Comics212.net
Thank you for writing this list. Although I don't agree with everything on it, there are a few things on here that had somehow managed to escape my attention but which I believe I shall check out.
That said: Black Hole and We3? I still don't get it. Is there Kool-Ade I can drink that will make these books somehow less manipulative, predictable and mediocre? :D
Great, thanks, now the cat will go hungry yet another month. If he takes it badly it's all on you ;-)
@Tim
I fully agree on Black Hole, but I think I can explain We3.
- Visuals: the hail of bullets from #1, the minipanels in the fight scenes, the page flippin gover along with the wall in the final issue: all very well done, well used and impressive.
- Story: it's a fascinating blend of the classic stray-story with the use of animals for military purposes that manages to work on both levels (one or the other wouldn't be impressive)
- Dialogue: again this strikes a mostly sucessful midpoint between classic talking animals and well, regular animals.
I think Morrison and Quitely struck a sweet spot between furries and children's tales of talking animals and managed to tell an action packed yet moving story. A bit like the "Once and future king" of comics.
Well my requests at the library have increased thanks to this list. I'm grateful for the delay in getting this out since it shows me a few things I missed and should give a read to during a time of the year it's generally unlikely (unless of course one were to read the Eisner nominees).
WE3 had some great ideas and I agree about the whole pop-comic turned to 11, but for some reason I wasn't completely sold on it. I enjoyed it and the ideas are strong enough to keep me thinking but I didn't love it when I was reading it. I sort of feel it's like early nineties Saturday Night Live - it was always better in the retelling of it and thinking about it.
For the record, I really really liked Blue, and I'm a straight male! Its only major failing was how hard it was keeping track of who was talking in any given panel; though it wasn't TOO hard to work out in context none of the characters really had their own distinctive voice. It was great anyway.
I was also pleasently surprised to find Kiriko Nananan in "Secret Comics Japan" when I acquired that a few months ago (I mainly got it for Junko Mizuno)! I was not expecting this.
Probobaly the "Best of 05" list I agree with most. Everything on it I read is brilliant, and I'll be sure to check out the few things I missed (Ordinary Voices, Killoffer, Or Else).
And for the record, I also am a straight male and I loved Blue. I can understand why alot of people wouldn't get it, as I know a few of them, but it just stunned me. Shit, I remember DREAMING of the characters after I read it; how often does THAT happen?
Interesting Steamboy Ani-Manga made your sub-honorable-mentions list! I've been trying to get people to bite on my suggestion that that was the best book Viz put out last year and that Ani-Manga are a legitimate art form unto themselves, not just derivative cash-ins, but so far no luck...But this is an encouraging sign!
Yeah great list. So much good stuff came out last year. One thing that I really dug last year was the second issue of Malinky Robot. Sonny Liew is a god in my eyes.
I love WE3 to pieces, but I'm a cold unfeeling formalist bastard.
errrr... where die my comment disappear to!?
@myk
it's a comment on the post below this one. :-)
markus, i feared as much, but was afraid to look... ;)
So, letīs do this again on the RIGHT post:
As for PYONGYANG, his at times arrogant attitude to the north-koreans struck me as odd. Still, it might be argued, intentional or not, that itīs just a very honest portrayal of western arrogance, by someone who is in the lucky position to never habe been subjected to such a dreadful situation.
With the rest, Iīm pretty much with you. Except for some of the manga, that I havenīt read. Manga is pretty much responsible for me getting back into comics big time, as I had fizzled out of the medium after quitting the comics-shop a few years back.
I have been hearing good things about PLANETES. Is it more character-centered? Is it totally worth it??
My list (which doesnīt exist, coz my bookshelf is a mess and I canīt remember which came out when) would of course include MONSTER and 20TH CENTURY BOYS, but I gues those havenīt been published in english in 2005, so thatīs ok.
The only two I disagree on are:
1) WE3 - which I found to be incredibly hollow. Like it was written by a thirteen-year old. A thirteen-year old with no talent. All spectacle but nothing lasting more than five minutes after the book is over. And, mind you, Iīm also at times prone to hollow spectacle but this... I guess Iīm just not a Grant Morrison type of guy.
Maybe itīs still in its caterpillar-stage and in 2012 it will be a really cool comic.
(And, I mean, he killed the rabbit. How could he kill the rabbit. The rabbit was the best.)
2) BLACK HOLE - which also left me totally cold. Granted, Burns is a spectacular artist, even if I donīt like his style 100%, but the whole story was just... bland. Exposition, heaped upon exposition. Too much words, not enough happening. And normally Iīm totally a words person. EPILEPTIC for instance, I breezed through that.
BLACK HOLE felt like just a bunch of empty symbolism, and even if it IS meant as empty symbolism to unmask the use of empty symbolism... maybe it reads better spread out over the 10 years it took to actually create it, I dunno.
I do actually think that it is very important that this book exists, I just donīt wanna have to read it. Formally I like it.
And with these thoughts itīs your blog again.
Having read Black Hole in serialized form and in collected form, I have to say that the single sitting experience was a revelation. I knew it was good, but I had no idea how confident and masterful a storyteller Burns was until the whole thing unpacked itself in one read.
I guess this is possibly an anal and useless comment, but there are a few mis-spelled titles in the final list of things you read and liked ("TALES DESIED TO THRIZZLE #1"), and I think that you might have mis-labelled the creators involved in the two issues of Solo you list.
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