The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **Victorian Squid** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:34 pm

Recommended by Tom Spurgeon, and full of familiar Chicago references. By Laura Park, even the name sounds familiar, and I wonder if we'd met at some earlier point.

Good autobio comic, with tiny lettering that is difficult to read but worth the scrutiny. Made me miss Chicago and Quimby's, Earwax, etc.

EDIT: Yep, must've met her somewhere but it's not clear in my memory...it's on the tip of my brain, though. Well, I was rather charmed by her little comic, I just ordered everything else by her I could find. Hope she makes more stuff soon.

by **Arion** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 3:51 pm

Punchy wrote:
It's kind of disappointing, DC really made it so the story fizzled out.

There was editorial interference from DC even decades ago?
Yeah, I can imagine how it goes.

by **Punchy** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:54 am

Arion wrote:
There was editorial interference from DC even decades ago?
Yeah, I can imagine how it goes.

Well, at first, they just cancelled everything except Mister Miracle out from under Kirby, and by all accounts, all of the books were selling OK.

And then, when Kirby returned to finish the story in the 80s, there was editorial interference, but apparently, Kirby agreed with a lot of it. I think the biggest interference was that Kirby wasn't allowed to kill any of the characters, because DC wanted to use them in the future.

by **Grayson** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 3:31 pm

I found the second volume of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus on the half price table of my LCS yesterday but I didn't pick it up because I couldn't find the first volume. :-(

Somebody should probably go ahead and send me their copy so that I can get caught up...

by **Arion** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:28 pm

Punchy wrote:
Well, at first, they just cancelled everything except Mister Miracle out from under Kirby, and by all accounts, all of the books were selling OK.

And then, when Kirby returned to finish the story in the 80s, there was editorial interference, but apparently, Kirby agreed with a lot of it. I think the biggest interference was that Kirby wasn't allowed to kill any of the characters, because DC wanted to use them in the future.

Of course DC wouldn't want any deaths, they couldn't exploit the characters for decades afterwards.

by **LobsterJ** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 5:49 pm

Do I have to read Hickman's FF to understand his Fantastic Four?

by **Zero** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 1:32 am

LobsterJ wrote:Do I have to read Hickman's FF to understand his Fantastic Four?

Pretty much. FF replaced Fantastic four for a year, then the two told a single story flitting between the two books for around 6 months before becoming a little bit separate in the final year. Somewhere in the thread there's a reading order.

by **Keb** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 12:32 pm

Yeah Fantastic Four 1-4, FF 1-2, F4 5 and F3 happen alongside each other and then F4 6 and FF 4 are more or less the same.

I think...

by **Victorian Squid** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 1:56 pm

Don't forget to keep an eye on your IRL mail box, Keb! I can't remember what day I mailed you stuff*, it was maybe Tuesday I think.

*See, Chris? I not only talk about stuff I like, sometimes I'm willing to send it to someone else for free so I can talk about it with them!

by **nietoperz** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 5:36 pm

I just picked up the Morrison Animal Man Omnibus, and can't wait to get stuck in.

On a side note: has anyone heard anything about DC cancelling the Starman Omnibus paperbacks? I got the first two volumes and vol 3 was due out in May and still hasn't appeared. Nobody seems to know anything about it. If they're cancelled I'm going to be seriously annoyed.

by **Keb** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:33 pm

Victorian Squid wrote:Don't forget to keep an eye on your IRL mail box, Keb! I can't remember what day I mailed you stuff*, it was maybe Tuesday I think.

*See, Chris? I not only talk about stuff I like, sometimes I'm willing to send it to someone else for free so I can talk about it with them!

I check it every day. It's on the way home from class. There's a series of underground tunnels that connects all the residence buildings here on campus and the rest of the school is all connected by indoor links so I can get from home to class without going outside. I don't know why I said that but I really needed to share.

Also, I have a presentation/discussion group to lead in a couple weeks on graphic novels. I need to read the article but I was thinking of supplementing the discussion with some comics. I was thinking New Gods 7. Any other suggestions?

by **Victorian Squid** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:36 pm

Wow. What a book. The premise is, dozens of cartoonists are sent a couple of panels of old Popeye & Little Orphan Annie comics, and then they have to draw panels connecting the two or spin off of them in some other way. That's the gist of it, but the rules are loose. Some friends of mine have stuff in it too.

Many of them are really funny. A lot of them went into deviant or transgressive territories, to say the least, but all of the approaches or "solutions" to the mash-up are interesting and creative. Some are more formal, a few get pretty broad and abstract. It's a big comic with over 70 artists and printed on nice old-fashioned newsprint too.

I love the improv feel to it, and the editor, Josh Bayer, encourages readers and other artists to play the game too (but doesn't want to give the false impression that he's soliciting them for print). In some ways, it's a book that'll appeal to comics insiders but I think many more than that would enjoy it.

by **Victorian Squid** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:38 pm

Keb wrote:I check it every day. It's on the way home from class. There's a series of underground tunnels that connects all the residence buildings here on campus and the rest of the school is all connected by indoor links so I can get from home to class without going outside. I don't know why I said that but I really needed to share.

Also, I have a presentation/discussion group to lead in a couple weeks on graphic novels. I need to read the article but I was thinking of supplementing the discussion with some comics. I was thinking New Gods 7. Any other suggestions?

I went to a school like that for one year, it was designed to be one of the first truly handicapped-accessible colleges. Tunnels leading everywhere.

by **Arion** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:55 pm

nietoperz wrote:I just picked up the Morrison Animal Man Omnibus, and can't wait to get stuck in.

On a side note: has anyone heard anything about DC cancelling the Starman Omnibus paperbacks? I got the first two volumes and vol 3 was due out in May and still hasn't appeared. Nobody seems to know anything about it. If they're cancelled I'm going to be seriously annoyed.

After printing two volumes it wouldn't make sense to cancel the third one. Of course DC has a history of surprising us... and not always in a good way.

by **nietoperz** » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:20 am

Arion wrote:
After printing two volumes it wouldn't make sense to cancel the third one. Of course DC has a history of surprising us... and not always in a good way.

You'd think that, but DC printed SIX volumes of Justice League International and then stopped - and volume six ends in the middle of a story!