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Mar 10 2024 11:04pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Catnapped!" from Betty and Veronica: Friends Forever: Sleepover: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/comics-catnapped/

Mar 03 2024 2:17pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners and Losers" from Betty and Veronica #103: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/comics-winners-losers/

Mar 03 2024 2:17pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners

Feb 25 2024 6:02pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Girl of His Dreams" from Betty and Veronica #101: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/comics-girl-of-his-dreams/

Feb 22 2024 5:46pm
Tuxedo Mark: Huh, and apparently World of Betty and Veronica Digest isn't canceled; it just went on a long hiatus: https://archiecomics.com/new-archie-comics-coming-in-may-2024/

Feb 22 2024 5:35pm
Tuxedo Mark: Archie Comics is starting to do $4.99 floppies: https://archiecomics.com/archie-horror-unleashes-apocalyptic-thrills-in-judgment-day/

Feb 17 2024 3:19pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "The Big Victory" from Betty and Veronica #99: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/17/comics-the-big-victory/

Feb 04 2024 4:25pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Makeover for a Moose" from Betty and Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest #321: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/04/comics-makeover-for-a-moose/

Jan 27 2024 5:44pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Love is a Football Field!" from Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #347: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/27/comics-love-is-a-football-field/

Jan 25 2024 4:30pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "One Shot Worth a Million" from World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #136: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/comics-one-shot-worth-a-million/

What comics have you been reading?

Started by irishmoxie, March 30, 2016, 10:49:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

DeCarlo Rules

June 30th:
KILL OR BE KILLED #20 (of 20) - An unfortunately unsatisfying conclusion to this otherwise excellently-written series.
THE SENTRY #1 (of 5) - I may read a couple more issues, but I found it slightly disappointing.
MULTIPLE MAN #1 (of 5) - One issue was enough. Not for me.
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #7 - Doesn't seem to be really going anywhere, just spinning those wheels while awaiting the return of the Fantastic Four. This issue might be my last.
RICK & MORTY #39 - Always a fun read.
WONDER WOMAN #49 ("The Dark Gods" Part 4 of 5) - Not a bad story, but I'll be dropping this book when the creative team changes after issue 50.
THE FLASH #49 ("Flash War" Part 3 of 4) - Not too impressed with the story (it's just average), but I guess I'll finish reading it with #50.
THE TERRIFICS #5 - This might be the best DC Universe title right now.
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP [with The Justice Society of America] #39 - Still my absolute favorite DC read every month, and I especially liked seeing the classic JSA in a story again.
ASTRO CITY #52

DeCarlo Rules

#1441
JIMMYS BASTARDS #9 (of 9)
VALIANT HIGH #3 (of 4) - Y'know, I NEVER read Valiant titles. I just never cared for any of the characters, or that universe. Decided to give this one a try because the artwork here is by Derek Charm, whose work on STARLEET ACADEMY, STAR WARS ADVENTURES (both IDW titles) and JUGHEAD I had previously admired. The story here is another one of those "Superhero High" kind of things -- I suspect it may not actually be part of the continuity of the "Valiant Universe", as it would seem a little far-fetched to suddenly reveal that all of their main lead characters are more or less the same age and had gone to the same high school together. It wasn't bad, even though these are teenaged versions of characters I essentially know nothing about. I missed the earlier issues, so I may just get the trade collection when that comes out.
DONALD & MICKEY QUARTERLY: TREASURE MENACE IN VENICE
GREEN LANTERNS #50; BATMAN #50; CATWOMAN #1 - I'm giving DC's latest "Creative Refresh" (as they're calling it in-house) a chance... just trying a few things I don't normally read. Didn't find any of these books to be particularly creative or refreshing, though. :(
XERXES: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF DARIUS #4 (of 5)
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP #3 (of 5) - Ant-Man (in this case Ant-Man II, Scott Lang) is a character I'm predisposed to like, but 3 issues into this, I'm enjoying it less than I'd hoped to.
EMPOWERED & SISTAH SPOOKY'S HIGH SCHOOL HELL #5 (of 6)
[FROM THE WORLD OF BLACK HAMMER] THE QUANTUM AGE #1 (of 4) - I've enjoyed all of the series related to Jeff Lemire's BLACK HAMMER, and this one (which takes place in the 31st Century) was no exception.
RED SONJA/TARZAN #3
VAMPIRELLA: ROSES FOR THE DEAD #1 (of 5)
ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF DARK #1
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS #0
TAARNA #1 & 2
INFINITY 8 VOL 1 (of 8 ): LOVE AND MUMMIES #1-3 (of 3)
BY NIGHT #1 (Boom); UNNATURAL #1 (Image); NEW LIEUTENANTS OF METAL #1 (Image) - Again, just trying some new things to see if I like them. I liked each of these new series enough to at least read the next issues, and maybe more, we'll see.
ASSASSINISTAS #6 (of 6)
JUDGE DREDD: UNDER SIEGE #2 (of 4)
STAR TREK: NEW VISIONS #22 "AN UNEXPECTED YESTERDAY"

