(Part 2) Best products from r/comics

>since some books of the claim inspiration or divine influence (for instance, prophetic works), the question is whether they are authentic. when isaiah says that "thus says yahweh", is it the word of yahweh, or not?

Now you are moving the goal posts. That does not address the authenticity of the text's allegedly divine source (eg, "Who really painted this picture?"). Nevertheless, the answer is still the same -- there's no objective way to discern from the text whether Isaiah was speaking for God, for himself, or for someone else (assuming arguendo someone by that name actually spoke those words in the first place). You gotta have faith or go home.

>in precisely the same way that geology studied in a good university doesn't disprove the global flood of noah. there are YECs that end up with college degrees in geology, and they make very similar arguments.

Your analogy fails for at least one very basic reason: scientists have a vast range of experience with floods and similar worldly phenomena. We know what causes floods, we know what sorts of signs they leave behind, and we know that the water has to come from somewhere. To believe in a worldwide flood, you would have to ignore what we know about floods, the conservation of matter, the Laws of Thermodynamics, etc. A divine text, however, lacks that basis for comparison. There are NO texts objectively confirmed to be of divine origin, so that we can compare the Bible. There's no way to objectively identify the signs of divine intervention so that we can look for them in the Bible.

You are correct that I am not a scholar of textual analysis at any detailed level. It has been years since I read "The Book of J" (a modern book about these issues) and I do not recall the details. Nevertheless, I am well aware that the Bible is a patchwork of ancient texts amending and expanding earlier texts. You and I simply fail to draw the same conclusions from those facts, because you and I do not have the same expectations from a divinely inspired text.

>you've made a claim that can't be proved -- it's not my job to disprove your unfalsifiable claim.

Absolutely NOT! I have reported my subjective faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible, but that's distinct from a claim of objective knowledge. The only claim I have made is about what I believe, not about any objective fact. YOU, on the other hand, have affirmatively claimed that the text of the Bible objectively reveals on its face a lack of divine inspiration. It's not a claim you can support, but you have insisted repeatedly that you can. You gave yourself an impossible burden of proof, but you are unable or unwilling to see that. Shifting the burden is unacceptable -- it is still yours.

> any other assumption is nonsense, for the above reason. is the text different from human texts, or isn't it? if it is, why? if it isn't, why treat it like it is?

Those are the questions YOU must answer, to meet your burden of proof. To you, they are rhetorical questions with self-evident answers, but not to me. Again, we have no text (with an objectively confirmed holy source) for comparison. Precisely how should a divinely inspired text differ from a purely human text, and can you identify any objective reason for saying so?

Without accepting an improperly placed burden of proof, let me tell you how my beliefs address those questions:

If a deity exists at all, that deity clearly insists on faith (belief without objective knowledge). I have inductively concluded that it is impossible to logically or empirically prove the existence of a deity, but that does not in itself mean a deity does not exist, nor does it affect the likelihood of a deity's existence. Unlike natural phenomena (eg, electromagnetism or gravity), our hypothetical deity is volitional -- it can decide when, how and to what extent it will act, so that it can avoid empirical detection and therefore avoid mooting faith. If a deity exists, then that deity is sufficiently wise and powerful to avoid objective proof.

If a holy book were to clearly and objectively demonstrate divine origin, then that would necessarily establish the existence of the divine and thus moot the role of faith. Your claim boils down to a complaint that God won't submit to scientific tests. We knew that already, and we also knew that faith (or its absence) is the only factor determining whether one is religious. As a corollary, faith is also the only factor determining whether one will believe a particular book is holy. There is no objective test of the text which will change this.

>"seminary" generally means "catholic" or similar groups which are generally not "fundamentalist".

English. Do YOU speak it? Many, many protestant pastors graduate from protestant seminaries. While some may very well drop out and abandon their faith, that is a personal decision, the reasons for which you can only speculate about.

>>I have no reason to challenge the holy texts of other religions.

>so you accept that they are divinely inspired as well?

Really, are we even communicating? I meant what I said. Those other holy books might be divinely inspired or they might not -- I do not have an opinion.

>have you every considered the idea that you might be christian simply out of ignorance (or apathy) towards other religions which you think may or may not be valid? and that this might be worth looking into?

Of course. I'm Christian because I was reared that way and because my faith works for me. When my faith is stronger, I experience greater hope, love, joy, peace, strength, courage and compassion. Even if that's just a placebo effect (there's no way to objectively know), it is still an effect. I would be an irrational fool to risk losing it for no good reason.

>what makes the bible any different?

The Bible is the one that helps me, and that is enough of a difference for me.

