Books and Comics

So this must mean you are literate.

Do you read for fun? I mean for pleasure. Not for work or school or academia or out of peer pressure.

I certainly do. And though I'm tipped off that it is the year of our lord Blade Runner 2019 I prefer dead wood for my reading experience. Paper all the way. I hardly see anyone carrying books around outside a book store. A mother box, sure. Stroking and fondling. I rove you, mother box! Say you rove me back!

I realize that I'm deep into Stephen King this year. Which is funny, since I remember that back in the dark ages (teens) I did abhor it on a few tries. By now I've read 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Pet Sematary, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, and The Outsider. Some more lined up.

And comics too. Trades in spades. Got in touch with Kirby's New Gods. After Bug! The Adventures of Forager it's now the new Mister Miracle. Granny Goodness, are they working the 9-panel grid. Started it and have no idea how it could conclude. Except, you know, IT WAS ALL A DREAM!!

I used to read a lot of classics i.e. 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and stuff by H.G. Wells. But recently I mostly switched my reading to The Horus Heresy Series, a series of 54 books chronicalling the Horus Heresy event of the Warhammer 40.000 universe. Very nice, some good writing and just a huge event to read of a fictional universe I greatly enjoy.

Comics, well. Yeah. Got an absolutely massive collection. Favourite writer is Grant Morrison by a metric mile, followed by classic Frank Miller (not a fan of his work after Sin City 1). Though I love what it did with the medium, I don't hold New Gods that high. Great artwork and concepts, but the story never hooked me.

What's your favourite comic? Hope you don't mind I'll change the topic to "Books and Comics" or something, because I think that would attract a bit more

I like to read. I have read some classics. I only read a few comics. I also read record books! I have been thinking of getting new books myself. I do love reading TV Tropes too!

Record books? As in Guiness book of Records? Stuff like that?

Yeah. There is also another record book series I read. It gives you a picture, a description, and stats. If I remember correctly, the most poisonous mushroom is called the Death Cap.

That's really cool! What's your favourite one?

Royta/Raeng wrote:The Invisible Man

Got that on whim. Though have yet to read it. Just kinda curious what it would be about. In terms of horror and origination. As a concept it is quite clear and absorbed in pop-culture.

Royta/Raeng wrote: Favourite writer is Grant Morrison by a metric mile,

Hard to keep up with his output. This year I read Nameless, Annihilator, The Filth, and The Multiversity. My favorite is his D00M PATROL.

Royta/Raeng wrote:followed by classic Frank Miller (not a fan of his work after Sin City 1).

Yeah. No one draws action like Miller. I'm not into stiff moral tales (what I think) Marvel normally provides, so his DD/Elektra work mark the exception for me. Colour me weird but I even like his crazy writing. DKSA and All-Star Batman are wild. Strangely enough Martha Washington left me underwhelmed. Maybe sf isn't his forte.

Royta/Raeng wrote: I don't hold New Gods that high. Great artwork and concepts, but the story never hooked me.

That's Kirby for you. Thank the New Gods, for comics don't have to be about story all the time. Same as video games.
Did you check out the new Mister Miracle?

Royta/Raeng wrote:What's your favourite comic?

 

That's easy. Everything by Alan Moore of course! Nah, I'm kidding. Just one? Um, if you can remember, I'm not keen on lists and ratings. I like a lot. But to not cheat me out of an answer I'll say Calvin and Hobbes. There you have it.  

Royta/Raeng wrote:Hope you don't mind I'll change the topic to "Books and Comics" or something, because I think that would attract a bit more

Okaaay. Just respect my artistical creative freedom when I define the next master topic Liquor and Wenches. Now THAT is important.

Royta/Raeng wrote:That's really cool! What's your favourite one?

Well it is hard to say since I don't play favorites most of the time. I did enjoy reading the Gamer's Edition of 2013 and the 2014 edition of Guinness.

Books about comics, not the usual Who's Who index, that I've read are 2. Morrison's Supergods, which gives a way in with the day and night of costumed heroes and also functions as an autobiography of sorts, since the author doesn't exclude himself from the history. A double history. The other is Eisner/Miller and prints a dialog of the two creators who left their imprint in the field as writer-artists. Fairly interesting as well as informing.

