What Comic Books Have You Read Today?

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

Report what comic books you have read today--and tell us a little something about it while you're here!

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Oh, I completely forgot about Skinwalker. I remember really liking it when it first came out.

ClarkKent_DC said:

Another book I got from the library was Skinwalker. It was a collection of a four-issue miniseries from Oni Press about 10 years ago. I found issue #2 in the quarter bin ages ago, and it was nice to have the whole story.

The story is set on a Native American reservation, and follows the adventures of Ann Adakai, a Navajo Tribal Police Officer, and Greg Haworth, an FBI agent, who both find themselves trying to catch an odd serial killer. The killer has misused and perverted a tribal ritual known as skinwalking -- skinning an animal and wearing the pelt in order to assume its guise and abilities. Our killer has found a way to make it work by skinning people. Yeah, it's gruesome, but not especially gory; at least, no worse than the average issue of Hellblazer. (Good thing, too, as that's about my limit on the scale of unpleasant-to-look-at.)

Being the fan of police procedurals that I am, I liked this series; it really got the kind of antagonism between cops and feds that I've learned exists, and it captures the world of the Navajo very comprehensively as well as FBI culture which grounds the series and is key to making it work.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

XIII volume 2 Where the Indian Walks and Strain vol. 1. Both pretty good crime/mystery books. Strain is a manga, so if that turns you off you should avoid it.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Another one I got from the library: Afrodisiac. It's an homage to and a mashup of cheesy Blaxploitation movies and cheesy '70s comics. The writers and artists present several stories, most done up as mock Marvel comics -- although there are a few other styles thrown in -- featuring Alan Diesler, who, it is explained in that paragraph at the top of the page (although the explanation varies with each story) becomes Afrodisiac, a combination of Superfly, The Mack, Shaft and Luke Cage. It's a riot!

[ClarkKent_DC]

Another one I got from the library: the Blazing Combat collection.

Blazing Combat was published by Warren in 1965, an anthology war comic in the vein of DC's Star-Spangled War Stories or Our Fighting Forces, or EC's Two-Fisted Tales or Frontline Combat, although it was a black-and-white magazine format book. All stories written by the late, great Archie Goodwin (save two, which he co-wrote with the artists), and drawn by a who's who of comics talent: Russ Heath, John Severin, Gene Colan, Alex Toth, Frank Frazetta, George Evans, Angelo Torres, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, Al Williamson and Wally Wood! What's not to like?

Well, the war-is-hell tone of the stories got the book in hot water with the distributors, who refused to carry it. Likewise the Army PXs. The book died with the fourth issue.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

Thief of Thieves Vol. 1: "I Quit." There are seven issues in the collection, so I'm going to make it last all weekend. It's doing a pretty effective job of alternating between the present and flashbacks that reveal the relationships between the major characters. Robert Kirkman created the series (and is credited with Story), but Nick Spencer is the writer (art by Shawn Martinbrough). I haven't read enough Kirkman outside of The Walking Dead to figure out how much it reads like a Kirkman book. I'm enjoying it, though. It occurs to me that if master thief Redmond actually succeeds in quitting, then he won't be a thief any more! Seems like a basic issue with an ongoing title about a thief, unless you're going to have all the thieving occur in flashback.

Blood and Water was a five-part vampire miniseries written by Judd Winick and illustrated by Tomm Coker. It's Winick's only Vertigo work, and a creative approach towards the vampire genre.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

The latest issues of New Avengers and Saga.

Hickman shows off all of his Hickman-ness in his explanation of what is causing the world to end in New Avengers. Not bad. It was pretty interesting.

Saga was pretty cool too--consistent with previous issues. Very weird, cosmic, sexual, and twisty. The number of characters that have been introduced in this series is pretty uncanny for the amount of issues we've had so far.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Scalped vol. 10: Trails End, wrapping up the series to a satisfactory conclusion. It does seem impossible that is lasted 5 years, even at Vertigo. I liked that there was real change with the characters.

Creepy: El Cid. Good for the most part. There were a few times I thought the story cheated you though. The art was pretty good, it was all black and white. At times it lacked depth in the shading, and Gonzalo Mayo packs so much detail into the panels they get a bit busy.

Finally, Strain vol. 2, which moves the story nicely along. I

I've been doing some house sitting, so I've had more time than usual to get some reading in.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I love that about house sitting. When you're at home, you always feel guilty about not doing laundry or fixing what needs fixed or cleaning what needs cleaned. But when you're in someone else's house, you just have time to read.

Travis Herrick said:

I've been doing some house sitting, so I've had more time than usual to get some reading in.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

Finished the first Thief of Thieves trade. Nice twist at the end, which also explains how the ongoing might work. He keeps trying to get out, but they keep pulling him back in... And finished Blood and Water as well. I thought Winick did a good job creating an alternative take on vampires, but the ancient race of super-vampires called the Tribe was pushing it a little too far. Something had to be there to create conflict, but I had trouble buying into this. Although upon reflection there have been a number of vampire stories that include ancient vampires with tremendous strength and unusual abilities, so maybe it's not that much of a stretch.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

Hulk #3: This was my favorite of the new series thus far. I liked the first one as a set-up issue, but the second one just felt like a rehash of the first one. This one had Hulk being used by SHIELD, with his new office mates being set up for all kinds of hijinks, undoubtedly. I don't blame him for punching out the floating robot set to record everything he does as Hulk and Banner. I think that would be a horrible invasion of privacy. What if he just needs to scratch himself?

Daredevil #22: Loved the bit at the beginning about the money, the way he made up with Foggy, and the interaction between Matt and Peter/Doc Ock. As for the art, man, Chris Samnee is just on a whole kind of Darwyn Cooke level of drawing. Truly, this is incredible work. Perfect issue.

Thor #4: Love how this series continues with the drama mixed with the humor. It is grim without feeling depressing. And speaking of incredible artwork--man, Esad Ribic just draws so beautifully that I can't wait to own this in hardcover.

[Mark Stanislawski]

The Amazing Spider-Man: World's Greatest Hero TPB - I originally thought these were untold tales taking place in the continuity of when these issues were supposed to have "originally" come out, meaning that "Old Haunts" from Peter Parker, Spider-Man #156.1 (Not sure how they came up with this number since the original series only ran 57 issues) would follow continuity from 2003, but not so. These stories could have been guest stints in Amazing Spider-Man or Avenging Spider-Man or just been a couple of "special" issues.

That being said, it also seems they put the best story first with each successive story not as being as good. "Old Haunts" by Roger Stern was fantastic and it really made me miss him writing Spider-Man. New Vulture story "Monsters" by Tom DeFalco was decent. Stuart Moore's "The Brooklyn Avengers" I didn't really care for and Damion Scott and Rob Campanella's Anime-inspired art made me like it even less. If you liked Great Lakes Avengers you would probably like this story. As far as I'm concerned, it took place on Earth-S (for Stupid).

Green Lantern: Sector 2814 TPB- After reading the first couple issues in this trade, I realized why I stopped reading GL just before the Wein / Gibbons run. Mediocrity. I enjoyed Gibbons' art and actually enjoyed issues 178-181 but it was definitely mediocre. Oh well, time will make the heart grow fonder!

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

The printing at the time certainly did Gibbons' work no favors.