What am I reading this week: The British Invasion and God is Dead
The British Invasion: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and the Invention of the Modern Comic Book Writer by Greg Carpenter
On the recommendation of our dear Bloginatrix, I picked up this book from the Sequart Organization. I love the Sequart site and have been looking for an excuse to pick up one of their books (their blog here). This is a dangerous, dangerous book as you read it you will find yourself digging up comics you have not read in decades or ending up with a stack of comics to buy. But, if you want a heaping dish of critical analysis and historical context to go along with your comics this book is great. Personally, not covering a ton of new ground, but remind me of a ton of books I want to reread and adding a bit of context which is always interesting.
TL;DR: Recommended
Jonathan Hickman’s God is Dead by Mike Costa and Emiliano Urdinola (most recently)
Avatar is an interesting contradiction of a comic book company, at its best it is something like HBO. Where removing the restrictions of having to a PG or even R rated comic, frees the creators to explore, experiment, and create great new transgressive works. At its worst, it is the same impulses that fill comics with T&A freed from the shackles of normal mores, let loose to fill comics with gratuitous nudity, sex, and senseless violence.
Sadly, this book ventures further into the second type rather than the first. The high concept is that someone has killed God and the god and goddesses of myth are free to roam the earth again. And, somehow the humans win, or so it seems for a while. This plays out with a great amount of blood, and guts, and sex. I really wanted to like this series more, but it has really outlasted its welcome.
TL;DR: first 6 or so issue mildly recommended. Not so much the rest.
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