Reading way too much manga lately. Here's a small portion of the series that I'm reading right now:

- Welcome to the Ballroom
- Anonymous Noise
- One Piece
- Black Lagoon
- Gunsmith Cats
- Berserk
- Skip Beat
- Yona of the Dawn
- Promised Neverland
- Hero Academia Vigilantes

I'm a guy that kinda just reads anything.

Just bought the Hardcover special edition of Berserk, fantastic design imo. Looks so good! But damn, I'd never dare get into One Piece. That shit lasts forever. How is it?

It's a very memorable manga overall. I started reading it 2 years ago (And only just resumed 3 days ago), yet I still remember almost everything that happened in the first half. And apparently, a lot of crazy stuff has been revealed in the newest chapter, which I haven't read, since I stopped at the Zou arc.

But if you don't like shonen, you're probably not gonna be a fan.

TheFirmament1 wrote:It's a very memorable manga overall. I started reading it 2 years ago (And only just resumed 3 days ago), yet I still remember almost everything that happened in the first half. And apparently, a lot of crazy stuff has been revealed in the newest chapter, which I haven't read, since I stopped at the Zou arc.

But if you don't like shonen, you're probably not gonna be a fan.

I think it can still be enjoyed even if someone dislikes shonen tropes.
I'm not a big fan of shonen tropes myself, but One piece is pretty above most shonen fighting mangas.
It has fantastic world building which is leagues above most of the other shonen mangas and pretty great characters as well.
The biggest problem I've seen with one piece is that it has a tendency of milking and stretching some of the fights, especially in the popular arcs.

Oof. You'd probably not like Kaiji then.

Nobuyuki Fukumoto loves having a fucking insane amount of buildup, and then a big payoff. For me, the payoff is always worth it, but I can see how someone would get exhausted by characters taking 5 chapters to decide their next move in Mahjong, or Poker.

TheFirmament1 wrote:Oof. You'd probably not like Kaiji then.

Nobuyuki Fukumoto loves having a fucking insane amount of buildup, and then a big payoff. For me, the payoff is always worth it, but I can see how someone would get exhausted by characters taking 5 chapters to decide their next move in Mahjong, or Poker.

I don't think it'll be a problem as long as it's done right.
I'm a fan of the song of ice and fire and those books have pretty slow pacing as well.
As long as it feels natural and has a good payoff I'm good with that.
In case of one piece, I feel like a lot dragging that happens, happens because of shonen jump, not Oda.
I started the series after the time skip and since then the only fights that have dragged were in arcs that sold really well compared to other arcs.
Since you stopped at Zou, there's a certain fight you'll see, that drags a bit too long. I would say the end result is actually pretty sweet, especially when you learn a bit more about some characters, but it was still pretty long, especially since I read them as they were coming out, which is why I decided to not read the current arc, until it develops a bit more.

Allegiant is hot garbage

Just finished JoJo Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable.

Definitely the best part of JoJo so far. I've heard a lot of good things about Steel Ball Run though, I'll be looking forwards to it.

Read Batman: Damned yesterday (collection). Fairly interesting and horrific at times. Though it also didn't nail the Morrison-style writing it was going for I think.

I remember Azzarello's Joker book from around the time the second Nolan movie came out. Bah, that's bleak. I understand Damned is the same Batman? All I heard about that concerns Wayne's genitals. A potent omen.

Read Batman: White Knight tpb. Seems hyped. I know, what a Granpa-thing to say. Art is strong, obviously. The writing has some leaps and bounds. Granted, it's a humongoues task to write and do the art like Murphy did. Yet I detect some convenience to use some media-established points like the movies and animated series to fill in where some own imagination is expected. I mean the man has a major car-chase going on with all kinds of 'mobiles. Whever. Not sure I'll grab Curse of the White Knight. Prob not.

Maybe hype calling White Knight an "instant classic", I ventured to get me a pound of underrated Bat. Picked Alan Grant's tenure on Detective Comics, "Gatman", and Shadow of the Bat. It's where some villans where spawned. Anarky, Wesker/Scarface, Mr Zsasz. Started, but feel already vindicated. I notice that Morrison picked off some things Grant used. Ouroboros, Haiti voodoo, magic and superstion. Fun stuff.

Joker was pretty interesting, spawning off of the Nolan hype since it uses a similar Joker design. This is sort of a sequel, the ending ties into it at the very least. Batman's penis was removed from the collection.

