999 Reading Challenge Review and Discussion Tread

[evaD]

I just finished reading Gone to Amerikay. Part ghost story, part murder mystery, part historical fiction, it focuses on Irish immigration to America. I enjoyed the story and loved the art. This is on my short list for the 11 o'closcars. Definitely worthy of a place in the awards.

[Jeppe]

Loved all the Marquis stuff. Great pick!

Completely agree 

I haven't had a whole lot of time to read over the pat few days, but I did get through all of Sinestro Corps War on the plane last weekend. It was a pretty solid superhero story with some fun space stuff thrown in. It gets a 3/5 from me.

[JoeyN]

Justice 1-12- That was a great read with fantastic art    Why can we not have great Justice League stories like this all the time.

[Farrell]

While this wasn't the first book I finished, I felt compelled to write about King City immediately.  I spent a marathon reading session last night because the book was too good to put down.  If this book is not in one of your categories, find a way to add it.

There is a marvelous, dirty, magical, extremely dangerous city in fiction and it lives in the mind of Brandon Graham.  King City in not just a comic book, it is a conglomeration  of genre, story, theme and art nicely bound up and selling at the low price of $19.99.  In case you could not tell, I really enjoyed this book.

At it's heart King City is a story about Joe, the Catmaster and his friends, Pete and Anna.  Joe has recently returned to King City after journeys 'down south' and now needs to figure out where he fits into the place he had spent his youth.  In the process he gets involved in a gang of human/owl hybrids, fights an avatar of the elder gods, laments over his ex, ogles every nice ass that passes in front of his eyes and adventures with his fellow 'catmasters.' There is an arc of fighting the ultimate evil and battling addiction of a drug that literal consumes ones body, but these aren't really important.  The book really about the characters, letting you glimpse at three unique lives and their interrelationship.

At the heart of the book there are the beautiful lines of Mr. Graham.  He has a style that while reminiscent of manga stays uniquely his own.  His characters express a wide range of emotion, every page is packed with detailed backgrounds and for the careful reader there is sometimes more text in the background than in the world bubbles.  He forces the reader to study each page ensuring you are maximizing your experience.  Each panel that Mr. Graham draws is a story unto itself.  

You find yourself wanting to know as much as you can about the crazy buildings and lumbering background characters.  There are just glimpses of Echhhh Zu: Baby Eater of Shadowtown with its lair of white gold baby souls or corn cult looking to rule the world.  Lines like, "The cat doesn't believe the the dark art of Popsicle," or " ... mudd astral projected himself through the back of a camel," make you want to detour out of the story you are locked into and dive down a different rabbit hole. Even after all this you still get to enjoy the hand drawn board game and the connect-the-dots puzzle.

There is so much packed into this book that it would be impossible to capture in a short review.  King City is a unique and fresh story.  If you want to see what the comic medium is capable of, or you just want to read 500 pages of imagination gone wild, you need to read this book.

Karma for getting a review up on Amazon.  It needs more.

[evaD]

SkullKickers Volume 2.
What's to say? I want more. It's a fun fast paced read that I just couldn't put down. The characters have individual voices, and those voices are funny. Hell, even the sound effects have voices. Volume 2 picks up where the previous story left off. The heroes of Mudwhich are off to Urbia to receive their well deserved accolades. Sadly, being heroes of a fairly inconsequential town doesn't quite elicit the response they were hoping for until the hooded villain and her allies step in and frame them for a crime. Hijinks being what they are, ensuing occurs and our heroes are left to sort things out in as bloody a fashion as possible. The story ends with a bit of a cliffhanger that left me very anxious for the next volume. I give it 5 bloody battle axes out of 5 for sheer over-the-top fun. If you like fantasy or adventure stuff, or you love fun comics and can tolerate fantasy, read this book. Quality and enjoyment factor are comparable to Battle Chasers and Tellos.

[Sean M.]

Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad- Very post-watergate attitudes mixed in with so e 70s sexual and racial politics but the art by Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe and Frank Robbins is wonderful. The only Frank Robbins I'd read before was a man-bat story but his art here is staggeringly full of energy; it reminded me a lot of Tom Sciolli; working in a Kirby style but still unique.

