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What comics have you been reading?

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

Previous topic - Next topic

rusty

I finally finished up the Treasure Chest series - all 508 issues.  Overall, they were fun.  Now I plan to work my way through the Classics Illustrated Special issues and the World Around Us issues that I haven't read yet.

rusty

I've started reading my backlog of Four Color issues.  I started with five of them tonight

#21 Oswald the Rabbit - This one is a full length Easter story with egg swapping, a flood, a crazy Woody Woodpecker and more.  I thought it was good, but I prefer the later Oswald stories.

#25 Andy Panda - This starts out with Andy on a remote Pacific island where he befriends a shipwrecked sailor.  The sailor makes a raft and takes Andy back to civilization.  He is kidnapped and sold to a circus, but later escapes.  Like the Oswald comic, it was good, but I like the later stories more.

#28 Wash Tubbs - This was a long running comic strip and this comic features about 6 months worth of story.  Wash is engaged to a beautiful heiress, but a guy he works with will stop at nothing to discredit Wash and steal his girl.  I enjoyed it, even though I've never read Wash Tubbs before.

#30 Bambi's Children - Bambi is all grown up now and has a son and daughter.  This story is about the adventures of the animals in the forest.  There is a poacher out to kill animals, but there is also a good man out to save them if necessary.  Not bad.

#36 Smilin' Jack - This is an aviation comic strip.  I didn't really care for it much.  The series ran for almost 40 years in the papers, though.

DeCarlo Rules

#1637
I haven't posted anything regarding what I'm reading in a while, because it seems like there's always a list of things every week which I still haven't gotten around to reading, and any time I spend posting/reviewing is time I'm not spending catching up. So I'll just do a list of things I've been getting and trying to keep up with. I tend not to get so far behind on the floppy comics, but collected editions (like manga paperbacks, or original graphic novels) do sometimes have a tendency to sit awhile before I can get to them.

Stuff I've been getting or reading on a regular basis:

ARCHIE COMICS:
  Archie (ongoing), since #699 - I just borrow this comic and will probably stop reading it after the "Archie & Sabrina" 5-part story arc. Interest is kind of marginal, and I don't care much for the art, it's just bland.
  Sabrina the Teenage Witch (5 issue miniseries) - I just borrow this comic, and am only reading it because it's available to me. Meh. I won't be buying the trade.
  Jughead's Time Police (5 issues miniseries) - Pretty good first issue. I'm going to try to review this one, as well as ARCHIE #705, in a little bit.
  Archie The Married Life: 10 Years Later - I will definitely be getting this miniseries as well as the TP collection. Anything by Dan Parent is automatically on the list.
  Betty and Veronica (one-shots) - These are reprints of (very) recent new 5-pagers from the digests.
  Archie & Friends (one-shots) - These are reprints of (very) recent new 5-pagers from the digests.
  Betty & Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest - I've gotten every issue since 2014; no plans to quit.
  B & V Friends Jumbo Comics Digest - I've gotten every issue since 2014; no plans to quit.
  Archie Modern Classics TPs - Presumably, this will continue on an annual basis, compiling all the new 5-page digest stories from the previous year.
  Archie's Big Book TPs - I've gotten them all (so far...)
  Archie Comics Presents... TPs - I got all the Vol. 1 collections, but will be skipping some of the Vol.2's of the weaker series like ARCHIE & ME, ARCHIE AT RIVERDALE HIGH, and (maybe) EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE... looking forward to the KATY KEENE collection, and more B&V SPECTACULAR.
  ... and that's about it for Archie Comics.

AC COMICS:
  FemForce

ACTION LAB ENTERTAINMENT:
  Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir TPs

ALBATROSS FUNNYBOOKS:
  The Goon

ANTARCTIC PRESS:
  Exciting Comics
  Heroes At Large (miniseries)

AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY PRODUCTIONS:
  Carson of Venus
  The Land That Time Forgot
  Pellucidar
  The Moon Maid
  Zorro

BOOM STUDIOS:
  King Kong miniseries
  Planet of the Apes miniseries (usually)
  Robocop miniseries (usually)

CHAPTERHOUSE COMICS:
  Die Kitty Die (all minis & one-shots)

DARK HORSE:
  Hellboy & the B.P.R.D. - I get this series in trade collections
  Lobster Johnson - I get the single floppy issues and the trade collections.
  (Dark Horse manga will be listed in a separate post later)

DC COMICS:
Current series I'm getting:
  Scooby-Doo Team-Up - My favorite DC title! This one I actually buy the singles AND the TPs.
  Looney Tunes - Not nearly as good as SDTU, but I like it enough to keep buying the floppies.

