Fun Stuff > ENJOY
Graphic Novels/Comic Books
lprkn:
The fact that you dislike Watchmen is not really what I'm taking issue with. When something is widely acclaimed, there will the minority who don't like it for whatever reason, valid or no.
It's your general approach to art/entertainment/whatever. I just don't think that making up your mind once about something and holding to that impression come hell or high water is a good approach. Times change, people change. I watched Apocalypse Now as a young teenager and I didn't like it. I saw it again, when I was older, and I had to change what I thought about the film. Art is not something that necessarily must be enjoyed, sometimes it takes a little intellectual legwork to appreciate what it's going for.
I'm not going to talk about the themes and artistic significance of Watchmen, because anybody who wants to can find them on the internet. Wikipedia has a decent write-up on its construction and themes.
0bsessions:
You see, your problem is poor assumption.
I'm not an idiot. I know tastes change. When I was eleven, I thought the first Mortal Kombat movie was absolute genius. Upon watching it about ten years later, I realized I had really poor taste in movies as an eleven year old.
I read Watchmen for the first time when I was 22 and I'm 24 now. My tastes have not changed so significantly in a span of two years that I see any logical reason to go back and scan through something I wasn't all that keen on previously. That simply does not make an ounce of sense.
Ikrik:
Have we discussed Pride of Baghdad? Or just Pride? It's pretty amazing but a review on the back says it's just as good as Watchmen which made me cringe.
Also....if I want to get into Spiderman, what should I be getting (graphic novels or compilations...I can't get into issues).
onewheelwizzard:
Jon, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon, Watchmen is the greatest graphic novel ever written, and you seem to have missed a fair bit of it.
Personally the thing that does it for me with Watchmen is the incredible scope of it. There is SO MUCH GOING ON in that book, and it is all integrated into a seamless whole. I'm pretty sure I still haven't exhausted the levels on which the book can be understood, and I already think it's the most successfully complex and multifaceted graphic novel in history. There are simply no chinks in the universe. Any one of the stories in it (Rorschach's story, Dr. Manhattan's story, Ozymandias's story, The Comedian's story, Nite Owl's story, Silk Spectre's story, etc., etc., etc.) could be a successful stand-alone work, even the minor characters like the libertarian news editor or the lesbian couple or the psychologist are exceptionally developed, but Moore has managed to put them ALL into a single work without losing the power of any of them or sacrificing the story to the characters. I don't think any of it could be taken out and I don't think anything could be added.
Anyway, I just read Warren Ellis's "Black Summer," and it's awesome.
0bsessions:
--- Quote from: Ikrik on 30 Dec 2008, 21:48 ---Also....if I want to get into Spiderman, what should I be getting (graphic novels or compilations...I can't get into issues).
--- End quote ---
Depends on whether or not you really give an honest rat's ass about reading the original. If not, I'd say just go right into Ultimate Spider-Man. Ultimate Spider-Man is one of those start from scratch modernizations of a classic character in an alternate continuity specifically tailored for new readers. It's a bit decompressed, but it pretty much captures the essence of the character without seeming to hokey. It also has the benefit of having been handled by a single writer for its entire run thus far (129 issues) without having actively crossed over with anything, so you don'[t need any other books to get what's going on (Even guest appearances are always well handled and self contained).
Start here: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection. If you dig it, keep on going, though if you do, note that that trade actually encompasses the first two volumes, so you'd want to continue on with volume 3.
If you're into main continuity stuff or eventually want something different, I'd personally recommend the following:
Death of the Stacys: This isn't actually two adjacent storylines, but two slightly intertwined stories from the seventies, the second of which is probably the most well known Spider-Man storyline in comics circles.
Kraven'[s Last Hunt: From the eighties, easily one of the best Spider-Man stories ever done.
Spider-Man: Reign: Literally not much more than a rip-off of Dark Knight Returns, except with Spider-Man. It's an enjoyable read, however, because the writer's making no illusions otherwise. It's clearly borrowing from DKR and doing it well.
Avoid any collection with the words 'Venom,' 'Carnage' or 'Clone' in the title.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version