my bf apparently has a huge secret stash of comics he won't let me see. i think he might be afraid i'll think he's a geek. um, hello, he's a guy, of course he loves comics. i would love to see them, i've always liked comics but having no brothers i really never had the opportunity to read them.

anyway, anyone here read pheobe glockner? she wrote and illustrated "Diary of A Teenage Girl". awesome, awesome book.

i finished reading jimmy corrigan the smartest kid in the world

its a beautifully illustrated graphic novel with AMAZING storyline.


it made me cry T___T

and who loves scott pilgrim in here?!
cause i do.

im currently reading the following (though i should read one at a time....)

-Blankets by craig thompson

-bite club

-watchmen

-fables

Lately I have read Frank Miller's the Dark Night Returns, The Watchmen, Persepolis, Persepolis 2, and The Pride of Baghdad.

Loved the watchmen. I am finding alot of that stuff to be very, very dark. that goes for the Dark Night Returns as well.

Persepolis 1 &2 was an amazing story and all done in black and white.

The Pride of Baghdad was about some lions that escape the zoo in baghdad after it is bombed by Americans told from the lion's perspective. Gorgeous drawing and a heartbreaking story.


anyone of fan of Aline Kominsky Crumb? She rocks!

hi jen!

chris ware-- who did jimmy corigan is an amazing draftsperson. he's done a few covers for our local free paper. i love his illustrations.

oooo! oooo! i love scott pilgrim!!!

the movie is being made, although i don't know if i should expect the worst. part of SP is the art style. don't get me wrong, i think it's funny, sweet, and has lots of goofy fun in it, but i can't see them being creative enough to do some of the little things that endear SP to me.


another choice that sort of reminds me of SP i wrote about, is kimiko superstar, ( ) about a girl finding herself and becoming a singing star. bittersweet, great art style.

if you have a chance, you might want to check out the graphic novel, solanin, ( ) which reminds me of SP, but the main character is female, and there are no ninjas/fight scenes. it's basically about a girl's summer in the city, living with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's band. the art style is similar to pilgrim, but slightly more manga. i'm half way thru it (it's pretty thick), but i like it quite a bit so far. it gives a lot of space for solanin's thoughts, and feels like a quiet memoir more than a story, like kimiko or pilgrim.


**************

lady j, i've hear that pride of bagdad is good. thanks for the reminder.

have you seen the movie version of persepolis? ( )it's awesome. you might want to also read her third graphic novel, although the subject matter is slightly different, embroideries ( ). it's really good too.


**************

i was watching one of the special features on the hellboy 2 dvd, the zinco epilogue, which is an animated comic, i adore mignola's art in the hellboy series, so i was baffled that they would use someone else's artwork for a story that's already been drawn.... although i can't remember if mignola drew that one or if it was in the BPRD, hellboy's spin-off comic. but on the upside, i love the whole zinco story, and i love that they are planning a third movie.

This interview with Bust has me all curious about a comic called Madame Xanadu anyone ever heard of it?

Anyway, I too LOVE Fables, adoseofjen. On account of which I finished reading House of Mystery: Room and Boredom today, it has Bill Willingham's name on it. It's based on a pub in some trans-dimensional portal where the customers pay for their drinks with stories (good ones!). There's a bit of crossover into the Sandman's world, so that should tell you what type of comic it is (sorry, graphic novel) I really liked it.

If you like Bite Club you'll probably like Life Sucks.

I read a little bit of Scott Pilgrim issue 1 today in the comic store since everybody and her cat raves about it, and it does look good, but I'm not ready to spend the cheese on it yet. If I can find it at the library I'll let myself get hooked.

there's only 4 scott pilgrim books, so it's not as bad as say, naruto with it's 40+ volumes. i liked #1 but #2 is where i started to love it.

there is 5 scott pilgrim vs. the universe~!

apple #2 is out, and it is beautiful.

there is also the fusion junction artist collection, the queen of arts, female character designers for video games and anime.

Madame Xanadu is a beautifully drawn comic! The story leaves a bit to be desired, but I say give it a shot for one issue and see if it is your cup of tea. Amy Reeder Hadley is the artist and her work has elegant figures, is emotionally engaging, is decent with action, has a fun edge, and is also pretty to look at.

Bite Club was fun and David Hahn is a good artist.

My favorite comic that comes out almost never *sigh* is Strangehaven by Gary Spencer Millidge. Sort of a secret society, Prisoner, and Twin Peaks mash up that works.

