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What comic are you reading right now?
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Dav
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 2890
Location: Rennes, France

PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have just finished Alan Moore's Jack B Quick.
It was so great, really funny and the art was incredible. I really enjoy the stories around sciences and all.
I'm so glad that i haven't read so much of Alan Moore's work.
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Ian, probably time I grew up then! I am not a child or any other of the things on the list. I just fail at comics, like everything really. Life is baffling from my head at the best of times. x
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 5:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just read "Lena Finkle's Magic Barrell", a graphic novel I had never heard of, my girlfriend recently had to read it for a Jewish Literature class, and she said it was really good... and it is! I wasn't expecting to like it so much, when I looked at it the style of the art and the layouts really didn't attract me... But when I read it I was hooked! Recommended!
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Dav
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
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Location: Rennes, France

PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i'm reading American Slendor.
It's really nice and features a few different artists drawing. The drawings by Greg Budgett reminds me of Jeffrey's drawing.
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm getting absorbed back into writing/editing my book about Watchmen, a personal project that seems to never be quite finished!

Recently I've been thinking about the similarities between the opening of the film Taxi Driver and the opening of Watchmen... the starting monologues are quite similar. Although it's obviously all a bit of the same kind of film-noir/hard-boiled/detective opening monologue tropes... There's also a striking similarity to the language used by real-life NYC serial killer Son of Sam, in a letter he sent to the NY Daily News in 1977. Compare Rorschach's opening lines on the first page of Watchmen to those other writers:


TAXI DRIVER OPENING MONOLOGUE Taxi Driver (1976) Release date
February 8, 1976

Screenwriter(s): Paul Schrader ( In writing the script, Schrader was inspired by the diaries of Arthur Bremer (who shot presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972)[14] and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. The writer also used himself as inspiration; prior to writing the screenplay, Schrader was in a lonely and alienated position, much like Bickle is. Following a divorce and a breakup with a live-in girlfriend, he spent a few weeks living in his car. He wrote the script in under a month while staying in his former girlfriend's apartment while she was away.)

The opening words of Taxi Driver:

May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and the trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now. 6:00 in the afternoon to 6:00 in the morning, sometimes even 8:00 in the morning. Six days a week, sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle, but it keeps me real busy. I can take in 300, 350 a week, sometimes even more when I do it off the meter.
All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies. Sick, venal. Someday a real rain'll come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me.



SON OF SAM letter to Jimmy Breslin at the NY Daily News, 1977 (June 5) :


Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C. which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of N.Y.C. and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed on the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks. [...]




The first lines of WATCHMEN:


Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985:
Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!" ...and I'll look down, and whisper "no."
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Dav
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i had noticed the similarities with Travis monologue the first time i read watchmen. i hope we will be abble to read that book of yours soon enough
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Last edited by Dav on Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:44 am; edited 1 time in total
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would love to write a book, I've wanted to since I was a little girl, I have made a hundred poor attempts and the lot has been scrapped. I envy anyone who can actually write a whole book, no matter how good or bad it is, I just can't believe in my no talent every time I make an effort and give up in a big pile of tears and hopelessness.
I never watch films these days, I can't sit still for that long and the book is always better, But I have seen Taxi Driver, not for many years but and loved it in my youth.
xxxx
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vollsticks



Joined: 24 Jun 2015
Posts: 39
Location: Grimsby, UK

PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ian Cockburn wrote:
Recently read
Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs (dailies)
Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea
Sally Heathcote, Suffragette


Currently dipping in and out of
Cursed Pirate Girl vol 1 by Jeremy A Bastian


Good taste, man! I have two volumes of those big Captain Easy Sundays that Fantagraphics put out, Roy Crane was pretty fucking revolutionary in the field of adventure strips. Very influential. I mean, look at Captain Easy's face, especially his jawline--remind you of anyone?! Wears a red cape...not Doctor Strange!

