[Mr. Thorne]

I LIKE the Ultimates series. Especially 'ultimate' CA, with his (to my mind) tougher, more military outlook toward things.

He beats Giant Man to a pulp, 'cause GM's beatin' his wife. He takes the Hulk (!?) down with a kick right in the stones (after dropping a tank on his head, to be sure). He has (shades of DC's Batman) every battle plan backed up with secondary and tertiary plans for various contingencies.

Sure, Thor's a raging leftist, but frankly, I can live with that. My big complaint with 'team' comic books has been that (apparently) the writers are so far left, they can't even WRITE about a realistic conservative character.

I agree re: Ultimate X-Men, Spidey. Which is too bad, considering I dearly love the work of the artist (Mark Bagley) on USM. I just didn't get into the book early enough and don't feel inclined to buy an entire back-issue run. Which is a sure sign to me that the writing isn't doing it for me.

But let's face it. I'm a Graphic Designer/Illustrator who, years ago, USED to buy a dozen mags a month. The last few months, I was buying two-three. Frank Cho's Liberty Meadows, The Ultimates, and I splurged for the JLA/Avengers crossover (I like George Perez's illustration, too; although, from what I hear, he too, is a ranting leftist).

Well, Ultimates is done for a while. JLA/Avengers is over (4 issue limited series). Only Libery Meadows continues.

FWIW, I also bought Top Cow's Magdalena books. Just like the concept. Nice to have a Catholic heroine. Of course, they had to screw that up, too (went all DaVinci Code on me, doggonit).

Oh well...

[lentulusgracchus]

(went all DaVinci Code on me, doggonit)

?????

[TheBigB]

Does anyone besides me read Iron Man nowadays? It seems to be a complete opposite of everything else Marvel is doing...Tony Stark is now W.'s Secretary of Defense. Bush has been pictured several times, with absolutely no insulting or belittling portrayals at all.

[weegee]

I haven't given up reading comics but for budgetary reasons (cover prices have climed so high even for cheap paper comics from DC) and general lack of quality, I end up buying more material about comics than comics themselves these days.

I read The Comics Journal (and am quite aware of the politics of Fantagraphics/Gary Groth, yet somehow they aren't as offensive in their rants or comics are those at Marvel, like Peter David, are). I read Comic Art (and recently saw some things Carl Barks had to say against the Marxists who wrote a book slamming Barks' Uncle Scrooge over political ideology, good to see some conservativism out of CB).

Most of what I read is independent (and published on such a random schedule that I have no "pull" service at any store. Cerebus has ended after nearly 30 years (at the announced 300 issue). Only good thing is now I can sit and read the later "phone book" editions that collected the individual issues.

The DC comic that I eventually dropped was called Sweatshop. It was written (and sometimes drawn) by Peter Bagge but $2.75 was just too high for such a cheaply printed product.

Everything else I get: The Magic Whistle, Eightball, Black Hole, Zippy The Pinhead Annual (collects the year's previous strips), sometimes Love And Rockets or Hernandez Bros. work, and a slew of other things that maybe come out once or twice a year.