Marney

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Do you use that quote because you enjoy quoting the Bible, or "Kingdom Come" by Mark Waid and Alex Ross? Just asking, because I personally think Kingdom Come is the ONLY Graphic Novel better than Watchmen.

 

 

Okay, carry on.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

I thought of Kingdom Come as well.

[Guest bob_barron]

nevermind

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

nevermind

BARRON IS FILLED WITH RUTHLESS AGRESSION!

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

This is the silliest thread I have ever seen. And I'm posting in it. Go me.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

I'm surprised no one has tried to kill me for DARING to suggest that Kingdom Come is better than Watchmen(Which it is). It's got better art, a story that's just as good, and characters we love and care about. It's in many ways perfect.(Well, it would be if you didn't need an OBSCENE amount of comic book knowledge to truly enjoy the book.)

 

Comic Book geeks...SHAME.

[Guest areacode212]

Kingdom Come isn't anywhere close to being the best graphic novel/miniseries ever. It's not even in the top 10. Sure, on a pure comic geek level, it's entertaining to recognize all the updated versions of obscure DC characters, like Ma Hunkle (the original Red Tornado). But it was just 4 overpriced prestige format issues of Mark Waid saying "Image heroes BAD, DC heroes GOOD". Who cares?

 

As for the art, Alex Ross is one of the most overrated artists ever. Once I got over the novelty of seeing a superhero painted in a photorealistic style, I found his shit bland & boring. All he does is get his friends to stand and pose for him in his studio, then he paints them wearing a Superman costume or whatever. His sequential art/storytelling skills are pretty bad. A good comics artist is able to convey the story through the art alone. Try reading KC without looking at the word balloons. It's just a bunch of still paintings put together. Now look at a comic by, I dunno, Jack Kirby or Darwyn Cooke. Sure, the pictures aren't as pretty as Alex Ross's, but even though Ross's paintings look more "real", there's much more vitality, action and "life" in the comics that were actually drawn.

 

And have you seen those ridiculous posters he's done of the DC Silver Age characters? Who the hell stands like that?

 

Kingdom Come = most overrated comic EVER.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

The quote is from Revelation 14:7, which is what I was thinking of when I put it in my sig.

That said, I like Kingdom Come a lot too.

212

[Guest J*ingus]

::slaps on anybody who claims that anything could be better than Watchmen, or even Sandman for that matter::

[Guest Sassquatch]

Miracleman > DKR > Watchmen > Kingdom Come > Sandman series > anything

 

For those of you that have ever read the Miracleman series, you should all be pointing a gun at your heads right now and getting ready to fire it.

 

There is a reason why that series is hard to find and it's not because of the low print run that it followed.

 

Kingdom Come is not as bad as Areacode212 made it seem because unlike a lot of the masturbatory and ego stroking pieces of "work" out there today, Kingdom Come was the DKR for the DCU and showed fans what would happen if the older heroes took some time off. It had a good premise behind the story and was interesting to take a look at how the heroes of the DCU might end up in the future.

 

"If it ain't broke then don't fix it."

 

The rules that the older heroes used in performing heroic acts and risking their own lives to capture villains still worked. But something happened along the way that caused the new generation of super heroes to not care about innocent life or take responsibility for their actions. The older guard finally realized that they were needed once more and came back to set things right.

 

Ross's art is an acquired taste and most of the people I have spoken with about whether or not they like Alex Ross's work are mixed. Some gave the same reasons that 212 gave for why they did not like his work and others said that it just wasn't for them.

 

The painting gimmick would get old after a while and Ross himself has said he realizes this would happen and is one of the reasons why he does not try to work on a lot of books.

 

I think Ross is a very good artist that comes in small doses for the most part and knows what projects to pick and paint for. That way he doesn't oversaturate the market with his work and it also makes his next project more anticipated and special.

 

Ross does get the proverbial Godly bj from critics and a lot of fans but the same thing happened when Frank Frazetta was drawing Adventure Comics back in the '50's because he came in with this style that fans had never seen before and they jumped all over it.

 

Same deal with artists like Neal Adams and Dick Giordano who made some fans believe that they had taken photographs of Batman, Green Arrow or Wonder Woman and had put them in the comic book panels.

 

The mixed reactions to people like Ross are always to be expected and those people are entitled to their opinion as long as it is an educated one. 212 told people he did not like Ross's work and he laid out his reason in a well-thought out manner and gave examples for why he did not like the artwork.