I had the same thing (fake money) during 3rd grade. It was awarded for good grades and other positive things, and could be used for a number of small meaningless things throughout the year. The teacher told us that, for those who saved up, there was going to be an auction at the end of the year for some cool stuff that my child brain definitely wanted (3D puzzles, comics, books, awesome drawing pencils, etc). So, of course, I started hoarding.

We had a class of about 30 students, so I knew competition would be tight. I had to plan something. During that time, Joke books (i.e.: Generic Jokes #16!!!) were really popular, and I was a funny kid and into drawing; I figured I could earn some fake money by drawing, writing and printing my own Joke Books. (No one really had printers back then, but my step dad had a gigantic photocopier due to his home office, and I took advantage of that)

I made a "pilot" version of the first book, for myself, and started showing it off to kids in my class during recess. I offered them this: every Tuesday, I would deliver your new weekly joke book in your desk and you would owe me $5 in school monies after the first period. If I remember well, I had 6 or 7 people signed up for the first print run.

For the rest of the week, I would keep an ear open for any good jokes, or would write down any funny thing that would happen. I had quite a few pages of material which I subsequently modified and tweaked to appeal to the people who had signed up.

Sunday came, and I faked being sick so I wouldn't have to go to church with my parents. As soon as they were gone, I started cutting out drawings and jokes and aligned + taped them to a white sheet of paper to get my "Gold" version. I made all the copies needed + 2 extra (in case of higher demand) and put them in a binder.

Monday came along, and I started promoting the product/reminding people about the impending awesomeness. Most people at this point had already paid me in advance since, well, I was a pretty decent guy and we we were in the same class anyway. In just one day I had increased my stash of cash by probably 25%.

Tuesday was finally there, and since I walked to school, I was able to get there especially early. On my way to the pre-class recess (aka : where kids go to rot if they get dropped off too early), I dropped my bag at my desk and sneakily dropped off a copy in each of my client's desk (the old ones, where you stored everything inside it).

The first period hadn't even started and the gig was already up : some asshole kid opened his desk, saw an unidentified piece of paper and instead of reading what it was and turning around to give me a satisfied smile, decided to hyperventilate and run to the teacher. "MISS MISS!! I DIDN'T PUT THIS IN MY DESK YESTERDAY. I DON'T KNOW WHO PUT IT IN MY DESK". Fucking asshole; you had already paid me $5 for it.

The teacher only read one or two of the "jokes" and I was cooked. One of them was something along the lines of "What's black, white, black, white, black, white, red, black, white, red, white, red, black, red, red, red ? -- A nun falling down the stairs with a knife!" Which I thought was hilarious when someone had told me this joke, except their version was with a tomato dressed as a nun, and there was no knife (wtf?).

Did I mention this was a private catholic school, with a Nunnery and a Church attached to it? I may have forgotten to mention that. Anyways, it was.

I got in a lot of trouble, mostly doing extra homeworks and such (which didn't really matter because homeworks in 3rd grade were done within minutes) but if I recall I had to pay a hefty fine, which set me back quite a bit. My mom thought I was being creative and didn't punish me, yay!

Back to the monies however : I was down quite a few bucks and my awesome plan had been foiled. I tried starting it back up, but people didn't want to take the risk of getting caught with such literature. I was about the size of 2 apples and weighed as much as one, so offering bodyguard service wouldn't work. I was pretty bummed out and pretty much gave up on the prospect of buying that sick 3d puzzle....

...

...until I met Larry (let's call him Larry). Larry was a really big and quiet guy. I don't want to say special needs, but he wasn't normal needs. He would always eat alone and people would often kinda tease him (in a friendly-ish way) about stuff and he would jab back with funny things. No one really was good friends with him and he usually hung out alone.

One day, through circumstances unknown to me at the time, my mother decided to put me on "warm lunch", which was basically cafeteria food. You stood in line, and received your pre-packaged meal. The menu was laid out two months ahead, and the food wasn't too bad. Some of you may remember the pizza from these lunches, it was square and came in these square foil containers with a white lid. Cheese, pepperoni, sauce and bread. I think I saw a thread on Reddit a while ago about someone buying a whole box of em?

I digress. Larry definitely did not hate food. In fact, he loved food. If I was to rate his love of food on a scale of will-not-give-school-monies-for-it to will-give-school-monies-for-it, well I would choose the later.

Larry was a bit like the guy in OP's comic. He had saved up all his cash, and I have a feeling he had saved some from the previous year (I joined that school in third grade, so I wasn't aware of previously acquired funds until later). The one big difference was that, he hadn't done that to have complete dominance over the class; he just never wanted anything and his parents probably taught him not to spend his money on useless crap.

