›

Comic books

ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
in Heaven
If anyone out there is a fellow comic book fan – I don’t mean web comics or things like that – what do you read these days? Even if they are back issues or reprints, although there’s a lot of new stuff out there.

Comments

  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    Calvin and Hobbes, Asterix, Dan Dare .... I must get out more .....
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    I got the latest in the Grandville series by Bryan Talbot just before Christmas. Grandville is the story of Inspector LeBrock, a badger who is an Inspector at Scotland Yard, in a Steampunk alternate history with anthropomorphic animals, where Napoleon conquered the British Isles. This is the story of LeBrock's mentor, an eagle called Stamford Hawksmoor, all done in sepia style, like a Sherlock Holmes story. It's very good!
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Uh...Mad Magazine?
  • Stercus TauriStercus Tauri Shipmate
    Doonesbury has always been revered around here, assuring us that we are not alone.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Just read The Magic Fish for our graphic novel book club. I recommend it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Fish
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    The 4. year old grandson has been introduced to Asterix
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I love Asterix. I have many volumes at home in French or English. My grandparents introduced me to them when I was a wee tyke.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Now I want wild boar for dinner.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    First, bring me a menhir.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Caissa wrote: »
    I love Asterix. I have many volumes at home in French or English.
    US English or UK English? I am told that they are different translations. AIUI the US translation was fairly faithful and literal, whereas the UK translators when they came across an awful pun that wouldn't translate replaced it with an even worse pun.

  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Amusingly my knowledge of the history of Asterix comes via the pages of British Archaeology who are fond enough of it that they included the translator Anthea Bell (sister of Martin) in their roundup of notable people in archaeology who had died that year.

    As I understand it, they initially appeared in some UK comics in the 1960s as Little Fred & Big Ed, & Beric the Bold - set in Roman Britain, and in fairly stolid translations, before Bell & Hockridge got their hands on them and reintroduced the sparkle. The puns are certainly appalling!
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I am going to assume I have a mix of US and UK English. I think the ones I received more than 50 years ago probably originated from the UK, David.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    For Better Or For Worse - about a dozen collections.

    Dylan Dog and some other collections of works by Tiziano Sclavi. They are also useful for maintaining the little Italian I know.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    My wife owns all of the collected Peanuts and most of For Better or Worse.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    LatchKeyKid wrote: »
    For Better Or For Worse - about a dozen collections.

    Dylan Dog and some other collections of works by Tiziano Sclavi. They are also useful for maintaining the little Italian I know.

    I've never read Dylan Dog, but I do have the Batman crossover miniseries on my list of things to check out eventually.

    https://www.dc.com/graphic-novels/batman/dylan-dog-2024/batman/dylan-dog
  • mark_in_manchestermark_in_manchester Shipmate
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    – I don’t mean web comics or things like that –

    I know you said no web comics, but your thread reminded me to look at Existential Comics (on the web) again - and they really are good.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    mark_in_manchester wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    – I don’t mean web comics or things like that –

    I know you said no web comics, but your thread reminded me to look at Existential Comics (on the web) again - and they really are good.

    Reading the last couple of them, they are very funny and I’m going to have to add this to my list of things to read; hello the only web comics I’ve been following for some time now have been Doonesbury, Scandinavia and the world, Oglaf, Tom the dancing bug, and this modern world. There’s also one involving a benevolent mind flayer named Cthu taking a girl under his wing and teaching her magic that I don’t remember the name of that I need to catch up on. Oh and one by Greg Fox called Kyle’s B and B. And Tomics. And…
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    We were surprised to find that Asterix is still being written.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    In the “2026 TV and Streaming” thread, @ChastMastr and I had this exchange. I figured any continuation of is better suited to this thread.
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    As is probably the case with most couples, there are things that my wife and I both like to watch, things she likes to watch but I don’t, and things I like to watch but she doesn’t. That last category includes anything with blood or violence, as well as fantasy and superhero movies and shows.

    I guess because of Life and Obligations, as well as maybe some reluctance based on not wanting to be disappointed (like I was with the 2023 movie), I never watched or got into “The Flash” when it was on from 2014–23, which is a bit surprising since the Flash was my favorite superhero when I was a kid. (I loved Superman and Batman, and Robin, but I wanted to be the Flash.) So, over the last however long, I’ve been watching all 184 episodes (plus crossovers with other Arrowverse shows) when I had a chance for the tv to myself. (Ah, retirement!)

