shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Dec 1, 2016 6:50:19 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 2, 2016 13:52:05 GMT -5
With my focus on the off the racks section my totals the last few months haven't been so great but the writing is fun so I call it a fair trade. |
|
|
|
Post by ArizonaTeach on Dec 7, 2016 16:59:24 GMT -5
November was a good month for me. I put a serious dent in my run of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing (which I've owned for years now but never read) and Sergio Aragones' Groo The Wanderer (which I recently reacquired, having last read it as a kid). I also managed to give attention to all but one of my review threads, which is quite a feat for me: How did Groo hold up binge reading for you? I have all the trades except Garden, and sat down over the summer to plow through them, but...and I know the running gags ARE a running gag...it just got to be TOO MUCH of the same. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Dec 7, 2016 17:17:07 GMT -5
November was a good month for me. I put a serious dent in my run of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing (which I've owned for years now but never read) and Sergio Aragones' Groo The Wanderer (which I recently reacquired, having last read it as a kid). I also managed to give attention to all but one of my review threads, which is quite a feat for me: How did Groo hold up binge reading for you? I have all the trades except Garden, and sat down over the summer to plow through them, but...and I know the running gags ARE a running gag...it just got to be TOO MUCH of the same. I can't do more than two issues a night but, at that speed, it's fantastic. You don't expect too much new and just apreciate the humor and personality at work. Rufferto's facial expressions and Evanier's letter columns are the best part. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Dec 21, 2016 12:41:23 GMT -5
With only a week and a half remaining in the year, I think I can safely list The Best Comics I Read This Year10. Astonishing Tales #25 (Buckler/Moench) 1st appearance of Deathlok. One of the most brilliant blendings of art and writing I've ever seen in comics. 9. Grasscutter II (Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo #39-45) One of my favorite Usagi Yojimbo multi-parters. It's a simple yet profoundly potent storyline in which a band of heroes fights desperately against impossible odds with a dire fate hanging in the balance. Feels very Seven Samurai in its execution. 8. Marvel Premiere #1-2 ( Adam Warlock on counter-Earth. Just love the imagination of the whole thing, as well as the social messages and characterizations. 7. Haunt of Horror #2 (Moench) Two of my absolute favorite Doug Moench scripts of all time, written at different times and about different subjects, but both first seeing print in this issue. 6. Man Thing (Gerber, 1974) I just adore Gerber's tone and characterization from beginning to end. Didn't feel as strongly about his work on the earlier Fear stories. 5. "Chanoyu" (Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo #93) My favorite stand-alone Usagi issue ever in which he and Tomoe take part in the Japanese tea ceremony before parting ways. Meticulously researched and executed. I love stories that don't feel the need to offer an obligatory action sequence. The power of this issue comes from another place entirely. 4. Corto Maltese: Ballad of the Salt Sea (Pratt)* Though it's beginning to lose some of its luster after the third reading, this remains one of my favorite works of all time (graphic or otherwise), and re-reading it once a year has become a tradition I look forward to. 3. "Church & State / Church & State II (Sim, Cerebus) The culmination of all Sim strove to do with Cerebus in his first four volumes. Not a perfect work, but the artistry is second to none. 2. Jakka's Story (Sim, Cerebus) Seemingly seeking a new direction after Church & State II, Jakka's Story was a new approach for Sim that worked a lot more than it didn't, capturing something far more powerful than any of Sim's previous volumes in telling a smaller-scale story about everyday life. 1. Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (Eisner) Eisner is a master, and most of his works could have dominated this list, but I just chose my favorite one to include. I review it extensively here. |
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Dec 31, 2016 11:25:30 GMT -5
Well, I made it to my goal of 1,000 comics read this year, although not without some luck this week. It was really slow at work, so I was able to take some of my Fables TPBs to the office and read in between keeping up with the few things that came across my desk. While these were rereads, I'm not going to discount them from the total.
60% of my comics read this year qualified as "Classic" (2005 or earlier), but that total was significantly lowered over the last five months of the year, as I borrowed a lot of TPBs from my local library during the end of my unemployment instead of actually reading through things that I already owned.
As I mentioned in the 2017 Resolutions thread, I probably won't set a goal for books read in 2017, as I think that drives me to focus more on quantity rather than quality, which is why my "classic" total tends to lag, as it's far easier to plow through a pile of new books than it is to get through the more-dense Silver and Bronze Age stories. I'm going to keep track of what I read, but I'm not going to try to amass large numbers; instead, I'm going to focus of whittling down my unread portion of my collection.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Jan 1, 2017 1:07:23 GMT -5
As proof that quantity does not equal quality, I read more books this year than ever before in all my years of reading comics, and yet last year, when I read less than half that amount, I feel I read more books that truly wowed me. I read good stuff this year, but it wasn't as magical.
