jrb@wdl1.UUCP (John R Blaker) (02/21/84)
ANOTHER FIGHTER ENTERS THE FRAY or, Hi There, I'm Evelyn Just a general Hello There and some opinions. To start with, I may as well list the comics I currently buy regularly: American Flagg Thor XMen N.Mutants moon knight Cerebus ElfQuest (color) normalman kitty/wolverine Secret Wars Camelot 3000 Judge Dredd Elric Jon Sable Freelance (If it ever comes out) Cartoon Hist/Universe Alpha Flight Somerset Holmes I'm also trialling Batman and the Avengers, which I'd given up on years ago. Opinions: Flagg, Wars, Dredd, Sable and Holmes all seem almost gratuitously violent, but (with the possible exception of Wars) make up for it in quality. Wars is not one of the great comics, but certainly isn't as bad as you folks like to make it out. Is it fashionable to pick on it this year (the way it's been fashionable to slur Claremont for a while)? The ideas are good, they just need a better scripter. "I, CC the AM" etc. is a scripting problem only & the whole comic is better than its scriptin (if you follow my spoor). In particular, it's nice to get things like Doom tagging after Galactus; Cyke and the Xers defending Magnus from the other heroes; etc.; etc. normalman is a good idea, but I'm glad it's a miniseries. It would be too *%&(#%()&*)!!! much of a one-joke to handle a continuing series. Elric and Cartoon History are my pets. Larry Gonick is the funniest man in comics. I would recommend that anyone with two years of high school education should read History; and also, his Cartoon Guide to Genetics. Both are accurate and informative almost beyond believing. I don't like TT and never have. I used to be a LSH fan. When I was in grade school. It might be very good right now, but I can't deal with it. It makes me feel like I'm back in grade school and I **HATED** grade school. I suppose I made it pretty clear below that I think Claremont is getting the shaft in this net. Loudly: He's the best character writer wandering around in professional comics right now. Moench comes close, but relies too heavily on insanity. Sim is too busy being funny to make most of his characters real. And Chaykin suffers from Jack Nicholson disease (See The New Film and Watch Jack Invent Seven New Cuss Words!) But watch Thor. This Simonson guy knows what he's doing and, while 500%/month inflation on his first issue as writer/artist is ridiculous, it isn't TOO ridiculous. That'll do for now. When I get a better feel for this net I'll try specific issue comments. Happy Tuesday, Evelyn (a modified dog) (Not to be confused with jrb)
crd55611@ihuxk.UUCP (Chuck Dobrovolny) (02/23/84)
Welcome to net.comics, Evelyn! Sounds like you're into some good titles.
I'm going to have to pick up a copy of Cerebus just to see what everyone's
raving about--I've previously avoided no-color comics, but exceptions have
to be made.....
Can anyone recommend a good issue--one that would give me a good idea of
what the characters are like without dropping me into the middle of an
intricate storyline?
A few comments of defense (my own and others', I think).
I don't think that net.comicers of late have been picking on Secret Wars
and Chris Claremont because it's fashionable or to jump on a bandwagon!
I, for one don't like Wars because it tends to reiterate heroes' and
villains' powers to the extreme. Sure, it's probably for the sake of
attracting newer and younger readers, but I don't have to like it. The
art isn't bad, though. As for Claremont, he's written some terrific stuff
in the past (Avengers Annual #10 is one of my favorites) and most of his
X-Men stuff with Byrne was great! Lately though, mutants are coming out
of the woodwork like cockroaches in a cheap hotel!!! Secret powers of new
characters are getting pretty contrived and latent mutant abilities are
a dime a dozen! Amara (Magma of the New Mutants) is really a joke. The
ability to cause eruptions of magma, earthquakes, and shoot "magma blasts"???
Puh-lease!! Enough already!!! And as for Kitty Pryde's boyfriend what's-his-
name, the latent mutant ability to understand languages seems to be HIS forte--
computer languages no less (how timely!).
Uh, flame off. Time to get to work.....