    I confess to being surprised at just how much I liked it, even in later seasons when the plots maybe went off the rails a little. Even more surprising was just how much it affected me, tapping into young me in an almost therapeutic way—not what I expect from a tv show. It’s something I’m still processing, and may be for a while.
    Which Flash did you grow up with--Barry Allen or Wally West? (I mean, who was the main Flash in the comic series, since there are others, especially Jay Garrick.)
    I grew up with Barry Allen. (I was born in the early 60s.) Wally West—Iris’s nephew, rather than her brother as in the tv show—was Kid Flash
    Cool! I was born in 1967, so I also grew up with Barry Allen, but Wally became Flash for decades starting in 1985/6 after Crisis, and I think he was developed very well over the decades--and now they're both Flashes, plus Jay Garrick of course, and others, which I think is awesome. We really got to see Wally go from a younger kid to an older teen and then take on the legacy, and mature over time, and get married and have kids, and though he was gone due to Flashpoint in the New 52 (ick), he's back now and I'm very glad. Latest Flash issue is out today, in fact! And after this, Ryan North takes over the book, which will also be very good, in my view. Love Mark Waid too of course.
    I was born in ‘61, so I was 5 when the Adam West–Burt Ward Batman premiered, and that was the best thing on tv as far as my friends and I were concerned. My Batman bank was on my office shelf for decades.

    My avid comic reading days waned in the mid-to-late 70s, before Wally West became the Flash. From my 20s on, my comic book consumption came mostly in the form of movies and tv. I was generally aware of what was going on with DC comics (I never really liked or paid attention to Marvel), and from time to time I’d pick up a comic or two, or a collection—I have Flashpoint, The Dark Knight Returns, A Death in the Family, Superman: Earth One and some others. Some years there've been a comic or two in my stocking at Christmas.

    And I do still have pretty much all the comics I had as a kid.


  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    In the “2026 TV and Streaming” thread, @ChastMastr and I had this exchange. I figured any continuation of is better suited to this thread.
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    As is probably the case with most couples, there are things that my wife and I both like to watch, things she likes to watch but I don’t, and things I like to watch but she doesn’t. That last category includes anything with blood or violence, as well as fantasy and superhero movies and shows.

    I guess because of Life and Obligations, as well as maybe some reluctance based on not wanting to be disappointed (like I was with the 2023 movie), I never watched or got into “The Flash” when it was on from 2014–23, which is a bit surprising since the Flash was my favorite superhero when I was a kid. (I loved Superman and Batman, and Robin, but I wanted to be the Flash.) So, over the last however long, I’ve been watching all 184 episodes (plus crossovers with other Arrowverse shows) when I had a chance for the tv to myself. (Ah, retirement!)

    I confess to being surprised at just how much I liked it, even in later seasons when the plots maybe went off the rails a little. Even more surprising was just how much it affected me, tapping into young me in an almost therapeutic way—not what I expect from a tv show. It’s something I’m still processing, and may be for a while.
    Which Flash did you grow up with--Barry Allen or Wally West? (I mean, who was the main Flash in the comic series, since there are others, especially Jay Garrick.)
    I grew up with Barry Allen. (I was born in the early 60s.) Wally West—Iris’s nephew, rather than her brother as in the tv show—was Kid Flash
    Cool! I was born in 1967, so I also grew up with Barry Allen, but Wally became Flash for decades starting in 1985/6 after Crisis, and I think he was developed very well over the decades--and now they're both Flashes, plus Jay Garrick of course, and others, which I think is awesome. We really got to see Wally go from a younger kid to an older teen and then take on the legacy, and mature over time, and get married and have kids, and though he was gone due to Flashpoint in the New 52 (ick), he's back now and I'm very glad. Latest Flash issue is out today, in fact! And after this, Ryan North takes over the book, which will also be very good, in my view. Love Mark Waid too of course.
    I was born in ‘61, so I was 5 when the Adam West–Burt Ward Batman premiered, and that was the best thing on tv as far as my friends and I were concerned. My Batman bank was on my office shelf for decades.

    My avid comic reading days waned in the mid-to-late 70s, before Wally West became the Flash. From my 20s on, my comic book consumption came mostly in the form of movies and tv. I was generally aware of what was going on with DC comics (I never really liked or paid attention to Marvel), and from time to time I’d pick up a comic or two, or a collection—I have Flashpoint, The Dark Knight Returns, A Death in the Family, Superman: Earth One and some others. Some years there've been a comic or two in my stocking at Christmas.

    And I do still have pretty much all the comics I had as a kid.