rusty

#1442
My monthly shipments from DCBS and Mycomicshop should be arriving within the next few days.  Meanwhile I have been catching up on various manga, reading around 50 volumes over the past couple of weeks:

Abandoned Sacred Beasts
Anonymous Noise
Astra Lost in Space
Attack on Titan Lost Girls
Children of Whales
Dimension W
Food Wars
Golden Kamuy
Haikyu
Kuroko's Basketball
Oresama Teacher
Platinum End
Promised Neverland
Skip-Beat
Yowamushi Pedal

and others

DeCarlo Rules

I've also been reading a few manga:
  DEVILMAN G[Grimoir] VOL 03 (of 5 tankobon) by Go Nagai & Rui Takato
  ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL 14: THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR (tankobon) by ONE & Yusuke Murata
  TOKYO TARAREBA GIRLS VOL 01 (of 9 tankobon) by Akiko Higashimura
  BATTLE ANGEL ALITA: DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 04 (of 5) by Yukito Kishiro
  Go Nagai & Ken Ishikawa's GETTER ROBO DEVOLUTION VOL 01 (of 5 tankobon) by Eiichi Shimizu & Tomohiro Shimoguchi - I was looking forward to reading this one, Seven Seas' first release in the Getter Robo franchise since getting rights to Dynamic Pro's manga, but it was disappointing. DEVILMAN G is also a modern reboot/reimagining like this one, but it was so much better. Didn't care for the art style in DEVOLUTION at all, which seems sketchy and undetailed. I'm not too keen on the mecha redesigns, either. Although this is the most recent manga in the franchise, it's a poor choice to introduce the characters to American readers, and unless I'm reading the situation wrongly, it appears in this story that Professor Saotome (who's supposed to be one of the good guys) actually shoots an innocent man (or had his goons do it, I forget now) because "he knows too much". The sensationalized, over-the-top violent/gory stuff on display here (which is entirely appropriate in a horror-hero manga like DEVILMAN) just doesn't sit right -- trying to 'grim&gritty'-up a cornerstone franchise in the super robot genre just doesn't work for me.

And finishing off my reading of the various ANT-MAN/GIANT-MAN collected trades:
ANT-MAN/GIANT-MAN: GROWING PAINS TP
ASTONISHING ANT-MAN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TP

rusty

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2018, 07:14:38 AM
I've also been reading a few manga:
   ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL 14: THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR (tankobon) by ONE & Yusuke Murata
   BATTLE ANGEL ALITA: DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 04 (of 5) by Yukito Kishiro
One Punch Man is a series that I've heard mentioned a lot and will probably try out eventually.  What do you think of it?

I love Battle Angel Alita.  I first collected it in regular comics and continued as they switched to the volume format.  I wasn't going to get the deluxe editions, but when I saw how nice they were, I went ahead and bought them even though I have the earlier editions.  I'm behind on reading Mars Chronicle, but will get to those eventually.

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: rusty on July 09, 2018, 10:23:54 PM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2018, 07:14:38 AM
I've also been reading a few manga:
   ONE-PUNCH MAN VOL 14: THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR (tankobon) by ONE & Yusuke Murata
   BATTLE ANGEL ALITA: DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 04 (of 5) by Yukito Kishiro
One Punch Man is a series that I've heard mentioned a lot and will probably try out eventually.  What do you think of it?