These titles I just borrow the floppies to read, and only get the trade collections later if I decide I really liked it:
  Green Lantern (2018) - since issue #1 - It's not bad. I wouldn't say it's one of Grant Morrison's better works, but holding my interest enough so far. Haven't decided whether or not I'll get the trade collections later yet.
  Shazam - I thought I'd give it a fair chance (since I'm a big fan of the original Marvel Family), but I think I may quit reading it soon. It's really not clicking for me.
  Doomsday Clock (12 issues) - I'd rather not comment until I see how it all winds up in issue #12.
  Freedom Fighters (12 issues) - It's okay... I don't think I'd still read it if I weren't just borrowing it, though.
  Female Furies (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
  Wonder Twins (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
  Dial H for HERO (6 issues) - This one I like, and may even get the trade collection later.
... and that's it for DC, currently. I do get various reprint collections of classic DC stories.

DISNEY COMICS:
  The Carl Barks Library HCs (Fantagraphics)
  The Don Rosa Library HCs (Fantagraphics)
  Disney Masters HCs (Fantagraphics)
  Disney Classic Stories (Dark Horse) - TP originals, adapted like Classics Illustrated, but using the Disney characters.
  Silly Symphonies HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW) - Not sure if this series is completed or not.
  Walt Disney's Treasury of Classic Tales HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Uncle Scrooge (IDW) - trade paperback
  Mickey Mouse (IDW) - trade paperback
  Donald Duck (IDW) - trade paperback
  Mickey & Donald (IDW) - trade paperback

Other classic newspaper comic strip collections:
  Flash Gordon HCs (Titan Books) - I think these are pretty much ended, as there hasn't been a new one in a while.
  Mandrake the Magician HCs (Titan Books) - I think these are pretty much ended, as there hasn't been a new one in a while.
  The Phantom Dailies HCs (Hermes Press)
  The Phantom Sundays HCs (Hermes Press)
  Li'l Abner HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Dick Tracy HCs - I only got the 5 volumes covering 1964-1970, which were the ones I mainly wanted for the "Moon Era" Tracy. It's just too long a series.
  Superman Dailies HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)
  Superman Sundays HCs (Library of American Comics/IDW)

DYNAMITE COMICS:
  Various things, but I'm going to be picky, depending on who's writing/drawing it.
  Barbarella
  Vampirella
  Elvira
  Sheena
  Dejah Thoris
  John Carter Warlord of Mars
  Mars Attacks
  Project Superpowers - Hated the last one, to be honest.
  The Shadow
  Doc Savage
  The Avenger
  The Spider
  Green Hornet - I think I skipped the last one of these.
  Lone Ranger

IDW:
  Dick Tracy - Got the first (Allred/Tomaso) miniseries, skipped the second (Michael Oeming).
  Star Trek: Year Five - A new classic Trek series. Haven't made up my mind about how I feel about it yet.
  Star Trek: The Next Generation - I usually trade-wait on this one.
  Planet of the Apes - I've gotten a few things by IDW, so I wonder if the license jumped from Boom to IDW. Seems like it.

IMAGE:
  Criminal (and anything else by Ed Brubaker)
  Exorsisters
  Outer Darkness
  -- plus various (but not all) miniseries by Mark Millar

MARVEL COMICS:
These I just borrow to read, and may get in trade later if I really liked them:
  The Unstoppable Wasp
  Invaders
  Spider-Man: Life Story (6 issue miniseries)
... and that's it for current Marvel Comics. I do buy TP or HC collections of classic Marvel reprints, though.

MAGAZINES:
  TWOMORROWS:
    Alter Ego
    Back Issue
    Comic Book Creator
    The Jack Kirby Collector
    RetroFan
    & various trade paperback books & hardcovers that TM puts out

  Famous Monsters of Filmland (only some issues, depending on content)
  Monster Bash
  Scary Monsters / Monster Memories Yearbook
  FilmFax
  THE CREEPS Magazine - Pretty much the same as the old Warren CREEPY or EERIE (which is to say, good).
  CARtoons Magazine - Automotive humor in comics form.


That's it for now, I'll cover the manga (the longest part of the list) later.

DeCarlo Rules

#1638
Part Two: the manga list

DARK HORSE:
  Gantz Omnibus
  Gantz G
  Mob Psycho 100


DC COMICS:
  Batman & The Justice League (manga)

DRAWN & QUARTERLY:
  Kitaro
  -- anything else by Shigeru Mizuki

KODANSHA:
  Battle Angel Alita

LAST GASP:
  Barefoot Gen

SEVEN SEAS:
  Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage
  Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary
  Please Tell Me, Galko-Chan!
  Plus-Sized Elf
  Precarious Woman Executive: Miss Black General
  Saint Seiya: Santia Sho
  Wonderland
  World's End Harem

  -- anything by Go Nagai
  -- anything by Reiji Matsumoto

UDON STUDIOS:
  Infini-T Force
  Megaman: Mastermix
  Menage A 3
  Street Fighter


VIZ MEDIA:
  Black Torch
  My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
-  I read one volume of the main MHA series that this spins off of, but didn't like it as much as the spinoff.
  One-Punch Man
  Platinum End
  20th Century Boys (Perfect Edition)
  Urusei Yatsura
(omnibus)
  -- anything by Junji Ito

YEN PRESS:
  Prison School (omnibus)

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: rusty on April 28, 2019, 11:50:21 PMI've been reading the Treasure Chest series that ran from 1946-1972 in 27 volumes.  It was available at Catholic schools and features a lot of historical and religious content, but also has two adventure serials in each issue that aren't bad.  I just finished vol.16 and plan to finish the rest over the next couple of weeks.

