What are you reading?

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Crimson Ryan » Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:22 am

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Shibiryo » Thu Oct 08, 2015 12:29 pm

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This is a manga pretty much so don't know if this is applied to this thread but hey..
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby south carmain » Sat Oct 10, 2015 2:26 pm

Being unfamiliar with Chinese names has made it rather difficult to keep track of who is who while reading romance of the 3 kingdoms
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Crimson Ryan » Sat Oct 10, 2015 2:32 pm

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From award-winning columnist and journalist Gillian Tett comes a brilliant examination of how our tendency to create functional departments—silos—hinders our work…and how some people and organizations can break those silos down to unleash innovation.

One of the characteristics of industrial age enterprises is that they are organized around functional departments. This organizational structure results in both limited information and restricted thinking. The Silo Effect asks these basic questions: why do humans working in modern institutions collectively act in ways that sometimes seem stupid? Why do normally clever people fail to see risks and opportunities that later seem blindingly obvious? Why, as psychologist Daniel Kahneman put it, are we sometimes so “blind to our own blindness”?

Gillian Tett, journalist and senior editor for the Financial Times, answers these questions by plumbing her background as an anthropologist and her experience reporting on the financial crisis in 2008. In The Silo Effect, she shares eight different tales of the silo syndrome, spanning Bloomberg’s City Hall in New York, the Bank of England in London, Cleveland Clinic hospital in Ohio, UBS bank in Switzerland, Facebook in San Francisco, Sony in Tokyo, the BlueMountain hedge fund, and the Chicago police. Some of these narratives illustrate how foolishly people can behave when they are mastered by silos. Others, however, show how institutions and individuals can master their silos instead. These are stories of failure and success.

From ideas about how to organize office spaces and lead teams of people with disparate expertise, Tett lays bare the silo effect and explains how people organize themselves, interact with each other, and imagine the world can take hold of an organization and lead from institutional blindness to 20/20 vision. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-S ... 1aGeo.dpuf


Bought it to read about Sony after watching an interview on the Financial Times..
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Hyo Razuki » Sun Oct 11, 2015 10:48 am

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:king:

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby shredingskin » Sun Oct 11, 2015 10:54 am

Cages by dave mckean, I read it a while ago, but it's pretty cool.

Also I have all of the borges books near to my bed for some short stories reading before sleeeeeeeep.
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Crimson Ryan » Mon Oct 12, 2015 1:54 pm

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I've missed the Parker series. Nice to start reading again where I left off..
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Thief » Thu Nov 17, 2016 8:16 pm

I've been readin comics recently, namely the DC rebirth stuff (which is weird for me, because I don't usually read comics), but I'm loving it. Just finished reading all (up to current) of the Superman run, and I'm loving it. Issues 7-9 were especially good. I've always loved Superman so I went there first, but now that I've read most of the Superman family stuff, I think i'm gunna branch out and check out Batman and other stuff going on. I'm having a good time. :D
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby OL » Wed Sep 06, 2017 1:13 pm

For the longest time, I was incredibly resistant to DC's move into the New 52 back in 2011 or whenever; for all intents and purposes, it basically seemed like it set out to negate all of the continuity that had been established in the DC Universe ever since I was a kid, so I said "fuck all that noise" and didn't bother reading any of it.
However, DC recently nixed the New 52 and started Rebirth, so the old continuity is back... which means that the New 52 universe, as a grand collective, pretty much stands on its own with a beginning and end now. It may as well be a loose Elseworlds, or just a completely separate entity like Batman The Animated Series, or the Arkham series. Which means that I'm now suddenly much, much more receptive to the idea of reading anything and everything in it.
And since I've been in a huge Batman mood lately thanks to my replaying the Arkham games, I'm starting with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's acclaimed run on Batman proper. Easy to do, since DC has put out two box sets collecting the first six trades (roughly the first three years of the run) which are relatively inexpensive on Amazon.

