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Post by james on Sept 29, 2022 11:49:23 GMT -5
What writers do you find that you have to really concentrate, focus, and take your time to really enjoy their stuff? As I read Alan Moore's Swamp Thing I find myself taking 30 minutes to read one issue to really get into the book and really immerse myself in the world he has created. This explains why the past times I tried to read Moore's S.T. I didn't get it. I had too many other things going on to focus. Bissette and Toltebon's art also needs to be taken one panel at a time to really appreciate it. Most Marvel books I can read in 10 minutes and still enjoy what I'm reading.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 29, 2022 13:48:31 GMT -5
I enjoyed reading Moore on Swamp Thing, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell for all the depth, allusion and detail he brought to the stories.
I grew so tired so quickly of reading Roy Thomas on All-Star Squadron, America vs. the Justice Society and Infinity, Inc. His increasingly OCD approach to continuity made it a chore, like the reading equivalent to talking to Mr. Kimball on "Green Acres."
And I always enjoyed reading Roy when he was a pup.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 29, 2022 14:27:50 GMT -5
Moore is one; Gaiman is one, on Sandman. Robinson was one, up through Starman
Chaykin's American Flagg was so dense, in that first year that you had to take your time with it or you missed all kinds of detail.
Visually, I loved what Gene Ha and Zander Cannon did in Top 10 and Smax, with all of the sight gags and easter eggs. Just as you were focusing on a story panel, you might notice aerial traffic above the street and see a police Spinner, from Blade Runner, the USS Enterprise, Harry Potter on a broom, the flying couch thing from Land of Oz, the Jetson's car and a pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then, on the street, you might see cars from Wacky Races. Go to a hospital and you see Dr Strange consulting with Dr Who (Tom Baker) and Dr Fate, or you might see Midnighter, Batman and moon Knight walking down a street together. Even the graffiti required attentions, as in the gods bar, where you would see things like "Oedipus is a mother......." on the bathroom wall. With Smax, you would see Frazetta parodies, where the mound of dead bodies would include things like The Glaive, from Krull and Kull's axe.
Perez could be like that too, especially in some of his later work, like Hulk: Future Imperfect or Sachs & Violens The latter probably varied as to how many easter eggs you recognized, depending on your familiarity with some European adult and erotic comics, like Franco Saudelli's The Blonde. At one point in an issue, the pair, who are on the trail of killers, making snuff films, are blocked by a receptionist, at an office, You get a gag panel (literally and metaphorically) of the receptionist tied up, with her crossword puzzle jammed into her mouth, right below a wall print of The Blonde, whose light-hearted adventures involved bondage themes and foot fetish touches.
Yes, I've read them.
The work has other easter eggs that you may only recognize if you have seen other adult materials, which is why I wasn't surprised when Perez later direct superheroine fight fetish videos for a company, under his own name.
Astro City and Hellboy are ones I absorb, for both visual and writing details.
Agree about Roy. I tend to like more of his pre-Crisis writing than what he was doing by that point and after. He got too bogged down in past stories to tell new ones, without the reader having an encyclopedia close at hand (and a year's worth of Golden Age JSA comics). It killed All-Star Squadron for me (that and the art, compared to Ordway and Gonzalez, in earlier issues) and Infinity, Inc even more. All-Star got bogged down by things like the JSA in Space storyline, from a single Golden Age comic, that Roy stretched over multiple issues. Infinity had a pretty decent stretch of new material going, then Roy kept referencing an old JSA story, in seemingly every issue, for pages, while the present story didn't advance.
I think Roy was too reverent to his beloved JSA and also just got burnt out. By contrast, his Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, at Hero Comics, was more fun and not bogged down in 40 year old books or editorial fights.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 29, 2022 14:39:02 GMT -5
Walt Kelly's art and language made his daily and Sunday Pogo strips impossible to read too slowly. Feasts, both of them for the eyes, the mind and the heart.
Yes, Astro City was allusive but not bound to the past, which made it unpedantic. I wish Roy's later work had been more like that.
I savored every panel in any Russ Heath and John Severin story.
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Post by DubipR on Sept 29, 2022 17:21:51 GMT -5
As mentioned, Moore and Gaiman are so prose heavy but create so much emotion with their words, it takes about 30/40 minutes to read an issue. With Moore, depending on the artist, asking them to add their own flair with each panel, a good Moore read can take longer. Something like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Kevin O'Neill's panels are also Perez-esque, filled with a million little things, sayings and whatever Moore wrote in his scripts to enrich the world.
