You know, I really like Spider-Man. I write this as I site on my bed covered in a Spider-Man blanket and lean against a pillow in a Spider-Man pillow case. Not only that, but this website is--can you guess?--http://parkerisspiderman.blogspot.com/ . That's right, I named the site after Spider-Man--though I guess technically I'm calling the blog Discovery (That might be up for a change. Stay tuned. By the way, have you noticed the new background? Yesterday I actually looked at the site and decided it was way to oppressive for me. It's definitely perked up a little huh?). So yeah, the point is I kinda like Spider-Man.
How this started is kinda a chicken and the egg question for me. Did I get the toy first or the comics first? I rather suspect the toy, which came with a free comic, in which was an ad for a free three-month trial of Ultimate Spider-Man. Which I then photocopied and mailed in with a two-dollar money-order (for shipping I think). I also proceeded to complete that particular set of toys, mostly for the free comics each of them contained. All in all, I proceeded to renew my subscription a few times, eventually dropping only because the good old USPS in my neighborhood was unreliable and I wasn't getting all the copies of the comics I should have been getting. I still have the comics, boxed up in my mom's garage, simply waiting for me to graduate from college and get a place of my own.
After I finally let my subscription to Ultimate Spider-Man expire my affair with comic books ended for a while. When I was a freshman (wow has it really been four years?) my roommate Chris, who worked at the library, would occasionally pick up a graphic novel and bring it back to the apartment for me to read (I'm sure he actually got them for himself, but he always lent them to me to read, so it felt like he was getting them for me). Since he's a big Superman fan, his choices always went that direction, but I'll admit he made some great choices. In my opinion a good comic is less about the particular hero and more about the writer, the story he's telling, and it's ability to touch me.
So this past semester I've been taking huge advantage of the Logan Library, and in particular it's comics section (it's mostly manga, which I've avoided, but it's got plenty of others, including Unshelved). So, that was really just a long preamble to tell you what I think I like.
Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis I think specializes in bringing things home to teens, empathizing with them. I think he's quite good at it, and I like his ability to write a good story, incorporating all the old Spider-Man stuff into a modern mythology and setting.
I also love J. Michael Straczynski (which is killer to spell by the way, I just looked up Babylon 5 and then copied his name) for his work with Amazing Spider-Man. He really knows how to pull my heartstrings, and as I've written here before emotional manipulation to me is one of the great signs of good literature (using the broadest sense of literature of course. I don't think I've explained my theory on literature before, but I took it from my Literary Analysis course when I was a sophomore, so it's legit).
I also loved Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men (I loved both Firefly and Serenity as well). The next volume in that series just didn't do it for me, though I'm sure that wasn't all about the new writer though, since there was also a new artist on board with a style that just didn't do it for me. Another thing, it really jars me when I'm reading through the story and I switch between issues (which is kinda hard for me to catch in the big graphic novel compilations) and all a sudden there's a new artist with a new style. Don't like that at all. Of course I don't know much about art, except for how to tell if it's an impressionist style, so whatever.
I just finished Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne, which I quite enjoyed as well. This one also switched artists between issues, but the way it was done, since it fit in with what was actually going on in the story worked well. Didn't bother me at all.
How this started is kinda a chicken and the egg question for me. Did I get the toy first or the comics first? I rather suspect the toy, which came with a free comic, in which was an ad for a free three-month trial of Ultimate Spider-Man. Which I then photocopied and mailed in with a two-dollar money-order (for shipping I think). I also proceeded to complete that particular set of toys, mostly for the free comics each of them contained. All in all, I proceeded to renew my subscription a few times, eventually dropping only because the good old USPS in my neighborhood was unreliable and I wasn't getting all the copies of the comics I should have been getting. I still have the comics, boxed up in my mom's garage, simply waiting for me to graduate from college and get a place of my own.
After I finally let my subscription to Ultimate Spider-Man expire my affair with comic books ended for a while. When I was a freshman (wow has it really been four years?) my roommate Chris, who worked at the library, would occasionally pick up a graphic novel and bring it back to the apartment for me to read (I'm sure he actually got them for himself, but he always lent them to me to read, so it felt like he was getting them for me). Since he's a big Superman fan, his choices always went that direction, but I'll admit he made some great choices. In my opinion a good comic is less about the particular hero and more about the writer, the story he's telling, and it's ability to touch me.
So this past semester I've been taking huge advantage of the Logan Library, and in particular it's comics section (it's mostly manga, which I've avoided, but it's got plenty of others, including Unshelved). So, that was really just a long preamble to tell you what I think I like.
Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis I think specializes in bringing things home to teens, empathizing with them. I think he's quite good at it, and I like his ability to write a good story, incorporating all the old Spider-Man stuff into a modern mythology and setting.
I also love J. Michael Straczynski (which is killer to spell by the way, I just looked up Babylon 5 and then copied his name) for his work with Amazing Spider-Man. He really knows how to pull my heartstrings, and as I've written here before emotional manipulation to me is one of the great signs of good literature (using the broadest sense of literature of course. I don't think I've explained my theory on literature before, but I took it from my Literary Analysis course when I was a sophomore, so it's legit).
I also loved Joss Whedon in Astonishing X-Men (I loved both Firefly and Serenity as well). The next volume in that series just didn't do it for me, though I'm sure that wasn't all about the new writer though, since there was also a new artist on board with a style that just didn't do it for me. Another thing, it really jars me when I'm reading through the story and I switch between issues (which is kinda hard for me to catch in the big graphic novel compilations) and all a sudden there's a new artist with a new style. Don't like that at all. Of course I don't know much about art, except for how to tell if it's an impressionist style, so whatever.
I just finished Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne, which I quite enjoyed as well. This one also switched artists between issues, but the way it was done, since it fit in with what was actually going on in the story worked well. Didn't bother me at all.
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