    I can recommend Grant Morrison's excellent All-Star Superman!
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    Looking through my books in readiness for downsizing I find I have Leunig, Dilbert, and Far Side. I also have one Footrot Flats (from NZ)
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    I'm really enjoying Gail Simone's current run on Uncanny X-Men.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I tried that and Jed Mackay's X-Men. Mackay's Moon Knight is brilliant and Simone is a good writer. Unfortunately, my problem with both X-men series was that they're not so much runs as series of dashes between big crossover events.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    I tried that and Jed Mackay's X-Men. Mackay's Moon Knight is brilliant and Simone is a good writer. Unfortunately, my problem with both X-men series was that they're not so much runs as series of dashes between big crossover events.

    I don’t feel that way about Simone’s run, but I got tired of Mackay’s X-Men. And oh God, I hope they do something that somehow establishes
    that the good “cloned” Hank is the real one, with the real original soul, rather than the evil “original” Hank—and at this point I just don’t care how they do this, make it magic or a Skrull or an alt-universe version or possession or whatever. But I’m not going to buy it just in hopes of that. (Ditto the current version of Laura Kinney running around being, somehow, the original Laura, again with her original soul. Otherwise they’re just new characters with the same genetics and false memories of someone else’s life. God, how I despised the Krakoa era…)

    I’m getting United X-Men but I’m really eager for them to get back to the actual school rather than this psychic VR/astral “Graymatter Lane” thing.

    I’m liking the Wolverine stuff, but unless it’s by certain writers, I generally do.

    Are you getting other Marvel or DC titles?
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Mostly I wait for the collected books rather than the monthly editions. (The exception was the recent Ultimate Spider-Man which I bought as it came out.) I've been following North's Fantastic Four, (which is fun although event tie-ins drag it down a bit) and the DC Absolute line, and I'm just catching up with Ewing's Thor run.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Mostly I wait for the collected books rather than the monthly editions. (The exception was the recent Ultimate Spider-Man which I bought as it came out.) I've been following North's Fantastic Four, (which is fun although event tie-ins drag it down a bit) and the DC Absolute line, and I'm just catching up with Ewing's Thor run.

    Oh I love Ryan North’s stuff! He’s also just now started on Flash. The only Absolute book I get is Jason Aaron’s Absolute Superman. I’m getting all of Mark Waid’s DC stuff currently, and all of the current Superman titles (including Sophie Campbell’s excellent Supergirl series (Streaky is back! I’m so happy!)). Also JSA though I prefer Johns to Lemire (and I’m sad that it looks like we’ve lost a bunch of continuity I thought was back). Eager for Williamson’s Legion book!
  • Jane RJane R Shipmate
    Hautville House. Not sure whether it's been translated into English though.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    The new Superman/Spider-Man inter-company team-up comes out this Wednesday! (This is the second Super/Spider anthology this year—each company publishes one. Before this was Batman/Deadpool and Deadpool/Batman.) I’m eager for this! :)

    This is the one coming out this week:

    https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/131338/marveldc_spider-mansuperman_1_2026_1

    This is the previous one:

    https://www.dc.com/blog/2025-12-09/dc-s-superman-spider-man-1-to-publish-on-march-25

    Yes, yes, I’m a geek… 🤓
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Lyda wrote: »
    Uh...Mad Magazine?

    In Canada, I mostly see the anthologies of old material sold at supermarket checkouts, alongside the tabloids and the Life Magazine special editions(Taylor Swift, Bible stories etc). Apart from maybe the cover art and some re-written "Lighter Side Of..." pieces, I think Mad is now all old stuff.

    I guess it's economically feasible for Warner Bros. Discovery(via DC Comics) to recycle articles from past issues of Mad, but not economically feasible for them to continue paying writers and artists.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited April 19
    And a quiz for @ChastMastr, or anyone else really...

    What's the connection between Mad Magazine and Rankin-Bass?
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »
    Lyda wrote: »
    Uh...Mad Magazine?

    In Canada, I mostly see the anthologies of old material sold at supermarket checkouts, alongside the tabloids and the Life Magazine special editions(Taylor Swift, Bible stories etc). Apart from maybe the cover art and some re-written "Lighter Side Of..." pieces, I think Mad is now all old stuff.

    I guess it's economically feasible for Warner Bros. Discovery(via DC Comics) to recycle articles from past issues of Mad, but not economically feasible for them to continue paying writers and artists.

    There’s some new stuff and an all-new DC-themed issue that just came out!

    https://www.dc.com/blog/2026-01-21/dc-announces-mad-about-dc-to-publish-on-april-1

    https://youtu.be/4VgWxLOqh24?si=NaMLkAkt6biu3VFk
    stetson wrote: »
    And a quiz for @ChastMastr, or anyone else really...

    What's the connection between Mad Magazine and Rankin-Bass?

    Paul Coker, of course! ❤️
Sign In or Register to comment.