Haven't read White Knight yet. I was never a fan of Murphy's artwork, not sure why. Not to mention that artists tend to not be the greatest of writers. Some can have minor successes (Tony Daniel's Life after Death was decent).

Most of Morrison's tenure were just a complete appreciation of previous works. Barbatos and Thomas' story is practically a celebration of Peter Milligan's Dark Knight Dark City (fantastic read). I always liked that about Morrison the most, his 'everything is canon and should be celebrated' notion.

>steel ball run.
-Great art when it turns monthly.
-by far the most character development in the series.
-manages to have a overarching storyline and multiple characters doing their own thing for their own motivations( more variation than team good vs team evil).

Sbr is great and so is part 4, love these two arcs as well as the 2nd one.

>western comics.
Never read them and the sheer amount of different adaptations feel like a massive barrier to get into.

>chinese comics(manga)
Been dedicared to reading all sorts of mangas for at least 15 years now, would love to engage in discussions and recommend titles to anyone interested.

>kaiji
Top tier manga, pretty hard to follow weekly and best to binge it though.

Got any recommendations for manga? I can really read just about anything, whether it be Shojo, Shonen, Seinen, or Josei.

Kaiji is MOAT for me. That, Berserk, and YagaKimi are in my top 3 of all time. That was all in order of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

Neverland used to be 3rd, but it really has gone downhill lately, although not as much as Bleach... Thankfully.

I've heard Food Wars gets terrible later, and completely jumps the shark. That true? I may just read it for that.

>Kaiji
There's always other Fukumoto works, Ten and Akagi are both considered great Mahjong mangas but considering my lack of interest in Mahjong itself I've never really given it a try(watched some Akagi eps at most ages ago). If you have any interest on Mahjong they should be worth a try.

Buraiden Gai and strongest man kurosawa are both great mangas despite not being about gamble, they have your typical Fukumoto writting and are both good at what they're trying to convey. Kurosawa's sequel feels like a step down from the original(the original ending was a good wrap for the series). There's also https://fukumoto.fandom.com/wiki/Zero_(series) which has a good start, but mediocre later arcs, overall feels like a budget Kaiji and it hasn't seen any new chapters in like forever, but it's there if you want more of Fukumoto works.

But yeah read Gai and the original Kurosawa in the very least, they're both pretty short and really good.


>Gambling tangent
Aside from Kaiji my favorite gambling mangas are Usogui and OneOuts(stay away from Kakegurui), both are more in line with Akagi and are about OP main characters playing 4d chess, OneOuts revolves around the MC trying to win baseball matches with all sort of mental games(to the point it's barely about baseball anymore) and Usogui is about all sort of random deadly matches while also featuring godly 10/10 shounen fights in between some of the games.

For Usogui the slow start + rough art on the beggining can be pretty offputting but the art gets really good later on.

> Berserk
There are quite a few good dark fantasy mangas out there but for now give the ones above a try.

>YagaKimi
I'm pretty terrible with romances so I don't think I'll ever have good recs in this department

>Neverland used to be 3rd
I really enjoyed the first arc but I ended up dropping it after the anti-climatic Golden Pond arc, I've seen some chapters later on but I didn't really felt like picking it up again(will most likely binge once it's over).

>Souma
They keep the same formula, it just that it gets old and people get tired of it. Another factor that contributes to the "becoming terrible" is that it gets an arc that has everything to be the last arc of the manga and wrap things up but then they keep the manga going and people feel like it becomes way too dragged on(Think post-Raoh Hokuto no Ken but much, much worse).

I've heard Food Wars gets terrible later, and completely jumps the shark. That true? I may just read it for that.

Western comics used to be really easy to get into and had a very cool community on DC's official forums. Sadly, they dumped all that with the New 52 and it, and Marvel, killed their forums in favour of Facebook (yes).

There's some absolute bangers though, some very short. Getting into something as labyrinthin as Batman takes work, but it'd be a shame if you were to miss out on something as golden as The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.

Question, Roy: I'm very much aware that you read Western-made comics, but do you read manga?

I personally read a hell of a lot more manga, but I've got nothing against Western comics. Bone, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Maus are all really good.

I can't remember exactly where I was up to in Berserk. I really want to get back into it.

I was reading Jojo too maybe more than a year ago but caught up and left it for a while. I know it was the one after Steel Ball Run and there was some woman on a motorbike that could pop up if they opened any sort of door as I recall.