I love Battle Angel Alita.  I first collected it in regular comics and continued as they switched to the volume format.  I wasn't going to get the deluxe editions, but when I saw how nice they were, I went ahead and bought them even though I have the earlier editions.  I'm behind on reading Mars Chronicle, but will get to those eventually.

I somehow completely missed out on Battle Angel Alita the first time around. I mean, I was aware that it existed, because I'd seen it around here and there, but for whatever reason, I'd just never picked it up and given it a try. Now after I'd read the first couple of hardcover volumes, I liked it so much that I went and ordered all five omnibus editions of Battle Angel Alita: The Last Order, and have been getting the Mars Chronicle tankobon volumes as they've come out. I've held off on reading the latter two series for reasons of not wanting any spoilers revealed until I've read the last volume of the hardcover collection of the original series. Kodansha will also be releasing a standalone Battle Angel Alita: Homecoming volume in hardcover that collects some shorter, self-contained stories set during the same time frame as the original series (there's a Halloween Comic Fest giveaway comic scheduled to preview that).

The spoiler thing kind of bugs me, because Seven Seas Entertainment completely spoiled the original Devilman for me by releasing two later series in translation earlier, Devilman G (which is a modern retelling with some differences) and Devilman vs Hades (a fairly recent sequel to the original Devilman which also crosses over with characters from Mazinger Z). Since I'd just been reading those as they came out in overlapped releases, the first volume of Devilman vs Hades completely ruins a couple of major plot reveals from the ending of Devilman: The Classic Collection (the second volume of which hasn't come out yet in translation from Seven Seas).

ONE-PUNCH MAN is just amazing! I mean, on the surface it just seems like a bunch of fights and hyperviolence, but it's got humor and even some deeper commentary on what it means to be a hero. Saitama is the one-punch man of the title. He's a short, bald-headed guy whose slightly-built physique and blank expression leads everyone to overlook him and underestimate him, but somehow Saitama possesses the power to defeat any opponent with a single punch. It's mostly over so quickly that any witnesses don't even realize what happened or how. So what Saitama really wants to do is be a hero for fun, helping people while he seeks an adversary that can give him a challenge and won't be defeated so easily. To do this, he joins up with the Heroes Association, a kind of national infrastructure for superheroes, to facilitate dispatching heroes to the scene of emergencies. Since his power isn't really measured easily, and is over with in the time it takes for him to deliver a single punch, people tend not to believe what they've seen (or are distracted by something else, not realizing what exactly happened); Saitama starts out as a lowly-rated Class C hero. Genos, a teenage cyborg hero who is rated as Class S (that's above Class A, by the way) is one of the few that sees Saitama in action and believes. Since Genos is an earnest young hero he immediately begs Saitama to become his sensei and train him. We are also introduced to many other heroes in the ranks of the Heroes Association. Some are not really heroes at all, but are out for their own personal celebrity or glory, or are just feeding their own inflated egos every time they defeat an opponent in combat. Monsters are also rated by their threat levels - Threat Level Dragon is more dangerous than Threat Level Tiger. It later turns out that there is also a Monsters Association to support the monsters, and things really get interesting.


DeCarlo Rules

SAVAGE DRAGON #235
ARCHIE #32
KISS ARMY OF DARKNESS #5
(of 5)
UNCLE SCROOGE #440
TITANS #23
WONDER WOMAN #50
FLASH #50
HAWKMAN #2
PLASTIC MAN #2
(of 6)
WORLD OF TANKS: CITADEL #3 (of 5)
SHE COULD FLY #1
AVENGERS #4 (694)
DOCTOR STRANGE #2 & 3 (392 & 393)
HILLBILLY #11
SHEENA #10
CASPER AND HOT STUFF #1
WORLD OF ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #80
WALT DISNEY SHOWCASE #3: THE BEAGLE BOYS
FF VOL 1 TP: FANTASTIC FAUX
FF VOL 2 TP: FAMILY FREAKOUT

