Toren Atkinson

Well Marlo is in a heavy comics phase right now PLUS she’s always asking me about favourites so Marmar, this ones for YOU!

Just a note – when I collected comic books in the 80’s and 90’s, my buying criteria was 90% art, 10% story.

Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew. This is the series that got me into comics. The art was sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually okay. The writing was typical, but the puns and the whole anthropomorphic animal world was entertaining. Animal parodies from the JLA (Just’a Lotta Animals) falls into the so-bad-it’s-good category (Super Squirrel, Batmouse, Martian Anteater, – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justa_Lotta_Animals

Marshal Law. Drawn by Kevin O’Neill. O’Neill’s art (later seen in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is flat and chunky, but it grew on me. However, the concept of a world in which the time of superheroes has past (the genetic engineering that created them for government soldiers eventually drives them mad), and they’re generally considered rogue and that the protagonist is a self-loathing ex-hero whose job it is to take down rogue supers and…aw just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal_Law . Very twisted, filled with machismo and violence, and not for everyone. But it has a place in my heart.

Hellboy. I started getting into Mignola about the time he did Cosmic Odyssey. Maybe even before that with Rocket Raccoon (my Captain Carrot days). His style became more refined and ‘his own’ over the years until he became what fans now recognize him as the quintessential Mignola. Even though the stories are generally good, mixing Lovecraftian with traditional folklore, I was mostly interested in the art, and the way Mignola’s presentation was more film-like than comic book-like.

Excalibur (original one-shot and series). Nothing really terribly new, this is one of many X-titles. However, the writing was consistently good, the characters were a good mix, and art by Alan Davis was the icing on the cake.

The Last American. Mike McMahon’s art is amazing and completely unique. The story was generally interesting. Not phenomenal but good enough.

Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot, and Hard Boiled. Frank Miller wrote, but that wasn’t the point. Geoff Darrow does the art and there’s not much to say about that beyond ‘wow.’

Madman. I’m kind of bored of Madman now but there was some really fresh, fun writing in the series and Mike Allred’s art was clean, which was unusual at the time, and refreshing.

Flex Mentallo – introduced in Grant Morrison’s run of Doom Patrol, he later got his own 4-issue series that I adore. I learned from Wikipedia that they won’t reprint the series into TPB because the Charles Atlas company sued DC due to the likeness of Flex to those old “the insult that made a man out of Mac” ads in comics.

Justice League. The only run of JL that I ever collected was the late 80’s early 90’s run with Adam Hughes predominately drawing (Keith Giffen, DeMatteis writing). This era really brought out the personalities of the characters in a new way. It wasn’t the heroes just fighting villains – it was the heroes trying to get along with one another and keep the organization from collapsing under modern day pressures (like finances and public relations). The expressive art (especially Hughes) mirrored the extremes of playfulness and seriousness of the writing. The heroes made non-heroic faces quite often. This incarnation put the character back in the characters.

Marvels – it’s like a retelling of classic Marvel stories and characters with Alex Ross art. What’s not to like?

Astro City. Always disliked the art, except of course the Alex Ross covers. Kurt

Busiek’s writing was generally good to great, and played on old comic book stereotypes in a fresh way.

Kingdom Come – fully illustrated by Alex Ross, the story was also very well done and interesting.

Earth X – Marvel’s answer to Kingdom Come and also an Alex Ross design concept, though he didn’t do the interior art. Had some neat ideas and played with the Marvel mythology in interesting ways.

Powers. Excellent writing – two cops, one an ex-hero, investigating superhero homicides. Art was a different style and well executed.

Alias. Don’t care for the art but the writing makes up for it. One storyline in particular had me weeping. Takes the Marvel universe tropes and gives you a sort of behind-the-scenes. Again, an ex-hero uses her smarts and abilities in a real-world approach.

Comics for Toren to check out:
We3 (Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely)
The Authority illustrated by Frank Quitely
Invisibles illustrated by Frank Quitely
JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel
Formerly Known as the Justice League/Super Buddies (Giffen & DeMatteis)
1997 JLA by Morrison
2004 JLA/Avengers crossover – anybody read this? Is it any good? We need an imdb for comics.
JLA Classified (Morrison, etc) – again…any good?
House of M – any good?

Also taking suggestions.

I recently bought the 2-disc “Predator” DVD – the movie with the best action/suspense soundtrack in the whollllllle world according to Garp. Even though it’s a machismo gun-fest, it will always have a place in my heart. On a related note, my favourite animal in the whole wild world does what the Predator does, only better. Check it: http://www.break.com/index/octopus1.html
No sound required.