1000 books in 2021 5 5

[Ken Aldred]

69 to 92

Astonishing X-Men 1 to 24

By Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

A bit hyped for me.  Good but not exceptional in comparison to the Grant Morrison series the run followed on from. Nowhere near as imaginative. 

[srezvan]

It's always interesting to hear the discussions about the early X-Men. I commented earlier that one of the worst panels was when Professor X thought about how he loved Jean...and I think she's 17. I've still only read #1-10, and it was a mess. I will get around to reading the rest at some point. Still my favorite comic franchise of all time.

I'm still making good progress through Invincible, wrapping up TPB #6. So many things going on, but no spoilers here. It's a fun read. I know I can google it, but I don't want any accidental spoilers: will it be clear at the time, but when do the Atom Eve and Invincible Universe stories fit in?

I'm up to 197 comics so far this year. Not sure if I'll read Invincible straight through or not. Last night I remembered something I really wanted to read, then stuff in Invincible happened, and I forgot what the other book was! So I've already started TPB #7.

 

[ttfitz]

Previous total - 220

Last week was slow, this week was REALLY slow...

Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy #1-6

Pretty much a repeat of my review of Barbalien, it was okay, not as good as the main Black Hammer series.

Yeah, that was it. So looks like we are at 226.

Next up some '80s Epic Comics....

[DavidTheDavid]

Vol. 3. Just masterful storytelling in the comic medium. 

[Venomous72]

I need to go back and count what I read in the last couple weeks, but I did House and Powers of X up through X of Swords (House and Powers were great, Swords started fun but was eh).  

Currently reading the Claremont X run for the first time.  Started with 94 and am up to 102 now.  Excited for the Byrne stuff to start soon.  It is gonna be hard to hit 1k this year but I'm gonna try.

[srezvan]

209 comics so far this year, almost to my total for last year already.

I took a short break from Invincible to read this Punisher hardcover. I picked this up from the boards not too long ago, and I liked that it had both the original appearance and the full mini-series. I think the story holds up pretty well. I also liked that at the end of the hardcover it has some discussion of the different Punisher stories. Anyone out there read the Garth Ennis Punisher Max series?

 

[DavidTheDavid]

Even more in love with Mignola's work after finishing this.

 

[paperheart]

51-143

Ray #1-6; Gates of Gotham #1-5: Roche Limit #1-5; Daredevil #227-233; Ballad of Sang #1-5

Batman: Dark Victory #1-13; Hellblazer: All His Engines; Butcher of Paris #1-5: A God Somewhere

Hellblazer: Pandemonium; Kingpin: Running w/ the Devil #1-5; Punisher: Soviet #1-6; Hail Hydra #1-4

Wildcats #21-27; Elektra Lives Again; Quarry's War #1-4; My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

[srezvan]

222 comics so far this year. 

Still going with the Invincible run. Finished book 9 and started 10 already. TPB #10 may be the best so far. So much going on.

 

Took a quick break to read the Last Hulk Story (I read Future Imperfect earlier this year). Just another reason why I like the TPBs better - commentary from Peter David and George Perez. One of the interesting nuggets was David asking Perez to draw Waldo into the opening scene. I hunted him down and attached a picture of it in the spoiler.

 

Spoiler

 

[Scrooge]

On 4/23/2021 at 8:40 PM, paperheart said:

Butcher of Paris #1-5

Your thoughts? 

[paperheart]

25 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

Your thoughts? 

was worth reading but don't remember being blown away

[ttfitz]

Previously on 1000 books in 2021... 226

The Bozz Chronicles 1-6

A little something from the Marvel Epic days. This miniseries from the mind of David Michelinie and the pencils of Bret Blevins was really quite good. Don't remember exactly what made me pick this up back in the 80s, but I'm glad I did. David Michelinie came up with some pretty good stories with a little bit of mystery, a little bit of science fiction, a little bit of humor, and that Bret Blevins could draw one sexy lady. Recommended.

Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Doom TPB

Black Hammer: Streets of Spiral TPB

More Black Hammer stuff. I enjoyed this WAY more than the previous two, and I think I've figured out why. Part of the enjoyment of Black Hammer for me was the playful homage to the heroes and situations of the earlier superheros, and these had more of that feel than Barbalien and Skulldigger did.