Wow, little did I realize that nearly all the 1946-1963 issues of Treasure Chest are available for browsing and downloading here:
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=407

That's something like 350-ish issues of TC. Discovering things like this is why I get backlogged on so much reading of the print books I've purchased. I've already got several different search-and-download projects in various stages of completion, so here's another to add to the list.

rusty

My manga books tend to sit for a while, too.  I caught up back in October, but fell behind again as I started getting caught up on new comics.  As I've been working on my back issue backlog lately, I've fallen behind on each of the other categories.  I plan to get caught up on all 3 eventually so that I can just keep up with new purchases.

To give you a good idea of the manga I read, here is a list of what I've purchased in 2019.

January 2019
A Certain Scientific Accelerator 8
Abandoned Sacred Beasts 7
After the Rain 2
Battle Angel Alita Mars Chronicle 5
Case Closed 69
Children of the Whales 8
Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction  4
Hayate the Combat Butler 33
Kimagure Orange Road Omnibus vol. 1-6
Ultraman 11
UQ Holder 15
Wandering Island 2
Xxholic Rei 3,4
Your Name Another Side Earthbound 1

February 2019
Ao Haru Ride 3
Aposimz 2
Black Butler 27
Black Clover 14
Btooom 23
Captain Harlock Dimensional Voyage 7
Certain Magical Index 16
Food Wars 28
Golden Kamuy 8
Kino's Journey The Beautiful World 1
Magi 34
Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt 10
My Hero Academia 17
One Piece 89
Oresama Teacher 25
Promised Neverland 8
Ran and the Gray World 2
Seven Deadly Sins 30
Teasing Master Takagi-san 3
Tokyo Ghoul :re 9
Urusei Yatsura 1
Yona of the Dawn 16

March 2019
A Certain Scientific Railgun Astral Buddy 1
Anonymous Noise 16
Ao Haru Ride 4
Aria Masterpiece 1
Berserk Deluxe 1
Boruto 5
Children of Whales 9
Chi's Sweet Adventure 3
Dimension W 13
Food Wars 29
Haikyu 31
I Am a Hero Omnibus 9
In Spectre 9
Kaguya-sama 7
My Hero Academia 18
My Hero Academia School Briefs 1
My Hero Academia Vigilantes 4
Platinum End 8
Promised Neverland 9
Rin-Ne 29
Seraph of the End 16
Seven Deadly Sins 31
Skip Beat 42
Yona of the Dawn 17

April 2019 
After the Rain 3
Btooom 24
Case Closed 70
Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction  5
Gantz G 3
Golden Kamuy 9
Magi 35
Smashed
Tokyo Ghoul :re 10
UQ Holder 16

May 2019
A Certain Magical Index 17
Anonymous Noise 14
Attack on Titan 27
Batman and Justice League 2
Battle Angel Alita Mars Chronicle 6
Black Clover 15
Captain Harlock Dimensional Voyage 8
Children of the Whales 10
Dragonball Super 5
Haikyu 32
Kagerou Daze 12
Kaguya Sama 8
Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt 11
One Piece 90
One Punch Man 16
Ooku 15
Ran and the Gray World 3
Snow White with the Red Hair 1
Teasing Master Takagi-san  4
Toppu GP  4
Urusei Yatsura 2
Yowamushi Pedal 11

June 2019
After Rain 4
Ao Haru Ride 5
Aria Masterpiece 2
Boruto 6
Chi's Sweet Adventure 4
Dimension W 14
Elfen Lied Omnibus 1
Emanon 1
Food Wars 30
Kino's Journey 2
Magi 36
My hero Academia 19
Promised Neverland 10
Queen's Quality 7
Seraph of the End 17
Seven Deadly Sins 32
Yona of the Dawn 18

DeCarlo Rules

#1641
That is a LOT of manga. On average, how many volumes of a brand-new tankobon series do you give a trial before deciding (assuming no prior commitment to the particular mangaka or characters from previous familiarity) to continue or not? I've always tried to force myself to decide within one volume or two. I just can't keep it on the list if I'm not particularly enthused from the get-go.

Was that MARS CHRONICLE Vol. 6 the final tankobon of that cycle or is there more to it? I peeked at the end to get an idea whether it seemed "to be continued..." and it does seem to end on kind of a lull in activity... whether that's just a pause before a new phase or that's the end of the "flashback" series I couldn't determine (I still haven't finished reading LAST ORDER). Haven't seen a new solicit for BAAMC since, though. I think I do remember reading somewhere it said that Mars Chronicle is the finale (even if it is a prequel) of the entire Alita series as a whole.

