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Underground > Comic Books >

5 Most Over-rated comics

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The Mr E suprise

12:37 / 24.07.02

Avoiding the easy targets like certain runs of Marvel and DC comics...

The Taboo books
Artworks awful a few good EC style tales, but mostly it's stuff that should have been left in the bin.

Some Strangers in Paradise
Some of it is staggering, a lot of it is shit. And it only seems to have one plot,

Cerebrus the Aardvark
Sim needs to get a hold of himself. The middle bit of the series is OK, but overall its too self-referential and full of deluded ranting.

Mystery Play
Hate it. Grant Morrison wamking into the script at every turn of the page. Without spoiling the ending, its a predictable little tale of moralisty and madness, and I s imply don't care by the end.

Strange Kisses

Warren Ellis writes pornographic SAS occult-action-adventure. Dull,dull,dull.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:41 / 24.07.02

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is my god
TRANSMET
What, then? And trace that theme, Flyboy, throughout all five years. I'd wager you can't, because it's been aimless shit for at least three of them. It's not "about" journalism, it's not "about" truth, it's not "about" politics or intrigue. It can't decide what it wants to be.

It's about death. Spiders death, Vita's death, death as a means for others to achieve success. The death of the old as one becomes a transient, or joins those weird pink cloud types. The political death of the Beast and the Smiler. How the future can do much to off-set death, anti-disease 'tracts and growing new bodies for the cryogenically frozen, but people can still irreversibly die if their brains get fucked. It's about how death can make a lie seem like the truth. It's about the death and rebirth of truth.

And everyone gets to swear a lot.

It is also, only successful about 3/4rs of the time.

16:22 / 24.07.02

Nice one! I can see the death thing. But if it is about death (and I don't think it is on purpose), it's not very well done...

Murray Hamhandler

17:04 / 24.07.02

Which Hellblazer are you talking about, zerone? The entire series or the run of one or more of the different creators? Because while I would agree that some of it is not entirely successful, I think that the book has, at times, been highly underrated. Especially what I've read of Jenkins' run.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

17:18 / 24.07.02

Laurence- Do you want to start a Head Shop topic on whether a writers intention for a story is more important than the readers intepretation because I really don't have the time right now but I think it might be interesting. I was only saying that really to counter your claim that Transmet was 'about nothing' (although I'm now beginning to wonder if I was right).

But I agree that it's not a perfect comic. In my opinion year 2, the election year, is too long, you have two long stories plumped out with 'life in the city' issues (although they make sense in the first half as Spider is manouevering the Smiler to have to promise to make lief better), whereas year 4 is too short because you don't really get the sense that Spider's life is in danger (except for the ambush in the bar scene at the start of the year) and the Sniper/MegaStorm story takes around five issues so you get the idea that very little happened that year.

01

18:45 / 24.07.02

the recent hellblazer stuff, Azarello is overrated. It hasn't been good since Ennis wrote it. Ellis's stuff sucked as well. I wasn't into Jenkins shit either. Hey, come to think of it why do I still read this fucking rag anyway?

21:50 / 24.07.02

Do you want to start a Head Shop topic on whether a writers intention for a story is more important than the readers intepretation because I really don't have the time right now but I think it might be interesting. I was only saying that really to counter your claim that Transmet was 'about nothing'

I don't think it's an either/or deal. I think they're just two lenses one can view a story from. The success/failure of Transmet or any other series would vary depending on which lens we use, and which theme we choose to trace. If you think it's worthy of a Head Shop let's go for it, but I'm not sure it needs one.

If we're looking at Transmet as being "about death," I think it's a failure because it's not ... well, concise is the best word I can think of, but it's not really what I mean. There are too many detours into other things, too many lost opportunities, too many thematically unrelated meanderings. I doubt Ellis meant for it to be "about death," and so these meanderings can be excused somewhat.

Transmet could have been a brilliant, savage 12 or even 24 issue satiric series tackling journalism and politics, but oddly through its 60 issues it hasn't really been "about" either, nor explored either with much depth. It's a sign of Ellis' deficiencies as a writer that Transmet pales in comparison to the real-life US political scene that occurred during its publication. It could have been savage, relevant and worthy of the Thompson mantle Ellis' obviously hoped to appropriate. I'm happy to criticize Transmet for what it is, but in this one case I think it's wholly appropriate to criticize it for what it isn't.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

23:50 / 24.07.02

I haven't cared for the current Hellblazer run because it is CRIME stories and not stories about one fo the scariest mages in the world. Ennis had it down fairly well for some of his stories, but I'm one of those people who feels that if Delano didn't want to write it anymore, it should have been left alone. Maybe a mini or maxi series if someone pitches a good idea.

Jenkin's run was filled with good stoires, but they could have been about ANYONE. I almost feel that no one had a good grip on ol' JC...and he should be a guy who, when he shows up, you are scared because some bad mojo is about to go down.

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