Inspirtaion - What I want to and have been reading

Man I've been reading some good stuff, if only I had the money to buy it. Here's what is currently inspiring me.

Graphic novles:

DC - Superman: Doomsday – ok so obviously the new omnibus, awesome but expensive. After seeing the new WB animated movie I was intrigued much more by the special features detailing the creation of the comic book arc and have wanted to read them ever since. There are alot of classic anatomy things I can learn from Jurgens and Brendings too, their good most of the time.

MARVEL - Astonishing X-men: Unstoppable - grew to love the art and always loved Joss' writing. I’ve only read the 1st graphic, I need to read the middle 2 before this one but my girlfriend has read them and loved them. Just knowing that there is an end is nice, so often in comics things are left so randomly ambiguous and open-ended.

DC - Simon Dark vol. 1 - Awesome art and very cool jigsaw/slipknot looking character.

MARVEL - Moon Knight - Vol 1. the bottom – (I did want to get the original “essential moon knight’s” since I always did like him, and guiltily Dark Hawk, but Sinkevitch did some really cool stuff when he was kind of in his Neal Adams) broken, pill popping and alcoholic moon knight broods over his bloody encounter where he cut the face off one of his enemies killing him (or so he thought) right after he was tossed down from the rooftop of an alley breaking his legs and bones w/ every fire escape he hit. Amazing art by Finch and even better writing and commentary on what a super-hero is, how far he can go etc.

MARVEL - Spider-man - One more day - heard the plot synopsis from a friend, amazing artwork. Peter dodges a bullet that kills Aunt May and makes a pact to trade his love with Marry Jane for her life back, leaving him only one more day before he forgets her entirely. The idea being if they are soul mates they will meet again, kind of like Goto's comic.

DC - IDENTITY CRISIS - Awesome art, awesome story - One of the few thing's I’ve been interested in from Dc in a while. Plus it has a artist/writer interview in the end - all for 15 bucks.

Image - Wildstar – still trying to see if this is collected in a graphic yet or not, I read an article on it in an old “comics magazine” and was excited.

MARVEL - Essential Fantastic 4 Vol 7. - I heard and have been waiting for this one, issue 141: reed is forced to shoot his own son (turning him into a vegetable and "shutting down his brain") as his powers threaten to grow out of control and destroy the whole world, despite his decision the team breaks up, sue considers divorce. In the next few issues, on his own the thing gets into trouble w/ no one to help him and Reed goes out to dinner with Medusas (I always loved the Inhumans) only to find Doctor Doom (like Darth Vader on cloud city in Empire Strikes Back), then jealously fights Namor for Sue.
Medusa: You can't blame yourself like this, you did what you had to do.
Is that good enough, will that bring my son back, will it make my wife love me again?
-It's so dark and so good. He becomes so conflicted it's amazing, though the art isn't top notch in the issues following.

Both X-men and Fantastic 4 have come out in their entirety on cd for about $40 which is what I should probably buy, FF even comes with the entire silver surfer collection now. But if I got the X-men one I'd get to see Neal Adam's do X-men, old JRJR in what I consider his prime.

I wish I could cheaply get the Daredevil book Frank Millar wrote with JRJR's art, it now comes in an omnibus with Frank's work and Sinkevitch's Electra book. Awesome, but oh so expensive.

Series:

Comico comics - The Elementals - I bought issues 1-30 off of ebay but promised myself I wouldn't start reading them until I got done writing Terra Novus. I found a few issues in the quarter bins in NY and I had dying for some more ever since. It's superheroes from an indie standpoint, no rules - sex, gore, violence - does it cross the line?

Epic comic's - Powerline Saga - Al Williamson, who also worked on Elementals - amazing realistic art, more realistic superheroes.

Marvel – Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance – it was dark and drawn by the Kubert kids in their prime so you know it’s good.

Marvel - Morbius the living vampire – had all but the 1st issue and I’ve been holding off on reading it till then. Eventually the artist changed but the 1st 10 issues or so I’ve loved since I was a boy.

Vertigo – Scarab – Have all but one issue so I have the same problem as Morbius. Amazing art, psychedelic, Gaiman-esk writing – awesome.

In other news:

Legion of Superheroes Tv show – so it’s not a comic and it’s cancelled now but I watched the 1st 4 episodes w/ my little brother and they were actually really good. I don’t like the art as much but I can stand it for the stories and the change in season 2 and the finale for season 1 look to set up some pretty interesting dynamics. I’m looking forward to watching some more.

I should be able to start writing the 1st issue of me and James’ 10 issue mini-series tomorrow, we’ve worked out the plot roughly and the 1st issue rather tightly. I get new ideas daily and if I have the time and we stick to it we could have a very cool story here, longer, serialized and very fun to work on, highlighting both of our styles.