On Monday my brother´s room was getting new windows. And because my room is next to his, and the house is built so cheap that when you take off a part of his wall you also take off a part of my wall I had people going in and out of my room the whole day. On Tuesday my brothers decided to swap room so they had to get all of their stuff out. Which meant that my room also was full of their stuff and I spent most of the day taking my clothes out of the cupboard and into the cupboard again. Which made my carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand come back.
On Wednesday my brothers were still busy with putting their stuff in order and because some of my stuff was in what used to be the work office I had to go to the cellar a few times. I think the main reason why my brother agreed to swap rooms was because he couldn´t get me to take my stuff out of his room. I swear, he´s like Caligula, Garfield and Dr. Doom rolled into one - on acid. He always tries to get what he wants, like it says in THE PRISONER : by hook or by crook.
In any case I don´t want to bitch about my brother, that would take at least a whole series of posts. So on Wednesday I finally got my room back. On Thursday I would have had time to post but I have a business appointment. It seems I´m starting a new company. Yes, I was also surprised. I mean it´s not like I have anything to do like translating comics or writing a blog or all this other stuff. No, that doesn´t take any work. It´s done in 5 minutes. And it´s not important what I want to do anyway.
That´s all a waste of time. So we´ll see how this new company will go.
But let´s talk about comics, which is the focus of this blog now that I finally have time to write.
Lately I have been re - reading a lot of my old comics. Just the other day I read FINAL CRISIS - LEGION OF THREE WORLDS ( must have been the dozenth time ) when I came to that passage where Brainiac 5 mentions the first LEGION OF THREE WORLDS mission. Now I did a bit of research but I´m not sure if that is a part of the existing continuity. The war of Zoom against the Allen family has been documented and XS´ history coincides with the story. But I think the really original LEGION OF THREE WORLDS story hasn´t been told yet.
Someone mentioned that this story was probably what Geoff Johns originally wanted to tell but that he had to change his plans because of FINAL CRISIS. But who knows ? I also read something from a guy who was like analyzing how parallel universes really work ( in comparison to how it works in the story because we all took that course in school ) and explainig why the story doesn´t work.
And all I wanted to do was to say : hey, dude, chill out. It´s only a made up story. It´s not real. It doesn´t matter if the chances are a billion to one or that that´s not supported by scientific facts. There also are no scientific facts that say that it has to be bad weather whenever I leave the house. It just happens. Swear to god, I never understand why some people think too much.
In any case, I hope we get to read the first LEGION OF THREE WORLDS adventure eventually. Right now I´m not reading a lot of Legion stuff. Because of the 3.99 $ price on a lot of comics I missed the first issues of the new LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES book and now I have to wait for the trade.
And of course my brother is reading the Superman series that doesn´t have to Legion co - feature so I´ll also have to wait for that trade.
I think they will come out in April or June next year. So maybe I´ll find some back issues at this month´s Stuttgarter Comicbörse. But I don´t have much faith because the number of dealers who have US comics is growing smaller and smaller each time.
Another comic I re - read was ELQUEST by Wendy and Richard Pini. The thing is that I was cleaning my shelf porn ( there was a lot of dust on the books ) and started to thumb through all my old issues of ELFQUEST. At the same time there was an episode with Wendy and Richard Pini on Fanboy Radio that I listened to and I got the old comicbug again.
Now the comics were not as good as when I read them the first time. But not because the story doesn´t hold up qualitywise - it´s still above a lot of the stuff that´s published Today in that regard - but because I already knew most of the plot twists and surprise. ELFQUEST is still one of the best comics out there.
The funny thing is that I often hear comicfans complain about the fact that comics are translated into other media. Well, I have to say in my case I would never have started reading the comic if I hadn´t read the book adaption first.
Back then my main source for comic books and paperbacks was a small newsstand near the city hall in Ludwigsburg. It wasn´t a big newsstand but I had a good selection of paperbacks, pulps and comics. I bought my first issues of SCHWERMETALL
( HEAVY METAL ) and U - COMIX
( kind of a funny mag with american and franco - belgian underground material ) there and because it was near my busstation I was there at least once a day.
