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Underground > Comic Books >

Stray Bulletin

Haus of Mystery

21:16 / 17.08.03

I'm sure Stray Bullets has been discussed at the 'Lith, but I've gotta say in my opinion it may be the finest comic you can buy. So, y'know I want to talk about how great it is. Anyone for tennis?

14:42 / 18.08.03

I think it's pretty cool. When I was in college and had more regular contact with comics stores (and, IIRC, when SB came out more regularly) I was really into it. Kids I knew in school who wouldn't touch 'X-Men' or even 'The Invisibles' would devour 'Stray Bullets'. "Cool beans" was totally a catchphrase in our house my senior year.

Somewhere since then, I feel I've lost track of SB. I *think* I have most of the issues in my pile 'o' comics still, but I couldn't really tell you what's been happening since Orson died. I even have the 'Murder Me Dead' TPB on my shelves, have done for about 9 months, and haven't been motivated to read it yet.

I don't know where this apathy has come from. I know I like Lapham's stuff, and the one issue I did read (about Amy fighting the kid in the cafeteria) was still fun. I just feel a bit disconnected from this title now.

That said, I also feel that about a lot of the indy stuff that I've been following since the '90's. I have no real idea any more what's happening in Bone, Thieves & Kings, Castle Waiting, Palookaville or Louis Riel, or even if my collections are complete and up to date or not.

The fact that the owner of the local store gives minimal accomodation to these titles, and that I periodically have to demand that he explain why he never got certain issues compounds the problem. I don't know if 'Thieves & Kings' hasn't come out for 6 months or if it just hasn't made it onto the shelves and into my pull-file for 6 months. And right now I'm too busy to stop and do a proper catloguing and research.

D'oh.

Um. Vaguely back on topic, I think Stray Bullets is quite good.

Thank you.

Haus of Mystery

14:52 / 18.08.03

While it hasn't reached the near-perfection of the Orson?Beth storyline, it has proved consistently ace. The new school storyline is warming up nicely. I recommened going back and re-reading all you've got. I like what you said about the accessability of SB - I'd give it to non-comics fans to read alongside Paul Pope's stuff simply because they're both dynamic fast and fun storytellers. I think some of the more self obsessed indy stuff is equally as off putting as Men-in-Pants comics to newcomers. Plus the cover design and logo of SB is just SO sexy.

Best moment of the series so far?

The Natural Way

16:22 / 19.08.03

The Beth/Ginny/Bobby/evil bastard/millions of others LA arc is shit hot and the ending is to die for. But, I agree, it doesn't rock quite as hard as Seaside.

Best moment or ish?

Best ish:

recently, the fugue-like, sectioned Amy Racecar ish was the tits. Really fucking scary and sooo dense and clever.

Best moment:

Monster buying himself a fucking wedding cake.

Utter freak.

Had me pissing myself for aaaaages.

21:35 / 19.08.03

ah i remember when issue 1 came out and its 1997 setting seemed so far in the future - now close to ten years on (!) we still haven't seen Frank or got close to seeing the continuation of that story... not that that matters much - when stray bullets is on form it still smashes most other comics in the face with a broken milk bottle.

Haus of Mystery

21:51 / 19.08.03

Many 'heart-in-mouth' moments abound. Obviously the last 'Dark-Days' storyline, but further back, the moment where Orson and Beth wake up with Spanish Scott on their bed, sticks in the memory. Or when we learnt the origin of who Janice was... I just find it a visceral, inventive read.

The Natural Way

09:19 / 20.08.03

It really is. And sooo scary sometimes.

"Live music!": brrrrrrr! Nasty.

The Natural Way

10:57 / 20.08.03

I started a thread aaaaaages ago where someone, after having had a gander at the free ish of a few months back, really slammed the book. I wish I could find the thread, 'cause I need them to A) tell me WHY they didn't like it; B) tell me what the ish was and C) sit back and LISTEN while I explain exactly how wrong they are.

The trouble with the book, I think, is that a casual glance through its pages might lead the reader to conclude that it's just some shitty Tarantino rip-off. Ages ago, Flux (who readily admits he hasn't really read much of it) described the book as a "crime comic", a genre he doesn't have much interest in.... But, that's the thing, Stray Bullets isn't Tarantino and its scope is much, much broader than yr average crime narrative. If anything, the book's about PEOPLE - people who lurk at the peripheries of *civilised society* - but people, nevertheless. The book is by turns visceral, episodic, experimental, soap-operatic, comedic, horrifying but, above all, it's HUMAN: Monster buys a wedding cake.

Oh, and and another recent heart-in-mouth mo':

"You shouldn't have come here."

I wanted to punch the air when I put that shit down.

The Natural Way

11:16 / 20.08.03

BTW, has anyone noticed that the website's down and...errr...the domain's for sale.

SHIT!

14:38 / 29.08.03

Well, I got 'flu over the weekend and had to take a sicky on Monday. So I sat home and read comics, one of which was 'Murder Me Dead'. I read it in one sitting, which is, I think, the best way to come to these things, and I really thought it was pretty good.

Lapham handles noir very nicely in that book, and as usual he finds a way to make the characters suitably compelling. The twisting nature of the plot was nicely paced, although I could've done without the "recap" page at the start of each chapter, which didn't read so well in the collected form.

Without wanting to give a spoiler, I will say that the eventual solution did *not* come as a surprise to me and I was kind of wondering whether it was really meant to. I guess I did end up feeling that I would've liked something a little more left field. But the central will-she-won't-she tension in the piece was well handled and I liked the ambiguity of where things ended up.

Inspired by this, I plan when next I get a free weekend (I think I've pencilled in October 3rd) to sit and read all the issues of Stray Bullets that I've gathered since moving out to the US 2 years ago. And then when I'm home I can audit my collection and see if I'm missing any "gap" issues. Once all that's read then I'll come back here and maybe have something more constructive to say.

I agree with you that SB is not really a "crime" comic, although the noir influences on the whole series are obvious, and its coincidence with the rise of Tarantino was certainly timely. What I really like about it is what I call the "Trainspotting factor" (thinking of the book) - the notion of an extended narrative with such thin links that it's almost a distended narrative. One told over such a range of characters (and in the case of SB, over such a span of time) that you really see this kind of "scattering diagram" of events colliding and setting each other off, down the years. Something a lot of comics have aspired to but few have done well.