So first up was The Court of Owls and The City of Owls.
As a story, it's really just kind of okay, with some great concepts in play, but kind of a muddled narrative overall. The idea of a mythic Illuminati-esque society in Gotham that Batman disregarded years ago is pretty great. But it's only been about a week since I finished the storyline, and looking back on it... I honestly can't remember for the life of me what their goal was. I can easily remember what the end villain was all about (interesting psychotic twist on that one), but the Court of Owls themselves... I'm a bit lost on. They exist, and they hold a lot of power; otherwise, I can't recall if they were actually trying to achieve anything at all, which is a bit strange.
But, funny enough, little of that matters, because the real joy of reading this stuff comes with Snyder's apparently very firm grasp of Batman and his surrounding cast. Batman's inner monologue is dark, sure, but surprisingly poetic and expressive as well. This is likely some of the strongest characterization I've ever read of Batman himself, and that's saying something. The whole storyline also goes to great lengths to give more personality to Gotham itself, as Batman frequently gives rundowns of the history behind various buildings and parts of the city as the story goes on. It's cliche to say that "the city is like a character itself," but this is probably the truest example of that that I've ever seen. Regardless of the actual storyline feeling stangely loose, the progression of it is still incredibly fun to read through. Snyder apparently knows exactly what he wants these characters, and Gotham itself, to be. And goddamn, am I ever excited to read the rest of his run.

Took a break from the New 52 at the moment to finally, after all these years, read the original A Death in the Family storyline. All these years, as much as I know about it and all that, and I've never actually read it. Didn't seem quite right, so that's priority.
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby MiTT3NZ » Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:38 pm

A Death in the Family's a surprisingly silly read. And Scott Snyder's easily the worst thing that happened to Batman imo.

I always maintain that in the hands of anyone else, Batman (being one of the flagship New 52 titles along with Justice League) could've essentially saved the whole reboot thing. Instead he decided to rehash the Black Glove storyline with a pale imitation, wrote one of the most ridiculous Batman stories in Zero Year (though I remember enjoying the first couple of issues to an extent), and Death of the Family was just... pointless, almost.

The funny thing is that his best work writing Batman was his run on Detective Comics when he handled Dick Grayson under the cowl. But even though the stories were built up around his character, he wrote most of the dialogue like it was Bruce Wayne.

He actually wrote the story for another "Grayson as Batman" series about the architecture of Gotham. Or summat like that. I remember thinking to myself when reading the dialogue and monologues "Short, snappy, like an acrobat without much time to think... he's finally figured it out!" Then it turned out that someone else was writing all the dialogue.

Greg Capullo's art was pretty class though.

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Calshot » Wed Sep 06, 2017 10:24 pm

The New 52 got a bad rap in my opinion. It was trashed as this completely shit moves that was one of the worst mistakes of the decade , but it was more middling than anything with some good runs being buried under the New 52's reputation.

The last full run comic I read was The Flinstones comic that was part of the DC/Hannah-Barbara series.

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I thought it was great. It really makes the "modern stone age" concept work and does a good job at addressing modern issues without picking sides and turning the other side into a strawman (for the most part). It had a good balance of jokes and poignant moments without trying too hard to force either.

I also read the Batman/Elmer fudd comic that came out in August as part of a Looney Tunes crossover.
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It was better than it had any right of being.

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby OL » Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:05 am

MiTT3NZ wrote: A Death in the Family's a surprisingly silly read.


:lol: Yeah, I'm actually finding that to be the case. The best parts are the parts I already knew, and had already seen the visuals for: the Joker beating Jason Todd with a crowbar being most notable (the alternating panels going from windup to swing, windup to swing have always made it feel especially brutal for an older comic like this), and some of these Mike Mignola covers are pretty great, in particular the one featuring Jason's corpse which has always stuck with me as one of the most haunting covers I've seen, ever since I was a kid. I also like that Lady Shiva shows up, but that's just bias, since I'm such a fan of the 80s version of The Question and the early-2000s Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl.
But yeah, the rest of the story is pretty silly, most notably the bit near the end with the Joker getting diplomatic immunity. I strongly disagree with much of the portrayal of the Joker for that matter, particularly the scene of him going speechless when he meets the Ayatollah (even back then, the Joker should never be shown as being stunned by the presence of another human being like that; he doesn't give a fuck about being around Superman, much less the leader of Iran), and the way he seems money-hungry through most of it, like some common thug.
But then, the whole thing was also written by Jim Starlin, so the silliness should be no surprise. I more often associate Starlin with uber-cheesy cosmic Marvel stories, rather than Batman or DC in general (lo and behold, I just did a simple image search for his name, and just about all that comes up is images of Thanos, Warlock, and the Marvel version of Captain Marvel, so I guess I'm not the only one). A Death in the Family is important because of the death of Jason Todd, but beyond that it's probably not really worth the read. It's probably fine for any Batman fan to just know the results without having to read it.

