Max Riffner

I’ve read the first 2 Lady Snowblood books and they’re kind of ‘meh.’

You know how despite how great Lone Wolf and Cub is, there are those parts of it that are, for lack of a better word, “depraved?” You know, the parts that made you go “That was kind of f*ed up?” Well, that’s pretty much all of Lady Snowblood. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some badass stuff in it, but I don’t think I’ll be picking it up.

I know what you mean about having a stronger interest in older works over new releases.

DC’s latest Jonah Hex book is on about issue #5 now, but for the price of those 5 new comics (about 110 pages total), you can pick up the Showcase collection of 70’s Hex stories (over 500 pages of story).

I’d much rather read good story/art printed in black and white on newsprint than overly-colored crap on glossy stock. Dark Horse has hit a home run with these Samurai titles; fat little books for 10 bucks!

I never cared for Crying Freeman, but Lady Snowblood sounds interesting.

My favorite artist on the Showcase: Superman book, by far, is Kurt Schaffenberger. He has this really clean, almost animation style quality to his art. Which I think suits the tone and feel of the ridiculous Superman stories perfectly. How this guy isn’t known as the definitive Superman artist of the ‘50s is beyond me.

My only complaint about the Superman book, aside from the terrible writing (which is actually so terrible it’s actually enjoyable), is that I really think it suffers from not being in color. Books like Showcase: Jonah Hex don’t need color because of the tone and feel of the stories. In fact, I think that color might actually detract from the art. But the superhero shenanigans and sheer zaniness of the old Superman stories just scream for old-school, 4-color printing.

Of course, then the book would be much more expensive, and I would have never have bought it in the first place. Maybe I should just break out my colored pencils and do it myself, I mean it does sort of look like one of the old DC coloring books ...

Y,know…I wonder why no one publishes comic books in that old crappy format anymore?; 4 color on cheap newsprint. You see plenty of products (flyers, etc) out there in that format that you’d think that someone would still do comics that way.

I’d buy more indy comics if I didn’t have to pay $3 and up to try a new book. FELL by Ellis/Templesmith is a step in the right direction; 16 pgs. of story for $1.99, but what would the price point be if it wasn’t on that slick paper? This is a call to arms! I want to bring back good comics on crappy paper! Who is with me??