Holy balls that Hulk dude's post was difficult to read. Constant all-caps breaks my eyes. I trudged along, though.
I disagree that "cool" factor isn't enough to fully like something. SUDA51 has made an entire career on "cool." Sure, there's some interesting themes and storytelling in
killer7, but most of his games are just...cool...and weird...but most definitely cool. Kevin Eastman comics are the same way: lots of guts, swearing, and nudity because it's cooooool.
That said, apart from Bman being cool, I love his behavior. Antisocial, yes. Potentially sociopathic, yes. Indulging in negative emotions, certainly. He's a brooding bastard and we love 'im for it; we love seeing him bust up the bad guys but still feel depressed and hopeless. He's the ultimate manchild. It's why in Timm's universe (mirroring Miller's) he goes from being this noble hero in
Batman: TAS to a miserable cunt in
Batman Beyond. It's as if his fervor isn't really...doing...anything, but destroying himself and making others hate him.
I don't think Laird is involved with the turtles comics in any capacity is he now?
Nope, signed it all away, but during his reign he decided that the Image series sucked and so when he started
TMNT Volume 4, he disregarded all that had happened—although there is a semi-official fan comic coming out that will bridge the gap between Vols. 3 and 4, making the events in Vol. 3 canon and explaining how it could possibly go from one to the next.
But Laird does retain rights to publish a handful of TMNT stories a year of his own continuity, but he has yet to do anything with that privilege, even though he's sitting on two completed/unpublished issues.
The creator intentionally has tried to create a western style mythos by the way, western fantasy movies being one influence. For example the look of Guts is based on Rutger Hauer.
Which is partly why I'm really digging it. Not surprised to hear Guts was modeled after Hauer; I was getting a serious
Flesh+Blood vibe from the comic (an incubus being born from the blood and spooge of those who died violently with intense hatred in their heart or whatever—reminded me of the mandrake scene from that movie) and the phrase "flesh and blood" is even used prominently—in the English translation, anyway.
Love how much the God Hand remind me of the Cenobites but...creepier.
Though a lot of the old EC comics (especially the horror ones) are kind of one-note and cheesy from the perspective of the modern reader. And I absolutely hate the recoloring job they did for the hardcover line of reprints.
I love their horror stories because they're pretty clever and comical. The writing's not as smart as
The Twilight Zone, but it's some serious fun and the art is always phenomenal.
The recolorings ain't so bad in my book. Most of the time they seem to stick to the original color schemes as closely as possible:
And when they do veer off the beaten path, it's not as if they do a
bad job:
I disliked the idea of the recolor jobs until I bought some of the EC Annual books and compared side-by-side and realized, "This isn't so bad." That and the lineart looks a hell of a lot better on the EC Archives reprints.
Looking forward to getting my grubby mitts on the Carl Barks Donald Duck reprints from Fantagraphics one of these days though, Fantagraphics always does a terrific job.
The Scrooge book I have is a beaut'. Definitely wanting to get more Scrooge and Donald books.