What did you read - July 2014

[dancj]

Another month (well - halfway through)....

Spider-Man: Made Men - Passable prestige format one-shot that didn't actually have Spider-Man in it.

El Diablo - Creepy western story from Azzerello and Daniel Zezelj. Good story with a nice twist at the end. Very good art.

Daredevil: Father - Joe Quesada's art here is fantastic - but it does show a huge Frank Miller influence. Nasty nasty ending. Overall a very good book.

Batman and the Mad Monk - I wish Wagner had done more of these Batman series. It's good stuff with great art.

Mudman v1 - Paul Grist writes some great stuff and his pages look great - with such a good sense of design. My only issue is he has a tendency to start loads of plot threads and never finish them. Seing as only one issue of Mudman exists after the stuff that's in this TPB I very much doubt he managed to finish anything here either. It's a shame as it was good while it lasted.

Vampire Boy - Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso's centuries long battle between two vampires. The art is glorious (obviously). The story is good too - though the gratuitousness of the nudity in this book gets a bit cringeworthy at times.

Superf*ckers - James Kochalca's nasty superheroes being horrible to each other. It's quite amusing in places.

Insurrection - Enjoyable 2000ad story about a space colony declaring independence from Mega City One. Bit of a frustrating cliffhanger at the end. I'm not sure if this is a "to be continued" or a "Day the Earth Stood Still" jobby. Colin MacNeil's painted art should never be in black and white. That's just a waste.

Kick-Ass 2 Prelude: Hit Girl - Enjoyable while it lasted - though it feels like half a story - which it is. What is the deal with John Romita Jr's art though? The 12 year old Hitgirl is about the height of my (very short) 5 year old daughter and has a ridiculously huge head.

Lobster Random - Okay story from 2000ad. Nice art from Carl Critchlow though. His work has grown massively over the years.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight v2 - Surprisingly good collection of short Batman stories from some famous creators and a whole bunch I've never heard of. The quality didn't vary that much between the two groups which is good. I think Christos Gage's story was my favourite (even if it was somewhat reminiscent of a particular episode of Buffy)

[dancj]

Just me this month? Ah well I'll carry on as I find it therapeutic...

Casanova v2: Gula - I'm not a big fan of Casanova (or anything by Fraction) but I thought I'd give Casanova another try. This one felt a bit better than the first - more like an actuall story and less like a bunch of 'kewl' ideas shoved together. Still not completely sold though.

Velvet v1: Before the Living End - Good 70s spy story from Brubaker and Epting. I'll be sticking with this one...

Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo: Born Better - Eh - Okay. Decent art from Tom Grummet.

Repo v1 - Rick Spears and Rob G are always good for a laugh and this might be my favourite thing from them that I've read. No characters with any redeeming features. A nice OTT sci-fi violent mash-up. Then considering two of my favourite films are Robocop and Repo Man, this book had me at "hello".

Charley's War v9: Death from Above - Still excellent in both story and art. Only one more volume to go