Serial Strip Fun
Hi everyone, I'm Eric. I'll be posting here on Tuesdays.
I've been blogging over at Dog Spelled Forward for a couple of years now and have been enjoying it. I've been a comic strip fan all my life - so being able to blog about comics is a privilege.
While I enjoy a good joke-a-day strip as much as anyone else, it's always been the adventure/serial strips that interested me most. I'm a comic book fan too, so an ongoing story with a modicum of characterization will keep me interested.
My first memory of reading comics in the paper was the Sunday comics section in the Daily News at a friend's house, because my father refused to let that paper into the house. I used to head over there to read Dondi.
I've always been a fan of the Phantom. When I was very young my grandmother brought me back some Phantom comics from Germany, which brings back some great memories. Also, when the strip is done right, it has a bit of a humorous edge to it. You can get the Phantom in 2 flavors now.
I like the classic artwork. It reminds of the first Supermans - very simple but still great storytelling.
The Phantom standing behind the guy like that is a typical "Ghost who walks" kinda move. Having a wiseass like that kick your ass with a big ring must really suck.
Paul Ryan is penciling the new Phantoms now. I really like his work. You may remember him from his run on the Fantastic Four, where he managed to overcome Tom DeFalco's scripts and make the book almost readable.
You can't talk about adventure strips without talking about the venerable Prince Valiant. (Although, it's a Sunday only feature, so I guess I am cheating on my first post?) Prince Valiant is about the journey – like most adventure strips the pace can be fairly described as "glacial," but the artwork is great and sometimes nothing short of amazing.
Here's a strip from May 2 to give you an idea of how great the artwork can really get:
Right now the strip is being written by Mark Schultz of Xenozoic Tales (aka Cadillacs and Dinosaurs) fame and drawn (painted?) by Gary Gianni, who's done some impressive work on Solomon Kane (one of my all-time favorite characters) and Conan. Pretty cool stuff.
One of the serials I recently starting reading again has been a pleasant surprise:
Brenda Starr has done a wonderful job of just not taking itself too seriously, which is important. Sometimes it's funnier that the strips that are supposed to be funny.
For adventure strips that are actually not older than me (and there ain't too many) there's Jane's World:
Jane's World seems to have started out closer to a joke-a-day affair that then morphed into a strip with ongoing plotlines, which happens a lot. Fortunately not all of them end up making you want to reach for a glass and some Drano.
Right now it's kind of doing a scene for scene remake of the The Last Starfighter. (If memory serves.) Which is worth mentioning because it's a hell of a lot more entertaining than that scene for scene remake of Psycho.
If you still with me, here's what I thought was funny today:
I'm trying to wait until the next model comes out to buy an i-Pad. I don't think I'm going to make it though.
(Pearls before Swine 6-1-2010)
I usually find Pearls funny, but that's because I really love a horrendous pun.
So that's my freshman outing. Feel free to hurl insults, rotten fruit and money in the comments below.
2 comments:
Welcome aboard! I can't wait to read more :)
Thank you very much!
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