02-01-2007, 02:45 PM
As I look back over the past few Moonstone Phantom releases, for some reason I'm compelled to post a progress report of sorts. Just my opinions, folks. I'd be interested in reading any responses.
Graham Nolan Sundays Vol. 2 -- Much appreciated. I'm glad you are providing this series, given the scarcity of the Sunday Phantom in today's local papers. Yeah, I read them online at DailyINK, but having these nice bound volumes gives more people a chance to see them on paper, and I don't have to go searching for tearsheets to collect 'em all. Hope you'll come out with an additional volume (or would it be two?) to finish up his run. Then it's on to a similar treatment for Paul Ryan's work. And a Sy Barry series would be great, too.
Phantom #11 -- To me, this is the one story that has been published to date by Moonstone that most captures the spirit of the newspaper comics. I'd love to see more of these stories. Not all Phantom stories should be like this one, but there should at least be more of them. Nice to see the twins featured, and I would love to see Moonstone publish a companion title featuring the Phantom Twins that would be aimed at a younger audience.
Legacy -- I really enjoyed this book. I'm not going to say it didn't have its flaws, such as the way the difficult font slowed down the reading experience, but I really liked seeing a nice piece built around the first Chronicle entry of the Phantom. I consider it to be more of a collectible than a graphic novel.
Law of the Jungle -- Sorry, this didn't work for me. The story was well-written enough, I just didn't see it as a story to build one of the all too-few Phantom graphic novels around. I think the story would have worked better as one of the short stories in the upcoming Chronicles release. The illustrations looked more to me as though they should have been the images appearing on a Widevision Phantom trading card set I would like to own. The two together as a graphic novel didn't come together for me.
Phantom #12 & Phantom #13 -- The story was way too sparse in these. Issue #12 seemed more like a prologue that could have been told in 3-4 pages.
Phantom #14 -- Better, as there's more story going on in these pages. Why do I feel the "gang takes over small town" plot is overused in Phantom stories? Still, you can tell Mike Bullock is starting to settle into his role as Phantom writer.
The Man Eaters -- This is good. A vast improvement over the first Widevision book. The graphics are larger on each page. I'm halfway through and enjoying the story. I'd recommend two things if you do another Widevision book: 1) It's okay to have a page or two along the way that is only graphics -- to me, this is more favorable than seeing an illustration supporting a part of a story you read two ore three spreads earlier; and 2) Please stop using reversed text, white on black -- it's harder to read, especially since the character serifs tend to fill in.
Phantom Annual #1 -- This is exceptional. Picked up both the regular edition and the variant cover edition. Truly the best thing you've done in publishing the Phantom. I'd like to see a similar project, well, annually. My greatest complaint is that I wanted the individual stories to be longer -- only because they were so good, I wish there had been more of each one to enjoy!
Looking forward to more in the future.
Graham Nolan Sundays Vol. 2 -- Much appreciated. I'm glad you are providing this series, given the scarcity of the Sunday Phantom in today's local papers. Yeah, I read them online at DailyINK, but having these nice bound volumes gives more people a chance to see them on paper, and I don't have to go searching for tearsheets to collect 'em all. Hope you'll come out with an additional volume (or would it be two?) to finish up his run. Then it's on to a similar treatment for Paul Ryan's work. And a Sy Barry series would be great, too.
Phantom #11 -- To me, this is the one story that has been published to date by Moonstone that most captures the spirit of the newspaper comics. I'd love to see more of these stories. Not all Phantom stories should be like this one, but there should at least be more of them. Nice to see the twins featured, and I would love to see Moonstone publish a companion title featuring the Phantom Twins that would be aimed at a younger audience.
Legacy -- I really enjoyed this book. I'm not going to say it didn't have its flaws, such as the way the difficult font slowed down the reading experience, but I really liked seeing a nice piece built around the first Chronicle entry of the Phantom. I consider it to be more of a collectible than a graphic novel.
Law of the Jungle -- Sorry, this didn't work for me. The story was well-written enough, I just didn't see it as a story to build one of the all too-few Phantom graphic novels around. I think the story would have worked better as one of the short stories in the upcoming Chronicles release. The illustrations looked more to me as though they should have been the images appearing on a Widevision Phantom trading card set I would like to own. The two together as a graphic novel didn't come together for me.
Phantom #12 & Phantom #13 -- The story was way too sparse in these. Issue #12 seemed more like a prologue that could have been told in 3-4 pages.
Phantom #14 -- Better, as there's more story going on in these pages. Why do I feel the "gang takes over small town" plot is overused in Phantom stories? Still, you can tell Mike Bullock is starting to settle into his role as Phantom writer.
The Man Eaters -- This is good. A vast improvement over the first Widevision book. The graphics are larger on each page. I'm halfway through and enjoying the story. I'd recommend two things if you do another Widevision book: 1) It's okay to have a page or two along the way that is only graphics -- to me, this is more favorable than seeing an illustration supporting a part of a story you read two ore three spreads earlier; and 2) Please stop using reversed text, white on black -- it's harder to read, especially since the character serifs tend to fill in.
Phantom Annual #1 -- This is exceptional. Picked up both the regular edition and the variant cover edition. Truly the best thing you've done in publishing the Phantom. I'd like to see a similar project, well, annually. My greatest complaint is that I wanted the individual stories to be longer -- only because they were so good, I wish there had been more of each one to enjoy!
Looking forward to more in the future.