I bought an issue of JOHN SINCLAIR,
PROFESSOR ZAMORRA
or DIE SPINNE
every other day. So one day I saw an issue of ABENTEUER IN DER ELFENWELT but they were already at the third or fourth issue. So I wasn´t sure if it was worth it to try it. From Today´s point of view 4 Deutschmarks is nothing ( right now that´s like 2 EUROS ) but back at that time I had a pretty small budget. But there was also a book adaption published from Goldmann Verlag ( I think ) that was translated by Wolgang Hohlbein ( sorry, I couldn´t find a better picture ).
At that time he wasn´t the famous fantasy writer of CHRONICLES OF THE IMMORTALS and mostly known for writing DAMONA KING,
PROFESSOR ZAMORRA and other pulps.
I bought the adaption, I read it and I really liked it. The only problem was that at that time there were no professional comicshops and since the only issues the newsstand had were issues 3 and 5.
So I went to all newsstands, papershops or stationary shops in Ludwigsburg, Eglosheim, Neckarweihigen...wherever till I got the missing back issues. Back then being a comicfan meant a lot of legwork.
So I started reading Elquest which was published by BASTEI till issue 37.
Issue 38 was announced but they never published it. Later on CARLSEN republished some of the issues but at a much higher price. They also published some of the following stories but not all of them were drawn by Wendy Pini. It was also difficult to read them because they were rather expensive and there was a lot of short series instead one long one. The price for the BASTEI issues had gone up from 3.80 Marks to 6.80 Marks and I think the CARLSEN issues were even more expensive. I never quite got the hang of the reading order so I passed on them.
There was a series later on in the pamphlet format but I have no idea where they ended up. I don´t know if they stopped publishing them or if I just stopped buying them but I don´t think I finished them.
I used to go to the HEINZELMÄNNCHEN comicshop in Stuttgart and I always looked through the new publications there and whenever they had a new Elfquest issue out I got that. But since the shop closed I mostly just go to my comicshop in Esslingen and mostly just for picking up the stuff that´s on my pull list. Sometimes I´ll go to the Fantasy Stronghold in Ludwigsburg but that´s mostly just a lot of cardgames, Yu - Gi - Oh and Naruto. It may be that I stopped reading Elfquest when the shop in Stuttgart closed. Weird, how important a good comicshop is for your reading habits. Back when I had more comicshops to go to I read more comics outside of superheroes.
Anyway, one of these days those old issues of Elfquest will pop up and maybe I can complete my collection. I have been doing a bit of research about ELFQUEST because I thought it would be about time to start WORLD´S GREATES COMIC BOOKS. The thing that I found really unbelievable was how many people dissed the series because of some of the adult content in the stories. It´s not like it´s outright porn but obviously showing adults having sex is too much for some people. I mean, what do those people think where all the little elfes come from ?
I have to say that was one of the things I liked about the series. Since it was an independent comic Wendy and Richard Pini didn´t bother with the restrictions mainstream books have. Which wouldn´t have made any sense.
Maybe I´ll find some issues at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse but who knows ? In any case ELFQUEST is one of the comic classics that has my absolute recommendation. If you haven´t read it yet you should definitely give it a try. It´s totally Airwolf !
Speaking of who ( what an elegant segueway ) the post I wanted to do on Sunday was about DR. WHO. While being on the website of Los Comic Geekos I found a link to the 3D animated series DREAMLAND with spanish subtitles on YouTube. The animation is not half - bad and the story is really interesting.
article about DR. WHO - DREAMLAND
review of DR. WHO - DREAMLAND ( with spoilers )
Here you can watch the normal version :
There is also another animated series called The Infinity Quest which looks a bit like fanmade animation. But it´s funny to hear the actors with their original voices and it helps the wait till the next season of Dr. Who airs in Germany. Which will beprobably in 2014 if I know my german tv stations.
And with that our time for Today is once again up. I just hope all this stuff about old german comics wasn´t too boring for my german readers.
As I already have three videos from YouTube on this post I won´t add a third one so there will be no Green Lantern related clip Today. Sorry.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest
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