Weird.
I don't think I read all that less of my precious comics, books, manga & so on, but it's odd that, when I sit down to consider a new entry, I'm racking my brain to recall what I've recently read. I don't think this means I enjoy it less. On the contrary, I'm getting a lot from them and there's a great deal of quality around.
It's my memory that's the problem. That, and laziness. I have to go check up on the titles & such of what I've read, and that's a big task.
Seriously.

Anyhow, I went and checked this time -_^
I took almost all of last week to finish (and I mean really finish) the newest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The Black Dossier has received plenty of press:
It's over a year late, it's had shipping restrictions outside of USA etc. etc. Hasn't stopped me from getting a copy (on the contrary, Amazon, Borders et al. must be quite pleased).
I won't be discussing all those fringes, there's plenty of places to catch up, if you want.



The book itself then. Moore's always been out to experiment with his ABC creations in general and LoEG in particular (remember the tourist guides, the mock ads etc. in the previous two volumes) to enhace the world-building he's doing and creating a kind of parallel culture which, though clearly based on our own, and using the paradigms of fiction and so on, but there's unmistakable joy and fun locked in every single page.
And there's plenty of them!
The framing story (I suppose) is the chase scene: we're in the '50s of the LoEG continuity, and the Big Brother phase has just run its course. Mina & Allan stole a Black Dossier containing all kinds of info on the previous incarnations of the League, harking back a long time.
It also reads as a dossier: different snippets and details on different, colourful characters in all sorts of media: files, reports, old cartoons, short stories, all in the style of whatever they are based on, with among them, a particulary hilarious diary-style story by a Brit ponce who's witness to a Ctulhu-invasion (or Cool Lulu, as he calls it) utterly ignorant to what is really going on as a version of the League dispatches the Elder Gods.
Good stuff.
The actual comics narrative has Moore's usual casual air, while still very much delivering a framework for all the supplements and a bridge (I assume) for the true vol 3 of LoEG, to be published by Top Shelf.
There's quite some new (and retro-actively new) characters introduced (or maybe they aren't, you'll understand) in those files, and a lot of ground covered, and you have to pace it.
If you do, it's more than a fun book, it's a rich source of all kinds of odd and wonderful titbits that take some figuring out.
This may help.

Be seeing you
--nout

For the love

Just a couple of weeks ago, I got re-aquainted with a long-time friend & kindred spirit by pure chance (as these things sometimes happen even to me). We got together and it was (besides the obvious catching up) as if no time at all had elapsed, even though the last time we talked was certainly 2 years ago and the last time we really talked must have been a small decade ago.
Strange, but in the best way possible.

Now, as it happens, (and this ought not to surpise you, intrepid reader) during our encounters that decade hence, we spent most of our time in the blissful light exuded by comics and other printed pages, as well as a solid dose of games and the like, as befits adolescents.

No suprise then, that that afternoon some weeks ago, we spent talking mostly about comics, exchanging experiences, memories and the like.
As should be even less of a surprise, your servant is at all times keen to impart his endless wisdom & impeccable taste upon the unsuspecting as well as the initiated (for he would never discriminate) so we leisurely drifted in and out of the available material, picking out interesting objects along the way.

As my tastes have been running (for a good while now) much more towards the U.S. comics & Japanese manga rather than the European BD, and this evidently being evident in my collection, my friend at one point remarks that "I seem to prefer the pulp-side of the medium".

At first, I was defensive towards this term, yet I quickly realised that it concerned merely a difference in definition (furthermore, the term was not meant as a derogatory).
As he'd been weening himself increasingly on BDs when our ways parted many years ago, he'd veered more and more towards what I'll label 'auteur'BDs. I.e. material by Joann Sfar, Blain, Trondheim, Boucq etc. Plenty of Casterman, single volumes rather than series and so on.
These are more often than not a book per year, conserving a certain style that is almost inherent to that section of the medium.
A lot of the material in my collection, then, has monthly frequency, a plethora of styles, ideas, and, I suppose where he was going with the comment: a lot of genre exercises.
Think Stray Bullets, Star Wars, Vagabond, X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman ...

I'd never considered those pulp (as that term evokes images of Tarzan, The Shadow, The Spider or Doc Savage) and certainly not as derivative or inferior in either content or form to whatever
my friend was comparing them to. As the discussion went on, it became clear that quite simply, our definitions differed.

And I could safely conclude that the one cohesive line one could draw through my collection, from Hellboy to Wolverine, from Scott Pilgrim to Doctor Doom & from El Borbah to The Infinty Gauntlet, I think they are good reading.
True, that also means my collection will forever lack Isaac Le Pirate, Donjon, Michelluzzi books and plenty of others besides. I have tried them (more than once) and the detail that they are BD is wholly incidental. A certain rapport between their geographical origin and the creators' influence could no doubt be made, but bottom line, I quite simply don't think they are as good as the tomes making up my own collection.
And the only gauge I use to come to that conclusion is my own taste, no more, no less.

It certainly makes us no less good friends, on the contrary, the criticism allows for a more animated dialogue & it will always be based purely on what we have read and can therefore consider fact, rather than assumptions we make based on not much of anything.

I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and feel the most rewarding was that we found more similarities in our arguments than differences.

Joy.

Say hello to his many talents!

Be seeing you
--nout

Brains...

50%

I'd hoped for a score that was a little higher, but my answers were honest!