Very nice. That’s a whole lotta reading ahead of you. Definitely gonna be a happy Thanksgiving. I was always curious about El Diablo. Azzarello, right? You’ll have to let me know how that is. Filthy Rich is good stuff. I like all of those Vertigo Crime books I’ve read. I haven’t read American Century, either. I think it was one of those series that got canceled before its time and they never did trades that collected all of it.
Definitely pick up The Extremist. It’s worth skipping out on a couple of titles. You’ll get your money’s worth. There really isn’t much else like it and the artwork and colors look even sharper in this reprint.
Scalped is fucking brilliant. It can be extremely depressing at times, but it’s fucking brilliant nonetheless. Several things even tugged at my heartstrings, which anyone who reads much noir can tell you is pretty rare for the genre. In that respect, I applaud Jason Aaron. Well done, sir. I feel like kicking my own ass for not reading it until now.
Those Vertigo Resurrected books have been goldmines so far. I just wish the covers were thicker stock so I could put them on a shelf. I need to get the most recent one; it’s got a couple of Hellblazer stories by Ennis/Dillon and Jason Aaron.
carny, you ever end up reading El Diablo or any of those other books you mentioned last month?
So far I’ve only read Scalped, The Hunter and Selina’s Big Score. The only reason I didn’t mention it before was that I felt like I was talking to a wall, and I didn’t want to generalize them. If you’d like to know my thoughts on them, I could certainly go into depth if you like.
Right now I’m working my way through 100 Bullets again. I was tempted to jump in at Vol. 7, but after a bit of deliberation I decided it’d be an injustice to Azzarello, Risso and myself. Afterward, I plan on reading the rest of the Azzarello material. I never really considered myself a slow reader, but maybe I am. If it’s something I really enjoy, I tend to take in the art more and just savor it. Not only that, but I want to read a full arc at a time. So basically, if I can’t finish a trade a night, I simply wait until I can.
The thing about 100 Bullets is that everything is connected so you pretty much need to read everything (beside a filler chapter here and there) in order to fully understand the entire story
But well its hella worth it
You know, everyone raves about scalped (including my good friend irl) and I read the first tpb, but I wasn’t feeling it. Does it get better? Or should I not bother if I didn’t really like the first volume? The world just didn’t grab me I guess.
Honestly, the first time I read my Scalped volume 1, I wasn’t really feeling it, either. I almost regretted buying it. But then a few months or a year or so later, I read it again and ended up liking it a lot, to the point where I have no idea why I didn’t think much of it the first time. The only reason I haven’t been keeping up with it is 'cause my cheap ass has been holding out hope for finding a cheap deal on the other volumes.
I’m not discussing Scalped until I’ve read it further. Hell, I haven’t even read all of Vol. 1.
Between the other two, I enjoyed The Hunter more. The character Parker is excellent in that, he’s an antihero without feeling completely stale. What makes him so interesting is that while he’s a cold-blooded killer, not only does he know his limits, but he still manages to retain the utmost degree of professionalism. However, because of that, he’s extremely difficult for the reader to relate to due to his callous nature. Having not read the original novel, I can’t really comment on the story itself, other than it was tad predictable. But, the ending of a noir is rarely as important as the story itself. So that’s forgivable. As far as the art, I have nothing but praise for Cooke. His career as an animator has certainly translated well to comics. I especially admire his use of small, tight panels when he’s focusing on details as well as the “silent” panels with no word balloons. Both of those techniques are vastly underrated and can greatly intensify the drama. The only issue I had with the art was that the monochrome coloring made a few panels difficult to understand, but then again that’s a minor complaint.
Selina’s Big Score wasn’t necessarily bad, it just felt as if Slam Bradley’s portion of the story was kind of forced. This is a shame, because I think he’s an interesting character with some potential. Also, I know next to nothing about Catwoman, and I feel as if she could have been replaced with nearly any cat burglar character. In a way this is a good thing and a bad thing. Obviously the negative aspect is that the story fails to tell me much about Selina, but at the same time, there is nearly no mention of Catwoman, nor is there any interference from Batman. So in that regard, you have yourself a decent little heist comic with no capes. I loved how Cooke divided the story up into segments leading up to the heist that were reminiscent of title cards in a film, and how most of the story consisted of the planning aspect with the heist itself playing the role of the terse, violent climax. The art was certainly sloppier this time around, which isn’t exactly a bad thing. Cooke really got his hands dirty with heavy inks stains on every page. Thus, shadows are much more prevalent, and as a result you get a look that’s more akin to film noir. One final detail I’d like to make note of was the diversity of Bradley’s dialogue lettering. I loved how it was the courier font, like Ben Urich’s text often is. I can’t tell you how giddy I get when I’m reading a Daredevil comic and Urich’s thoughts appear as if he’s typing them out.
Damn, I went out of my way again.
So I’ve been told, but I have yet to read a filler chapter. In fact, I’m not sure such a thing exists in 100 Bullets.
It’s been a couple of years since I last read Selina’s Big Score. This makes me want to reread it. You should also check out Brubaker’s Catwoman series. From what I remember, Selina’s Big Score serves as a pretty nice retroactive prologue to it. (Cooke did this OGN after he and Bru relaunched Catwoman.)
Maybe I should. What is with Selina and men though? Is she an abuse victim or something? I want to say SBS hinted at her being a prostitute in the past, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
A good Morrison Vertigo starter book would probably either Animal Man or Doom Patrol. Both of those are still some of his best work, and some of the greatest superhero comics ever. Those are two comics that actually helped give birth to Vertigo. Animal Man is probably the more straightforward of the two, while Doom Patrol is the more eccentric and imaginative. Doom Patrol also has vastly superior artwork, and it’s the series that introduced the character Flex Mentallo (as well as a bunch of other creative characters). Seaguy and WE3 are really good, too.
A new Strange Adventures one-shot comes out next week with all kinds of ridiculous talent involved, including the first chapter of the next collaboration from some guys named Azzarello and Risso. What’s that all about?
Also…
VERTIGO RESURRECTED: JONNY DOUBLE #1
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO ? Art by EDUARDO RISSO
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
In a story by the creators of 100 BULLETS, San Francisco P.I. Jonny Double is hired to watch over a rich man?s rebellious daughter. But after being seduced by the girl, Jonny finds himself mixed up in a scheme to plunder an old bank account that belonged to Al Capone.
On sale AUGUST 10 ? 96 pg, FC, $7.99 US ? MATURE READERS