 

But anyways, back to the main topic at hand:

 

Miracleman beats out any story any day of the week.

 

Nuff said.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I just don't get the quote's placement. Is it a suggestion that these are the end times? I hope not...

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Miracleman > DKR > Watchmen > Kingdom Come > Sandman series > anything

 

For those of you that have ever read the Miracleman series, you should all be pointing a gun at your heads right now and getting ready to fire it.

 

There is a reason why that series is hard to find and it's not because of the low print run that it followed.

 

Kingdom Come is not as bad as Areacode212 made it seem because unlike a lot of the masturbatory and ego stroking pieces of "work" out there today, Kingdom Come was the DKR for the DCU and showed fans what would happen if the older heroes took some time off. It had a good premise behind the story and was interesting to take a look at how the heroes of the DCU might end up in the future.

 

"If it ain't broke then don't fix it."

 

The rules that the older heroes used in performing heroic acts and risking their own lives to capture villains still worked. But something happened along the way that caused the new generation of super heroes to not care about innocent life or take responsibility for their actions. The older guard finally realized that they were needed once more and came back to set things right.

 

Ross's art is an acquired taste and most of the people I have spoken with about whether or not they like Alex Ross's work are mixed. Some gave the same reasons that 212 gave for why they did not like his work and others said that it just wasn't for them.

 

The painting gimmick would get old after a while and Ross himself has said he realizes this would happen and is one of the reasons why he does not try to work on a lot of books.

 

I think Ross is a very good artist that comes in small doses for the most part and knows what projects to pick and paint for. That way he doesn't oversaturate the market with his work and it also makes his next project more anticipated and special.

 

Ross does get the proverbial Godly bj from critics and a lot of fans but the same thing happened when Frank Frazetta was drawing Adventure Comics back in the '50's because he came in with this style that fans had never seen before and they jumped all over it.

 

Same deal with artists like Neal Adams and Dick Giordano who made some fans believe that they had taken photographs of Batman, Green Arrow or Wonder Woman and had put them in the comic book panels.

 

The mixed reactions to people like Ross are always to be expected and those people are entitled to their opinion as long as it is an educated one. 212 told people he did not like Ross's work and he laid out his reason in a well-thought out manner and gave examples for why he did not like the artwork.

 

But anyways, back to the main topic at hand:

 

Miracleman beats out any story any day of the week.

 

Nuff said.

DKR has not aged very well and I honestly think that Watchmen is ahead of it.

 

 

Alex Ross is a genius. It's just started to be "Cool" to say how shallow he is once you get past the "novelty". I send out a hearty fick you to those people. Ross is a genius. Read Earth X, Read Marvels. His versions of Spidey, FF, Superman, Cap, are brilliant. I love his work and cannot wait for his next project. I can see the "life" in his pictures, just as well as in the Silver Age comics that inspired it.

 

Kingdom Come is the story of how super-heroes affected human achievement, lost thier respect for life, and forced the old guard to return to stop thier rampage, leading to a climactic final judgement. But, it's so much more, Waid gives a definitive look at each of these characters and WHY they work so well. The book is brimming with emotion and I cherish it each and everytime I read it.

 

Well, I guess that's why they made vanilla and chocolate, eh?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Furthest I ever got into comics was half a dozen issues of Conan the Barbarian.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I just don't get the quote's placement. Is it a suggestion that these are the end times? I hope not...

It's a reminder: actions have consequences.

 

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

Who is that? Donne?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Donne's style was completely different, you doofus. It's Longfellow's translation of Friedrich von Logau's Sinngedichte.

 

Donne wrote like this:

 

"Who will beleeve mee, if I sweare

That I have had the plague a yeare?

Who would not laugh at mee, if I should say,

I saw a flaske of powder burne a day?"

 

Note the older spelling and the variation in metre, not to mention the imperfect iambs. Longfellow's lines, in turn, subsume meaning in metre and could never have been written by Donne.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Donne's style was completely different, you doofus. It's Longfellow's translation of Friedrich von Logau's Sinngedichte.

 

Donne wrote like this:

 

"Who will beleeve mee, if I sweare

That I have had the plague a yeare?

Who would not laugh at mee, if I should say,

I saw a flaske of powder burne a day?"

