Wow, it’s been a month since the last comics post. Yeah, I haven’t been reading much comics, and I have to fix that. But I read the above, at least.
I’ve read this in a Danish translation as a teenager, but I found it in French at a used bookstore, so I snapped it up.
And it’s great — I really love this art style; kinda ligne claire but not as mannered. Real furniture and real interiors…
And I remember being kinda put off by the plot, but I was totally into it this time around — it’s one of those miasmatic plots where things spiral out of control and things get more and more mysterious before… just ending without a “rational” explanation. I loved reading it; such an exciting read.
I have not read the subsequent albums in this series, but I’m going to search them out.
I got this collection because of this. I never read these comics back in the 80s, and I do like Byrne’s artwork, so I gave it a go.
And… it’s indeed “back to basics” — it’s very typical Marvel super-hero storytelling; overwritten and kinda awkward. But … kinda entertaining?
I read the entire thing. But… slowly.
Another used bookstore find.
I’ve never heard of this series, and for good reason — despite the pretty attractive art, it’s totally naff.
I guess much of the dialogue is lifted from the novel this is based on, but especially in comics form, lines like the above (and basically every dialogue is like this) are totally risible. Stop torturing those metaphors!
I gave it up after reading half the album. Very boring.
I got caught up with this mini.
I really like it — these issues depict things happening in 2020-2022, so we get a rerun of the Corona thing, which is interesting to read at this remove.
It’s good stuff.
I don’t quite know why I bought this… I guess I was just curious to see if I’d missed something, as this Walt Simonson run is something that gets mentioned often.
And indeed, I finally learn what Beta Ray Bill is.
Simonson’s artwork is appealing, but… I know that this is Thor, and some ponderousness comes with the territory, but I just found that I lost interest as the issues progressed. I think I dropped it after reading a third of the collection — it’s not that it’s bad, but I found that that was a sufficient number of pages of this stuff for me.
Yet another random used bookstore find involving creators I’ve never heard about.
The artwork is, again, very appealing.
And the story is OK, I guess? It’s about mysterious creatures living on a foggy island. Unfortunately it’s the first album in a two part series… and it’s not so good that I’m going to go looking for the concluding album. But it’s pretty good.
Two special Spirou issues in a row.
The first is a Gaston Lagaffe special, and it’s very funny indeed.
But there’s other things here, too.
The second (double sized) special is about spring, and it has all kinds of weird and amusing pieces.
I’ve read most of her comics and enjoyed them hugely.
She writes for children, so I’m not the target audience, but I think this is her weakest book by far.
It just seems to insist on going down some very well-worn tracks — if you’re over twenty years old, you will have read exactly this comic book forty times. But I guess if you’re eleven and this is the first time you read this plot, it might be kinda spiffy?
I dunno.
I like the artwork, anyway.
And that’s it for comics this month…