Books and Comics

Ah! It was the way it was written that I thought "is he talking about me...or himself, I don't know anymore". Your writingstyle tends to be a tad hard to follow at times, that's why I asked!

And yeah, ASBAR (or, asbak as we call it here, which is Dutch for "ashtray) is hilarious. I honestly held off on buying it for the longest time thanks to Linkara's review, but it really, really is just pure fun.

Acknowledged.

Did you read any of the DC Young Animal line? I did them all. So much flavour. I was not happy that they had to end their first wave of titles.
It's still there with fewer new ones.

For some reason, I have a copy of Final Crisis lying around in my room.

Should I try reading it? Is it any good? What should I read beforehand?

I really enjoyed Young Animal Doom Patrol, though I still prefer Morrison's original.

Regarding Final Crisis. You can, but you'd have no clue what's going on. It features pretty much every character and concept of DC as a sort of final chapter, you'll never be fully ready I'd say. At least knowing what a Green Lantern is, who Darkseid is and how the Fourth World works should be the basic requirements to reading it.

Probably one of my favourite books of all time, but very, very high entry.

>Green Lantern
You mean the Green Lantern Corps? What sort of things would I have to know about them, beyond the fact that they're the guardians of the universe?

>Darkseid
Ruler of Apokalips, once worked at McDonald's. Nemesis of the JL. That's about all I know.

>Fourth World
Yeah, I got no idea as to what that is.

This should help somewhat! It was, ironically, one of the first comics I had read. Didn't understand shit haha. Came back years later and loved it!

Royta/Raeng wrote:I really enjoyed Young Animal Doom Patrol,

Just the one? Dang. I prepared for your critical evaluation of  MOTHER PANIC.

TheFirmament1 wrote:

>Darkseid
Ruler of Apokalips, once worked at McDonald's.

Huh. Never knew that. Did he do the counter or the grill? Or back and forth?
I guess every cosmic tyrant has to start somewhere. A real pain to lose the smell after a shift, too.

Ha! Yeah I had some of the other titles on my list originally, but I only have this much time to spend sadly. So I tend to stick to only a few monthlies. Which ones were your favourite so far in that publication?

Finished Getter Robo Devolution. That shit was insane. I'd love to see it animated.

Royta/Raeng wrote: Which ones were your favourite so far in that publication?

All of 'em. No kidding. After DP I think I tried Mother Panic first. And after that I knew I was interested in the whole line.
I can give a short jab about it and you can see what strikes your fancy.

You know D00M Patrol. But did you hear about Milk Wars? Continues after Nada and crosses with JLA. Very much a DP arc and pairs the Young Animal characters with "normal" heroes. Functions as an introduction, too. 1 tpb.

Shade the Changing Girl (later Changing Woman). Spiritual. Earth life through the lense of an alien visitor. Where madness is a physical element. 3 tpb's.

Cave Carson. Science-fiction adventure. Trippy and wild in writing and art. A touch of a mature cartoon show. 3 tpb's.

Mother Panic. Vigilantism. No noble child vows at its parents grave here. Very paced in the current industry's rage-age of origin stories. Gotham A.D. takes it elseworld. 3 tpb's.

Bug! The Adventures of Forager. Adventure. Through the mindspace of Jack Kirby. A Silver Age letter of love. 1 tpb.

Eternity Girl. Originated from Milk Wars. Metaphysical and gender-sensitive. I was impressed. To say it is in a Morrison vein is easy, but to sense its own shape is to relish it. 1 tpb.

Anyway, see what sticks if you have to be picky.

I crashed myself with Batman for the next month or more. Just to get collections that I'm sure of are limited in print and will inflate in price. It's much and I won't be a glutton. One issue a day is my sensibility.

They are:

Kings of Fear. Started it. I dislike some of Madsen's colours. Too cold in some panels. Maybe it's the progression of digital. Sigh.

The DC Universe by Neil Gaiman. First try with Gaiman. I know alright. And yes, it includes Whatever Happend to the Caped Crusader. We'll see...

Shadow of the Bat. Volumes 2, 3, and 4. Ties in to big events like Knightfall and No Man's Land. I've to see how Grant got through that.