So, you mentioned APOSIMZ and that's another one where I'd gotten the first volume; but with one series and another I always seem to be 6 or more tankoban behind (not for a single series) in reading the manga I buy. So when I do have time, I look over the pile of what's been sitting there for a while, but I don't necessarily read them in the order I got them; I read them according to what I'm most interested in reading at the moment. With one thing and another, I just never got around to reading APOSIMZ. I bought it based on having read the FCBD floppy comic, which interested me enough to gamble on a single volume, and it seems like the kind of thing that's up my alley -- science fiction, but it's not straight SF, as it seems like there's a fantasy element mixed into the plot as well. But until I get around to reading the first volume, I'm not going to buy the second one just on faith.

Other times my timing just stinks. I didn't get on board and read JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE from the start, and now there's already dozens of volumes out there, and it's beginning to look more and more daunting (and with the continuing success of it, no end in sight, either). I do tend to prefer series that look as though they might go on for a finite number of volumes, progress through an arc (or several), and finally conclude, although I guess if I was fortunate enough to discover it at the very start of the series and kept up, it's not too much of a concern, unless the quality begins to wane. I would like to find a well-stocked online source for out-of-print manga books, though. Amazon z-shops is spotty (or extremely pricey) on older stuff (15+ years or so), and it kills you in shipping buying one tankobon here, one there.

BTOOOM! was another series that looked really good when I finally got a look at it, but again... that was when it was already 18 or 20 volumes down the road, so now the prospect of going back and getting them all is a little off-putting, because where am I going to find the time (assuming I can even find them all) while keeping up on all my other manga series? Like I said, I've already fallen behind. It looks like Battle Angel Alita is by far the longest (in toto) manga series I've gotten -- but as I mentioned, I haven't finished it yet, either. If indeed Mars Chronicle is now ended, I should eventually catch up on it. That one was very atypical for me because I started reading the Kodansha hardcover collection of the original series, and then trying to find all the omnibus volumes of Last Order, while Kodansha began releasing Mars Chronicle at the same time. No way was I going to start reading either of the two sequel series before I finished reading the complete hardcover run of the original series. But now I'm just starting on GANTZ, too, and from what I've heard that's quite long as well -- don't know the exact number of original volumes (30+?), but since I missed it in its first run, I'll just continue getting the Omnibuses (Omnibi?) which I think reprint 3 (or is it 4) of the original tankobon each. Enjoying it so far, but need to catch up to the current omni before diving into Gantz G.

That's nothing compared to One Piece's 90 volumes, but I wonder just how long any creator can maintain the interest level on something that extensive. A popular series may go for years, but doesn't there have to be some drop-off point in readership? How many manga readers are just deciding to pick up volume 42 and start reading from there? I can't imagine just starting to read a manga in the middle of a long, long run. The nature of storytelling in American comics is just so different, with lots of jumping-on points (and jumping-off points as well), but manga by nature seem to be more steady and consistent.

I guess if I had more time I'd keep up with the manga & anime news sites and try to catch every potentially interesting series when it was brand-new, but you can't always get a decently-long-enough preview to make a confident decision. I do find information-gathering to be much more difficult with manga than with American comics. Diamond's solicitations aren't a great help in sorting through each publisher's product, because all you're getting is a cover image and a paragraph description. That's usually fine for a floppy comic, but seems to fall far short of giving you the gist of a manga series. Titles aren't much help either. What the heck is BTOOOM supposed to be telling me? Something exploding, huh? Oh, great. The "exploding stuff" genre is one of my favorites. Pardon my sarcasm, just trying to make a point here. It's even worse when you have to use Japanese translation software to try to figure out what the words of the title mean (and usually the English translation isn't telling you much either).

There does seem to be a much more finite number of manga series I can follow while they're still ongoing, so I can't keep adding new ones willy-nilly even if they seem trial-worthy; I'd have to drop other things to make room for time to read them all. I've never found that to be much of a serious issue with American comics though. Maybe because a single floppy comic is usually so short, it seems easy to make snap decisions about what new to buy or what to drop, from month to month. With most manga, I only have sort of a vague idea of how often the new volumes are even being released.

DeCarlo Rules

Hey, I forgot BLACK HAMMER! That's a good one, at least the main series. I've enjoyed most of the miniseries as well, with only BLACK HAMMER '45 (#1-4) turning out to be dud because of poor artwork. And since the story wasn't really even written by Jeff Lemire this time, it was less-than-riveting. It might still have gotten a passing grade with decent artwork. I mean, Matt Kindt did a good job of laying out the pages and telling the story in visual terms, but he's no draftsman (or craftsman). He needed a REAL artist to work over his pencil roughs. Somebody good at anatomy, facial expressions, and backgrounds. It just looks ugly and unfinished, maybe like something a talented 8th-grader would do. Dark Horse really dropped the ball on that one. Oh well, here's hoping it was just a fluke and not a sign that BH is about to start circling the drain.