Grant Morrison at a time was someone I read super slow because a lot of his concepts were fantastical. A lot of thoughts and ideologies that had me look at books and search engines (in the early days of the internet) to figure out what I just read. The panels of the artists might not be detailed, maybe Phil Jimenez with Morrison, but a lot of the Morrison artists were pretty straightforward in their presentation of his words.
Another person said Chaykin. I agree that American Flagg takes some time to understand the words and context but a lot of Chaykin, at least to me, makes to engaging reading. Not just scripting, but the knowledge he brings to each book, it's a history lesson unto itself.
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Post by james on Sept 29, 2022 18:03:24 GMT -5
I forgot to mention Gaiman and Robinson. I also find that I enjoyed, J M Dematties' Kravens Last Hunt this way as well.
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Post by kirby101 on Sept 30, 2022 22:08:09 GMT -5
Francois Schuiten
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2022 23:10:37 GMT -5
Eisner McCloud Sacco Jodorowsky Pratt Kubert Katz Pini Sim
-M
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Post by tonebone on Oct 6, 2022 10:01:14 GMT -5
Eisner McCloud Sacco Jodorowsky Pratt Kubert Katz Pini Sim -M I definitely agree with Sim... with a lot of comics, you can sort of "skate across the dialogue", sort of sloppily read it getting the gist of what they are saying... After all, most comics characters, sadly, speak with a generic sort of "voice". But with Sim, particularly with his distinctive dialects and vocal mannerisms, he forces you to slow down and absorb the personality of the character with the dialogue. It's a brilliant mechanism for quickly and completely understanding a character... for instance, is there any doubt as to the personality of Lord Julius? or Elrod? Sort of a "value added" feature to the comic.
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 6, 2022 10:30:40 GMT -5
Stan Lee. There is no rushing through a page like this.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2022 10:38:23 GMT -5
Stan Lee. There is no rushing through a page like this. sure there is. The art tells the story and reveals the character. You can skip all the dialogue and not miss one iota of the story, theme, or character. I find myself more and more when I read Silver Age Marvel barely skimming the dialogue and captions because they are mostly superfluous to comprehension of what is happening. At one point when I was much younger, I reveled in Lee's dialogue and captions, now I find it tiresome to read so I just skim it. -M
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2022 13:01:04 GMT -5
Stan Lee. There is no rushing through a page like this. sure there is. The art tells the story and reveals the character. You can skip all the dialogue and not miss one iota of the story, theme, or character. I find myself more and more when I read Silver Age Marvel barely skimming the dialogue and captions because they are mostly superfluous to comprehension of what is happening. Ay one point when I was much younger, I reveled in Lee's dialogue and captions, now I find it tiresome to read so I just skim it. -M You beat me to it.
You know who you can;t rush through? Jim Woodring.
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Post by tarkintino on Oct 6, 2022 13:13:34 GMT -5
About Lee's dialogue: it is shaping the not only the plot, but giving life, specific behaviors and motivation to the characters. Without it, there's no heart, no human substance for the reader to connect to--that cannot be conveyed only in visuals, thus, it would not be much more than a series of storyboards, or at its worst, certain Image comics from the 90s.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2022 13:18:37 GMT -5
About Lee's dialogue: it is shaping the not only the plot, but giving life, specific behaviors and motivation to the characters. Without it, there's no heart, no human substance for the reader to connect to--that cannot be conveyed only in visuals, thus, it would not be much more than a series of storyboards, or at its worst, certain Image comics from the 90s. I can get most of that from Kirby's art, which gives life and personality to the characters through expression and body language. For me, Lee's dialogue now sucks all life out of the pages and characters, not enhances it. It dulls the power and dynamics of Kirby's art and action by absolutely destroying the pacing of the story. There's now way anyone could get that many words out between the actions form one panel to another without having to pause in the middle of the action to verbalize that much redundant dialogue. -M
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Post by MDG on Oct 6, 2022 15:24:51 GMT -5
About Kirby's art: it is shaping the not only the plot, but giving life, specific behaviors and expression to the characters. Without it, there's no heart, no human substance for the reader to connect to--that's what comics do.
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