Comics

Aren’t you glad I don’t twitter so much?

The more I read comics, the more I realize that Batman and Superman cannot possibly exist in the same universe.

It will take me ten minutes to tell you who Robin is, right now.

It will take me five minutes to explain whether Batman is dead or not.

After reading Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, I think Neil Gaiman should stop writing superhero comics. He should have after 1602.

I absolutely HATE how, in DC, every superhero fawns every other superhero. Superman is so awesome?? Wow, we didn’t know, Flash.

And nobody in the JLA uses superhero names anymore – it’s all Connor or Bruce or Diana or Clark.

I think it was Brad Meltzer who began both these trends with Identity Crisis, and now everybody seems to be doing it.

I want to read all the low-key superhero comics released in the last 5 years. Blue Beetle, Manhunter, Ant-Man, The Order. That shit is all good.

Captain Marvel and MI-13 is getting cancelled with issue 15? Just when I was thinking this would be one of my regular monthly fixes.

Now that 100 Bullets is over, I am waiting for the opportune moment to read the complete series. In one sitting. The last time I did that was with issues 1-50.

I also need some time off to read Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, an 850+ page autobiographical manga that goes into detail about the beginnings of the manga industry in Japan.

Am still looking for the first two of the three Tatsumi collections that Drawn and Quarterly brought out – I regret not buying them in Blossom when I saw them, way back in 2005 and 2007.

I recently did a Top Ten Superhero Graphic Novels list for a magazine. I am still feeling guilty about the ones I left out.

Did I tell you about the time I found a better-than-decent issue of Batman 181, the first appearance of Poison Ivy, for 10 Rs at the Sunday book market?

Hayao Miyazaki has returned to drawing manga after a long time, with a biography of an aircraft designer released in early 2009.

What is it with Miyazaki and flying?

Comicbook culture would have reached its peak the moment all of Tezuka’s works and all the Koike/Kojima collaborations are translated and in print.

Another manga-ka whose works are begging to be translated – Sanpei Shirato. The dynamic storytelling in Kamui, the only one of his works translated so far, still manages to leave me breathless.

Blade of the Immortal is in its final arc in Japan, a couple of more years and Dark Horse will come up with the last volume. Fist-pump!

Now if only Kentaro Miura would get off his ass and finish Berserk.

Alan Moore’s Miracleman scars you for life. Don’t read Miracleman if you want to keep enjoying superheroes.

The densest work Miller has ever written is The Dark Knight Returns. Elektra: Assassin is a close second. The 8th issue has got to be one of the greatest endings ever.

Like everyone else, I also hated Miller’s Spirit. The nadir was the part where the female cop says ‘Elektra complex’ some eighteen times in a row.

And this whole cliche of naming minor characters and landmarks in superhero movies with names from the comicbook industry makes me spew.

Yes, all that was fan-service.

Neal Adams, Norm Breyfogle and Kelley Jones are the three greatest regular artists to draw the Batman.

Brian Bolland never did a monthly stint on Batman, so there. Mazzuchchelli did only four issues, and Don Newton died too early.

JH Williams 3, Frank Quitely, and Darwyn Cooke are three names that will make me buy a comic without stopping to check what lies within.

Chuck’s bedroom ( in…uh…Chuck) has a poster of Y The Last Man.

Juno’s bedroom ( in…well…Juno) has a poster by Tara McPherson, she who did the Snow-Rose-Totenkinder story in Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall.

I own a first printing of Will Eisner’s Contract With God. Should I still buy the new reissue of the Dropsie Avenue trilogy?

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4 thoughts on “Aren’t you glad I don’t twitter so much?

  1. bheema v says:

    >What is it with Miyazaki and flying?
    Apes came down off the trees, walked the savanna, and evolved into humans so that they could better dream of flying.

  2. Gaiman should have left superheroes writting LONG before 1602, mate. And Alan Davis’s Batman kicks Breyfogle’s or Jones’ butt any given day. You also forgot some classics like Infantino or Giordano.

    • re: Gaiman on superheroes. I think one of the finest superhero stories he has written is the Batman Black and White story with Simon Bisley, which is bizarre and beautiful and completely Gaimanish. I liked 1602, which was him playing to his strengths and I think I read it just when I was at the peak of my Gaiman fanboyishness. :)

      Alan Davis’s Batman: well, Davis never did a monthly stint on the regular Batman series ( the 3-issue Detective Comics run and the BATO run does not really count). But I think I can get a second opinion, if only I had a Davis original with Batman on it. A good one, maybe from The Nail. *ahem*

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