SamPay

Name: Sam Pay

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April 3, 2017 7:28 am This run was the reason I spent a couple of years (and significant amounts of money) putting together a complete run of Flash comics from Crisis to the present day (trades and issues, bits and pieces). Ironic that, outside the now-affordably reprinted Waid and Johns runs, there's not a great deal to be excited about, but there we go. The Waid stuff is so great, and really shows the way he begins to create his writing style, the smart re-interpretation of classic silver-age concepts for a modern audience. It drives me nuts that his relationship with DC isn't good - the more I come across his work, the more I am just rabid for him to do more on the DCU properties. Nice that he's getting lots of Marvel work (and with Weringo, his FF run is amongst his best), but like Millar, Morrison, Rucka etc he's just made for DC.
February 19, 2013 6:10 am I've a deep love of Scott Morse, although the mainstream books he produced around this time (also a 4-issue Elektra series) were very wild in colour-scheme. His black and white and more muted colour work is a lot stronger. This is a fun issue though, definitely worth the cover price.
January 2, 2013 10:36 am A very good list, Hickman nudges it for me but I'm still learning Aaron's range. The one omission that I think is striking is Bendis. I'm not *struck* by his work all the time, and he's so omnipresent as to be a bit wood-for-the-trees, but he remains among the most consistent writers in the mainstream. His Avengers work concluded this year, which is worth at least marking, plus there were some stand-out chunks of work from him, most notably the bulk of the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man, the Ultimate Spider-MEN miniseries, and the first arc of All New X-Men, which has been better than I think any of us expected. Plus he launched two creator-owned series, wrote a big chunk of the biggest crossover of the year, wrapped up the very solid and very pretty Moon Knight... I would have placed him in the Honourable Mention catagory - the man does it all.
December 19, 2012 12:22 pm I travel a lot for work, and find myself away from new and old comics for months at a time. The digital options will change that next time around, but as for the obligation of reading, to be honest I think it's an indication of something. In October I got back from a 3 month trip to find various stacks mounting - I re-read compulsively, buying and reading single issues, then collating them for a "trade" experience a year or so later - and while there are series that require persistence, I ditched a lot of ongoings that I was actively avoiding. In terms of your bulk-buy dillemmas, I think that it probably indicates that this is not the way for you to buy comics. I'm the same - I avoid book box-sets ("The Complete Game of Thrones", say) because that amount of material frightens me away from starting. But finally, I would suggest that you're right, there IS an obligation which you're not fulfilling. You bought "The Years Have Pants"? Then you ought to read it. If you don't enjoy it, you should absolutely stop, but it's a tacit admission that, for whatever reason, you don't like that book enough to justify the purchase, and should be more careful in purchases in future. Put it this way: if this was food, perishable or otherwise, that was mounting up in your house, you would be considered crazy. "There was a sale on Gunga Beans" is not a good enough excuse. Eat the beans, or shut it down. :)
November 8, 2012 9:34 am That's a heartbreaker. Very shortsighted too, I'd think: Punisher and PunisherMAX can co-exist, and Hellblazer is a standard-carrier for Vertigo. Don't think I'll follow this either.
August 7, 2012 1:44 pm Just re-reading the OMAC issues over the last couple of days. The lack of irony in the book is truly wonderful - just crazy full-on superhero/monster comics in a great Kirby style - although not nearly enough exclamation marks!!!
August 7, 2012 9:50 am Another great entry in the series, and still more exciting to read that there may be more than the originally-planned four books . While I agree that the storytelling confidence of Cooke continues to grow, The Outfit was tough to top in terms of the charm and technical variety of the middle chapter heists/stings. Add to that the excitement The Hunter created in kicking off the series, this places in an exceptionally-strong third. Still, a must-buy.
May 11, 2012 12:59 pm Very disappointing, this one. Plus: was I missing the end of the Kaluta story? Seemed the man-eating plants were introduced, and then it just... stopped. (not a great sadness, but still.)
October 4, 2011 12:59 pm Key female comic creator, and for my mind one of the best letterers in the business, is Carla Speed McNeil. Her book Finder, which has just returned through Dark Horse, features some of the most varied and emotional lettering this side of Dave Sim. Pretty sure she lettered her own work on the Queen&Country arc she drew, and definitely did so on the Frank Ironwine one shot she drew for Warren Ellis' Apparat line. Wish there was more love for Carla's work, Finder's tricky to get into but so rewarding!
August 27, 2009 5:55 pm Sonia's point about US writers and British (or indeed other international) idioms is taken, but I think it's a little oversensitive to use these as the fundamental critique if Rucka's writing. His voice for the UK characters is pretty accurate, much more so than most other US entertainment writing. Plus, "American writers should NEVER be allowed to write British dialogue" is, I think, quite a dangerous precident to set. You replace those two with other cultural, social or racial groups, it's a pretty unpleasant sentiment. The phrase "On your bike" is taken directly from The Sandbaggers, the UK TV series Rucka watched as a kid - it's what the D-OPs says to his operatives when sending them out on operations. While I appreciate the presence of a British voice on these shows and often agree with Sonia, if she's going to speak for our entire country on what is or isn't said, I've got to ask her to check her facts.