DeCarlo Rules

07-18-18:
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR VS DOCTOR DOOM #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR WEDDING #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR THE COMING OF GALACTUS #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR HULK VS THING #1
INFINITY COUNTDOWN #5
(of 5)
THE UNSTOPPABLE WASP VOL 01: UNSTOPPABLE TP
THE UNSTOPPABLE WASP VOL 02: AGENTS OF G.I.R.L. TP
WORLD'S END HAREM VOL 02
tankobon
CABLE #159
ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 #1
(of 6)
BETTY AND VERONICA FRIENDS FOREVER: TRAVEL TALES #1
ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1 TP
HILLBILLY #10
INFINITY 8 VOL 2 #1
(of 3)
STELLAR #2 (of 6)
KICK-ASS #6
GIDEON FALLS #5
ICE CREAM MAN #5
AMAZING FANTASTIC INCREDIBLE: A Marvelous Memoir by Stan Lee OGN
by Peter David & Colleen Doran

BettyReggie

I read Eerie Cuties presents Freaky Frights.

irishmoxie

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 18, 2018, 09:07:52 AM
ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 #1
(of 6)


Debating on whether this is worth a purchase or not.

DeCarlo Rules

#1450
Quote from: irishmoxie on July 20, 2018, 10:13:31 AM
Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 18, 2018, 09:07:52 AM
ARCHIE MEETS BATMAN '66 #1
(of 6)


Debating on whether this is worth a purchase or not.

I LOVED it! (but what else would you expect?)  It's worth mentioning that it really should be ARCHIE '66 Meets Batman '66. So when you see Mrs. Lodge (who didn't have a first name in 1966), it's the 1966 version of Mrs. Lodge (i.e. a stout, matronly woman, with a hair bun). Veronica is wearing a minidress with a style similar to what you'd have seen her wearing in a 1966 Archie story. And it's really remarkable how much Mr. Lodge and Alfred (Batman's butler) resemble each other, but then that makes complete sense when you think about the actor that played Alfred on the 1966 Batman television series, and how he would look translated into the traditional Archie style. It's all those little touches of detail that make the story stand out from the POV of a fan of Archie comics. But then I guess it would depend on how you felt about the Batman TV series. At any rate, this is probably the last opportunity to read a long-form Dan Parent Archie story that we'll have for a while.

****

Since you asked about it before in the Shoutbox, I'll mention ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH VOL 1 again. Originally, I was going to pass on picking this one up, and after reading it, I have to conclude that my initial gut impressions were correct. I relented in my initial conviction to skip it because I had a moment of doubt where I questioned whether my subjective impressions of that title might have been wrong. First off, this is not, as I might have expected, a complete chronological reprinting of the stories proceeding from ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH #1. It reprints stories from issue #1 through 33, but at 224 pages, obviously not ALL of the stories from those issues. Most curious of all is the fact that none of the stories reprinted features Chuck Clayton in a starring or co-starring role (in fact, I don't remember him having a significant part in any of the stories reprinted here). That's decidedly odd when you look at those 1970s issues of A@RH, because this title was the place that stories with Chuck most frequently appeared. Perhaps they purposely left those out, because the company's well-meaning attempts to promote racial/ethnic equality at the time might seem patronizing today without any contextual hindsight. The quality of the artwork is certainly on a par with other Archie stories from this same time period (1973-76), but storywise...

All of the stories are little didactic lessons in which Archie sees a problem and solves it. Nearly all the stories downplay or outright ignore the typical Archie situation comedy format. The stories all present Archie as sort of a role model for emulation by the young readers who would have picked up this comic in the early 1970s. It's hard to imagine Archie Comics publishing a title like this in the 1950s or early 1960s, but I chalk it up to the mass exposure Archie and friends were getting at the time in the Filmation animated cartoons on TV. Like the A@RH stories, the television stories ignored the rom-com and slapstick situations that were the main strength of the original comic books. Those stories as well as these are safe, squeaky-clean pro-social message stories like the few plots that television broadcast standards and practices censors of the time could find no fault with, and let pass for Saturday morning kid-vid. That's fine for the less-demanding childrens' audience, but not for adult comic readers looking purely for entertainment value.

The worst sin of these stories is that few if any of them derive the impetus for their plots from the standard character flaws, relationships, or motivations that are the hallmark of the best Archie stories. Jughead does nothing of any importance, nothing remotely Jughead-like, with the exception of lending support to Archie as a best friend, and even that plays into very few of the stories. Betty and Veronica don't display any traits of best-friendship or of competitive rivalry. The plots don't turn on the characters' motivations of jealousy, covetousness, selfishness, or ego competition. Only Reggie is allowed to maintain a small portion of his vanity and jerkiness in a few stories (again, reflecting the situation of the plots of the Filmation TV cartoons).