DeCarlo Rules

Regarding those search-and-download projects I mentioned, most of those are conducted over at the Comic Book Plus and Internet Archives websites. A recent one (not yet completed) involved compiling a list of science fiction stories (all public domain now) written by Otto Binder (one of the main writers on Captain Marvel and Family in the 40s/50s, and DC's Superman Family in the 50s/60s) published in the pulp magazines between 1932 and 1953, finding the relevant issues and pages, and labeling and filing them all in folders. I've gotten most of the longer novels and stories, as well as series stories, now I just need to to download about 3 dozen shorts of novella length or shorter.

Another (more recent project) was making a list of comic books featuring World War II aviator heroes (or 'mystery men') and going through various public domain comics online, sorting those features out into folders for the different series (which involves going through each comic online, viewing the pages one at a time, and downloading and labeling each story page into a particular folder).

So the list of folders I compiled was:

AIR FIGHTERS (Hillman, 21 issues) *ends in 1945, continues post-War as AIRBOY
- Airboy
- Bald Eagle
- Black Angel
- Flying Dutchman
- Iron Ace
- Sky Wolf
- The Heap

BIG SHOT Comics (Columbia Publ.) - Featuring SKYMAN (50+ issues); also in SKYMAN #1-4

CAPTAIN BATTLE, Jr. (Gleason/Comic House, 2 issues) - both issues also include THE CLAW in his own feature

CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (Fawcett Comics, 40-something issues published with WWII-themed stories) - only the CM WWII stories

CONTACT Comics (Holyoke Publ., 11 issues)
- Black Venus
- Golden Eagle
- Tommy Tomahawk

MILITARY Comics (Quality Comics, 43 issues) *ends in 1945, replaced post-War by BLACKHAWK
- Blackhawk
- The Blue Tracer
- Miss America
- X of the Underground
- Choo-Choo and Cherry (girl humor strip; nothing to do with WWII or aviators, I just liked it)
(there were plenty of other features in those issues I just skipped)

SPY SMASHER (Fawcett Comics, 12 issues + in 63 issues of WHIZ Comics)

Air Fighters is the most complex (because I am sorting out 6 different features into their own individual folders, in every single issue). On the other hand, it's only 21 issues, while Captain Midnight and Spy Smasher in WHIZ have the greatest number of pages and issues, respectively. Later on I may compress some of these .jpg collections down to .cbr format for reading using the Comic Book Reader app. The rule of thumb I'm using if the feature was one that continued after 1945 is, it has to be a flashback to the War story, or I'm not saving it. I've gotten all of CAPTAIN BATTLE JR., CONTACT, MILITARY, and Spy Smasher from WHIZ sorted and saved so far, but still have about 12 issues of AIR FIGHTERS, 12 issues of SPY SMASHER, 40-something issues of CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (only saving the wartime stories at this point) plus all of BIG SHOT (which will be the easiest anthology title since there is only a single feature in each issue that I'll be saving) and SKYMAN to go. So I guess it's about 1/3rd complete so far.

rusty

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMThat is a LOT of manga. On average, how many volumes of a brand-new tankobon series do you give a trial before deciding (assuming no prior commitment to the particular mangaka or characters from previous familiarity) to continue or not? I've always tried to force myself to decide within one volume or two. I just can't keep it on the list if I'm not particularly enthused from the get-go.

I order Viz titles 4-7 months in advance so sometimes I will have 4 or 5 volumes on order before I've read the first one.  For non-Viz titles, it depends on how frequently they come out.  I'll usually give a series one or two volumes at least.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMWas that MARS CHRONICLE Vol. 6 the final tankobon of that cycle or is there more to it? I peeked at the end to get an idea whether it seemed "to be continued..." and it does seem to end on kind of a lull in activity... whether that's just a pause before a new phase or that's the end of the "flashback" series I couldn't determine (I still haven't finished reading LAST ORDER). Haven't seen a new solicit for BAAMC since, though. I think I do remember reading somewhere it said that Mars Chronicle is the finale (even if it is a prequel) of the entire Alita series as a whole.
Mars Chronicle is still ongoing, though I don't know for how much longer.  It is supposed to be the last Battle Angel Alita series.


Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMOther times my timing just stinks. I didn't get on board and read JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE from the start, and now there's already dozens of volumes out there, and it's beginning to look more and more daunting (and with the continuing success of it, no end in sight, either).

I tried JoJo's, but didn't like it so I stopped after one volume.  There have been other series where I've checked a volume out of the library before buying the series. 


Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMBTOOOM! was another series that looked really good when I finally got a look at it, but again... that was when it was already 18 or 20 volumes down the road, so now the prospect of going back and getting them all is a little off-putting, because where am I going to find the time (assuming I can even find them all) while keeping up on all my other manga series?

