Joshi Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I really would suggest reading Watchmen. While the movie does look good and I have every intention of going to see it, I do feel the movie won't be able to do the greatness of the book as much justice as it requires. I am also interested in reading The Dark Knight Returns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Why don't you just get the complete Bone, Gabez? I tried reading Watchmen but found it unbearable. Strange, considering how much I loved V for Vendetta (the book; the movie I liked, but after I read the book I just pretend the movie doesn't exist). I really should give graphic novels a serious shot though...If anyone can recommend something well-written (and I'm talking Schafer/Grossman standards here), with a decent art-style, then lay it on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascovel Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Kroms, I recommend the Rork series by Andreas. Also, the first 20 albums of Thorgal. Same as you I tried to read Watchmen this year, but somewhere in the middle I decided to just skim it till the end. Despite the interesting premise it was a bit dull. Batman: The Killing Joke and V for Vendetta are the only comics from Alan Moore I've read so far that I'd honestly describe as exquisite. Bone started out great, but the story went into a direction I didn't particularly enjoy (less humor and variety and the whole focus went to some epic quest I don't even remember anymore). The Dark Knight Returns and the first Sin City novel are probably the best quality stuff from Miller. Lone Wolf and A Cub - the gritty manga that inspired his style greatly - is on similar level. Some other greats: Slaine: The Horned God and Slaine: Treasures of Britain. I also enjoyed a lot the three Corto Maltese albums I tried. It's a series that was referenced in Tim Burton's Batman for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Why don't you just get the complete Bone, Gabez? That's not in colour is it? Anyway, I don't like compilation books. Separate books are easier to hold and read, easier to lend out to other people, and you can read them from start to finish on their own. V for Vendetta: I watched the movie recently and liked it. Would like to read the graphic novel. Also, Kroms, if you haven't read Tintin then that's a must (or Asterix if you don't like Tintin) -- though they're not really graphic novels (and not really comics either, I don't think). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascovel Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 How come you don't think Tintin is a comic book or a graphic novel (which means exactly the same)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Comic and Gaphic Novel don't mean the same, or else they wouldn't be separate terms. It's rather like how cakes and biscuits are different. Without looking up the actual definitions (if set definitions exist at all), I would say that a comic is shorter and has less text than a graphic novel, though a comic may be collected together and put in the form of a graphic novel (like Bone is). The structure of comics, I would say, is lighter, and less unified. A graphic novel has one main plot which is its chief focus -- a comic may have an overarching plot linking the segments together, but is not as focused on a main plot as a graphic novel is. Graphic novels are also more likely to have one of more narrators (e.g. boxes aside from speech bubbles that say more than merely 'meanwhile...') -- this is just me thinking aloud, though. I'm not an expert on either form, though I still believe that there is a difference between them. Tintin seems to have the structure of a graphic novel (one unified story), but the form of a comic (less text and no meta-text, e.g. narrator). Please don't pick apart what I've just typed as if I think I'm an expert because these are really just thoughts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Well, a lot of what we consider to be graphic novels are technically trade paperbacks, a compilation of a storyline inside a comic series. Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, etc were originally comics (In Watchmen's case, a limited series, and in the other two and a lot of other Batman trades, storylines that took place in the Batman series). I am reading Watchmen right now so I'm glad I bumped into this thread, still pretty early on though. I had never heard of it before I saw the trailer but I was very impressed from that so I wanted to read it before the movie comes out. Very enjoyable so far. Other graphic novels I'd recommend are Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween, the former is Frank Miller so definitely a good read and the latter I actually enjoyed more, it has a much more engaging story I thought. The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes again are ones that I'd still like to pick up eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 That's true -- the fact that The Dark Knight Returns was originally a comic sort of poos on my theory. Unless it was a graphic novel in the form of a comic...? Or maybe my definitions just need more work. Speaking of Frank Miller, is Sin City good? I liked the film. Other hraphic novel recommendations: Raymon Briggs' Gentleman Jim and the sequel When the Wind Blows. The former is a happy-sad (by favourite kind of happy, and my favourite kind of sad) children's story, and the latter is a powerful anti-atomic missile story (also an animated film that's on Youtube -- and you may know Briggs from The Snowman as well). