Not much consumed on Thursday or Friday this week. I did finish Grant Morrison’s Joe the Barbarian and the first issue of Brian Vaughan’s Y the Last Man. The Morrison comic is terrific stuff with wonderful art. I do want to re-read it before saying too much more, though. We also watched Brad Pitt in Moneyball, which I liked very much. Everything else for the last two days has been work, though.
Hey Jonathan,
Just chiming in to say that as far as comics are concerned, there’s little better in the way of social SF than Y: The Last Man, not to mention that the art is absolutely fantastic, in a bit of an understated way. Overall, I’d say that Y is one of the more subtle SF comics around, and very much worth the journey.
At least for me, I still find comics in general (and SF comics in particular) to still be a bit of a thin broth conceptually compared to top-notch prose, unless the art can really shine, but when the art does take the lead, it can be explosive. In my mind, this is very much the polar opposite in terms of reading experience, when compared to prose (with film and TV somewhere in the middle of the spectrum). I’d love to hear how you’ve been finding your rediscovery of comics as an SF medium on an upcoming Coode Street.
I haven’t checked out Joe the Barbarian yet, but I’m a complete Grant Morrison convert, so its just a matter of time. Morrison’s several years on Batman titles, which has pretty much run its course now, has been very interesting. I’d recommend it if you can stomach corporate characters, but otherwise, stick with the creator-owned stuff you seem to be focusing on – its much better unless you have a nostalgia or particular fondness for the superheroes.
And please, please check out Fables – its smack-dab in the middle of the faery tale and urban fantasy trends these days, with traditional characters like Snow White, the Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, etc. living in a great multiverse that includes ‘our’ world and portals that allow travel to the ‘faery tale’ worlds. It also happens to have some of the best writing and art in the industry – I can’t recommend it enough, but do give it at least a couple of volumes to grow on you because the very first might actually be the weakest of the whole series.
Cheers,
Cam