Interesting 2007
By Schulze on July 10th, 2007.
Filed under: comics, drawing, graphics, Interesting2007, optical, talks
5 comments ↓
I gave a talk at Interesting 2007 about three weeks ago now. The day was great and though I wasn’t able to stay for all of it, I really enjoyed myself, and the few talks I did catch were very absorbing. So well done to Russell for sorting all that out.
I gave a talk on comics and while there are some images of me talking about them on Flickr, some people have asked for a list of the comics I discussed. Below is the list and brief descriptions. I’ve also transcribed my talk and put the slides online: Comics and Pictures.
Though I read lots of different comics, I only really follow four authors: Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and Garth Ennis. Really, you can’t go that wrong reading stuff by these guys, they are awesome, although many people find Ennis a bit heavy. Here is the list in the order that I discussed them:
- The Kingdom by Mark Waid and drawn by Ariel Olivetti and Mike Zeck. Wikipedia has a good description of Hypertime, so no need to hunt down this comic if you are just curious.
- Sea of Red by Rick Remender, Kieron Dwyer and Salgood Sam. This is the one about vampire pirates.
- New Universal by Warren Ellis and Salvador Larroca. This is the comic I discussed where all the characters are derived from film stars.
- Planetary by Warren Ellis. This is really good, everyone should read it. There are four main books, all are good. I specifically discussed Planetary Crossing Worlds which includes the Batman story.
- The Filth by Grant Morrison. This is the best comic that there is, everybody should read this. It is the one with the guy who speaks with thought bubbles.
- Desolation Jones by Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams III. I’ve mentioned this before. It is a great read, and drawn with deft elegance, really nice work.
- I spoke about Madman. Very weird but good.
- I also mentioned a cover from The Flash who can run really fast, and that’s about it.
I’m enjoying a couple of American authors at the moment: Ed Brubaker’s Criminal, and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men is good too.
That is the list of comics I mentioned. They stock them at my favourite comic shops: Orbital and Gosh, both nicely located in central London.
July 10th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I’d highly recommend Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn as another great series in a similar vein to the others you mentioned.
- Mike
July 10th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
“Queen & Country,” by Greg Rucka, is tremendous, though the output has trickled to only a couple issues inthe last year. Still, you can get the first 30 issues or so in trade paperback. Fantastic espionage stories, very realistic, no capes/masks.
“The Losers,” an amped up reboot of the old DC military series, is complex and full of subplots and features a ton of great action sequences.
Finally, the BEST thing I’ve read in the past year is Paul Pope’s “Batman: Year 100,” which is genuinely thrilling and full of top notch action sequences. Mysterious, exciting, this is the way comics made me feel when I was a kid.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I second the recommendation of “The Losers” - it’s made me want to read Green Arrow Year One by the same team (Andy Diggle & Jock)
I think Jock is a hell of an artist.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Great presentation, agreed vehemently with every bit of what you said. I’ve sampled some of the stuff you mentioned, and they’re all good:)
One possibly OT thing: The slides you’ve put up, are they low resolution or something? I couldn’t make out some of the panels in the links. Is there some way to see the full resolution slides? Thanks!
July 30th, 2007 at 10:27 am
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