What are you reading right now?

Contrarian1 · 08-02-2018, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I wish I had something like that but my grandparents threw away all their kids' collections away, as parents are wont to do. I've had to do all the legwork myself. Have you been keeping up on anything? What's your fav stuff?

I haven't been keeping up with anything current at all, I read mostly older stuff. For years me and my old man would go to comic shows and keep adding to the collection, since I've been married and I'm more accountable I cant really spend hundreds of dollars on a single comic any more so when it's father's day or Christmas I tend to get my dad an old Strange Tales or Tales of Suspense that he's missing as those are just as old but not nearly as expensive as a Spiderman #4 for example.

For myself, I love to mostly collect Gold Key and King comics from the silver age, like Flash Gordon, Doctor Solar, Turok Son of Stone as they are older (50's/60's) but very affordable to get in decent shape. I also collect some stuff like original Swamp Thing comics. Gold Key in particular have beautiful painted covers that I can't get enough of:

I love the history of comics, so I enjoy reading old newspaper dailies and weeklies of everything classic like Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and The Phantom.
The Phantom Sunday's are beautifully colored and I just love the retro art sytle:

however, the stories are often not very complex and sometimes cheesy, and there often isn't any character development. So it's hard to recommend to a current reader which older comics to start with unless you can appreciate art, history and even camp (Dialogue can be super corny)

I also like DC stuff like The Atom and Challenger's of the Unknown (early Kirby sci-fi). Other stuff, TMNT, recently Dredd. For Marvel I love Submariner , classic X-Men, and Incredible Hulk among others.

If I had to suggest an old school book to get into, I would suggest Mandrake the Magician dailies because of how interesting and fantastic Mandrake's powers were for the time (He was legit the original Doctor Strange). Again, don't look for complex story telling or character arcs.

But really I just LOVE comics and cartoons!

The Batlord · 08-02-2018, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I agree that after Memnoch the entire vampire race was as good as dead: not quite sure why she had to do that, seemed a real "Christianity wins mother****ers!" kind of thing to do. So then as you say all there was was to go backwards and do stories from before that time. Kind of annoyed she basically abandoned the vampires to go on the Godsquad, though whatever I guess, it's her life. Haven't read the "new" Lestat novels yet, though I feel Marius would have a very interesting backstory.

Apparently she's about to delve into the world of, um, werewolves next?

No the vampires aren't dead, but after Memnoch the narrative was over, Lestat stopped being the focus, and it was almost nothing but cash grab origin stories treated as flashbacks and framed by modern day storylines that added little to nothing to the lore except giving characters boring endings so fans would feel like they had closure if they never appeared in another book. Not all bad, I seem to remember Armand's book being cool, but clearly Rice was just in it for the money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Contrarian1

I haven't been keeping up with anything current at all, I read mostly older stuff. For years me and my old man would go to comic shows and keep adding to the collection, since I've been married and I'm more accountable I cant really spend hundreds of dollars on a single comic any more so when it's father's day or Christmas I tend to get my dad an old Strange Tales or Tales of Suspense that he's missing as those are just as old but not nearly as expensive as a Spiderman #4 for example.

For myself, I love to mostly collect Gold Key and King comics from the silver age, like Flash Gordon, Doctor Solar, Turok Son of Stone as they are older (50's/60's) but very affordable to get in decent shape. I also collect some stuff like original Swamp Thing comics. Gold Key in particular have beautiful painted covers that I can't get enough of:

Spoiler for dfghj:

I love the history of comics, so I enjoy reading old newspaper dailies and weeklies of everything classic like Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and The Phantom.
The Phantom Sunday's are beautifully colored and I just love the retro art sytle:

Spoiler for jhv:

however, the stories are often not very complex and sometimes cheesy, and there often isn't any character development. So it's hard to recommend to a current reader which older comics to start with unless you can appreciate art, history and even camp (Dialogue can be super corny)

I also like DC stuff like The Atom and Challenger's of the Unknown (early Kirby sci-fi). Other stuff, TMNT, recently Dredd. For Marvel I love Submariner , classic X-Men, and Incredible Hulk among others.

If I had to suggest an old school book to get into, I would suggest Mandrake the Magician dailies because of how interesting and fantastic Mandrake's powers were for the time (He was legit the original Doctor Strange). Again, don't look for complex story telling or character arcs.

But really I just LOVE comics and cartoons!

It is indeed hard to get into Golden Age comics but I've been meaning to get into, Plastic Man, OG Captain Marvel, and Will Eisner stuff like The Spirit. I'm more of a Bronze Age/80s' guy, myself if I'm going back in time: Denny O'Neil Batman, anything Alan Moore, Claremont X-Men, Grant Morrison. And I've been meaning to read Jack Kirby's Fourth World series for a good long time now.

Contrarian1 · 08-02-2018, 03:35 PM

I have The complete Demon by Kirby in TPB, only read a little bit, would love to get the fourth world omnibus but it's like $160 Canadian off amazon.

The Batlord · 08-02-2018, 05:07 PM

Damn it I just checked and it's on sale on Amazon for like $80 and I can't justify spending that right now but I know the price is gonna be back up when I'm good for it.

