YAY Comics

[Karazorel]

My Monthly Reads:

Supergirl - DC (should be obvious)
The relaunch of Supergirl started in the Superman/Batman books. Michael Turner (My favorite artist) took charge of this and the girl of steel came out a lot darker and more edgy. After the story concluded in the Superman/Batman books Supergirl got her own series and has sort of been bouncy. The main story arc is her attempt at finding a home for herself. A place to belong. Outsiders, Teen Titans, and Justice League all sort of just don't fit for her. I like the story of her just wanting to be herself and not "Superman's Cousin". Everyone expects too much from her because of Superman and she's not him. I like the dark twist a lot. =)

Fables - Vertigo
Disney with a massive twist. Ever want to see Goldy Lox chopped with a cleaver and hit with a truck? What about Snow White murdering the 7 dwarves in revenge? Great writing. The arts a bit.. meh. But the writing more than makes up for it. One of my all time favorite books I look forward to every month.

Teen Titans - DC
Sidekicks no more. Teen Titans battle with the best of them. Not quite the Justice League but who is? Oh ya the Justice League. Anyway I enjoy these books. Has a very soap opera style. Love triangles with Superboy, Wondergirl, and Robbin. =) Fun book.

Witchblade - Topcow Image
The Witchblade a mystical weapon born from the Angelus and Darkness to keep peace between light and dark. Cooooooool. =P Anyway the comic and the weapon have recently gone through some big changes. For one it switched wielders. Sarah Pezzini the old main character went and got herself pregnant and the Witchblade jumped to another wielder. Recently it's split itself in half and Sara has a version and the new girl has the other version. Nice comic. Writing has suffered a bit but this First Born story series has woken it up.

[Mike]

I remember the "I went and got the first Fables graphic novel... it's awesome."

Fables DOES in fact kick fucking ass... so hard. It's the only comic I really have a desire to keep up with anymore (even though I don't).

Personally I was big into Daredevil... The second volume (starting with Kevin Smith's run) was awesome, esp. after Bendis took over. It took a strange turn down the line and I lost interest, but up to that it was amazing. I think Bendis said something like "I want him to be as interesting in costume as he is out of costume." Then I realized the last like 10 issues NEVER had him in costume... it was all lawyer-ey stuff.... and it was fucking great still.

Fuck Ben Affleck.

[David Yun]

Erf...sorry Kara, Supergirl has been pretty shallow. Admittedly, I'm currently only flipping through her book in the comic store, but I haven't noticed anything that would indicate meaningful characterization. I also find the sexual fetishization throughout DC of a 15(?)-year-old girl kind of creepy. As for Turner, he draws pretty pictures, but he's a fairly awful visual storyteller. And I don't know what's happened to Loeb, (used to be one of my favorite writers) but the stuff he's doing now makes Teen Wolf and Commando look like masterpieces.

Fables is pretty darn good. I agree that it's well written, which shocks me, because everything else Willingham has done repulses me. As for the art, again, I have to disagree. The bulk of it has been done by Mark Buckingham who is a fairly decent storyteller. His style is NOT that of a post-Image hyper-kinetic Jim Lee/Silvestri clone (*cough* Turner *cough*), and he does a more than adequate job laying down the visuals. Would you want Fables, a reinterpretation of fairy tales, to look like Witchblade?

Agreed - Teen Titans is pretty fun. This is mostly due to the writing of Sean McKeever. He does solid teen drama. He also currently does Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, which is even better.

Man, I haven't check out Witchblade in years, because it degenerated into an incomprehensible mess. Are you a fan from the early Turner years? I can't comment with any degree of authority because I've given up on their books, but the central Top Cow titles haven't interested me at all in ages. Is this something that I should look into?

And Mike, as good as Bendis was on Daredevil, Brubaker is even better. He's the best damn crime noir writer in the comics industry today, and his straight up crime book Criminal might be the best book being published today.