 

Note the older spelling and the variation in metre, not to mention the imperfect iambs. Longfellow's lines, in turn, subsume meaning in metre and could never have been written by Donne.

Donne was also devoutly religious, it was a wild guess. You're talkin' poetry to a Slayer fan. All that old english stuff never did anything for me. Now Dulce et decorum est.., there's a fuckin' poem. Almost Slayer, but not quite.

 

"Sweet and honorable my ass,

Say that with a lungful of mustard gas."

 

(paraphrasing in layman's terms..heh heh heh.)

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Owen was good, but I still prefer Thucydides and Horace.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Speaking of imperfect rhyme schemes, what's worse than

 

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry"

 

Blake, right? Fuckin' dreadful stuff. That whole group of poets just does nothing for me.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I always liked that one. You have to keep in mind that pronunciations change; Shakespeare rhymed "have" with "grave" in the song from Cymbeline, and I remember one poem I read several years ago which rhymed "tea" with an "ay" sound (can't remember title or author). I think proper metre is more important than perfect rhyme, anyway.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I like this one much more, and since Wilfred Owen was mentioned:

 

-Anthem for a Doomed Youth.

 

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

 

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

[Guest Cancer Marney]

"Shires" reminded me of Housman.

 

~

 

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,

The shires have seen it plain,

From north and south the sign returns

And beacons burn again.

 

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,

The dales are light between,

Because 'tis fifty years to-night

That God has saved the Queen.

 

Now, when the flame they watch not towers

About the soil they trod,

Lads, we'll remember friends of ours

Who shared the work with God.

 

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,

To fields that bred them brave,

The saviours come not home to-night:

Themselves they could not save.

 

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show

And Shropshire names are read;

And the Nile spills his overflow

Beside the Severn's dead.

 

We pledge in peace by farm and town

The Queen they served in war,

And fire the beacons up and down

The land they perished for.

 

"God save the Queen" we living sing,

From height to height 'tis heard;

And with the rest your voices ring,

Lads of the Fifty-third.

 

Oh, God will save her, fear you not:

Be you the men you've been,

Get you the sons your fathers got,

And God will save the Queen.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Since you mentioned the Nile, and a monarch's empire..-checks a book since I don't remember the exact words- Still relevant today, IMO.

 

Ozymandias of Egypt

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Transience and mortality, Housman again.

 

~

 

When I watch the living meet,

And the moving pageant file

Warm and breathing through the street

Where I lodge a little while,

 

If the heats of hate and lust

In the house of flesh are strong,

Let me mind the house of dust

Where my sojourn shall be long.

 

In the nation that is not

Nothing stands that stood before;

There revenges are forgot,

And the hater hates no more;

 

Lovers lying two and two

Ask not whom they sleep beside,

And the bridegroom all night through

Never turns him to the bride.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Some more fun with Housman and death:

 

Bring, in this timeless grave to throw

- Alfred Edward Housman

 

BRING, in this timeless grave to throw

No cypress, sombre on the snow;

Snap not from the bitter yew

His leaves that live December through;

Break no rosemary, bright with rime

And sparkling to the cruel crime;

Nor plod the winter land to look

For willows in the icy brook

To cast them leafless round him: bring

To spray that ever buds in spring.

 

But if the Christmas field has kept

Awns the last gleaner overstept,

Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue

A single season, never two;

Or if one haulm whose year is o’er

Shivers on the upland frore,

—Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain

Whatever will not flower again,

To give him comfort: he and those

Shall bide eternal bedfellows

Where low upon the couch he lies

Whence he never shall arise.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I'm tempted to continue the poetry thread with some Shel Silverstein, now that would be humorous to do such a crazy thing.

[Guest Sassquatch]

Conan was a good book when it came because it was not like anything Marvel was doing in the '70's when the hot topic was social issue comic books or retro style characters.

 

Marvel however did not know when to give the book a rest after it had been one of the lowest selling books for nearly 6 years before it was finally cancelled in 1994 along with all of the other spin-off series.

 

Mainly, they were hoping that Arnold would do another Conan movie which was not in the cards since Arnold said several times he had no interest in doing another Conan movie.

 

Whether or not a Conan movie would have boosted sales up is another debate for another time.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

That one was sullied beyond all hope of redemption by the terrible mawkish crap it contained.

[Guest Sassquatch]

I realized the error I made and quickly edited my post.

 

I can see why now that thread was unpinned.