Comic Book Resources

Aww man, I LOVE that Kaminski/Martinbrough/Buscema Creeper series. It was totally awesome and died a quick, unfortunate death. Great series, though. Martinbrough drew Rucka's Detective run a handful of years back, and it was lovely, but then he more-or-less vanished, though he pops up now and again. I demand more!

This week, I read Jeff Parker's breakthrough work, Interman-- and it was awesome! Next on the agenda is Craig Thompson's Blankets, but I have a million things to do this week so who knows if I'll get to it.

I just finished Karen Abbott's "Sin in the Second City." It's a pretty interesting historical account of a famous brothel that operated in turn-of-the-20th-century Chicago, interwoven with the efforts of reformers and purity crusaders to shut down the city's vice district. It was chock full of fun anecdotes of decadence and corruption from a more innocent (?) time when the threat of "white slavery," rather than that of "gay marriage," had the nation's prudes and moralists all atwitter.

I'm about to start in on Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, which I'm pretty excited about.

On the comics front, I'm about to crack open the first collection of "Air," a book that looked completely uninteresting to me when it first began, but has grown more and more intriguing as I've heard very good buzz continue to grow on the internet (a cover blurb from Neil Gaiman didn't hurt, either).

Pistolwhip: The Yellow Menace was very good; I liked it more than the first volume. That's a striking cover on the Creeper.

I didn't think Blankets was all it's cracked up to be, but I absolutely loved Goodbye, Chunky Rice. I've got the Interman, I need to read it!

I'm reading Palomar, the volume collecting all of Gilbert Hernandez's stories set in the town. It is absolutely as wonderful as I've heard--endearing, funny, beautifully drawn, and full of pathos. I'm definitely going to read the rest of Love and Rockets as soon as I can.

I finished Ivan Brunetti's first Anthology--I don't know why it seemed I was complaining about it last week; it's chock full of good comics.

Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Modern World, volume 1, was just as great as previous installments, even though it's awfully subjective.

I'm going to start Dave McKean's Cages in earnest soon, and I'm still marching through David Crystal's English Encyclopedia.

Currently reading "The Nine," an excellent book about the Supreme Court by journalist Jeffrey Toobin. Specifically, he traces the court's makeup and ideological/political evolution from the Reagan Era onward. It's a fascinating read. For one thing, it conveys how important the Court's decisions can be in people's day-to-day lives (for anyone who doesn't already realize that); also, he shows how, under Shrub (aka Dubya), the conservatives might have finally realized a long-held goal (one that they failed to accomplish with Reagan and Bush the elder). And it makes me both sadder and more frustrated that both Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito won the Senate votes to make it to the bench. We'll be stuck with them for a looong time.

For fun, I've picked up Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." Used to be one of my favorite books. It's short, and I'm finding it pretty much holds up. If you haven't ever read it and you're looking for a page-turner, check it out. One of the most imitated plots in decades. (The God of All Comics, of course, homaged it in his three-issue "Batman" arc with JH Williams III.)

I'm reading Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut. It's a fantastic book to the halfway point. looking forward to the end.

on the comic front, i'm reading straczynski's Fantastic Four. I love it. I had a hard time with waid's take on ff. it just didn't click for me, but straczynski has really hooked me in.

I'm reading invasion (the dc one). the 4th jli volume convinced me to get it.
the i'm reading the real story. its the first book in donaldson's gap series. its a pretty dark series, but I like it. also it reinvisions the ring of the niblungen saga in interesting ways.

I'm about halfway through Roberto Bolaño's 2666 right now. It's incredibly dense, but so far I've been enjoying it immensely. Beyond that, it's kind of hard for me to discuss the book until I'm finished with it.

On the comics front, I just started up on Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole.

Martinbrough is seriously amazing. I'm not sure what all he's been up to recently in print, but, since co-founding Verge Entertainment, he's produced a "How to Draw Noir Comics" instructional DVD and begun work on a graphic novel/animated webisode series called Ayre Force.

This weekend, I read The Great Unknown #1, Marvel Assistant Size Spectacular #1, Seaguy: The Slaves Of Mickey Eye #1, and Mysterius the Unfathomable #2 and 3.

Neal: I've been very interested in Sin in the Second City ever since I saw it published. I may have to check it out.

Dave: I'm so daunted by 2666 whenever I see it. You'll have to come back when you're done and give it a thumbs up or down. Maybe then I won't be so scared of it!

That Creeper series got a lot better as it went on, and you're right- Martinbrough is an excellent artist and should be more well-known. He was drawing Batman in Detective for a long while (the Rucka run), did some Losers fill-ins that were great, and has kinda knocked around since, doing one-shots and fill-ins, as well as the awful Vertigo miniseries Angeltown a couple of years ago (it wasn't awful because of the art). I think he's working on Luke Cage: Noir for Marvel right now.

