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!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I generally have three reading projects going on at any given time; currently I have seven. Yesterday, I put the wraps on Aquaman but immediately replaced it with Dark Shadows comic strips (which I will be getting to in "Dark Shadows (alternate version)" in the days to come). I forgot to mention that, last month, quite by coincidence, I read about the death of Farley (the Patterson's dog in For Better or For Worse) on the exact same day I read about the death of Arvak (Prince Valiant's warhorse).

[Richard Willis]

Farley's death was heroic.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Farley's death was one of the most memorable sequences of all of For Better or For Worse. Another one I have been thinking about was Anthony's "coming out." Lynn Johnston did write much about it in volume four of The Complete Library (because she has written so much about it elsewhere), but I was surprised how short the sequence was. His admission to Michael took up just over one week of the strip (eight days), followed by three weeks of follow-up, and that's it. So, four weeks total, March 26 though April 24, 1993. Man, I remember the stink (some) readers raised in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "threatening" to never read the strip again. I am now up to February 1997, and his sexual orientation has not been mentioned directly since (I've been looking for it). I often wonder whether or not those who dropped reading the strip (or claimed to) came to regret their decision. I guess we'll never know (nor will they, if they indeed followed through).

[Jeff of Earth-J]

ATOM BOMB by Wally Wood: This is one of those artist-specific collection from Fantagraphics (full title: Atom Bomb and Other Stories Illustrated by Wallace Wood). I am not a big fan of the war comics genre. Last year I decided to read through Fantagraphics' EC collections alphabetically, but the beginning of  the alphabet is top-loaded with war collections (Aces High, Atom Bomb, Bomb Run, etc.), and I didn't get past the first one. This time, inspired by a recent read-through of Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales, I decided to read the three (so far) collections of Wally (or "Wallace," if you prefer) Wood material, starting with Atom Bomb. This time, instead of thinking of them as war stories (Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, World Wars I & II, Korea, etc.), I thought of them as history stories (Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Custer's Last Stand, Iwo Jima, etc).