Always nice to see other ladies who like comics. Cheers!

Yay, another comictrix! Strangehaven sounds like my kind of story. I love that weirdness-in-small-town story device. Have you ever read Bill Willingham's Coventry? It's about a town with demonic goings on, the tone is a bit lighter though, and unfortunately he stopped at issue 3 (lost his groove?).

QUOTE(girl_logic @ May 21 2009, 06:53 PM)

Yay, another comictrix! Strangehaven sounds like my kind of story. I love that weirdness-in-small-town story device. Have you ever read Bill Willingham's Coventry? It's about a town with demonic goings on, the tone is a bit lighter though, and unfortunately he stopped at issue 3 (lost his groove?).

Love Comictrix sounds like a band . Have not seen Coventry but will have to find it was it D.C.? :EDIT: ooh Fanagraphics- did you ever read Love & Rockets? What do you think of Crossing Midnight?

Do you have any favorite companies/artists/writers? Smiles!

Hmm Crossing Midnight looks like a good one too. I've only read a few issues of L&R.

"Do you have any favorite companies/artists/writers?"

It's like this, so many good ones, so little time, you know?

*latecomer to the comics party*

I've just read Ghost World and it left me completely cold. All I could think about was the phrase 'hipster douchebaby' (from the CBC thread). What did everyone else think about it?

Always room for more women in the comic party! I was bored senseless by Ghost World- but read it oodles of years ago- seemed to try to hard for cooler than thou- and I never really gave a rats ass about cool.
Have a lovely weekend ladies!

QUOTE(girl_logic @ May 22 2009, 06:42 AM)

Hmm Crossing Midnight looks like a good one too. I've only read a few issues of L&R.

"Do you have any favorite companies/artists/writers?"

It's like this, so many good ones, so little time, you know?

Yes, I do know. *waves*
Ladies, any thoughts on From Hell by Alan Moore or other graphic novels?

I liked ghost world. there was a line in there that stuck with me. something about how awful would it be to be a teacher with big boobs or something to that effect which made me laugh because it was a good description of me.

Ooh yes! I did find some of the lines funny, but I still wanted to slap them quite frequently.

Yay, one of my favourite webcomics has come back from hiatus! Kukuburi has lush art and is just so tasty.

just finshed the manga, king of thorns. i liked it a lot. only 6 volumes, so it doesn't go on forever (naruto-- i'm looking at you! although i'm glad you do.) it's a sci-fi post apocalypse mystery with some nice twists. i love the art although some of the beasts made me snicker. but i love the art. it looks like a comic made by someone you know. it's charming.

caught up with d.gray man, i love it. i just wish he'd stop killing of all the people i like. :/ sucks having to wait 3 months for the next volume. *sigh*

on the fence about blank slate. great premise (amnesiac assasin, who ends up falling in with the right people), but i dunno, something seems like it's not working. perhaps a few more volumes in....

wading thru the captain america omnibus-- it's the telephone book sized tome of all the brubaker written issues where cap gets capped. i usually like his stories, and this one is a pretty fast read, although i read his xmen: xtremists and HATED it. throwing myself out of a window would have been more enjoyable.

Thanks for the reviews GT I'm always looking for something juicy to dig into. You and me seem to have different tastes in comics and I can't quite put my finger on where the difference is.

There was a comic art festival in my city recently and I picked up some gems. One is called Milk Teeth a slim single issue about unicorns into beastiality, carnivorous angels, and hunted mermaids. It's by Kate Allen.

I bought a print version of the online DAR - I really love this autobiographical comic. It's light, the writer has a sense of the absurd, doesn't take herself too seriously so it's laugh out loud funny sometimes.

I picked up The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For at the library - I forgot how much I liked these stories.

sure, gl. the library here seems to buy tons of manga, which is awesome, because i really can't justify buying them.

have you checked out funhouse? it's by alison what's her face who did dykes to watch out for. it's great.

just had to make this addendum: scratch what i said about blank slate. SUCKS. seriously. the first volume starts off good, but before you are even half way thru the first part, and the artist starts apologizing in a sidebar. from there it's obvious that he couldn't decided what to do, and by volume two the thing is over. ugh. what a waste of time.

Funhouse sounds interesting it's on my read list now.
Anoth Auto-bio that is really good is The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner. Very disturbing subject matter in both or her books could be triggering for someone who had abused and was not prepared for it, still good reads.