Devoured Scalped vol. 2. Good comics and exactly the reason why I still read them.

I saw that Creeper cover and thought, "Man, DC needs to put Milligan on a Creeper title." And then I thought instead that they should put him on Deadman! Milligan can explore all kinds of identity stuff with a guy that can possess people. I think that's a long way of saying that my library better get Human Target vol. 2 in soon so I can read it.

Finished reading vol. 5 of Rex Mundi: The Valley at the End of the World.
Can't wait for the final volume of that series.

Still re-reading Larsen's SAVAGE DRAGON/

I'm currently reading Our Kind of People, a nonfiction book about the black upper crust in America. They're almost a secret society of sorts, really eye opening stuff. Comicswise I'm reading Luna Brothers The Sword.

I'm still reading Earth Abides by George R Stewart. Great book, and even more impressive considering it was written in the 40s. It sets the groundwork for so many future Post-Apocalyptic novels.

Comic wise, just last week I finished reading the entire run of Suicide Squad, including the Deadshot mini. Freaking awesome. If DC had been on the ball they could have gotten my money instead of random comic shops and ebay sellers. Their loss. Started on Essential Man-Thing volume 1. I've never really read much of Gerber's stuff, and pretty much none of his seminal work with Marvel in the 70s, so this should be interesting.

Travellers. I liked The Somnabulist, to the tune of 3 or 4 stars out of 5 (much the same for The Nine).

Thanks, Tom. Of course, the characters later call them Romany, so that confuses the issue even more!

I LOVE that Creeper series. One of my favorites. Although I'm still missing a couple issues; it's pretty hard to find back issues. But it really was great. My favorite take on the character, no disrespect to Ditko (my very close second favorite).

I've always wished DC would do more with the Creeper. And then, lo and behold, they published a new mini. I was so excited. But Steve Niles wrote it. And, like everything Steve Niles writes, it sucked hardcore. He took the worst aspect of the character's history (his appearance on The New Batman Adventures), melded it with Ditko's original story, and then added his own weak multiple personality spin, and it just didn't work. Ryder came off as a pompous, unlikeable jerk, and the Creeper occasionally made wisecracks that weren't funny, and otherwise had no personality.

Why, DC. Why would you do this. By putting Niles on the book and letting him churn out a stinking turd with this great character, you've effectively killed any chance of another new Creeper series for a decade or more. Great job.

I think moving Creeper to Vertigo might work-- they did a "Beware the Creeper" mini there-- pretty much Creeper in name only, as it was a period piece with a different protagonist-- but such a thing could work as a longform serial, with Jack Ryder bits acting as frame stories for possible Creepers of the past.

Of course, then the Creeper becomes yet another legacy hero-- as if Iron Fist and Ghost Rider weren't enough!

A Vertigo move would be good, most likely.

Yeah, the Beware the Creeper mini was decent, but it wasn't really the Creeper. I'm not sure why they even bothered to call it that.

I don't like the idea of the Creeper being some kind of legacy character, personally. I subscribe to Kaminski's belief that the Creeper is Jack Ryder, and only Jack Ryder. Doesn't work otherwise.

Oh, and Greg - regarding the narration in The Creeper, that may have been intentional. I recently read all of Ditko's Creeper stuff, and noticed that Ryder tended to really ham it up when he was the Creeper, using a lot of verbose language and odd turns of phrase. He frequently said "I would have information from you!" and such.

I sense a germ of an idea in some kind of infinite, cyclical battle between "Proteus" and "the Creeper" that goes back to the dawn of time, when the caveman with the yellow face fought the beast from the shadowy muck, but maybe I'm insane.

There was a talk of a Giffen/McKeever Creeper mini back in the days for Vertigo, but something else came up, apparently.

Been reading H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education Vol. 1 & 2. It's a series for younger readers about a school for villains. Really fun read. Recommended for superhero fans.

Also reading he collected poems of Pablo Neruda.

Comics? Re-reading Atomic Robo and Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. Both are amazing but Cap just ricks my world. And I'm CANADIAN!

I loved that Creeper series, and I miss Kaminski's narration. He did a Bloodshot series for Acclaim around the same time that was just as good, perhaps better; the internal monologues were pure poetry.

"There was a talk of a Giffen/McKeever Creeper mini back in the days for Vertigo, but something else came up, apparently."

AGGGH! That would have been AMAZING! Dang, man. McKeever is one of my favorite artists.

Although McKeever did draw a short Creeper story for a Showcase '94 issue. I forget who wrote it (I think it might have been McKeever himself).