OSJ Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 Okay, I make no secrets about loving me some Hellboy & Co. and that's not just because Dark Horse was really nice to me as far as what they paid for an article about Manly Wade Wellman to use in The Crooked Man arc. I love them because even though Mike Mignola knows his shit, he doubled down by commissioning an article by someone he had even more confidence in instead of just winging it. Most creators would just wing it, after all, whose going to catch any mistakes except some pulp geeks, right? I get all kinds of props for my knowledge of the field, and it isn't that so much as it is that I know when I don't know. Anyway, this little extra attention to detail goes a long way to making Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Ape Sapien and others. You may have noticed I relegated Lobster Johnson to the status of "and others". Even with working him in to the Hellboy backstory, it's pretty damn hard to sell a fake pulp hero to a guy that has over 150 Shadow novels, 100 Spider novels, the complete Secret Agent X, some 100+ Moon Man, Black Bat, Avenger and Whisperer yarns and five huge hardcovers containing the total of the Green Lama and the Green Ghost. Sorry, you guys have your hearts in the right place and you're hitting some of the notes but at the end of the day you're white kids from Queens playing Delta blues. Bless 'em for trying, but the Lobster's always going to come up a little short. As to everything else? HOLY SHIT!!!! These are books that give no fucks, they aren't afraid to write out a main character and send them out adventuring solo. They aren't afraid to kill off a major character and NOT BRING HIM BACK, hell, they aren't afraid to grotesquely mutate a character just for shits and giggles (you think a guy being dead for three days and his cheek missing is grotesque? Watch this MUTHAFUKAS!!!.) Mike, Scott & Co. have read the rules of good horror fiction and they've learned well... The innocent must suffer, anyone can die at any moment, I'll have to check on the "get nekkid, you get dead" factor, but I'm pretty sure that it's there. Best of all, Mike does the same thing that I do in a lot of my fiction, he riffs on Lovecraft without drifting into the realm of pastiche. Yeas, Lovecraft (& friends) came up with a pretty cool universe to play around in, but that's been done. The Mignolaverse does a neat job taking pieces from this and that using the Abrahamic religions as the main backdrop and mooshing everything together in the blender with a few good shots of steampunk to get an absolutely glorious canvas to paint on. And then in what's truly mindblowing, in the pages of Abe Sapien, we get the Walking Dead with even more monsters and it is even cooler as a result! In case you couldn't tell, I am all in on this stuff. Is no one else digging this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 I love the main Hellboy series but haven't been able to get into the extended universe stuff though another try may come soon. Funny enough, that Manly Wade Wellman talk in Crooked Man made me grab a copy of Who Fears the Devil? so cheers for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 11 hours ago, The Unholy Dragon said: I love the main Hellboy series but haven't been able to get into the extended universe stuff though another try may come soon. Funny enough, that Manly Wade Wellman talk in Crooked Man made me grab a copy of Who Fears the Devil? so cheers for that. That gives you all the John the Balladeer stories, but what you really want is the five volume selected stories set that I did for Night Shade Books The first book in the set is expensive, but the other four volumes are pretty reasonable. I've heard rumors that they are reissuing the whole series as trade paperbacks!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 Two different Monday podcasts I listen to (Cracked and Laser Time) mentioned Scud yesterday. I've been meaning to read it for 20 years, and the Whole Shebang TPB is $24 on Comixology, so I think it's time I finally took a look at it. Shame La Casa Nostroid isn't included, isn't on Comixology, and costs like $30 an issue to collect. (I know Schrab and Harmon were on the outs when Whole Shebang came out, but they aren't *now* and digital transfers for Amazon don't feel like they should be prohibitive. Then again, I could be wrong about that.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 Where does one start when wanting to read Hellboy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 12, 2017 Author Share Posted September 12, 2017 4 minutes ago, Eivion said: Where does one start when wanting to read Hellboy? http://www.multiversitycomics.com/annotations/hellboy-reading-order-2017/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted September 12, 2017 Share Posted September 12, 2017 You have my appreciation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 12, 2017 Author Share Posted September 12, 2017 As I recall, for a while, the trades were not numbered, so it was a pain in the rear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 Quantum and Woody's "Most Variant Cover Ever" is so wonderfully stupid that I want one. Not badly enough to spend the hundreds of dollars it will require (1 for 250 on a Valiant book...it's going to be a run of what, five?) but I love that it exists. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 20, 2017 Author Share Posted September 20, 2017 14 minutes ago, Cliff Hanger said: Quantum and Woody's "Most Variant Cover Ever" is so wonderfully stupid that I want one. Not badly enough to spend the hundreds of dollars it will require (1 for 250 on a Valiant book...it's going to be a run of what, five?) but I love that it exists. We were one of the biggest retailers for Q&W (enough to get a Priest store signing) and I do t think we sold 250 copies an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 And the new version, while perfectly enjoyable, was not as good as Priest's original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 20, 2017 Author Share Posted September 20, 2017 I lost interest in the Asmus version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 It picked up with Delinquents and Q&W Must Die, but it's not remotely as good as the original. I will definitely give the new writer a try in December. Some of this is emotional baggage--my mom read a few of my comics, largely so she could talk to me better about the stuff I was into, but Q&W was the only thing she kept buying for herself when I was at college. Some of it is continuing to trust Valiant 3.0 because while they have produced comics I'm not interested in, the actual BAD things they've made are incredibly few and far between and I really like their attempt to do different models with cape books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted October 5, 2017 Author Share Posted October 5, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted October 5, 2017 Share Posted October 5, 2017 That disappoints me. Gene Luen Yang did a wonderful job with the characters. Never read anything by the new creators. Are they any good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted October 5, 2017 Author Share Posted October 5, 2017 Faith Erin Hicks does a lot of cool stuff. Maybe she's the Canadian Raina Telgemeier. Her adventures of Superhero Girl book is really fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted October 20, 2017 Author Share Posted October 20, 2017 This recent two part Astro City arc is a throwback to when it was THE non Big Two book. "SHAZAM but with a Dog" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted October 23, 2017 Share Posted October 23, 2017 I'm not sure how I feel about them doing a sequel to The Nearness of You or that some of the phrasing used in promotion implies the lead will become a villain due to the memories...it veers a little grim and sort of like an unnecessary return to a story that was basically perfect as it is. Which is something I expect more from DC proper than Astro City. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin877 Posted October 23, 2017 Share Posted October 23, 2017 On 10/20/2017 at 5:38 PM, odessasteps said: This recent two part Astro City arc is a throwback to when it was THE non Big Two book. "SHAZAM but with a Dog" Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life you forget about the simple things. I looked up the solicits for the most recent 2 issue story arc of Astro City. I think I need to make an order with Midtown Comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 https://www.cbr.com/steve-ditko-wwf-comic/ I hadn't known this. It makes sense though. I imagine Ditko and Warrior would have had a lot to talk about. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 Steve Ditko invented the Too Sweet sign! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.H. Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 ElfQuest is one of those comics I always saw and wanted to get into but fear of picking up random issue only to be lost because of the deep mythology kept me away. Well thank goodness Dark Horse re-published all of EQ in hefty tomes for easy reading. I'm 3/4 of the way through The Original Quest and I am thoroughly engrossed. Wendy Pini's art is so great, like a cartoonist style formatted for a comic book. I'm sure I'll be on to Vol. 2 in no time at all James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 2 hours ago, Matt D said: https://www.cbr.com/steve-ditko-wwf-comic/ I hadn't known this. It makes sense though. I imagine Ditko and Warrior would have had a lot to talk about. I think I remember reading about it on 4thletter back in the day. I can easily see Shooter reaching out to Ditko for his startup before it had really found its footing, but man...those comics are pretty brutal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted October 28, 2017 Share Posted October 28, 2017 I owned that Bossman/Undertaker comic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobholly138 Posted November 1, 2017 Share Posted November 1, 2017 I got one of the Valiant WWW comics,reprints the Ditko Bozeman vs Taker story and a Virgil attacking Dibiase all over the Million Dollar Mansion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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