I've just found Maka Maka by Torajirō Kishi a yuri manga that has some of the most beautiful artwork I've seen in manga. Primarily about sex and relationships what I like is the emotion the girls display, smiling, happy, non tragic. If female-to-female sex disturbs you then avoid, otherwise it is refreshingly sweet and light.

i'll have to hunt down maka maka.

if you like queer comics, you might want to check out how loathesome too. it's about sf life. highly recommended.

just finished osamu tezuka's buddha, vol. 7. it usually takes me a while to get into traditional manga art (think astro boy), but i love this. it's a loosely told biography of the life of buddha, complete with humorus anachronisms. it's a fast read and charming.

i am loving brubaker/phillips' criminal series. i just finished vol 1-4: coward, lawless, the dead and the dying, and bad night. tawt crime fiction that just happens to be in comic form. what i love is the brilliantly overlapping stories and complex characters.

I do like queer comics, Prism puts out some good stuff on occasion. I've been bi since a teen so anything girl friendly is good with me, double plus if it has great art and decent storytelling. Maka-Maka is online at mangaworks I think. I'm going to buy the issues but until then it is nice to check out. Criminal sounds perfect- is it Marvel? Or one of their imprints? Buddha sounds interesting, so many unexplored comics, nice to be introduced to so many new ones.

i'm on a brubaker tear-- criminal is icon actually. it's very good. very tight plotting.

i also finished the death of captain american omnibus, and a couple of the graphic novels wrapping (some) things up. i loved it, and i've never cared much for cap. but the story re-wrote the character of bucky, and brought in old heroes like the invaders and the falcon, as well as old foes like the red skull. i really like the way brubaker goes back to a lot of the history of comics, and revitalizes their mythos.

loathesome is queer, to be sure, it's focused on a druggy transexual who is in love with a woman.

Cool, so Criminal is under Marvel's creator owned imprint? I'll look it up and find the 'effing thing- always in for a good story! My fave has been Strangehaven ( www.millidge.com/ ) for years but then I don't know if it will ever even be finished. I'm still pretty into stuff written by Peter Milligan (Rogan Gosh, etc.) and Grant Morrison (Kill Your Boyfriend, The Invisibles, etc.) also some Alan Moore (From Hell among others). I started reading Flaming Carrot comics, and Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children when I was 15, but tatses have changed since then.
Girltrouble- what kind of art do you prefer? Also is the art on equal footing with the story for you or not?

oh! i miss flaming carrot. that always cracked me up.

i'm a sucker for clearlinists, simple, clean pared down, slightly cartoonish is my favorite, but i can get into some messy stuff-- i adore ted (eddy current, stray toasters)mckeever's sloppy messy art, or bill s' pasted up work, on electra assassin, or kirby's ink heavy, awkward art. i just like it to look unique. that said it took me forever to get into the miller's art. if i didn't love his stories in daredevil, i would have hated him. but art is usually why i'll read something initially. i'll buy some comics cos i love the art, and never bother to read them. lol... i just bought dragonfly which is in japanese. i haven't a clue what the story is, but the art is hypnotic. when i moved to seattle i hung out with a gang of (then aspiring) comic artists, and i was "the artist" while the others were all about story. i'm constantly drawing/cartooning so art is very very important to me. how about you? who are your favorite artists?

I just read Posy Simmonds' Gemma Bovery, a funny modern re-telling of Flaubert's tale (with lots of digs at pretentious middle-class English people who move to France and never bother learning the language - ha! in their rich annoying faces!). I'm drawn in by story rather than art, but I haven't read that many comics - I'm sure I'll develop stronger preferences as I read more.

You guys! You guys you guys! Well this is more for GirlTrouble, but I forgot to mention that the week of the comic art festival, I witnessed some of the filming here in Toronto for the Scott Pilgrim movie. I know there's some serious anticipation for this shebang.

P.S. I liked Gemma Bovery too - I liked the artwork, clear open lines, simple but good facial expressions

And yes, I've read FunHouse and thought it was great too

Has anyone read FREAKANGELS? It is online and in print. I read all 60 of the episodes yesterday and we're purchasing the print versions as well. I've not liked any comic read this much since Strangehaven.

Anybody heading to San Diego Comic Con. this year? We're not, and it is sold out now. Maybe next year though. We're planning to do Chicago's show and I'm excited about that.