[Karazorel]

She was 15 when she landed. Technically she was 45 but who knows how cryogenic sleep works really. And that was 3 years ago. So she's actually 18 now or 48. Your pick. But I quite enjoy the writing. Guess you're not the target audience.

[David Yun]

Aw, I hate that cop out. Something's either good or it isn't. Now you may be right, and I haven't given Supergirl a fair shake (I gave up after the first couple issues), but I'd be willing to wager a goodly sum of money that there are at least 20 other monthlies that are significantly more worth reading.

What specifically about it is good? The theme of "self-discovery" isn't exactly groundbreaking, especially when applied to a Kryptonian.

[Karazorel]

See this is an argument I don't like getting into because the same "not ground breaking material" argument can be held against absolutely everything today. I haven't seen a piece of original material in ages. Be it comics, movies, tv shows, or even web comics. Everything can be sourced back to something else. A movie doesn't have to be Oscar worthy for me to enjoy it and a comic book doesn't have to have the most extraordinary never seen before story for me to like reading it. I'm very fond of the character, I enjoy the artwork (though I enjoyed Turners art far more), and I find the story cute and dark at the same time which interests me. Not everything is everyone's cup of tea. Saying that you're not the target audience isn't a cop out answer. Not everything is so black and white as it's either GOOD or It's not. People are different and enjoy different things. I highly doubt you enjoy pink sweaters. Does that mean pink is a bad color and I shouldn't like it? When I started this thread I didn't write. Hey everyone. Read this!!! I said this is what I read monthly. I enjoy these books because so and so. You disagree thats your opinion. You think there are 20 other books out a month better than one I like who am I to say you're wrong. But to me Supergirl is a book I look forward to every month.

[Mike]

Yeah I can't get behind the "It's good or it's not" argument. I do think people who disagree with ME are dumb... but I'm biased. I'll go crazy for some things and other people are just very "Meh" about it.

So saying it's a cop out is silly... That's just picking a fight. C'mon Dee... I thought you was better than that.

[steve]

it was funny tho cuz i did a double take on Kara's response cuz i thought it read A R T U R O.

It's OK to disagree and always OK to like something just because. I don't give a crap about what anyone says about Kelly Clarkson, she's a winner and i enjoy her voice and lyrics. Someone could retort; hey, she's an overrated karaoke singer. i'd be ok with that, i'd still like her even though i got nothing to make other people understand why i do.

(but this one helped me)

[Mike]

And it's not wrong that Steve and I used to drive around blasting a pop CD in the hood singing that shit with the windows down. It just happened and it made us giggle like school girls.

Also I think it would be funny to back down from a fight then kick the guy in the small of the back when he turns his back on me.... I don't care if it's an act of cowardice.

[steve]

oh right, COMICS!

Fantastic is spelled F A B L E S! I want to thank Ny for introducing it to me two storylines in. Not that the first wasn't great but it showed me he was gonna keep going. I agree with Dee, Willingham sucks outside his element of Fables.

As much as I love Superman, I find myself only really liking him in the elseworld storylines. I heavily anticipate/hope for any Mark Millar run of the main stream titles. Just to give you an idea of how much I like Superman, I almost burst into tears when he was getting pwned by Parasite, Metallo and some other guy in Justice.

It sucks cuz i don't think any writer realizes how much more powerful they've made Batman by never being clever or strong enough to make the breakthrough of putting him in that kind of position. Cuz according to any fan, he'd never allow himself to be put in that kind of position or some lame cop out like that. It's ok to do that to Superman but put Batman in a similar situation and you'd get the equivalent of a concert sized group of prepubescent girls at a boy band concert complaining/whining about about it's postponement, "just because it's a blizzard." I hate it. The alien is more of a man and human, then the man known as The Batman. It's not Superman's fault he'll always wake up as Superman...

P.S. I love Batman too, which is why i'm so disappointed...