know they aren’t in the paperback collections, but are they in the deluxe hardcovers? I was under the impression that they were reprinted in the hardcovers. But I don’t own the CRIMINAAAAAAL!!!1 HC and I have never seen a copy that wasn’t shrink-wrapped, so I don’t know for sure.
If it makes you feel better, I haven’t finished reading 100 Bullets myself. I think I’ve read up to volume 8 or 9. I own them all except for volume 12, which is the only book, for some reason, I haven’t been able to find for 50% off or cheaper. I already have volume 13.
Honestly, I would say you’re better off waiting for the TRADE, BABY in just about any case. Yeah, I do wanna support a series if it seems like it’s in the danger zone, but I think Scalped is safe. I think it’s established itself well enough that the only danger it’s in is whatever danger Vertigo as a whole is in. (And who knows what the hell will happen now that DC Entertainment has been going through all the restructuring and shakeups.) I guess it’s selfish of me to always be on the lookout for cheap deals in the second-hand or overstock market, but at this point in my life, I do have to be fairly frugal with my expenditures. It takes a lot to inspire me to support a comic on a monthly basis now.
I’ve never looked inside the hardcover editions either. However, the description for the Criminal hardcover on Amazon sites “selected articles” as a feature. Maybe Brubaker is only referring to trades?
When I was at my shop earlier I brought up my predicament with Scalped, which somehow led to 100 Bullets, and this guy offered to lend me Vol. 7-13. Of course this is the same guy who keeps saying he’ll let me borrow Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter. So maybe I’ll get to finally finish 100 Bullets, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up.
I haven’t really come to a conclusion on how I’ll read Scalped, but I’m leaning more towards the trades. There is no need to explain though, I can fully understand your frugality. I don’t think it’s selfish at all, in fact, it’s admirable. I wish I had the patience to wait for a comic series to be collected and search out good deals through secondhand markets. But alas, I am driven by impatience and a compulsion to buy my books new.
The Hunter was really quite good. COOKE’s second Stark adaptation just came out recently, too. I heard that The Outfit is even better than The Hunter. I gotta check that out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the CRIMINAAAAAAAAL!!1 hardcover collects a lot of the backmatter from the issues that initially was promised to not be reprinted. I ain’t angry if they reneged on that promise. I still feel like CRIMINAAAAAAAAAL!!1 and Incognito are worth the $3.50. There’s something to respect about a carefully-constructed comic that takes more than 3 minutes to read and has very few, if any, advertisements. I respect that.
Several months ago, I bought this oversized prelude to The Outfit called The Man With the Getaway Face for a mere $2. I don’t know how many pages it was, but it was over way too damn fast. So yeah, I want to read it, but not as badly as I want to finish 100 Bullets.
Either way, I’m grateful for the articles. I read them with almost the same vigor as I do the actual story. Hell, if it weren’t for them, authors like Elmore Leonard and Richard Stark wouldn’t even be on my radar.
Keep your eyes out for Vertigo Resurrected: The Extremist, which ships this week. It collects the four issues miniseries by Milligan and Ted McKeever that was one of the very first original Vertigo comics when the imprint was birthed. It still holds up today. Great collection for a pretty nice price.
I knew I was forgetting something. I asked the shop owner about it, and he said he didn’t really care for it. However, I forgot to flip through it personally. Generally, I avoid things that expensive because I only buy around 10 titles a month, so purchasing something like that basically doubles my weekly allotment for comics in one damn swoop. If he still has a copy tomorrow, I’ll definitely look at it.
By the way, remember that previously mentioned acquaintance? Yeah, he actually went above and beyond, and left me a whole short box full of comics I’ve been wanting to read for years. Not only did he bring The Hunter and 100 Bullets Vol. 7-13, but he also threw in El Diablo, Filthy Rich, Selina’s Big Score, American Century Vol. 1-2, Loveless Vol. 2-3, Scalped Vol. 2-4, and Preacher Vol. 1-9. He also told the owner to remind me that I wasn’t obligated to read any of the extra stuff and there is no rush. Are you kidding? I’m gonna read all this shit, twice. It figures as soon as I lose faith, he pulls through.
I’m such a bastard.