Black Hammer '45 TPB

I'd put this one between the above 2 and my previous reads - liked it better than the previous ones, but not as much as the above. Still worth reading, particularly if you are a Blackhawk fan.

Project Superpowers 0-7

Picked these up here on the forum when I bought some Ms. Tree issues and was looking for other things I might be interested in to cover part of the shipping cost. I had bought one of the followup series due to the writer (Warren Ellis? Garth Ennis? I can't remember) and thought why not give the original a try. It was okay, I got a little confused at times, perhaps because I was unfamiliar with the (golden age?) characters that it featured. It was a little amusing to see that most of the characters were the same as the original, except for "The Death-Defying Devil" who I assume had to be renamed due to copyright issues (Daredevil if I'm not mistaken).

Hard to count with a couple of those TPB collections since they had extra stuff, but I think a reasonable total is ... 254

[CAMPER49]

On 1/20/2021 at 1:46 AM, CAMPER49 said:

I'm all in!

I started reading DAREDEVIL (1964) from #1 back in November and am currently at #247. Pretty sure I started the Miller run around New Years Day so I'll say DAREDEVIL #158 was comic #1 for me in 2021. Once I'm done reading the 653 DD comics (including the 16 Annuals) from #1 up to #25/637 today, I'm moving over to DC to read all the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (1960) comics including the three BRAVE and BOLD intro books. JLA has always been an awesome read for me, can never read them too many times. Same goes for the FLASH (1959). I'll try to squeeze this series in before 2022 hits.

So 496 DD comics (653-157), 267 JLA comics (261 + 3 annuals + 3 B&B), and 250 FLASH comics (4 Showcase books + 105 to 350) to read in 2021...total is 1,013. Hope I can do it. 

UPDATE

So I just finished the complete DAREDEVIL run up to this month's issue (641 comics plus annuals, cross-overs, etc.).

All I can say is WOW!

With the exception of the issues from around #260 to #290 (not a JRJR fan), I was blown away by much of the scripting and art/pencils.

And this latest run by Chip Zdarsky...well, I couldn't put them down, absolutely incredible writing (aside from the distraction of the two VENOM KING IN BLACK issues).

Yes, I have read DD from the beginning to #200 before and the MK series from 1998 but to re-read them along with the rest of them, ya just gotta do it!

I believe DAREDEVIL is now my favourite comic book on my pull list.

[Savoyard23]

I read the 1990s Guardians of the Galaxy series, 1-62, plus Annuals 2-4.

The later half of the series was a better read than I remembered.  My memory had the guest appearances by 20th century characters feeling more contrived and overdone than it felt like it was this time.

The 1st 6 issues (which I have in the trade) are a little slow to take off, but the Valentino run picks up steam.  7-20 or so are the highlight of the series.

I thought Force were more interesting arch-enemies than Rancor's mutants, but Gallagher / West clearly felt the opposite.

"Major Victory" - cringe.  I liked the symbiote angle but they seemed to back off of it.

Side-Step is my bad girl crush.

The art starts getting more 90s by the end.  The Drax - Cuchulain fight looks Liefeldesque.

You have to love Charlie-27.  The series also gave Yondu some great character development.  The book suffered a little when Starhawk (Stakar) wasn't in it.  He's not exactly likeable, but he's cool.  (And his ex-wife blames him for years for stuff that wasn't his fault.  Can anyone relate?)

I wish they hadn't sanitized Yellowjacket's criminal past.  Her quips were pretty amusing, though.

I wasn't buying much off the stands at this point; I think this and maybe FF were the books I stuck with longest.  I don't know what happened to the characters after the conclusion of the series.  

274

I'm a little off the pace.  But my foot is broken, so maybe that will translate into less running time (for sure!) and more comic reading time.

[Scrooge]

April Count:

Comics: 35

Chariot # 1

Conan # 19 - 20

Fire Power - Prelude & # 3 - 10

Gods & Gears # 4

Guardians of the Galaxy (2020) # 10

Iron-Man (2020) # 5

Lazarus Risen # 5

Mann's World # 1 - 4

Miles Morales # 22

Nottingham # 1

Pulp by Brubaker & Phillips

Sandman Mystery Theatre # 29 - 32

Spike & Tyke # 23

The Plot # 8

Undone by blood # 1

European Albums: 7 @ 2 each = 14

Alix - 11 - 12

Blake & Mortimer - La marque jaune

Sisco 1 - 2

Thomas Silane 6

Yoko Tsuno - 13

Manga: 13 @ 5 each = 65

20th Century Boys - 1 - 2

Akame ga Kill Zero - 7 - 8

Blue Flag - 5

Demon Slayr - 19

Fairy Tail - 100 Years Quest - 6

Golden Kamuy - 18 - 19

No Guns' Life - 8

Orient - 1

The Promised Neverland - 18

Weathering with you - 1

That's a total of 114 for April.