That being said, I did get through a lot of runs that had been sitting on my To-Read stack for years now. And I wrote more reviews than ever before too. I just made a lot more time for comics this year, and I still wonder if that's good or bad. I watched almost no classic films this year, for example. I made comics my primary hobby and gave little time to anything else. Maybe I need to back off of that a bit in 2017.
Here are my stats:
2016 Total Read: 1049
2016 Total Reviewed: 186
Platinum Age:
Golden Age: 1
Atom Age: 9
Silver Age: 63
Bronze Age: 284
Copper Age: 370
Modern Age: 306
I'm surprised I read that much Modern Age stuff, but most of it came from the 1990s, not off the racks. Two thirds that number came from Usagi Yojimbo. This is also probably the most Silver Age I've ever read, as I'd never had much interest in that era until now.
action/adventure: 326
superhero: 262
horror/occult: 134
science fiction: 69
Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery: 64
biography/everyday life: 62
humor: 59
drama/romance/soap opera: 51
war: 6
scholarly research: 5
crime/detective : 2
Spy/Espionage: 2
fandom/trade publication:
other: 6
I continue to struggle with where action/adventure ends, sword and sorcery begins, and fantasy follows from there. Tracking genres is really tough, especially when a title changes genres partway through (as happens more than I expected), but I truly like to see what kinds of books I'm reading. This is the third year in a row for me where superhero books did not come out as my #1. Interesting.
Marvel: 263
DC: 180
Dark Horse: 168
Aardvark Vanaheim: 148
Will Eisner: 75
Warren: 28
Fantagraph: 26
Cong S.A.: 21
Pacific Comics: 20
Humanoids: 12
Stan Sakai: 11
Ivaldi: 10
First Second: 9
IDW: 9
Tower: 9
Valiant: 8
Dell: 6
Mirage: 6
Skywald: 6
Dynamite: 5
Editions Roquefort: 5
Baronet Press: 4
Boom!: 2
Comico: 2
Eclipse: 2
Gemstone: 2
Kodansha Comics: 2
All-Negro Comics, Inc. 1
Archie: 1
Sal Quartuccio: 1
Usagi Yojimbo Dojo: 1
Funny. I don't think of myself as a Marvel guy, but DC got trounced this year! But, even then, the Big Two accounted for less than half of my total reading this year. Nice to be getting more diverse in my old age.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Jan 1, 2017 1:26:18 GMT -5
I'm not going to try to amass large numbers; instead, I'm going to focus of whittling down my unread portion of my collection. That's where I was this past year. I ended up reading more than ever anyway because, once I got into a run that had been collecting dust in my collection, I just wanted to keep plowing through it, but yeah -- I think I've outgrown the hunger to amass new acquisitions. I've got enough unread books to last me at least five more years! |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2017 1:40:19 GMT -5
I stopped keeping track some time in November, and was somewhere around 1600 for the year when I did. Read a lot of material from the 20s-50s in the last part of the year. I'll record what I read in 2017 to keep track of where I am in reading some extended runs, but I don't think I am going to tally it all up this year, it just got to be a chore for me, and when stuff I enjoy starts turning into a chore it means I need to reevaluate how I am approaching it (it's a big reason why I chose to stop writing reviews for the most part, it went form fun to a chore), so I don't think I will have an entry in the 2017 thread.
-M
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
|
Post by shaxper on Jan 1, 2017 1:44:34 GMT -5
when stuff I enjoy starts turning into a chore it means I need to reevaluate how I am approaching it (it's a big reason why I chose to stop writing reviews for the most part, it went form fun to a chore), so I don't think I will have an entry in the 2017 thread. Absolutely. For me, it feels like a minor victory dance every time I read an issue and get to record it, but (then again) I never claimed to be normal. |
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Jan 1, 2017 2:05:40 GMT -5
it's not a chore reading it for me. I was more relaxed this year. I average about 100 a month.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2017 2:07:58 GMT -5
it's not a chore reading it for me. I was more relaxed this year. I average about 100 a month. Reading wasn't the chore. Tallying it up and recording it all was. -M |
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 1, 2017 15:39:11 GMT -5
Looking at my year it's obvious when I have the most free time...the summer.
|
|