73/81

[erikh42]

Justice 1-12- That was a great read with fantastic art    Why can we not have great Justice League stories like this all the time.

Funny, I remember the story being weak in that series.  It could be because it took two years to print.  Maybe i should go back and check it out again.

[RickV]

I remember the same thing it was just a pretty standard super friends pastiche. Also I may be alone in this but keep Alex Ross away from the interiors of my comics, he can draw posters and pin up and covers fine but there is no flow in his comics.

[Sean M.]

Silver Surfer: Requiem/ Captain America: The Chosen- Two beautifully illustrated books concerned with mortality. Neither had anything particularly profound to say.
Batman: War Games (Volume 1)- Soap opera Batman; enjoyable with occasional art highlights (the Sean Philips issue is fantastic). I won't be hunting down further volumes though.
Silverfin- Young James Bond graphic novel. Solid story but the art by Kev Walker was beautiful. I will probably seek out his work on other books.
Midnighter: Anthem- The bulk of this is the title story (#10-15), which is a pleasingly violent action-fest; solidly written by Keith Giffen and drawn and inked by a host of people (although it remains pretty consistent). However, the highlight is a 22 page done in one Midnighter story (#7) written by Brian K Vaughn and drawn by Darrick Robertson with Karl Story on inks. I'm not going to spoil it but of the stories I've read so far on the challenge, it's the best. In fact I may hunt down the singles for this book.

And so I complete my first full category, "I got it for cheap (re-up anthem)". Total cost for the books in this category was £2.50 and I feel that I more than got my money's worth. The highlights were definitely Kev Walker's art, the Green Lantern history lesson and Midnighter #7.

68/81

[JoeyN]

Funny, I remember the story being weak in that series.  It could be because it took two years to print.  Maybe i should go back and check it out again.

The story is similar to the recent JL DOom animated movie. Group of villains tries to take out the league, to do some evil plan, but Lot's of double crossing as Luthor and Brainiac are involved.

I remember the same thing it was just a pretty standard super friends pastiche. Also I may be alone in this but keep Alex Ross away from the interiors of my comics, he can draw posters and pin up and covers fine but there is no flow in his comics.

Gonna disagree with that. I really like his stuff in Justice.

[whirlwindx]

Six down but I don't have a whole lot to say on this one.

The Mighty Thor Vol.1: Galactus Seed
Opted for trade after reading the first issue. Enjoyable enough story by Fraction with nice art by Coipel.

[RickV]

Upon a Star
Arzach
The Airtight Garage
The Long Tomorrow
The Gardens of Aedena
Pharagonesia

I had read most of these previously online but having found them all for a nice price on eBay it was great being able to read physical copies. Moebius science fiction comics of all stripes and kinds are the absolute best kinds of comics. He uses a phrase in one of the text pieces that perfectly describes them as half remembered portions of dreams. The Airtight Garage specifically is in my Top 5 comics of all time (the order switched all the time) because at its core that book is every comic. It has a self created continuity, it tells every form/length/genre of story imaginable, it started as two pages and was used as a way to continually test himself by breaking the previous story each time and then tie it back around together later, the ending is so incredibly pitch perfect and made better by being colored in the EPIC books.

[evaD]

Upon a Star
Arzach
The Airtight Garage
The Long Tomorrow
The Gardens of Aedena
Pharagonesia

I had read most of these previously online but having found them all for a nice price on eBay it was great being able to read physical copies. Moebius science fiction comics of all stripes and kinds are the absolute best kinds of comics. He uses a phrase in one of the text pieces that perfectly describes them as half remembered portions of dreams. The Airtight Garage specifically is in my Top 5 comics of all time (the order switched all the time) because at its core that book is every comic. It has a self created continuity, it tells every form/length/genre of story imaginable, it started as two pages and was used as a way to continually test himself by breaking the previous story each time and then tie it back around together later, the ending is so incredibly pitch perfect and made better by being colored in the EPIC books.

What about Airtight Garage makes it a favorite? I've never read any of the books you listed and may pick one or two up.

[Robert]

Well, this may be a first for the challenge.  I reread one of the fore mentioned books as I felt maybe it was me who was missing something.  The book in question, KING CITY.

