I am a comic book collector and happy to be one. I might say “proud” if I hadn’t, over a year ago, switched to reading digital as opposed to print comics. I feel a bit robbed of the tactile sensations of the hobby – of the turn of the page, the sneaking look to the panel a page over, the bagging and shorting and stacking and filing. Though I read my comics in a different medium than I used to, I still treat each Wednesday (comic book delivery day to specialty shops around the country) as different from the other days of the week. I subscribe and now, rather than go to the comic store to be handed the books pulled for my “Hold Slot,” I click a button on my iPad and watch them download.
Then I read them.
Rare is the week that I don’t read them all between Wednesdays and some weeks I have, well… let’s just say more comic books in my digital downloads than a grown man should. Comic book legend Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit) is one of the most influential men even to put pencil to drawing board in the pursuit of making comics. So influential was he that the industry awards (think the Oscars or the Emmys or the Grammys) are named The Eisner Awards. He called comic books “sequential art,” perhaps because he became embarrassed by his profession when he had to admit what he did for a living. This is my weekly reaction to the comics I read.
I read 6 comics last week: Convergence #2, Star Trek #44, Convergence: Shadow of the Bat #1, Convergence: Justice League International #1, Convergence: Man of Steel #1 and Uncanny X-Men #33. Oh, and I bought a crazily low-priced collection of 8 comics for $4.99 from comixology.com Daredevil: Guardian Devil.
The best comic I read last week was Daredevil: Guardian Devil
This was a really bad week for new comics. I really, really am not enjoying Convergence, the DC Comics event of the year that is supposed to… well, never mind. It doesn’t matter what it’s supposed to do. It’s not doing anything for me. What would be impressive is if I stopped reading it and its tie-in issues.
We’ll see what my will power is tomorrow.
Convergence wasn’t good. Uncanny X-Men was okay, but not great. Star Trek was passable.
But Guardian Devil? Perfect.
This is a little unfair of a choice. I read this book in monthly format when it was published in the last 1990s and I remember it being very good. It was on sale because of the Netflix Daredevil series – which is very good, too, by-the-way. Kevin Smith writes, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti draw and the character Daredevil reaches new heights. This is a terrific book which set the standard for great comics for Marvel for years to follow. Read it if you get the chance.
And There Came a Day... 