I do suggest getting back into Berserk, since it's amazing, but be prepared for long hiatuses. It's like, 6 or 7 months between every chapter. Miura switched to digital art back in 2015, and that basically meant he had to learn a whole lot from scratch, since drawing digital is really different from paper. But he did it to be more efficient in the long run, which makes sense, since it's easier to correct your mistakes, versus on paper, in which making a mistake inking means that you'll have to either use white-out, make concessions for that mistake, or just straight up restart it. There might be other options (I'm sure Royta would know more), but those are the ones I can think of.

Regarding JoJo, the part you're thinking of is JoJoLion. I'm currently on Vento Aureo right now, so no spoilers.

The problem with Berserk is I have no idea which chapter it was. I know exactly what the last thing I saw was though but I can't post it here.

I have read some manga, but I admit to it not pulling me in a lot of the time, same with anime. It is also a time issue. I mostly read Batman(family) now because I want to know how it continues, but I bought the Berserk Omnibus and I just cannot find the time to read something else.

Wow, them Western-style comics, huh? Full of natives and settlers, gunslingers and frontier justice. The non-manga one? Some may call it Eastern-style comics. They're full of traveling monks, rice balls, weird hairdo. There's a difference I'm told.

Anyway. Royta, can you tell me about DKR III? I'm still frozen in hesitation to read that one. It's not 100% pure Miller. And how about the King Batman? I hear talks of revolution from the reader-peasants. You got the word?

Shuumatsu no Valkyrie somehow manages to make me root, and care about characters after one flashback, all while their total screen time is around 5 chapters or so. The author has a real knack for characterization, and by god are the fight scenes incredible. They're the main draw of the series, and they 100% do not disappoint. Would love to see them animated by Bones, or Ufotable.

>Record of Ragnarok
Really great shounen hype train, I do think characterization could be better though, characters so far have been one-use and it's not like there seems to be any lasting effect from their fights(the result of the 2nd fight not really having any sort of impact on the next fight), overall I think there should be a bit more over just the flashbacks giving us hindsight about the characters themselves.

>Bones vs Ufo
Ufo's choreo is better but I'm not a fan of the CG use, maybe Bones is way better suited for the job considering fight choreo isn't that great on Rag and instead they focus more on the impact of hits and stylish moves(more in line with most shounens that aren't martial-art based).

Some of that could change later on but I feel like they'll stick to the same formula for a good chunk of fights and it's fine overall, it works, it's fast and there's no real delay between fights which just keep the hype train going and going.

If you enjoy Ragnarok I'd recommend picking the Kengan Asura manga, really good characterization on most of the fighters as well, the author really knows how to use the interval between fights and even the extras on the tankoubon releases to flesh out the characters personalities and interactions.
Just skip the anime entirely if you're going to pick it up, they butcher the characterization of most characters(going as far as removing a few characters from the series).

Zenyn wrote:Wow, them Western-style comics, huh? Full of natives and settlers, gunslingers and frontier justice. The non-manga one? Some may call it Eastern-style comics. They're full of traveling monks, rice balls, weird hairdo. There's a difference I'm told.

Anyway. Royta, can you tell me about DKR III? I'm still frozen in hesitation to read that one. It's not 100% pure Miller. And how about the King Batman? I hear talks of revolution from the reader-peasants. You got the word?

Personally I enjoyed it. I own the Collectors Edition which is very nice on the shelf.
Storywise it is a sequel to DKR II and really follows that plot thread. So I highly recommend giving DKR II a re-read before jumping in. It mostly plays into the mythos of Kandor and the 'is Batman Bruce Wayne, or is it the idea' concept. The art is generally good and the writing is fine as well: but it is no DKR. You can definitely see Miller was on a leesh and had support, probably in thanks to his previous Holy Terror work (fantastic illustrations in that, probably his best). I do recommend it if only for completionist sake, and the story is a nice change of pace. Also enjoyed the tie-in special about Jason Todd. The miniature issues of Frank Miller, drawn by Frank Miller, aren't really good sadly.

Haven't read a book in a decade (Hot Gates) not counting some Cliff Notes Greek Myth thing Eternal got me. Still read plenty in places like this, but not so much articles (Cracked was it before their fall). Can't remember the last actual comic I read (though I know it wasn't a physical one *the last of that sort I can recall was Batman vs Spawn*) all the way through. Spawn, maybe. The last graphic novel was probably Irredeemable and Incorruptible. I do more reading of manga these days. If only focusing on things I'm recently going through, I was checking to see how Yu Yu Hakusho differed in the source (roughly half through). Have plans to do the same for other series. I have plenty on the backburner (aside from things I follow). I expect many will have lackluster endings, too (some worse than others). If that.