But now I'm just starting on GANTZ, too, and from what I've heard that's quite long as well -- don't know the exact number of original volumes (30+?), but since I missed it in its first run, I'll just continue getting the Omnibuses (Omnibi?) which I think reprint 3 (or is it 4) of the original tankobon each. Enjoying it so far, but need to catch up to the current omni before diving into Gantz G.
Btooom has been a lot of fun.  The last volume is #26 which should probably come out sometime this fall.  I'd guess September or October.  I started this series when it first came out.


I was also on board Gantz from the beginning and it was a lot of fun.  The original series lasted 37 volumes with Gantz G adding 3 more.  Each volume reads pretty quickly.


Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMThat's nothing compared to One Piece's 90 volumes, but I wonder just how long any creator can maintain the interest level on something that extensive. A popular series may go for years, but doesn't there have to be some drop-off point in readership?

I read Hajime no Ippo and it is over 120 volumes and I am still enjoying it a lot.  One Piece is a series that I loved in the beginning, but started to lose interest in after 50-60 volumes.  I still buy it because a friend of mine buys it from me when I'm done with it.  I mainly just skim through it now.  The same thing happened with Bleach, but I lost interest much earlier, around volume 21.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on June 17, 2019, 07:32:14 AMThere does seem to be a much more finite number of manga series I can follow while they're still ongoing, so I can't keep adding new ones willy-nilly even if they seem trial-worthy; I'd have to drop other things to make room for time to read them all. 

I usually buy whatever series interest me.  The friend that I buy for has requested that I pick up a few series for him that I have then become interested in such as My Hero Academia.  I have occasionally gotten into a series late, such as Black Butler and XXXholic.  In those cases, I try to pick up a run on ebay that contains the entire series up to that point at a reasonable price or at least close to the entire series.

DeCarlo Rules

I guess it's me then. In the 10-20 years where I largely wasn't paying that close attention (I'd only get a few things from older creators whose names I recognized), everything about the manga market changed, starting with abandoning the floppy format altogether in favor of straight-to-tankobon releases, and a huge shift in the overall content. Once they got out of the comic shops into the bookstores and online, they were free to cater to an entirely new audience (and one mostly taking its cues from anime fandom). When I stopped following it closely, most manga being published was shonen or seinen manga... I don't think that's the case any more, or maybe it just isn't recognizable to me as such. That being the case, most manga published today is not for people like me at all. Basically the teenage girl audience seems to have taken over at some point, although they may be ageing out now. In addition to that, art styles have changed radically in that same time. Sometimes I take a chance and get lucky, other times not. There's a few things I'm reading now which I never would have read in the 80s or 90s, had they existed then. I still say the Diamond solicitation copy is fairly useless if you're not already familiar with the creators or the manga (or anime) in question, though. I did miss at least a few good series during that time that I've subsequently identified. I never seem to see the ones I'm looking for offered as complete runs, though.

DeCarlo Rules

I was going to review Jughead's Time Police #1, but after reading it a second time, I think I'll wait for the second issue. The first issue barely sets up the premise and gets the plot going, with January McAndrews not making an appearance until the final page. I'll merely note that Dilton has been redesigned in a way which made him initially unrecognizable to me, and seemed completely unnecessary. Otherwise, the series seemed as though it could be a continuation of the previous Jughead title (last drawn by Derek Charm), but then it occurred to me that January McAndrews had made a brief appearance earlier in that series, and here again, she's been completely re-designed (much to the better, in my opinion). Preview pages which I've seen from issue #2 seem to indicate that the series will touch on various specific elements of the original Time Police story from Archie Giant Series.

DeCarlo Rules

#1647
Today I read a couple of recent Archie TPBs, trying to get caught up.

ARCHIE'S SUPERTEENS & THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS - This was originally a mere 2-issue microseries. The story was written by Ian Flynn, who formerly wrote such titles as SONIC, MEGA MAN, NEW CRUSADERS, and the more recent MIGHTY CRUSADERS series. Unlike those latter two comics, this story featured the Silver Age Mighty Crusaders (except for Fly-Man and Fly-Girl), along with a few other MLJ superheroes. I generally liked the way the story was written, as it was sort of a throwback (along with the earlier Red Circle/Dark Circle THE FOX series) to earlier modes of superhero storytelling that seemed to best capture that feeling of the 1960s "Mighty Comics Group". Just for fun, and not taking the whole superhero genre too seriously (as was the case with BLACK HOOD, HANGMAN, and THE SHIELD, 3 of the overly-dark Dark Circle titles).