So I started selling him snacks from home. Then I started selling him my desserts I didn't like from the Warm Meal menu. Then, I just started picking exactly what he wanted from the menu and selling him everything (except the main meal, since I had to survive). As previously mentioned, I was a pretty decent kid most of the time, so when the cafeteria ladies would have extra pizza on those rare days, I would make my best puppy eyes and try to get a whole other portion...only to sell it to Larry for a very pretty penny.

When I first met Larry and he showed me how much cash he had in his desk (it was breaking the enveloppe he had it in), I figured the wealth could definitely be shared.

By the end of the year however, Larry was broke. I don't think he cared though, in a way...he had purchased happiness.

TLDR: I bought This 3D puzzle with school monies and made friends and enemies in the process.

EDIT: Here is the original post over in /r/graphicnovels. I think the mods may have removed x-post from my title, but here is the original location.

I've been a redditor for a long time, this is just my general account I use publicly. That's besides the point though.

My sister is quite talented, and hilarious. If nothing else, just enjoy the resources I'm going to link here for free content and other info. If you want to choose just one thing, go to the thread link and look at the video on kickstarter to get a sense of her humor. Her former publisher went under (mainly due to Borders going under). She is currently using kickstarter to fund her next project, and can use your help if you can spare it.



Her DeviantArt Gallery here.

Specifically, since this is r/comics, and she has a ton of artistic stuff that isn't related to comics on there, here is a direct link to a folder of one of her comic series that she does on there:

---->Amazing Comics! Amazing Comics! Amazing Comics!<----

Also see December Doodles and December Doodles 2011 for some more comics. If you are still interested, browse the main gallery for more random pieces, as well as her other artwork, costumes, sculptures, jewelry etc etc.


A bit more background if you want it: A graduate of SCAD in Sequential Art, she was the creator and artist/writer of the Tokyopop Graphic Novel series called Bizenghast (also, wikipedia Bizenghast link). Translated into like a dozen languages, the series concluded with volume 8. Tokyopop originally hired her after she entered their Rising Stars of Manga project and was featured in Volume 2 for the story Nikolai.

This is already too long, so I'll just add that I am looking into getting her to do an AMA this coming week. She's new to reddit, but I think she'd be great for an AMA. She's very witty on the responses, and would gladly answer all your questions about rampart.

TL;DR- She's a talented artist and creator of a lot of various content. Her former company went under along with Borders. If you would like to, go to the kickstarter page, look around, watch the video, throw her a few dollars if you can. If you just want to see a selection of some actual comics she has done, then go HERE.

I like well-drawn comics, but that doesn't mean they have to be intricate and detailed - just that they match the content very well. For example, I think John Campbell (Pictures for Sad Children) is great because he can get the emotion of scenes across really well with his simple drawings. (Though I equally love artists like David Hellman.)

I like funny comics as well as serious comics. I dislike comics that aren't even remotely funny (but are trying to be). I dislike comics that could have been funny, but they ruined themselves by either going on too long (Ctrl Alt Delete) or by explaining their punchline ((Ctrl Alt Delete) again).

I love comics that are consistently good, or at least only foul occasionally.

I dislike comics that are nothing but essays with pictures added. (I'm looking at you, 50% of Subnormality.) I think the comic form is a unique medium in itself and should not be treated in such a manner.

I like comics that are self-contained to a certain extent, in that either each comic is a unique situation (SMBC) or they only have particular story arcs (Dr. McNinja) and don't just go on forever with no resolution (Megatokyo). This is why, when I go to comics stores, I buy comic books (like Blankets) rather than serials (like X-Men). (There are exceptions to this rule, when a comic book is finished and the entire collection is sold as one, like Watchmen or Marvel 1602.)

I'm sure there's more, these are just my thoughts for now.

The only advice you need right now is to improve your draftsmanship. You need to understand anatomy to be able to draw people, no matter what level of detail/realism you wish to achieve. Animators and cartoonists who who draw all varieties of cartoon characters are always masters of drawing the human form. Even drawing characters like Fred Flinstone requires you to understand anatomy, such as the way joints bend, or hands and fingers function. Having a grasp on anatomy will help your story telling, no matter how you choose to exercise (or disregard) the knowledge. The best place to start learning is a very well known book authored by Andrew Loomis: Figure Drawing for What its Worth (this is one of the most well known peices of instructional drawing literature) Buy this book and study. You already have ideas that you want to draw, and thats great, and improving your draftsmanship will help you be able to get your ideas out. In addition to anatomy, You will also need to learn some basics of perspective, to be able to convincingly draw your stage for example, or how to set up characters around the stage and make them appear to all be on the same plane. Scott Robertson has a great book that teaches fundamentals of perspective, worth looking in to How to Draw Good Luck!