If you're interested in Greek Myth, Steven Fry's "Mythos" is quite a good read so I've heard.

>interested in Greek Myth
I am. But enough to read a story using the settings or even talking about it? That is a stretch. Time is too short for me these days. I can't even speedwatch/speedread what little I'm already paying attention to. Just the same, I'll take it under advisement.

NOTE: Moorcock tales (regarding Elric in particular) are something I'd considered thanks to Turmion Katilot's cover of Deep Purple's "Stormbringer" (and AoT to a lesser extent).

Currently on JoJo Part 6: Stone Ocean.

Jolyne is definitely my favourite protagonist so far, and has dethroned Joseph. She's just so fucking cool. I can't fully pin down why. She just... Is, y'know?

So far, my main gripe is the Dragon's Dream fight. Way overcomplicated, but it's fairly short. Although I might just be a really fast reader.

Just finished Steel Ball Run! Super great series, and I highly recommend it to anyone. BUT. It shares the same problems as other JoJo parts as in that it starts off really strong, with some serious intrigue, only for it to basically devolve into dicking around with Stand users around the middle with a few sprinkles of plot beats throughout (And when it actually gets to the plot, it's great), and then it ends strong, with the exception of Golden Wind. That series started strong, and the middle was actually alright this time around, but ended fucking weak.

In Steel Ball Run though, the final third of it is fucking amazing. Combine that with some of the best art I've seen in any comic (Not necessarily because of just raw technical skill, although it's in no way weak in that department, but more for it's sense of style), and this is going into my top 5.

@Royta/Raeng, I'd like to get deeper into Batman at some point. I've only read Knightfall, Killing Joke, and Serious House on Serious Earth.

The other obvious ones to read are Year One, Long Halloween, and Dark Knight Returns. Any other recommendations?

Damn, that's a tall order haha. Depends what you want to go for, if you just want to be able to read 'current releases', is very different than wanting to read the mythos at large. I honestly recommend the latter, since current releases and canon isn't very good.

I'd go for this personally:

Year One
Dark Knight Returns
Long Halloween
Dark Victory (the sequel)

After these, you should have a good grasp on the basics, and you can start to read HUSH. You might not really know yet who some of the players, like Oracle, Ra's or Huntress are, or why Jason Todd is a big deal, but the comic is generally used as the gateway drug since it features EVERYONE and is a good tale.

After that you've pretty much gotten the basics, and you can 'freeroam' more. Some random recommendations down the line would be "Birth of the Demon" and "Son of the Demon" (the latter is my favourite), Death in the Family (not to be confused with Death OF the Family), Blink, JLA by Grant Morrison, Death of the Maidens, The Cult, Venom, Man who Laughs, Monster Men + Mad Monk (didn't care too much about these personally), Ego, Gothic and something like True Love or JOKER. Lots of people love Court of Owls, but I didn't care for it.

Some stories that you can read when you're more confident with the mythos are the entire Grant Morrison run (starts with Batman and Son) and Whatever Happened to the Great Crusader.

If you can stomach the older writing style and art, then Strange Apparations is fantastic.

Then there's the cross-overs:
No Man's Land
Legacy / Contagion
Wargames + War Drums
Murder/ Fugitive
Officer Down

Most are pretty good, especially No Man's Land, but I'd save them for later if I were you.

My personal favourites are: Son of the Demon, Grant Morrison's Batman, 1990's Nightwing, 1990's Robin, Dark Victory, Deaht of the Maidens, Year One and War Drums. I generally feel Ra's Al Ghul and his cohorts make for the absolute best villains.

Started reading Getter Robo Devolution. Didn't even know it existed.

I don't like the Getter designs that much. They look great as super robots, but not as Getters. The old school ones looked way cooler and had scary eyes. Now they look like Gundams.

When you say "Older writing style", do you mean the period when everyone was talking like

"While Marvel Girl is distracted by Cyclops, I'll drop this car on her. She won't have time to be able to use her telekinetic powers to stop me!"

And

"He's going to throw the wagon to destroy the tunnel! Gaaah! I never imagined this!"