Just finished The Long Halloween. Ho-lee shit, that was amazing. Easy 9.5/10 for me.

I still love those final few pages, I read Dark Victory as my first comic (the sequel, I did bad research), and it still took me aback. Fantastic comic. Dark Victory is better in my massively biased opinion though haha! Glad to hear you enjoyed it :)

I asked for recommendations on reddit for good comics in general, and I've got a lot on my plate.

Monstress, Dark Victory, Redneck, Invincible, Hellboy, Saga, I Kill Giants, Y - The Last Men, on top of my already insane backlog for others, including and not limited to Blue Exorcist, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Gunsmith Cats, Black Lagoon, and 20th Century Boys.

Also, I recently finished both Monster, and Year One. Monster sadly wasn't really my thing (Although I could see you liking it, so maybe give it a run), and Year One was really good as well. I think I enjoyed Long Halloween more.

If I were to recommend some other manga to you, since you're more a comic guy, Berserk is definitely a must-read (And not for the faint of heart, but I'm completely certain you'd be fine), as with JoJo. Keep in mind that part 7 and 8 are a reboot, so if you want to just see the best of JoJo, go straight to those two parts, but the parts before are generally pretty good. Also, you must read them in colour, because those two parts especially are gorgeous. Vinland Saga, Kaiji and Vagabond (Although that's been on 'hiatus' since 2015) are also series I love, with Kaiji being my personal favourite comic, period.

I tried to stick to more Seinen series, partially because that's what I tend to lean towards (But I can honestly take anything), and partially because I think they'd be more your taste.

Mostly good comics from what I know on that list. Might I recommend at least one Grant Morrison strip. He's the one guy that takes the medium further than most do, which I highly appreciate. Flex Mentallo is the biggest mind-trip around, same with his work on Invisibles, Doom Patrol and Annihilator.

I have Berserk at home, still have to read it haha.

Not really sure where to start with Morrison's work.

If I had to recommend one to start with, it's WE3. If you were to only read one comic of his, read the stand-alone issue "PAX AMERICANA" just to see what he is about. You can read it here: https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-Multiversity-Pax-Americana/Full?id=95401

EDIT: PAX is a comic that's part of a bigger narrative, but it is still pretty stand alone. What's beautiful about it is that it shows just how experimental Morrison can be. PAX can be read in any order panelwise, back to end, end to back etc, it all works, and each reading order gives a new piece of a larger puzzles. He's really great at those things.

How's The Witcher series?

I've only played the third game, but if the books are anything like the game I'll probably love them.

I need to find out if they're available for Kindle, because I'm not paying for shipping that kind of weight.

The Last Wish is excellent, but the others are more generic Fantasy in my eyes and not something I enjoyed all too much. But seriously The Last Wish is fantastic.

How do you define generic fantasy?

Bought the first book. Didn't even know they were released here.

When I was in the book store I forgot which was the first book and looked it up and found some posts about reading order. Some people said to read The Last Wish first but I don't agree with their reasoning. I'll read in release order.

Last Wish is mostly recommended to start with since the first book in release order wasn't translated at the time. It didn't get a translation until a few years ago when Witcher III hit store's shelves.

Regarding 'generic fantasy', it missed the whole play on fairytales for me which is what made the game's mythos and also the Last Wish so entertaining for me. In its stead was a tale of a chosen one, elves, and I don't know, felt like I read something like that a dozen times already. I did like how it played with certain taboo like one character getting the shits and a stomach infection during their trip.

What I read was to read Last Wish first because it's all the Geralt stuff like what you see in the games.

Translation order? That still doesn't make sense. The author wouldn't have intended that.

>generic fantasy
So like Lord of the Rings?

No I mean, it was just plain unavailable when those comments were made and a lot of people still echo those comments because they are un-educated. Last Wish was the first book available fully translated in 2007, while the first book written - Sword of Destiny - wasn't translated into English until 2015.

> Generic Fantasy
I don't put LOTR there per se, that's like calling the original DOOM a 'typical FPS', but yeah, that.

I don't understand why fans made a reading order. You just read by release date.

Finished The Last Wish. Pretty good and makes me want to go back to the game for some reason. A lot of things are different from the show. Stuff that would probably cost a lot to set up and effects to create.