I can vouch for the following being amazing:

The Ultimates Omnibus (assuming it doesn't contain the suck that was Ultimates 3, which I don't think it does) was such an amazing story. It got butchered by the wait time, but if you have it all in one collection it is amazing. Get it cheaper though and just get this and this

Red Son was a great alternate reality comic. Well worthy of the time you put into it. A great What If... if I've ever read one.

Fables. You know what, just buy the series. The whole series. It is gold.

Y: The Last Man. Just see what I said for Fables. You can get the whole series in 10 paperback groupings. Check your local library or just steal a read at Borders if you're poor.

Bone. Wait, Bone was from the 2000's? Anyway, yes, it is amazing. The description they give doesn't match the epicness of it, but it does sum it up pretty damn well. Get it in one collective easily, or you could try for the COLORED version in individual books. It didn't make a difference for me.

Can you explain what genres she might be into? I think this request will be a lot more useful if you narrow it down to something like Sci-fi, super heroes, cowboys, ninjas, comedy, drama, romantic comedy, fantasy, witches/wizards etc etc.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest something I actually haven't read... Here's the graphic novel version of FLCL. The anime was a great coming of age story with a sci-fi layer. It also had some great art and the metaphors were hidden just deep enough that a 14 year old should be able to see some hidden meanings and realize just what this whole reading thing is about. The comic book is supposed to be pretty close so hopefully all that stuff carries over. Again, I haven't read the graphic novel so you might want to give it a once over yourself or wait for another redditor to confirm or deny my hypothesis.

Batman: Hush is fantastic, though not technically a stand-alone graphic novel, just a trade, but well worth the read regardless.

If you want a very real and raw vision of the Batman villains I highly recommend Joker by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo

Also, like others have suggested, Kingdom Come is great and I also found Marvels to be very very good.

Hope you find some good reads!

I'm a writer who goes by Thomas Winters. I primarily write fiction, genre fiction, creative nonficiton, comics, as well as poetry. I try to create within numerous formats. Currently I'm working on short stories and slowly developing a novel loosely based on this comic here. I have [an instagram] (https://www.instagram.com/tomxwinters) and will hopefully have an official site or some other digs online where my portfolio can be compiled and read. I wrote [a short rhymed children's eBook which is available on Amazon] (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B074JJR4H7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_dp_T2_7G8GzbD12BMS2) in case anyone has kids and is interested in purchasing a cheap story that's unconventional and worth the price; it's somewhat inspired by Dr. Seuss. I should have much more on the way soon, including hopefully my short stories published in various genre/other publications.

You can see more of Felix Behr's art on his [photobucket page] (http://s1152.photobucket.com/user/behrfelix/library/?sort=4&page=0). I absolutely love his weird, almost surrealist style of illustration. It's unique and honest.

One small typo in the comic - should be "to put it simply" not "to put is simply" but that's no biggie. Hope you guys enjoy this weird little horror/sci-fi comic and don't worry if you don't "get" it, it's definitely a bit purposely puzzling. Hopefully you at the very least find it intriguing and creative. If you're more or less confused about the plot or have a question about anything that's going on in the panels then don't hesitate to ask.

There's this western Rapunzel that was really good.

Courageous Princess by Espinoza was very good too.
Thorn in the Bone series was pretty strong but I didn't read ALL the stories.

Good as Lily was pretty good, no super heroes in that one, per se.

Plain Janes was also very well done.

But some of these might be over the head of a 5 year old besides the Rapunzel one.

Link, for the curious. Enjoy, maybe?

I recommend the 10th Anniversary Book, because it has author commentary beneath most of the comics that really adds to the experience of reading it now that we're old enough to appreciate getting a real glimpse into the mind of Bill Watterson.

Ed Brubaker's current run is the definitive modern version of the character. You can buy the individual trade paperbacks but the cheapest way is through the 2 large omnibus collections that were released. The first one is 744 pages for $50 so it's a pretty good deal.

Start Here: http://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Omnibus-Vol-1/dp/0785128662/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266089133&sr=8-7

Read Civil War: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Mark-Millar/dp/078512179X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266089235&sr=1-1

Then Read This: http://www.amazon.com/Death-Captain-America-Omnibus/dp/0785138064/ref=pd_sim_b_1

and you will be pretty much caught up except for stuff that's come out in the past year or so.

If you'd prefer to read the softcover trades: start here: http://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Vol-Winter-Soldier/dp/0785119205/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266089341&sr=1-2-spell

12 issues, source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

Collected in this: http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Alan-Moore/dp/0930289234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342979007&sr=8-1&keywords=watchmen