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascovel Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I don't know what to tell you about Sin City, cause... I hated the movie and loved the graphic novel (the original one, the later ones were a mixed bag). The movie seemed to me like a cheap fan adaptation of the material. Also, they cut severely the stories and amped up their pace, so they could fit three graphic novels into one movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 I just 'read' And Then There Were None... well, actually, it was the unabridged audiobook, read by Hugh Fraser, who played Captain Hastings in the Poirot TV series. Great perfomance of an excellent murder mystery. I did guess who was behind it about halfway through (with the emphasis on 'guess'), but that didn't stop me from being blown away at the end. What an awesome story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sven_Q45 Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 @Haggis Lol, and I Played it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 OK, now go read The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Murder on the Links, then Murder of Roger Ackroyd. A trio that'll blow you away, especially the last one (but make sure you read it last). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I plan on reading all the Poirot novels... or actually, listening to them. Just waiting for my Audible credits to arrive (I upgraded from Gold to Platinum just for the Agatha Christie books, so now I get 2 each month, yay!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 Aww, too bad you didn't wait a few years, since the early ones are about to go out of copyright. The first one already is! I'll tell you guys if the Marple ones are any good this summer, since I have them but haven't had time to look at them. The Secret Adversary is free too! Here's my thoughts on it from this thread: "Fun in the Christie sense. The new protagonists Tommy and Tuppence are a fresh breath of air away from Poirot and Marple. They're just a pair of dimwits way in over their heads. The romantic subplots were dumb, though. The ending was a surprise. I love how she used cliches to both lessen the work (unintentionally) and make it better (intentional)." No idea why I mentioned Marple, I haven't read any of her stories yet. Kroms you should pay attention to what you type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 Hmmm, well, I'll be sure to download them from Gutenberg as well, but I'll still get the audiobooks - I'm a lazy reader, and I just love a well-read audiobook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urluckyday Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 "A Tradition of Purple" Must read...for any Vikings fan...and I know there's a lot on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 I'm reading Watchmen. Well, to be more specific, I was a week ago, but I haven't read anything since. I've lost my love of reading, I guess. Or I'm too busy. I really want to read Jack Ketchum's The Lost, which is just sitting there, tempting me. Oh but schoolwork is a cruel mistress that keeps me from my true love. In the 1945 movie, Wargrave does reveal himself and Eva only pretended to shoot Lombard. Wargrave commits suicide before finding out, expecting Eva to either hang herself or get hanged when they find her alone with 9 corpses. There's then a happy ending. I saw this film yesterday (And Then There Were None for you curious people). It's so incredibly bad. Also, Lombard is a psychopath. "Oh, they're in there!" And that ending - running into the sunset? Come on. Book was way, way better, and not just by book-film standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s-island Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 There's a Russian movie adaptation from the 1980s which kept the original ending. Of course, it's in Russian... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barone Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 I've just read The Three Musketeers (that I higly recommend) and started The Chronicles of Narnia. The next in line is Don Quixote, a daring shot - it's over 2.000 pages! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Not to mention incredibly difficult. I've tried reading it in two languages, no can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 I started reading Don Quixote (in English) a while ago, but I didn't finish it, got to about a quarter... it's a very funny book though, I should resume reading it again some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kroms Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 So I started reading Murder at the Vicarage today, and it's rather good, but it looks like I'll have to stop until May. I just want this year to be over with, pfft. I want to read 30+ books this summer, I swear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sven_Q45 Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 I read the adventureous voyages from James Cook. until last week. And a little roman called Escape over the sea. And now I read "Why there are stars?" Yesterday I got a book about storytelling in adventure games from Amazon. And today came the roman from The Dig. Used from Amazon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scabb Posted April 26, 2009 Share Posted April 26, 2009 I don't get on with Neil Gaiman. I've tried American Gods and Neverwhere, and read through Coraline on a plane journey recently. He is dull. Although I think I might actually quite enjoy the Sandman comics. But yeah. Other than that, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is an enjoyable, informative read, definitely worth lending out to other people. I like Malcolm Gladwell's books too, 'Blink' and 'The Tipping Point'. Both are basically interesting bits of psychology cobbled together into some sort of unifying theme, and both should definitely be taken with a large pinch of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabez Posted April 26, 2009 Author Share Posted April 26, 2009 I've read American Gods, which is pretty good, but I wouldn't read it again. Sandman is excellent, though, so if you can borrow some of those from someone I'd recommend reading them. (wb, btw!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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