Because those are annoying as fuck, but I can tolerate them.

It's mostly a writing style like this:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-USSALg25ikjZJpDhrzkyKmC0GAdB7WjPGMCZ1JGWFYipV3USoIOlIi8kwVf-p-OOP6u7jmvZLRPuMdMrjr21a6RG4WDHTZba9RfKJtFeYdkWDvP2Q8KvBzTodNVaGDAb3fZNA=s0

Lots of thoughtbubbles, descriptions and stuff. Modern comics tend to keep it more empty, but this one can really go "Watchmen" on you with walls of text to experience.

Royta/Raeng wrote:

Most are pretty good, especially No Man's Land, but I'd save them for later if I were you.

Uuuhhh. Second opinion incoming. No Man's Land has a fatal flaw in its inception. Do you know it? Semi-

Spoiler:

A precurser for current stories. Be it print or movie.

Writer Alan Grant calls that "fanboy-logic". The whole event is concocted by assistant editors. I can give you a link if you are foaming about that theory...


I know I wasn't addressed about recommendations, so will just say that I'm through with LEGACY-building, SUPER-event, HYPE-training, ALL-changing tales about how Wayneman is a prime A 21Century dark batlord saviour of the democratic status quo. Who beats his "family" up when there're outta line. Golf clap over at the 19th hole.

I'm going for the bizarre: Kings of Fear. True, the art of Kelley Jones is not for the common reader. I'm infatuated since I discovered it for the first time, mid '90s. Grateful for it now more than ever.

Kelley Jones as some good stories attached to him, but I wouldn't put Kings of Fear in his top to be honest. Dracula and Gotham after Midnight being his best imo, especially in the art-department. He really phoned it in in his later work if you ask me.

Regarding No Man's Land story. He made the preparations for No Man's Land during his absense in the Progidal story-line, where Dick was Batman. So your plot hole in this case is filled with cement by world's greatest Batman, Dick Grayson.

Note, now that I'm home and can actually browse my bookcases, Prince Charming, Faces, Nightwing Mobbed Up are good too. Special mention must go to Batman and TMNT, a cross-over comic that has good art and even stays true to most of the mythology with some fun fights and references, honest to god fun reading. Death by Design is interesting if you're looking for something artsy.

But my point stands, start with that short list and then just explore, you can always ask me about a comic if you're in doubt. The nice thing about Batman is that there's not a lot of absolutely horrible 1/10 comics, at worst it's a 6/10 average read.

Never actually finished Watchmen. I might just not "get" it yet, since I'm still only in high school. I also remember being pretty confused when I first started reading it.

But yeah, that style I'm fine with.

Also, regarding your point on "1/10" comics, what about All-star?

Oh, not so much a plot hole. More of a dumb stipulation. But if readers are led to accept that, they will surely accept that when Superman offers his services it's only natural to send him away. Because this is the Batman title and we are not in Metropolis. Shuh, almighty ally, fly away. We don't need you!

That kind of bullwhip doesn't rub you?

@Zenyn
But what's the plothole or dumb stipulation then? Bruce went to prepare for more eventualities in Prodigal, and they came in handy in No Man's Land. It is sort of back-wards writing I guess since they obviously left that space open for 'whatever we might need in the future', but at least they left a space open - that's more than I can say of many of the writers these days.

And regarding bullwip. I've survived Mecha Gordon Batman and am currently surviving Ric Grayson. This stipulation is barely a speck on my radar haha!

@TheFirmament1

All-Star is hilariously bad in a good way. It's like watching Batman and Robin. Sure, it isn't well written, but it fills a void. Batman and Robin (the film) was just a dumb spiritual sequel to the Adam West series with flashy visuals and toys for the kids. All-Star is this super over the top psychopathic Batman written by a horny author with a distinct feeling all woman are whores, while Batman lights enemies on fire and bangs Black Canary on the docks with their smoldering corpses still fuming in the background. The artwork is killer too. Absolutely love having it, makes for a great comedic read every once in a while!

In terms of Watchmen, part of what makes it good is the ending where it all comes together. The other element is that it simply elevated comics as a medium. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the "Seinfeld isn't funny" trope, it's a bit like that. A lot of comics have taken its lessons since then, and even improved upon them, but doesn't take away that it was one of the first.