I have to say, I'm glad I took the time to do so.  Things in this book didn't really click for me until I nearly finished it.  As Joe helps Anna rescue Max from one of the cryo units, it dawned on me as to how unique and refreshing this book really is.  Graham's perspective and creativity are at a level I don't often find within the medium and everything that I read as it laid before my eyes had such a resonance to it that I felt I was no longer guarded and could enjoy KING CITY for what it is meant to be, and that is, fun comix.

That was especially evident after reading all of the other contributors additions and the extra material Graham had written in the credits.  Each person had become the City and had succeeded in doing so.  I truly got the sense that not everything about KING CITY was clearly evident on the page, but there was so much more that was ready to be tapped and explored, and that is very exciting.

[Brian N.]

I think I'm going to spend some time on my balcony this morning and finish up the Fallen Angel 0 omnibus today. 

[Night (Travis) Nurse]

Finished off the first two books in the challenge.

Preacher Vol. 9 What a fabulous end to the series. Everything that I needed to leave me with a warm full feeling in my belly after the completion of the spic tale. With a lot of "God", big cosmic idea stories, sometimes the revelation can be so high concept that it doesn't feel practical or tangible. Ennis ended this series with such a satisfying conclusion with a easy to grasp closer and a great final image that befits the whole story. I know most people have read this but it truly lives up to the credit its been given as a modern master.

King City Collection I don't know if everyone's just getting caught up in the hype (except Vernson)  of this book but consider me rolled up in the ball because I LOVED this book. Not since reading Infinite Kung Fu last year have I been so enthralled in a tale for both the writing, characters and art. Erikh pretty much summed up this book in detail so I wont add much else. The ideas were fantastic and the puns ... I spent house reading every piece of graffiti on every wall just for the jokes. It makes me happy to know that the phrase "Don't pump ape bowels in the toilet" or "All employees must wash Hanz" can make me laugh like a pre-pubescent teenager. The only thing that took me a little while to come around to was the end.

The way Joe just leaves the Cat Masters to this epic battle and walks away left me feeling like there was more story to tell. But as I let it sit with me I realize that the story isn't about the giant demon, that's just a backdrop of the amazing King City. But the action of Joe is totally appropriate for the character, and that makes it feel so much more then a comic.

Loved it, will reread it and recommend the shit out of it.

Travis

[Robert]

King City Collection I don't know if everyone's just getting caught up in the hype (except Vernson) 

I've pretty much done a 180 on my original opinion on this book. 

I think it relates to what Chris N. stated.  Sometimes it's a state of mind going into and reading a specific title.  I think that was part of it for me when I originally read KING CITY.  Truly love this book and would recommend it to anybody, especially anyone who normally wouldn't try comics.

For some reason, I equate KING CITY to CHINATOWN in the respect that no matter how insane or crazy things get in KING CITY, it's considered the 'norm'.  As the final quote in CHINATOWN, "Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown", could be used within the context of KING CITY and not lose its meaning.  I totally dig that concept, now.

[Night (Travis) Nurse]

I've pretty much done a 180 on my original opinion on this book. 

I think it relates to what Chris N. stated.  Sometimes it's a state of mind going into and reading a specific title.  I think that was part of it for me when I originally read KING CITY.  Truly love this book and would recommend it to anybody, especially anyone who normally wouldn't try comics.

For some reason, I equate KING CITY to CHINATOWN in the respect that no matter how insane or crazy things get in KING CITY, it's considered the 'norm'.  As the final quote in CHINATOWN, "Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown", could be used within the context of KING CITY and not lose its meaning.  I totally dig that concept, now.

Funny that you make that reference because that line went through my head too. Anytime a place has crazy for the norm I think of that line and this book was no different.

Travis

[RickV]

What about Airtight Garage makes it a favorite? I've never read any of the books you listed and may pick one or two up.

Everything after I mention it is just about The Airtight Garage sorry if that wasn't clear.

[evaD]

Everything after I mention it is just about The Airtight Garage sorry if that wasn't clear.

Gotcha. I think it was clear, I just must have fallen asleep at the wheel when reading it.