'Lo, Sunshine.
Jun. 7th, 2007 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceI haven't mentioned yet that it looks like the drought has ended here. (Or at least, I have, but not in any entry I could actually post.) Well, kind of, anyway -- there was a big rain over the weekend, and the air since has been humid, and it was lovely to have rain, because all the silvery things are green again, and that's all good.
Another nice thing about rainy weather is that it provides you with the perfect excuse to stay in and read the complete Hellblazer on your computer, the Hellblazer for which you waited very patiently for far too long, but which arrived just in time for a rainy weekend when there hasn't been a rainy weekend for months, and you feel as though it has been planned maybe and you start questioning your whole stance as a nonbeliever because let's be honest here, it's not as though your lapsed-Catholic history has really prepared you well to hold that stance in the face of Eerie Coincidence.
(I am going to stop talking in the second person, now, because it's starting to give me a little bit of a headache. I hope you don't mind.)
In reading Hellblazer, I've found that reading literary comics and comics where the whole series is planned from the start to have a proper narrative arc with a proper conclusion is not good preparation for jumping into a series that's housed several creative teams and spanned twenty years. There's a pretty huge difference between reading one of these tightly-plotted comics series -- I'm thinking of things like Sandman or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- and reading something more mutable, and it's disconcerting for me to be reading, to become invested in plotlines and characters, only to find them unceremoniously abandoned (or tied up with an absolute minimum of effort) when the next creative team takes over.
I'm enjoying reading about the trials and tribulations of John Constantine (and God knows I should look around for some Hellblazer slash, because yummy, and I don't even like blonds), but I have to admit to a greater love of comics that are plotted, nurtured by a single entity, and given a conclusion that's more than just a wrapping-up of somebody else's business.
Given that, does anyone have any comics recommendations they'd like to share?
(ETA: OH MY GOD I THINK I CAN POST AGAIN.)
Another nice thing about rainy weather is that it provides you with the perfect excuse to stay in and read the complete Hellblazer on your computer, the Hellblazer for which you waited very patiently for far too long, but which arrived just in time for a rainy weekend when there hasn't been a rainy weekend for months, and you feel as though it has been planned maybe and you start questioning your whole stance as a nonbeliever because let's be honest here, it's not as though your lapsed-Catholic history has really prepared you well to hold that stance in the face of Eerie Coincidence.
(I am going to stop talking in the second person, now, because it's starting to give me a little bit of a headache. I hope you don't mind.)
In reading Hellblazer, I've found that reading literary comics and comics where the whole series is planned from the start to have a proper narrative arc with a proper conclusion is not good preparation for jumping into a series that's housed several creative teams and spanned twenty years. There's a pretty huge difference between reading one of these tightly-plotted comics series -- I'm thinking of things like Sandman or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- and reading something more mutable, and it's disconcerting for me to be reading, to become invested in plotlines and characters, only to find them unceremoniously abandoned (or tied up with an absolute minimum of effort) when the next creative team takes over.
I'm enjoying reading about the trials and tribulations of John Constantine (and God knows I should look around for some Hellblazer slash, because yummy, and I don't even like blonds), but I have to admit to a greater love of comics that are plotted, nurtured by a single entity, and given a conclusion that's more than just a wrapping-up of somebody else's business.
Given that, does anyone have any comics recommendations they'd like to share?
(ETA: OH MY GOD I THINK I CAN POST AGAIN.)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 08:19 pm (UTC)Incredible violence doesn't bother me so much, really. I had a conversation the other day with a friend saying this very thing -- in real life, violence of any sort completely wigs me out, but in fictional form, I have an extremely high tolerance. So much the better! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 09:45 pm (UTC)I guess you're already familiar with Alan Moore, so I don't need to recommend any of his stuff to you.
I'm also quite fond of the Ellis/Hitch run on "The Authority". They're followed up by Millar and Quitely, whose issues are also good but totally different - it's like two different series. Also, the publisher sabotaged the series in the middle of their run so it's only good at the beginning.
Strazcynski's first couple "Amazing Spider-Man" story arcs are quite good and have a nice narrative coherence to them. Joss Whedon's "Astonishing X-Men" is also fun, although he's a fanboy of the old series and it shows. One of my favorite series ever is "Hellboy", which is all written and drawn by the same guy - I'm not sure if I'd call it narratively coherent because it's so all over the place, but it's coherent in its vision. It also includes a number of self-contained short stories that are brilliant.
That's all I got for now. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 02:24 pm (UTC)I agree with you about Ennis. I've read some letters to the effect that lots of readers were glad when Ennis took his axes elsewhere to grind, but I really liked his tenure. His run has been the point at which I most felt as though John Constantine was at work on The Big Things. Which I thought was the point, though I might be wrong considering the parochial quality of a lot of his storylines.
*makes list of all recs*