January - 219

February - 243

March - 268

April - 114

------------------

Total - 844

As you can see work and kids' sports have left me with less time to read for a big drop-off. Hope to ramp up in the coming months.

Best Read: I did not read a ton but I'd say Pulp was up there. The art, the story line, the time period, all blended for a page-turning experience.Close second is 20th Century Boys, another strong showing for Urasawa.

Series that should count for more: Blake & Mortimer. This is a dense series to read with walls of text in abundance. It takes much longer than average to go through one volume. However, I was gladly willing to re-read La marque jaune. The album is considered a classic though, honestly, I've never quite understood why. The story takes place in London and for a teenage boy (i.e., when I first read it), it was rather blah compared to the previous adventures that took place in far away Asia, India and Egypt. Reading it now, I can see that the precision of the backgrounds, the tension in the story, more private less pulpy, make it stand out in contrast to the other two. Today, it's part of a 3-part sequence with new stories recently published within this story line with the most recent one published last year, so I am reading my way to new material and that's exciting. In the same vein, Ooku should count for more, each volume takes a looooong time to read. I should have read several volumes by the end of May and I'll report back.

Series that I am dropping: Orient. This is a new manga by the author of Magi. I did not finish Magi but wanted to give this new start a chance. The same failings of Magi are evident in this first volume of Orient. Too much (bad) style and little substance. Magi started strong but as the story became larger and larger, the personalities of the main characters which made the book pleasant got drowned in the action and the art for the action made it difficult to read. The same pattern emerged early in Orient. I have no time for it; this was a one and done experiment.

Quick takes: Sisco, about a French secret agent who goes through the first two albums killing people ** junk **; Yoko Tsuno - loved these stories when a kid, find them now saccharine and the plots are wafer thin; won't stop re-reading them anyway; read a bunch of modern # 1's ... could hardly tell you what the stories were about !

[ttfitz]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:51 PM, Savoyard23 said:

I read the 1990s Guardians of the Galaxy series, 1-62, plus Annuals 2-4.

The later half of the series was a better read than I remembered.  My memory had the guest appearances by 20th century characters feeling more contrived and overdone than it felt like it was this time.

Big fan of that version of the Guardians. Recently read their appearances from before they got a series, in Avengers and Defenders. Some good stuff there, too.

[ttfitz]

2 hours ago, Scrooge said:

Best Read: I did not read a ton but I'd say Pulp was up there. The art, the story line, the time period, all blended for a page-turning experience.

Was going to ask you about this. While Brubaker is one of my favorites, I tend to miss these things when they don't get published in standard comic form first (I skim over the double-digit priced stuff, thinking it is collected editions of stuff). I see a couple others when searching for his work - Reckless and Friend of the Devil, have you read either of those?

[Scrooge]

6 hours ago, ttfitz said:

I see a couple others when searching for his work - Reckless and Friend of the Devil, have you read either of those?

I have Reckless on hand and Friend of the Devil should be in my next DCBS shipment. I'll have them read by June. I'll be sure to chime in when I put up next month's summary  

[Ken Aldred]

93 to 123

Shazam ! 1 to 20, 25 to 35 (31 issues)

Absolutely charming all-ages comics from the Bronze Age throughout 1 to 33, with some really nice art.  A shift to a darker tone in the last two issues.

[Savoyard23]

On 5/2/2021 at 2:56 AM, ttfitz said:

Big fan of that version of the Guardians. Recently read their appearances from before they got a series, in Avengers and Defenders. Some good stuff there, too.

Totally.  It was reading the Avengers arc that put me in mind to dive into the 90s series again.

Have you read the Marvel Presents run?  The first 2/3 or it is by Steve Gerber (who created Starhawk) and it's delightfully weird.