Taken as merely one of a dozen or so Archie-related titles that ACP published at the time, A@RH can be seen as simply providing some variety to the lineup of titles published by ACP, and having its own distinct flavor so that the stories appearing in each title seemed less totally interchangeable. Spread out as reprints in the digests, these stories merely seem like the raisins in an oatmeal cookie, which is fine -- but reading 224 pages of them at a sitting wears thin awfully fast. There are only a half-dozen or so basic plots in A@RH stories, the rest being merely slight variations or embellishment; Archie motivates the baseball/football/basketball/hockey team to win through teamwork or school spirit, Archie recognizes a problem and helps organize the students to pitch in to help the school or the community, and few basic others. They're a little obvious and repetitive, especially when read one after another in a collection this size. In short, boring! It's equally true that can also be said of the comedic situations in most Archie stories, but the variations on the same basic tropes seemed more like a challenge to the writers' inventiveness in many of those stories. There are maybe half-a-dozen stories in the whole collection that stick out or are memorable in any way.

DeCarlo Rules

CAPTAIN HARLOCK #1-13 [Eternity 1989-91]
EMERALDAS The Pirate Queen #1-4 [Eternity 1990-91]
CAPTAIN HARLOCK: DEATHSHADOW RISING #1-6 [Eternity 1991]
CAPTAIN HARLOCK CHRISTMAS SPECIAL #1 [Eternity 1991]
CAPTAIN HARLOCK: FALL OF THE EMPIRE #1-4 [Eternity 1992]
CAPTAIN HARLOCK: THE MACHINE PEOPLE #1-4 [Eternity 1993]

BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #265 - Always enjoyable. I've been looking forward to each new issue recently to read the Cheryl Blossom serial "And the Winner Is...", (originally published in B&V Double Digest #161-165) which I'd never had a chance to read before (even though I know who the winner turned out to be). Part 3 of 5 was in this issue. I hope they continue to reprint the remaining Cheryl stories in the same chronological order in which they first appeared.

GOLGO 13 (Graphic Novel Series) No. 1: INTO THE WOLVES' LAIR The Fall of the Fourth Reich TP (1987) by Takao Saito
GOLGO 13 (standard comic format) No. 1: THE IMPOSSIBLE HIT (1989) by Takeo Saito
GOLGO 13 (standard comic format) No. 2: THE BORDER HOPPER (1990) by Takeo Saito (story title on cover & page 1 hilariously mis-translated as "Hopper the Border")
BLACK MAGIC TP by Masamune Shirow

DeCarlo Rules

#1452
UNCLE SCROOGE #441
B&V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #263
ARCHIES BIG BOOK VOL 04: FAIRY TALES TP
ARCHIE'S SUPERTEENS VS CRUSADERS #2
(of 2)
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #40
BATMAN: SINS OF THE FATHER #6
(of 6)
DC BEACH BLANKET BAD GUYS SPECIAL #1
THE TERRIFICS #6
THE FLASH #51
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1
DOOMSDAY CLOCK #6
(of 12)
INFINITY WARS PRIME #1 (one-shot)
THE SENTRY #2
X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN: SECOND GENESIS #1
  (of 2)
HIT-GIRL #6
MOONSHINE #12
SAVAGE DRAGON #236
TANK GIRL ALL STARS #2
(of 4)
RICK & MORTY #40
STAR WARS ADVENTURES #12
JUDGE DREDD: UNDER SIEGE #3
(of 4)
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR - GALACTUS HUNGERS #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR - THE COMING OF HERBIE #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE #1
TRUE BELIEVERS: FANTASTIC FOUR - WHAT IF? #1
STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO TP VOL 3: I.D.I.C.
STAR TREK: NEW VISIONS #19: THE HUNGER
MAZINGER
OGN (First Comics 1988) by Go Nagai

BettyReggie

I haven't read anything Archie related in while. I have been too busy.

BettyReggie

I did wind up reading some comics before it was my latest midtown comics .

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