Recommended graphic novels / comics

[QualityChimp]

The cover of Saga put me off, but I guess you shouldn't judge a (comic) book by its cover!

[prinnysquad]

Don't be a UKIP tart.

[Dogg Thang]

Now that Walking Dead Compendium 3 is out, I have been rereading Compendium 1 and 2. For me, this is the way that the Walking Dead should be read. In the pacing, it just doesn't work for me as a monthly thing (I tried it for a while). But all together, the pacing is excellent.

Overall, it is pretty fantastic. The progression is excellent. There is a genuine feeling that not a single character is ever safe and yet they generally populate it with lots of interesting people. The story usually keeps moving forward and that's something not many comics seem to do - this feels like a real journey.

In the first Compendium, the only exception to that is the one Governor flashback bit which stalled the story for no reason whatsoever. Otherwise, that first volume of Walking Dead is superb. I feel it lost its focus a little in the second volume. Some great stuff early on and yet some missed opportunities. For example, it feels wrong to me that

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after what went down in the prison, Rick wasn't furious with Dale for splitting the group as that really doomed them.

Felt like a missed opportunity for drama. And then it feels to me like there is a whole chapter missing just before they find

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Alexandria. It feels like we should have seen them really hit bottom when it comes to supplies and food - seen them really struggle before offering them that lifeline.

And then the

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Hilltop

reveal was basically a complete redo of that previous beat when they found

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Alexandria.

And from here, well, I was reading individual issues before and I felt the story lost its way completely. So I have probably read about half the third Compendium before but the second half will be all new to me. So I'm starting that now and I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out all together (no doubt much better) and where the story goes from there.

[gunrock]

What do people think of the Batman vs Judge Dredd TPB (about 15 quid on Amazon)?

[Dogg Thang]

Finished Walking Dead Compendium 3. Generally enjoyable and compelling but I do feel that the series made a few errors along the way. The first is one that came in the previous batch mentioned above -

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the discovery of Alexandria and the Hilltop.

The effects of this are felt thoughout this volume and presumably will be for the rest of its run. You can't go back from that and it completely changed the nature of the world.

The one thing that constantly bugs me about that is that

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Rick and his team never earned what was built. They didn't build it. They found it all ready-made. The series began with a question of survival. Then what could they build back up? We never got the answer because they just found that others had done it for them. It would be like the end of Return of the Jedi being a reveal that someone else had already blown up the Death Star and the Emperor was already dead. So I feel this undermines everything that happens afterwards.

Expanding the world so quickly to the point where there are hundreds of people all safe and sound removed so much of what the book had been about. I feel that change in itself would have been okay if it had been earned and the potential of stories up to that point had been realised.

Then the war with Negan just didn't work for me. Yeah, they were trying to repeat the Governor only bigger but it just got so repetitive. Negan or Rick turning up to each other's doorsteps and making big speeches. And the ending was unsatisfying. Rick got boring and, with the expansion of the world, there were too many characters so more than ever this series just became the Rick show.

And where to go from there? Just another enemy. An interesting idea, no doubt, and the end of this volume was pretty shocking but essentially it's the same thing again.

So I'm not convinced the book has anywhere else to go. And yet I enjoyed it and wanted to keep reading and would still recommend it to just about anyone so it transcends the things that bug me. And as far as I know it is still one of the best performing comic, possibly the top. Was tempted to move straight on to the single issues to continue but, as I mentioned above, I don't think that's the way to read it.

Because the book does so well, I don't see them ending it. And this is one of the sad thing about comics compared with TV shows - they so rarely finish on their own terms. They usually do anything they can to keep going, even if they shouldn't, or run themselves into the ground and get cancelled. That won't happen any time soon with this one.

[Garf]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Deadpool graphic novels as a starting point ?

Would like to get my son a few for his birthday..

[QualityChimp]

2000AD sale

http://shop.2000adonline.com/cheap_thrills

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, I just ordered the four Zenith volumes!

[Darwock]

I like that Zenith binder! I don't have any Zenith comics though. Haha. Presumably that's a 'cordex' binder?

Annoying that the sale on regular issues stops at prog 1961 - I missed 1966... still hoping it will just turn up late but it's been three weeks already.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, I should have ordered that binder with it. Didn't think of it.

[RobRoy]

Has anyone used marvel unlimited? If so is it any good?

[QualityChimp]

I'm curious too.
I nearly signed up on a deal a while back, but it's not the latest comics, so left it.

In other comic news, I recently read the Dynamite Comics version of James Bond, which I really enjoyed.

[prinnysquad]

Descender by Jeff Lemire.

A future galactic federation suffers an attack by immense robots called Harvesters from an unknown origin. In the subsequent decade, the galactic authorities are weakened. Worlds are lost through uprisings, civil unrest and opportunistic criminals. Many of the survivors of the Harvester attack distrust any synthetic life. There is a purge of robots. Scrappers and bounty hunters pursue artificial life to destroy it. On a distant colony, a child’s companion bot called Tim-21 is reactivated. He is pursued by the authorities and scrappers, and it is revealed that his base AI has the same makeup as that of the Harvesters.

It’s a great universe, really well-developed and scripted. The art by Dustin Nguyen is lovely - all vague and washed out. Halfway through Volume 2 and it’s super.

[prinnysquad]

Re-reading Morning Glories volume 1, since I’ve found my copy of Volume 2 that I never got round to reading. It’s ok. The premise is more interesting than it’s playing out at the moment.

[Atticus]

I read vol 1 of Morning Glories a good while back and that was pretty much my opinion too.

I'll have to watch out for that Jeff Lemire book ... I read The Underwater Welder a year or so ago ... very much resonated with the Twilight Zone fan in me.