There were a few oddities of note about Flynn's treatment of Archie's Superteens. Unfortunately, Reggie as Evilheart was left out of the story altogether, and Veronica as "Ms. Vanity", who had only previously appeared in a single story prior to this, was put in. I think it would have been better if Veronica had appeared in a variation on her "Powerteen" identity (which had appeared in several issues of the old VERONICA series). In this story, Archie, Betty, and Veronica transform into their superheroic alter egos by holding up some emblem device (I got the feeling this was something from the old Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series, but I never followed that too closely). In the classic Archie superhero stories, all they had to do was say their own superhero names to be transformed. Jughead as Captain Hero was different from the classic stories, too. In the old stories, he'd recite a little poem invoking the powers of his "magic beanie" (kind of like Green Lantern when charging his ring) in order to gain superpowers and transform into Captain Hero. In this story, he not only had to change from his regular clothes into his Captain Hero outfit by himself, but he needed to eat a "magic Jinkie" (known in the real world as a "Twinkie") afterwards to gain his powers. When he finally did transform, his appearance changed into one of those impossibly overdeveloped musclebound heroes, only slightly less bulky than the Hulk. I suppose it was intended for comic effect, but that probably would have worked better if Archie and his friends were drawn in the classic style, as opposed to "new Archie"-style, as they were in this story. I'd have preferred the classic design for Captain Hero, though. Other than that, I thought the artwork in the story wasn't bad at all (though I've now forgotten the artist's name), and worked especially well for the Crusaders characters. Well, Ian Flynn had a ton of characters (including the main villain Doctor Vardox, and cameos from a few others, plus about ten Mighty Crusaders) to jam into a 40-page story, so it's remarkable that it all works as well as it does, even if it's slightly less than perfect.

The rest of the trade collection is filled out with classic Archie superhero reprints, and it seems like they chose some of the less-reprinted ones (like Superteen's second battle with The Consumer from BETTY AND ME #6, which I didn't recall reading before), so that was good. I'd have wished for an entire book in the "Archie Comics Presents..." series of trades, filled with Archie superhero reprints instead, but they made fairly good use of the limited number of pages they had to fill in this format of trade (which was one of the smaller-sized, 6 x 9 inch paperbacks like the old "Archie All-Stars" collections). All in all, a pleasant way to pass an hour or so.


ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOLUME 6 - This contained two different longer multi-part stories, "Freshman Year" (originally 5 issues), and "New Kids Off the Wall" (originally 6 issues), plus about 20 pages or so of miscellaneous shorts to fill out the page count (none of which were worthy of commenting on). I decided to skip "Freshman Year" for now and come back to it later, and just read "New Kids Off the Wall", which is one of my very favorites from among all the longer multi-part Archie stories. The story was written by Alex Simmons and was drawn entirely by Dan Parent.

The story: The Riverdale school system has a budget crunch, and the School Council makes the decision that one of the local high schools needs to be closed as a result. Fortunately, that school isn't Riverdale High, it's Pine Point High. The end result of this is that the existing Pine Point students and teachers all need to be transferred to new school districts, resulting in an influx of 50 new transfer students (hereafter referred to as "the New Kids") and 6 new teachers at Riverdale High. I really thought this was a great idea, and something to shake up the old status quo at RHS, by creating new character dynamics and conflict with the New Kids. The new students and teachers are all visually distinctive in their designs, which makes them instantly recognizable, a major plus in the simplified cartooning style of classic Archie.

Four of the new students seem to be created as direct rivals for the original classic Archie characters, which sets up potentially new interesting relationships. First there's Sheila Wu, who challenges Veronica's position of undisputed fashion queen of RHS. Although not rich, Sheila has a strong personality and trades put-downs on an equal level with Ronnie. She also designs her own clothes, and has her own unique style, very different that Veronica's, but just as fashionable in its own way. Then there's Chloe Mancuso, a real spitfire go-getter who outdoes Betty at the things she's best at: working as a reporter for the Blue and Gold, and playing sports (although the latter is only mentioned a few times in passing, and not illustrated in action). Betty's a writer for the B&G, and is used to being the star reporter who gets her byline on the front page, but Chloe's nose for sensational news and photography skills allow her to scoop Betty on several occasions, frustrating the 'golden girl' of RHS. Chloe always seems to be beat Betty out of the top story, but she's not a bad person, she's just a very competitive, high-achieving type-A personality. Next is a mystery student, the unknown prankster who signs himself Prankenstein. Who is he? Reggie would really like to know, and gets his nose out-of-joint by being the butt of most of Prankenstein's biggest pranks. Archie discovers who he is, but doesn't let Mantle the Magnificent know. Better that The Great One has to endure a little humiliation once in a while, so he can see how the other half lives. Prankenstein actually turns out to be Simon, a nerdy little brainiac into science, oceanography, and biology -- with a chip on his shoulder because he feels he's always been ignored. Moose meets his match in size and strength in Victor, the new student whose secret passion is that he's a master pastry chef (one of his pals nicknames him 'Captain Cupcake' just to needle him). Jughead finds himself with three new female fans who follow him wherever he goes, and have dug up all the information they can about him. Normally that might seem creepy, but the girls are all cute, sweet and smitten with Juggy, so no worse than Ethel or Trula, I guess.