It's not a total loss though; the trade for A Death in the Family also comes with the five-issue follow-up story, A Lonely Place of Dying, which is the introduction of Tim Drake. Much, much better story than ADITF. Quite a lot of great stuff to be found in it; the panel splits between Batman and Two-Face as they both try to guess how to find one another are really clever, and the Titans issue with Dick revisiting Haley's Circus is a great way of officially revealing Tim (while also making him immediately likable). And the whole thing is written by Marv Wolfman, who I tend to think of as much more of a through-and-through DC guy, overall, so he kind of "gets it" a bit more than Starlin, at least as far as I like to see things being portrayed.
I have one issue to go on this one, but I really, really like it so far.


MiTT3NZ wrote:Instead he decided to rehash the Black Glove storyline with a pale imitation, wrote one of the most ridiculous Batman stories in Zero Year (though I remember enjoying the first couple of issues to an extent), and Death of the Family was just... pointless, almost.


Honestly, Zero Year is probably the part I've been most looking forward to; like I said, since I've come to this realization that the New 52 as a whole just isn't necessarily canon anymore, I'm suddenly fine with various changes and alternate takes on certain things. It's self-contained, so I'm game.
It's kind of like how I don't mind at all seeing Batman kill people in BvS; it's not canon to the main comics continuity, so who cares? Let them do an interesting take on things. Surprise me.
In that way, I'm totally looking forward to this sort of colorful, more high-adventure version of Batman's introduction to Gotham, as opposed to the dark, small, grimy version in Year One.
Doesn't change the Batman I know, so it's all cool with me.
Good call on the Black Glove though. Reminder that I need to read more of Morrison's run.


Calshot wrote:The New 52 got a bad rap in my opinion. It was trashed as this completely shit moves that was one of the worst mistakes of the decade , but it was more middling than anything with some good runs being buried under the New 52's reputation.


I was actually really surprised, in a good way, at some of the nuttier stuff they let through for the New 52. Recently read the first few issues of Justice League 3000 by Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis, and it's totally a return to the attitude of the good old 80s JLI comics (and its followups, Formerly Known As The Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League; all brilliant fun). JL3000 even features the return of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle a little bit later, which I can't wait to get to. I'm just a huge Keith Giffen fan all around; there's another book I've been meaning to read by him called Threshold, about a sort of undercover Green Lantern trapped in a Battle Royale-style game. Looks like a lot of fun, but man... nutty.
So yeah, I guess I'll be digging a lot more into the New 52 now. More than I thought I ever would, that's for sure.
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Calshot » Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:32 pm

America Chavez
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I've read some pretty terrible comics. And I mean terrible. Bottom of the barrel, worst of the worst comics including but not limited to:

Trouble, Marvel's extremely poor attempt to bring in more young female readers. Starring a young slutty Aunt May and teenage soap opera drama that not even the CW would air.

Nemesis, Mark Millar-penned comic made entirely of condensed teenage school shooter edginess. Starring an evil Batman knockoff and includes such highlights as "a womb rigged to collapse if the girl gets an abortion".

The Unfunnies, a newspaper-strip cartoon world with the humor, violence, and sex jokes of the same caliber as the absolute worst of Family Guy cutaway gags (also written by Mark Millar--what the fuck is wrong with that guy?). Starring Millar's dad badly photoshopped into the comic as a real world serial killer.

Those 3 are pretty much the unholy trinity of bad comics. I can confidently say that America Chavez is at least as bad as them, and has the potential to become even worse as it's still ongoing.

