Comics

Edit 5/10/2013: I recently posted comments on a few comics-related websites, and shortly thereafter someone looked at this post.  Please note that I wrote this language-of-hype-trying-to-serve-as-critical-insight post 8 long years ago.  I've grown, okay?

A few funny comic books:

Plastic Man. The current version of Plastic Man is by Kyle Baker, one of the funniest people in comics. His graphic novels The Cowboy Wally Show and Why I Hate Saturn knocked readers out with some of the smartest, funniest writing in comics, and witty, expressive but underplayed art. Baker's characters are always really sharp actors. His Plastic Man is done in a more Warner Bros. style of cartooniness, and Baker's mastery of that kind of humor makes me wonder why he isn't running Warner Bros. animation department now. He writes and draws the whole comic himself, which is quite unusual for a regular color comic, with the occasional fill-in issue by Scott Morse, another comics virtuoso whose stuff is always really impressively drawn and/or painted but which lacks Baker's tangy gag craftsmanship.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle. This is by Michael Kupperman, who does a lot of illustration work for upscale clientele, but his fans know him primarily for his absurd gag cartooning. His drawings tends to look like really high-grade clip art and his jokes are similar to the type you get on the hipper Cartoon Network shows, but he was there first. A favorite sample gag: the cover of a comic titled Two-Fisted Poe shows Edgar Allen Poe clobbering a crook and saying: "Quoth the Raven: LIGHTS OUT!"

Franklin Richards. This is a one-shot from Marvel Comics about Sue (Invisible Woman) and Reed (Mister Fantastic) Richards of the Fantastic Four. Basically it's Richie Rich with off-brand Calvin and Hobbes style art. Eh. You'd do better to buy an actual issue of Richie Rich.

I know I'm missing something (edit: meaning "I'm forgetting a title or two" rather than the manner in which I usually miss something).

The weather's suddenly turned Autumnal. Very pleasant!