Trollheart · 08-02-2018, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Contrarian1

I have The complete Demon by Kirby in TPB, only read a little bit, would love to get the fourth world omnibus but it's like $160 Canadian off amazon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Damn it I just checked and it's on sale on Amazon for like $80 and I can't justify spending that right now but I know the price is gonna be back up when I'm good for it.

Give him your download link, Batty!

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

No the vampires aren't dead, but after Memnoch the narrative was over, Lestat stopped being the focus, and it was almost nothing but cash grab origin stories treated as flashbacks and framed by modern day storylines that added little to nothing to the lore except giving characters boring endings so fans would feel like they had closure if they never appeared in another book. Not all bad, I seem to remember Armand's book being cool, but clearly Rice was just in it for the money.

The vampires were all dead. Every day another would come and immolate himself on the steps of the church, remember? One by one, she was having them commit suicide for the glory of God. Bit sickening, kind of like the USA when Communism fell.

The Batlord · 08-02-2018, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Give him your download link, Batty!

The vampires were all dead. Every day another would come and immolate himself on the steps of the church, remember? One by one, she was having them commit suicide for the glory of God. Bit sickening, kind of like the USA when Communism fell.

No definitely not all of them.

Trollheart · 08-03-2018, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

No definitely not all of them.

Not all of them as far as we know. But the big guys like Mael and the other one whose name I can't remember went up like torches, and the intimation was that every vampire, or most of them anyway, was making his or her way to that church to "gain forgiveness" and die.

I always thought there should have been scope for a vampire who literally had God's blood in his veins to really expand the story, but as I say I have yet to read the new Lestat novels and I feel they're going to be based in a time before Memnoch, given the last line and her sign-off to him.

The Batlord · 08-03-2018, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Not all of them as far as we know. But the big guys like Mael and the other one whose name I can't remember went up like torches, and the intimation was that every vampire, or most of them anyway, was making his or her way to that church to "gain forgiveness" and die.

I always thought there should have been scope for a vampire who literally had God's blood in his veins to really expand the story, but as I say I have yet to read the new Lestat novels and I feel they're going to be based in a time before Memnoch, given the last line and her sign-off to him.

I'M ****ING TELLING YOU AFTER HAVING READ NEARLY ALL OF THEM THAT A GREAT MANY AREN'T DEAD, YOU TWIT!!!

The story really wasn't affected by Memnoch tbh. Lestat just kind of faded into the background and it became about all the other ones, except many of the books weren't linked. Nobody even talks about anything that happened in Memnoch. Rice clearly had nowhere to go afterward so she just ignored it and told pointless stories about Armand and Marius and Pandora and whoever else that technically took place in the present but were mostly taken up with flashbacks and they're all the ****ing same even when they're interesting. For the last few books Rice even made it a crossover with The Mayfair Witches cause I guess that was as good an idea as any.

I repeat: you can probably forget whatever you assumed about the post-Memnoch books. Memnoch doesn't matter.

Oh **** I was just looking up the titles of the books on Wikipedia and there have been three new books since 2014 (the first since 2003). One of them is named Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. I'm torn between cracking my skull open against the wall or riding my bike 20 miles to the nearest Barnes and Noble.

Trollheart · 08-03-2018, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I'M ****ING TELLING YOU AFTER HAVING READ NEARLY ALL OF THEM THAT A GREAT MANY AREN'T DEAD, YOU TWIT!!!

The story really wasn't affected by Memnoch tbh. Lestat just kind of faded into the background and it became about all the other ones, except many of the books weren't linked. Nobody even talks about anything that happened in Memnoch. Rice clearly had nowhere to go afterward so she just ignored it and told pointless stories about Armand and Marius and Pandora and whoever else that technically took place in the present but were mostly taken up with flashbacks and they're all the ****ing same even when they're interesting. For the last few books Rice even made it a crossover with The Mayfair Witches cause I guess that was as good an idea as any.

I repeat: you can probably forget whatever you assumed about the post-Memnoch books. Memnoch doesn't matter.

Don't get all upset. Also, why do you use an English word like twit? I think you're the only 'Murican I know who uses that word, and to be frank, few English people probably even use it now. It's not a hard enough insult to make any impression, and it's kind of linked to the English upper classes anyway.

Quote:

Oh **** I was just looking up the titles of the books on Wikipedia and there have been three new books since 2014 (the first since 2003). One of them is named Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. I'm torn between cracking my skull open against the wall or riding my bike 20 miles to the nearest Barnes and Noble.

To burn it down?

Also, why not just download the new books?

The Batlord · 08-03-2018, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Don't get all upset. Also, why do you use an English word like twit? I think you're the only 'Murican I know who uses that word, and to be frank, few English people probably even use it now. It's not a hard enough insult to make any impression, and it's kind of linked to the English upper classes anyway.

I know nothing of who uses "twit". All I know is that it's a fun word.

Quote:

Also, why not just download the new books?

This feels like a book to own so that I can show people lest they believe I'm making it up.

08-02-2018, 03:35 PM	#6163 (permalink)
Contrarian1 Music Addict Join Date: Jul 2018 Posts: 57	I have The complete Demon by Kirby in TPB, only read a little bit, would love to get the fourth world omnibus but it's like $160 Canadian off amazon.