Hosive

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid and a nod to my boy q and his blog. i haven’t done one of these in a long time so you might want to go back to the earlier/first post to read what this is all about. you can use the nifty select category button on the right if you are on the agapeshack.com site. sorry, facebook.

in high school, there were two forbidden planets in nyc…one downtown and one midtown. i even saw/felt the presence of stephen king at the midtown one. i was looking at books and felt a shiver go down my spine when i heard the cashier ask someone for a few autographs. i turn around and see the scary nerd red sox fan who is stephen king. he was creepy even back then in the 80’s. that moment and picking up mike grell’s green arrow run starting with the longbow hunters are the clearest memories from that forbidden planet.

2 forbidden planets! but….that was the high level of comics sales back in the day. today, comic shops have closed down and are getting smaller.

i intend to use these columns to tell you what i’m reading but i’ll start off by telling you what i’m not reading.

i’m not reading trinity, the new dc weekly series. i gave it a try…three issues worth…and i was bored. i would have given it a longer chance that three issues but the main reason i cannot risk another 52 week series is…..

this:countdown. cover #6 says it inadvertently…countdown was a disaster. no payoff. weird writing. and the sin that cannot be forgiven: not interesting.

i am a sucker for these gimmicks. i love comics and willing to give any innovative format a chance but 51 weeks later….i felt ripped off. i hung in there for a year and paid way too much for this nonsense. i can’t take a chance with trinity. if i read that the reviews are good, i’ll pick up the trades(paperback collections). i’m wondering if the competition, marvel comics was right in their response to whether they too would dabble in weekly comics: “we don’t do comics weekly…we do them strongly”

i’m spending my money on people i can trust….grant morrison, geoff johns and the return of my favorite writer: james robinson.

one thing i am reading and re-reading is starman….my favorite monthly comic of all time. i introduced steph to this comic and she devoured it. they have just come out with the first of these omnibus type collections of the whole run. it is about a gen x’r reluctant hero who finds himself….yes, its about good guys and bad guys but like all good fiction, its about life and is a mirror for us to see ourselves clearly. and as you can see, the art is amazing. the comic is also about the city….james robinson wanted to make opal city a character in his story: from the skyline to the suburb to its shops to the citizens that inhabit. he wanted to show why you love a place….a city…a home. pretty literary stuff for a comic.

this is light years ahead of countdown. go to the barnes and nobles and flip through it. then buy it. or again, the offer is open to come and borrow it or read it at the agapeshack on the upper, upper west side.

a non-superhero comic i’m reading is this autobiographical travel log to north korea, the other white meat. its the diary of an animator who gets sent to north korea on a project and he starts sketching and recording the culture shock and difference. my wife, of course was totally into this especially after we went to see propaganda village and the north earlier this year. steph is reading it now….even new friend michelle, herself an artist has read it. and her sister too. i am going through it slowly as to savor it.

i will try to feature comics that are not just super-tights…though starman is more than adults wearing underwear on the outside. while, most of american culture is enamored with super-hero culture(check your movie theatre), i hope they also discover the non-super hero side of this genre.

Posted under comics, forbidden planet chronicles