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Imagine every negative stereotype you know about the US far left, Tumblr, and the social justice movement. America is all of that made into the shape of a comic, without a trace of satire or self-awareness. It's not entertaining in the "so bad it's good" sense. It's more accurately described as "so bad it makes me angry and I keep reading to see how much angrier I can get". I want to break down and analyze all the moments of pure rage-inducing shit that happens every page, but I also don't want to diminish the effect of reading it firsthand by spoiling it.

Noted photographer Peter Parker reading America Chavez #1.
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I recommend reading it, just to see what not to do when writing a comic and how easy it is to get garbage published nowadays. But for the love of God, don't pay for it. Nobody at Marvel deserves money for it. Clearly nobody working on the comic gives a shit (and if they did, that's just sad). 4chan wrote a letter to the editor trashing the comic that was only barely disguised as praise, and they fucking printed it in the comic.

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Remember kids, if your comic about a badass lesbian from the utopian lesbian dimension that speaks badly Google-translated Spanish isn't selling well, it's because everyone is bigoted and racist.

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Re: What are you reading?

Postby OL » Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:32 am

Recently got interested in a lot of comics I never thought I'd be interested in.

See, I got the Fourth World by Jack Kirby Omnibus for Christmas, so I've been chipping away at that; always wanted to read the legitimate origins of the various Apokolips and New Genesis characters (and just more Jack Kirby work in general) so I've been enjoying myself quite a lot. It's all pretty silly and appropriately old-fashioned, but the level of creativity present is still ridiculously impressive.
But that made me start looking around at other Fourth World material. And outside of Kirby himself, it seems pretty widely considered that Walt Simonson's 25-issue Orion series is the cream of the crop. So I bought the omnibus for that, and I'm pretty excited about cracking that open; apparently Simonson has a knack for writing sprawling epics over a large number of issues, and actually finishing what he starts. Sounds groovy, and I'm in love with the visuals and whatnot that I've seen thus far.

So that's all well and good; I've always loved DC, and always been interested in the Fourth World material, so nothing surprising there.

But then looking into Simonson himself, it seems that he was also responsible for just about the most widely-acclaimed run on Thor ever produced, way back in the early-80s. Now, Thor is a character I've always scoffed at, and have never had any particular interest in. As a superhero, he's about as goofy as can be. But apparently Simonson doesn't treat his run so much as a superhero comic, but rather as an epic about gods and myth. And it's really weird, but that simple spin somehow makes the character a whole lot more appealing (and Simonson's art and visual storytelling ability don't hurt one bit).
So now I've also ordered the omnibus for his entire run on Thor (these friggin omnibus editions are a godsend). It's so weird, after all these years, to say that I'm actually excited about Thor comics... but damn, I totally am.

And then, looking into all these Marvel comics of the 80s, I kept tripping over works by John Byrne; someone I've always respected as a classic artist, but have never legitimately read a whole lot of his most famous works outside of some old X-Men.
Apparently his work on Fantastic Four in the early-80s is all kinds of classic. And as I was looking into it and seeing all this artwork from it, I kept getting this warm feeling kind of like... nostalgia, but without ever having seen any of it before. And I really dig that feeling. So, keeping with this whole omnibus structure, I'm saving up for the two omnibi (that's the plural of omnibus, right?) that collect his entire run on Fantastic Four. Like the Thor issue, it's all a bit strange, since I've legitimately never had much interest in the FF before this, yet suddenly I'm really excited to read it.

Funny, I'd thought that Marvel has effectively killed my interest in them, what with their comics being utter shit for the past decade at least, and what with their movies and whatnot being so hackneyed and stale by now. The idea of Marvel in general leaves a bad taste in my mouth nowadays, more often than not.
But there's still something to the old stuff. Something I'm really yearning to explore a lot more now
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Re: What are you reading?

Postby Truck_1_0_1_ » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:15 pm

Got the Bond novels last year for Christmas and I'll be reading a book a flight, on my 4 flights this year (Costa Rica and Italy).

Really looking forward to it, as I'm a Bond nut and reading is bliss.

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