....still under a pile of to-be-read
comics, somewhere in Chicago,
Chuck Dobrovolny ATT-BL
ihuxk!crd55611moriarty@uw-june (Jeff Meyer) (02/23/84)
Oh, Hell, now Evelyn has decided to infiltrate net.comics (sigh... things used to be so quiet around here). Well, a few reactions to her (his? its?) opinions. Secret Wars: Come off it, this is trash, just the same as Micronauts and Hulk, but more slickly produced. I keep noticing that Marvel is perfecting a method of making old character situations seem new by inserting violence/gore/deaths of main characters; The two issues (and that's as far as I'm going) of Secret Wars, and espescially Rom, tend to bear this out. If I complain about SW, it's not to follow general opinion, it's because I think the sucker should be taken out and put to sleep in the back yard. There's nothing new or even interesting here, and the characterizations have been blown to #$%!. normalman: Agree totally.... this could really become dull after a while, but 4-6 issues of it are about all I can take. Really does remind one of Not Brand Echh! Cartoon History: How many issues has that gotten up to now? I've got the first six, and think they are some of the funniest, most intelligent work done in the last 5 years. If there are more out there, I'd like to know. Can't argue with "likes" or "not likes", so can't argue with TT... I really enjoy it. LSH should only be read for art.... story does remind me of High School, and I **NUKED** high school. Claremont: Won't argue that Chris is one of the best, and X-Men is a title he always keeps fairly fresh (I believe he has a real devotion to his characters), but his work in New Mutants has not been good. I enjoy the Red Scare-like Mutant Hunt that seems to be occuring in the LEVRAM (oops, Marvel) universe, but he seems to be relying to much on that. I am also getting EXTREMELY tired of the NM's always running into an extremely nasty figure (Sorceress in New Rome, White Queen (to a lesser extent), Illya's demon friend whose name escapes me) who tries to corrupt their fresh young innocence. Also, the Magik mini-series was one of the worst comics series I have ever read. But, let's point out that Claremont was responsible for the Wolverine mini-series and X-Men last year, so that puts him in the top three or four with me. Perhaps he's spreading himself too thin? Sim's characters not real? Please re-read the duchess in the last few issues (OK, no way could Elrond or the Cootie be real....) I love Jack Nicholson, I while I would have agreed with Evelyn after the first 4 issues, I think (after 9 issues) that Chaykin has created some of the best characters in years... with very real frustrations and tensions... rather like what Frank has to deal with in HSB. Just wanted to point out, Evelyn, that what we have here is not a mob opinion, or a group poll.... if we like Flagg and hate Wars, it's for specific reasons. TO ALL: Anybody know if HonkyTonk Sue, the premier comic from New Mexico's Bill Boze, has gone past issue #5? I'd appreciate it if you know... a great comic if you haven't picked it up. The Napoleon of Crime | Currently skulking around | UUCP: MORIARTY | {...decvax!}uw-beaver!uw-june!moriarty | ARPANET: AKA -jwm- | moriarty@washington
meg@sii.UUCP (Marta Greenberg) (02/24/84)
non-blank line, just in case
I agree with Evelyn that Marvel Secret Wars is not so bad as some people
here have said. (For reference sake: I've only seen issue #1.) Yes, it has
problems, but the overall idea is not so bad. My main complaints are the
continuity problems; the plot's okay. I don't exactly like the idea of a
new, more-powerful-than everyone being showing up, but if we have to have
that, the reactions, particularly Doom's, were okay. And along with Evelyn,
I like the X-Men/Magneto interactions. Magneto is one of my favorite
characters. I really like the mutual respect stuff between the X-Men and
Magneto that has shown up from time to time: his "eulogy" for Phoenix, the
team-up in the X-Men graphic novel, the situation in the alternate future
when the Sentinels had killed off most of the superheroes and imprisoned
the remaining mutants.
You might be pleased to hear that, based on comments in this group, I'm col-
lecting the first issues of American Flagg and may start reading it regularly.
>From the (comics) desert of Nashua, NH,
Marta Greenberg, Software Innovations, ittvax!decvax!sii!megjrb@wdl1.UUCP (John R Blaker) (03/04/84)
Chuck, And whoever else may be reading this, Thanks for the reasonabobbly warm welcome. From the fact that you don't already hate my guts, I deduce that you are not a net.flamer. From the fact that you are at bellabs, though, I deduce that you might be interested in something I just did thereI'm trying to get a debate/conversation going on an appropriate configuration and/or protocol for a "worldnet", that is, a public switched voice/data network (including an appropriate database & hardware to back it up). I'm also trying to get Chuqui to start a network on WorldNet. If you want to start Cerebus, I'm sorry but the only reasonable places to begin are near/at the beginning. I recommend buying the reprint volumes "Swords of Cerebus" 1-5, which reprint #s 1-20 of the magane plus several new items. Bye for now. Evelyn (a modified dog)