theronster

February 3, 2011 11:38 am @lukehopkins  Is it worth pointing out that Rupert Murdoch is Australian-American?

July 9, 2009 12:44 pm

What if I DON'T read super-hero books in general, because I've grown oh-so-weary of the conventions, and only really venture a look when a writer I have time for is working on one? Say, a Brubaker or Morrison.

Of course, Invincible doesn't count because it spits in the face of convention and is a proper, progressional story. I'm mainly talking about stuff from the BIG 2. Marvel/DC books only take up about 2.5 shelves out of my total of 18 shelves of comics hardcovers/trades, so I feel pretty justified in marginalising their output.  

July 9, 2009 12:31 pm

How about the Comics Evangelist?

This pretty much describes me, and why my friends give each other looks any time it looks like one of them might mention a comics-based movie, for fear I might start trying to get them in the scary comics cult. 

July 9, 2009 10:34 am

I'd love to be able to read other languages, simply because any time I've visited Belgium/France/Italy I've realised that there are huge comics scenes that are impenetrable to me.

That being said, if they were translated to English I'd probably have to expend less effort, so... 

July 8, 2009 12:27 pm

@ultimatehoratio Actually, both Marvelman and V for Vendetta were published in Warrior magazine, not 2000AD. 

At one stage it seemed as if V was going to turn out to be Marvelman, but happily common sense prevailed there.

Both Garry Leach and David Lloyd were kind enough to sign my issue 1 of Warrior a couple of weeks ago - now all I have to do is go to Northampton and bother Moore to get his signature too! 

July 8, 2009 10:04 am I'm of the opinion that Promethea is a masterpiece, so I guess it's a case of diff'rent strokes....

July 8, 2009 9:54 am

I was fortunate in that I picked up all my Miracleman comics and trades long before Todd muddied the waters and the book became stuff of legend and therefore prohibitively expensive.

I actually bought one of my copies of #15 in a £1.00-and-under bin at a comic store that was going out of business in Belfast. Got the trades and the rest of them all on eBay, must have come to less than £60 all told. Then when the thing became a big deal and I needed some quick cash I put the cheap (but NM) copy of #15 on eBay and it sold for over £200. I still have a copy of it here though, so it wasn't too much of a wrench.

That is my one and only example of me making money from comics. 

I also have the Warrior 3D special that has a Miracleman story by Moore and Davis that's never been anywhere else, and the Warrior Summer Special that had a non-canon story (it was Moore's concept of how the battle between MM and KM might occur, but I suppose he must have re-thought it as its fairly different from how #15 portrays it).

Miracleman: Apocrypha is another trade I  have - it's a reprint of a 3 issue anthology series Eclipse put out at around the same time as the Gaiman stuff. Mostly good stories, by the likes of Gaiman, Steve Moore, Kurt busiek, James Robinson, Alex Ross, Darick Robertson, Matt Wagner, Kelley Jones, Mark Buckingham, Melinda Gebbie and quite a few others.

July 8, 2009 6:05 am

So, watched the Director's Cut last night.

Aside from Hollis' death scene, a short exchange between Kovacs and Berni the news-man and Nite-Owl pummelling a knot-top when he hears about Hollis, I don't think there was much to report.

In typical Hollywood fashion, they couldn't just let Hollis go out like the old man he is - oh no, he puts up the fight of his life, even though the movie seems to be saying at the same time that he's senile, since he imagines that he's being attacked by his old foes. Laughable.

Maybe there was a scene with Laurie as well after the Doc splits for Mars, but I don't think it's in the book, so it didn't stick.

The rest of the 25 mins seems to be small extensions to shots (when Rorshach cleavers the guy in the head it goes on for ages).

I gave it a shot, but I still can't watch the thing without tutting and huffing my way through it.

I've moaned this before, but I still think it's true - how come it takes $150 Million to not achieve what 2 blokes called Alan and Dave managed with ink and paper? 

The answer lies somewhere in your belief in the medium of comics. 

July 8, 2009 5:52 am

I have all the issues and paperbacks (although the first paperback doesn't have the prologue from the first comic and The Golden Age paperback doesn't have the back-up story from his issues).

Honestly, I love this series. It treats the characters as real people with real motivations and has interesting things to say about the consequences of a benevolent dictatorship. 

I really hope they get it sorted out, although I met both Neil Gaiman and Garry Leach in the last couple of years, and while they were both hopeful that there would be a resolution, there was definitely the feeling that its probably a lost cause, sadly.

Best story part for me is the Olympus story-line (Miracleman's final solution for Johnny Bates is probably still the one page of comics that literally left me reeling),  although it has to be said that the way people react to the Birth issue is kind of fascinating - what, so iFanboy has no problem showing drawn images of violence and genocide, but a child being born, as they are every minute of every day, is too much? I think you wimped out a bit guys, you should have shown the most notorious sequence. It's actually all drawn from photo-reference of the most popular child-birth book at the time, so there really shouldn't be anything to be squeamish about, no?

Everyone should really bittorrent it. It's an important work from one of the most important creators in comics, and certainly lays the foundation for stuff that he did after - Watchmen,  Supreme, Top 10 even.

June 24, 2009 6:21 am

Black Dossier definitely ISN'T volume three of LOEG - it's a source book.

As soon as you read it you realise that it isn't the same thing as the regular series.