The story kind of rambles around through different incidents over the course of 6 issues, so there's no real central theme, although there's the mystery of Prankenstein's identity, and Veronica's new obsession with discovering which of the new students is secretly super-rich, but hides that fact from his fellow students for some reason. There's lots of little bits of business with another 10 or so characters that I haven't even mentioned. Unfortunately there are so many introduced here that we barely get enough panel time with some of them to get to know them all that well. For once, Archie is not the main focus of a multi-part story, although he certainly appears enough throughout the story. It's just that Archie isn't the one being bugged by one of the New Kids, he has no direct new rival (although at least one of the New Kids, Sayid, seems romantically interested in Betty, and that interest is somewhat mutual).

I only wish this story had gotten another multi-parter following up with all the new characters, as some of them barely even get introduced, with no real room for development, like Chunk Charlston. Overall though, it felt like the new characters were set to really shake things up. The fact that that never really happened, and they didn't become more than occasional parts in a few random stories, with lots of extra roles and cameos, had more to do with bad timing. They were introduced just at a time when the remaining pages of new stories began to shrink. First ARCHIE & FRIENDS was cancelled. Then BETTY, then JUGHEAD, then VERONICA. With ARCHIE and B&V as the only ongoing titles left, there just weren't enough pages of new stories left to do the new characters justice; the stories had to keep focus on the main Gang of Five, plus the usual supporting cast of Chuck & Nancy, Ethel, Moose & Midge, and Dilton. Even with the ongoing 5-pagers in the six digest titles, there's rarely any opportunity to work them into stories with any sort of substantial role. A real missed opportunity.

DeCarlo Rules

#1648
Continuing my catching up with recent Archie TPs, I read the other multi-part story from ARCHIE'S BIG BOOK VOLUME 6, "Freshman Year". I think I enjoyed the story more the second time around, and also read the trade collection of FRESHMAN YEAR - BOOK 2 (which was actually titled "The Missing Chapters" in its initial comic book serialization). The sequel is actually not a multi-part story per se, but 5 individual side stories that take place (some in flashback) during Freshman Year. The highlight by far of those was the Jughead story, which reveals what happened when the Jones family moved to Montana for 3 months from September through November during Freshman Year. It also explains the "S" on Jughead's shirt, which is actually from Silby High (in Silby, Montana) where Jughead met Sadie Cameron, who you might say was Jughead's first crush (but he never talks about it). S is for Silby, but also for Sadie (the fact that he still wears the shirt indicates that he he still remembers this brief time fondly). The rest of the missing chapters aren't bad, but definitely less memorable, and completely peripheral to the main Freshman Year story. It seems a shame though, that they didn't use the opportunity afforded by the BIG BOOK format to collect both FY stories into a single volume. Also revealed in FY is the fact that Dilton had a crush on Betty when he first met her in Freshman Year (and possibly still does). Other than that, FY introduced the new characters (rarely seen again) of Pencilneck G and Zane Zappen (sort of a Bizarro Jughead & Archie); they were both fun characters. One bit of discontinuity appears in the last missing chapter when Cheryl Blossom shows up on the final page. A caption at the bottom of the last page promises a "Cheryl Blossom: Freshman Year" story, "Coming Soon!". Obviously the story was never told, and just as well to my mind. Apart from that oddly jarring bit which violates Cheryl's previously-established continuity, Freshman Year was sort of a nice bridge between "Little Archie" (which is alluded to several times in dialogue, but mercifully we're spared from unnecessary flashback sequences), that didn't contain too many big dis-continuities.

Then I re-read ARCHIE MARRIES (the Abrams hardcover collected edition), which reprints ARCHIE #600-606; figuring it might be time to refresh my mind about this story in preparation for the upcoming Archie: The Married Life 10th Anniversary miniseries. On a side note, the Abrams hardcover edition contains interviews with all of the relevant parties: publisher Jon Goldwater, editor Victor Gorelick, writer Michael Uslan, penciler Stan Goldberg, inker Bob Smith, letterer Jack Morelli, and colorist Glen Whitmore. I found those all to be very interesting, both in the general sense, and regarding the specifics of this particular story. I'd just skipped those the first time I'd read the book, but now I'm glad I took the time.

Currently I'm working my way through the entire run of THE MARRIED LIFE (the trade collected editions of the LIFE WITH ARCHIE Magazine series), but reading them in a different way than I did the first time. I'm beginning by reading the entire run of Archie Marries Betty straight through; then I'll follow that up by reading the entire run of Archie Marries Veronica straight through. I've already got lots to say about that, but I'll leave it for another time as this is getting long enough. As I understand it, the Archie: The Married Life 10th Anniversary miniseries is a 10-years later sequel to the events of ARCHIE 600-606, and ignores all of the plotlines from the later LIFE WITH ARCHIE series. And just as well, as in both the "Bettyverse" and the "Veronicaverse" shown in LIFE WITH ARCHIE, Archie is dead before 10 years have passed since the wedding.


irishmoxie

#1649
Really enjoying graphic novels lately. Loved Pumpkinheads. Comics are just too short and unsatisfying.

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