Corto Maltese BotSS is brilliant, as well, at last we have a decent English reprint! Pratt is another incredibly influential cartoonist. D'ya know he was Boris Karloff's cousin (pretty sure it was cousin-they were closely related, anyhow)?! Amazing draftsman. Mentored quite a few other comics legends as well. Which reminds me, have you ever read the Munoz/Sampayo Alack Sinner comics? Fanta put them out in magazine format in the mid/late eighties but they've recently been collected, really great hard-boiled New York PI stuff. Considering the creators are Argentinians the verisimilitude of the Big Apple is spot-on. If you like Pratt's drawing you'll love Sampayo's.

Not read the Sally Heathcote book, my brain is telling me it's by Bryan Talbot and his wife, for some reason? There's a really good comic biography of Emma Golman by Sharon Rudhal, an UG cartoonist who did stuff for Tits n' Clits and Wimmen's Comix...good stuff.

I'm currently reading Sir Alfred No.3 by Tim Hensley (amazing, amazing cartoonist--check it out if you can find it, his Wally Gropius book from Fanta is also indispensable, it riffs on old Archie comics but is something entirely its own, his wordplay is fantastic and he perfectly mimics that old, vernacular style of comics illustration--think Dan DeCarlo and Dan Gordon type-drawing), re-reading Beverly by Nick Drnaso and my old issues of the fucking brilliant Trailer Trash by Roy Tompkins. All highly recommended. Big Kids, the latest Michael Deforge book from D & Q, was absolutely rubbish, though. Such a disappointment.

Anyone read Kramers Ergot #9?
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Ian Cockburn



Joined: 10 Mar 2015
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Thu Aug 18, 2016 9:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thansk for the reply vollsticks
Re: Roy Crane. Though all his artwork is beautiful tbh I have a strong preference for his black and white work, so I have never bought any of the Captain Easy collections. I'm happy with this big Wash Tubbs book for now.

Re: Alack Sinner. I have only read an example of that strip in Paul Gravett's anthology the Mammoth Book of Crime Comics. I loved it, as I have loved everything I've ever read by Munoz and Sampayo. They're at the peak of comics art imo. I actually prefer Munoz's art to Pratt's. Do you like Edmond Baudouin?

Re: Hensley. I mostly loved Wally Gropius so I've been looking out eagerly for Sir Alfred, but I haven't seen it yet.

Yes, the Sally Heathcote book is by the Talbots and Kate Charlesworth. I didn't really like it except for its bare educational value. Just not my style of art or storytelling.

The Jeremy A Bastian book I mentioned turned out to be exquisitely drawn but quite disappointing as the writing goes. I've just joined Goodreads and started rating stuff, but I feel bad about giving negative scores to living, working authors as they probably don't need me harming their career with negative feedback when it's probably my own fault for picking up stuff that wasn't geared to my tastes.

Thanks for the tip re Drnaso and Tompkins, not heard of them. Never got the fuss about Deforge.
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mama



Joined: 09 Jan 2016
Posts: 40

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Reading a lot of Dykes to watch out for, always so good and still relevant today as it was 30 years ago
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vollsticks