And holy shit, the amount of times he casts Axia on his horse! He's going to give it brain damage.

There was one point where he fired a focused shot of Aard and it described it as beam of light. Don't remember that being in the game.

Really disappointed that the story about that monster with house didn't make it into the show.

Eeeeeeeesh.

Jagaaaaaan (6 a's) is some seriously good stuff (But also extremely edgy a lot of times, to the point of absurdity). The art's some of the most impressive I've seen in quite some time.







Basically, it's if you took Junji Ito's surreal/uncanny valley style, Parasyte's action, and combined the monster designs of the two. 100% worth a read.

Mikami should make a horror-action game based on this. Could also see Miyazaki pulling this off pretty well.

Read Sword of Destiny and got out Shogun from the library. Got Tale of Genji waiting for pickup but might cancel because Shogun is huge.

Started reading Shogun and liking it so far. Couldn't take Genji though and returned it.

Still going through The Witcher books and requested Dune at the library.

Let me know how you like Dune. That book changed sci-fi for me honestly.

Finished Baptism of Fire and Shogun. Started Dune.

Oh, let me know what you think of Dune. Note that the book has a lexicon at the back, should some terms confused you. It's really 'old' sci-fi.

>lexicon
Thanks! Never would've checked for that.

I've read The Invisible Man some while ago and was surprised and delighted. It wasn't as stuffy as I expected it to be, despite over a century old by now. Maybe I expected some gothic tale, but no. The horror of science and ego.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk atm. Funny, disturbing, all-too-human.

That book is pretty fun, read it a few years back. If you like the classics, my favourite is still the Narravite of Arthur Gordon Pym. Great tale.

Nearing the end of the first Dune book.

I'm not sure I fully understand their 'martial arts' with blades and energy shields. You can penetrate a shield if you strike slowly?

Yeah the shields are just energy shields that stop bullets, but a knife can penetrate them just fine. It's there to sort of make swords useful again.

Regarding the martial arts, it's...weird. I never got it fully either.

I thought it was that anything slow moving could penetrate them and the whole sword fight was to get past the opponent's defenses to deliver a slower strike. Not sure if I read it right. It explains it weirdly. There's a fight where the kid has trouble because he's used to slowing down at that point.

The result of their energy weapons on shields is interesting.

Finished the first book. Eager to get my filthy hands on the second. Retailers open here on Thursday.

Got Dune Messiah.

12 year time skip? Is it going to fill that in?

There are around 19 books in this series. And it's one of situations where the fans come up with confusing reading orders based on what they personally like or dislike. I hate that.

Just finished Season of Storms. After Dune Messiah I'll start on Tower Of The Swallow.

Bought Frankenstein too.

Finished Dune Messiah. Did anyone else find that weird?

Finished Tower Of The Swallow. That was pretty good. Got Lady Of The Lake but need to finish some other stuff first.

Didn't really like Frankenstein.

Only read the original novel I'm afraid, so I can't quite comment. Did you like it though?

Yeah I guess. But looking back, I don't know. I definitely didn't like it as much as the first. That book was fantastic.

Herbert assassinated his own creation Paul for being an idol to impressionable male adolecents ( the main reader demographic for sci-fi ).
Consider the 20cen dictator comparison. Stilgar's response: "Was he a Sardaukar?"  
Impressive decision, going against all admiration.

I'm beginning to build interest in David Mack's Kabuki. Any experiences anyone?

1984. This shit is scary.

Picked these up at an opportunity shop.

The Road
The Chronicles Of Narnia (complete collection in one book)
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Anyone read the Orphan X series?

Can't say I did, name rings a belll though.

Read the first one. Pretty good. Bought the second.

Just finished Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Started on The Road.

Die Wergelder. Don't stub your tongue on the German title. A manga by Samura. Sardonic humour. Fairly explicit. What I find most impressive is the dissolve of story-telling and plotting. The characters tell what is needed. There is not a panel wasted. Action on point. Delectable.

Recently read Injustice Year One, and have started reading Lazarus. Enjoyed both, so I'll pick up the later books in the series.

Glad to hear you liked Injustice so far! Year Two is also fantastic!