Ah, you just have a higher tolerance regarding certain, uh, shall we say, finer lines. That is to say I'm not one of the alleged androids who expect that everything must bend to their own inert logic or else it is considered trash.

Moving on.

Oh, All-Star gets the outrageous sympathy vote. Yeah, it's not for subtlety, isn't it?
Wait. What?  "Horny author"? "All women are whores"?

Gimme a break here!
I recall that you dismissed Sin City on some similar grounds? Fair enough. Another matter.
Black Canary here is none such thing. She's a thrillseeker. Out to get her kicks. After she beat up a pub chock-full of "horny and drunk men" in a fit, she finds the one man who gets more out of a kick than she does. Animal magnetism ensues, and after it culminates it's very clear with the pillow talk that's all this is. These are not monks and nuns we're reading about. They're costumed looneys. And they didn't do the deed among smoldering bodies! But maybe that's what you take from it.

Another thing is Babs. Certainly not my favorite character. At all (I only find her fun in The Batman animated series). But she's definetly not a whore. She's a plucky young thing, discovering insperation through the costumed madman that is sooo reviled.

About the "psychotic": readers never got an ending. It is important to note. They (DC) didn't finish the story. So there's no means to project what it was about. The last chapter where Dick goes wild (and gets "corrected", sir! ) shows another tone. We mourn lifes lost. Including our own.
I think peeps have trouble to see the fun in it all. That Green Lantern encounter. Yellow. Silliest weakness I've ever heard. and Swear on a stack of bibles! Justice Leaque founders a bunch of unlikeable buffoons.

On another note: there's is a different title with the same name. Not meant to be confused.
I've only read Vol. 1, which is written by Snyder, pencilled by Romita Jr.
Things I like, some things I dislike. Ooh, the drama.   Gordon is this close to discover the secret! But does he need to know? No. Onward! For the drama!

Your sentence doesn't make a lot of sense, I'm an android who must bend everything to my own inert logic? What?

> Horny author
It's a joke Zenyn, don't take everything so literal. It's a reference to this:
https://shortpacked.com/comics/2006-02-07-whores.png

Frank Miller was known at the time for writing nearly all his females as 'whores', going in depth in his scripts to describe exactly how the ass-shots should be framed. Guy just liked his TnA. You can bet if All Star was finished we'd have gotten a sexualized Babs.

> dismissed Sin City
Never did so, I only called out his wavering quality after Sin City's first volume, far from a controversial opinion. The guy wrote tons of varied material up until SC1, after which he seemingly got 'stuck' in that style of writing. It took Azzarello to get him out of that with Master Race. His writing hit a lowpoint with Holy Terror, which was also his high point when it came down to artwork (absolutely gorgeous).

> didn't do the deed
Even making out with smoldering foes in the background is hilarious.  You can clearly see the burning bodies in the artwork in the background, it's just a delightfully over-the-top tale of a psychopathic Batman.

> yellow scene
Probably the best part of the whole book. The grin he has in it, fantastic!

> Snyder
It's honestly among his best work I'd say. Never was a big Snyder fan since he tends to be a budget-Morrison, his Year Zero, Owls and especially Metal series being quite bad. This one was pretty good I'd say (some mini-series in it were hit and miss though).

> Gordon
If he wanted to know, he'd know. It was always hinted at that he's known since Year One, but doesn't want to know. Further shown in No Man's Land finale:
https://arousinggrammardotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/batmangordonconversation14.jpg

I always liked his non-canon reveal in Injustice, where he just walks in saying "of course I knew you idiot, I'm a detective" (paraphrasing ofc)

Royta/Raeng wrote:Your sentence doesn't make a lot of sense, I'm an android who must bend everything to my own inert logic? What?

"That is to say I'm not one of the alleged androids who expect that everything must bend to their own inert logic or else it is considered trash."

That line is about me.
It is not a stab to whoever would identify with it. Meaning I let go of something if I don't want to accept it. I'll use more emoji next time.

Royta/Raeng wrote:> Horny author
It's a joke Zenyn, don't take everything so literal. It's a reference to this:
https://shortpacked.com/comics/2006-02-07-whores.png

Oh no. You didn't indicate that, so of course I take it as your opinion. Pardon me if don't know my way about the memes, but I cannot bother to care. I took it as yours. Maybe TheFirmament did, too?

I surmise we are not at odds, just a jolt of misunderstanding. At least we both find ASBARTBW funny.