Joined: 24 Jun 2015
Posts: 39
Location: Grimsby, UK

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2016 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@Ian Cockburn-
NP mate. Captain Easy/Wash Tubbs were essentially the same strip with the same characters, I think the name was changed to give C.E precedence because of reader preference. I might be wrong, I'll have to look at some of my old Comics Journals to be certain. Either way it's classic stuff. The Fanta Captain easy books are reprinted from the Sundays, not re-coloured or anything so they're pretty "authentic" and you're still getting that gorgeous Crane line-work..
I have that Paul gravett book, totally forgot that Alack Sinner was in there! Your reply made me have a flick through it, what a great little anthology that is. Charles Burns, Jack Cole, Jack Kirby, Jordi Bernet, what an eclectic tome it is. I too prefer Munoz's art to Pratt's tbh. It's almost like "Pratt turned up to 11". Very influential on cartoonists as disparate as David Mazzucchelli and Taiyo Matsumoto. To answer your question about Baudoin, I respect his work more than LIKE it, you know? He has such a lush brush-style but I find his stories a bit lacking. My favourite French cartoonists are basically the L'Asso lot--David B. (one of my faves of all time), Mattt Konture and Killoffer. Also Stephan Blanquet, JC Menu and of course Moebius. Killoffer is up there with Jaime Hernandez as far as drawing goes, if you ask me. Amazing compositions and use of chiaroscuro and a similar approach to the "sweet spot" between "cartooniness" and "realism".
Try and get a copy of Sir Alfred, you won't be sorry! I also have Ticket Stub, his "sketchbook comic" which is pretty damn good. Also he has some great comics in the No More Shaves Duplex Planet collection, well worth seeking out.
I liked Talbot's art in Dotter of Her Father's Eyes. Enjoyed it quite a bit.
Jeremy Bastian, that's that due who draws like those old 18th/19th century artists, yeah? Like Dore or Arthur Rackham and that lot...his stuff looks like old etchings, correct? His technical skill is to be admired undoubtedly but his comics are woefully hit-and-miss.
If you ever come across any issues of Trailer Trash I'd say get them! The title was a part of the 90's b & w alternative boom, Tompkins was published in Weirdo and other anthologies, T.T has that real "punky, don't-give-a-shit, don't take yourself seriously" ethos that I think is missing in today alternative comics. And his drawing is FUCKED UP! Not Mike Diana (a lot BETTER than Mike Diana if you ask me!), cartoony, but nicely deranged with a lovely brush-line.
Nick Drnaso had a piece in the last MOME which was pretty good.
I really think Deforge has made some great comics (probably Ant Colony or the flying fox story from Lose 3 are his best work) but as I said before his last comic was terrible. So disappointed.
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Ian Cockburn



Joined: 10 Mar 2015
Posts: 47

PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 9:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mama wrote:
Reading a lot of Dykes to watch out for, always so good and still relevant today as it was 30 years ago


It's SO good! My girlfriend (who NEVER reads comics) is reading my copy of "The Essential..." when she's round at mine and I'm having to fight the urge to re-read it all myself... yet again.
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Ian Cockburn



Joined: 10 Mar 2015
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

vollsticks wrote:
@Ian Cockburn-
NP mate. Captain Easy/Wash Tubbs were essentially the same strip with the same characters. [...] The Fanta Captain easy books are reprinted from the Sundays, not re-coloured or anything so they're pretty "authentic" and you're still getting that gorgeous Crane line-work..


Yes I know, but it looks better in black and white to me. I think it's because I love his shading, and those special crayon and textured paper effects he sometimes used, which he maybe used less when he was able to use colour.

vollsticks wrote:
I have that Paul gravett book, totally forgot that Alack Sinner was in there! Your reply made me have a flick through it, what a great little anthology that is. Charles Burns, Jack Cole, Jack Kirby, Jordi Bernet, what an eclectic tome it is.


Yes, it is! And not forgetting Alex Raymond and Dashiell Hammett, albeit with some pages in the wrong order.


vollsticks wrote:
Jeremy Bastian, that's that due who draws like those old 18th/19th century artists, yeah? Like Dore or Arthur Rackham and that lot...his stuff looks like old etchings, correct?


Yes, and I love all that stuff (Doré especially) so no wonder I snapped it up. Meat and drink to me.

From the artists you mention I'm familiar with, I approve of your taste. I shall look out for all the books and artists you've recommended. I've been reading lots of prose recently so haven't had much time for comics, except the latest Fuff of course, which is great!
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vollsticks



Joined: 24 Jun 2015
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Location: Grimsby, UK

PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I think it's because I love his shading, and those special crayon and textured paper effects he sometimes used, which he maybe used less when he was able to use colour.


He was a master at using that duotone paper--it has a mechanical crosshatched pattern that only appears when you apply a special liquid to the paper and you can "reveal" hatching at one or the other, opposite angle, or expose the whole thing and get a crosshatch pattern. Similar to zipatone, just a different way of mechanical producing "grey". Anyway Roy Crane used the stuff extensively in his Buz Sawyer strip and his technical mastery of the stuff is incredible. It takes black ink so you'd work up a page normally then apply the chemicals using a brush. Let me see if I can attach an image....

Hope that worked....
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Dav
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I edited yourmessage so the picture shows, the proper way to do it is [img] url then [/img]
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