We've got ISB Sign!

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

    So, we're now eleven issues into The Laughing Corpse comic.   I'm pretty sure that's now passed the comic adaptation of The Vampire Lestat (I would check, but I'm too lazy to grab my TPB), which was a longer book.    That's a bit ridiculous.
    In an attempt to confuse people who may be excitedly thinking this is a whole new storyline, it's now being labelled The Laughing Corpse: Executioner, to distinguish it from Necromancer and Animator.   (Book One was Animator, Book Two was Necromancer, and now Book Three is Executioner.   Yes.  They're labelling a comic adaptation of a book as three books.   So far.)   Clearly, this means something may finally happen.
    Or not.  According to Chris at the ISB, this is the most exciting issue of Anita Blake ever.   Of course, that may be due to Chris's replacement of Dolph's dialogue with that of some wrestler.   And I admit, it does make it better, because it's not as if anything interesting is going on to begin with.   Read along with the fun!

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I love the ISB reviews. So funny.

For someone who has TLC on hand, how far has the comic book gotten through the book in terms of plot progression? Because this is starting to seem like Achilles and the tortoise meets "Judge Parker" at the rate it's moving.

Note: Achilles and the tortoise cannot actually meet Judge Parker, ever, according to Zeno's Paradox.

[lucky-ninja.livejournal.com]

Maybe about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way through.

The big showdown with the skeezy kajillionaire and Aunt May are yet to happen. But honestly, with all of Anita's boring internal monologue, I have a feeling that it's going to go down like going to someone's house where the host unexpectedly bores you with a ghastly slideshow of their summer vacation accompanied with coma-inducing commentary. :(

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Or it will all happen off-panel, just like every other interesting thing from the book.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

I read that as "Jessica Parker" at first, as in Sarah Jessica Parker.

I think I need to cut down on the number of fashion blogs I frequent...

[triss-neya.livejournal.com]

It makes no sense why they make it so slow. It won't apeal to the regular comic book readers who are used to more action in any given issue. Old fans -the book fans, are they realy buying it? They already know the plot and the art here is not that great so why bother with the comic?
There certainly is enough material to go faster and still not run out of stuff before LKH chugs out more. Granted, the porn might be problematic later on but the Tarot comic is doing fine and it has a lot of nudity (and haunted vaginas), from what I hear so AB would find its market and without pages and pages of Anita's thoughts it could even be semi readable.

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

"(and haunted vaginas)"

Best. Comic line. EVER.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

Too bad it's not exactly the BEST comic line:

"Your vagina is haunted!" Bolding not mine, unfortunately.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I maintain that Team LKH, Tarot and maybe Rob Liefield should team up to create the most boring but WTF comic in all of creation.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

Haunted vaginas with needle-thin ankles and giant grimaces.

OT: Liefeld

[triss-neya.livejournal.com]

Here's something funny explaining the weirdness that is Liefeld's art ;) here (http://community.livejournal.com/noscans_daily/191105.html?thread=6959745#t6959745). The last picture in the comment.

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

I know the exact line. :P

GIP

[othellia.livejournal.com]

[triss-neya.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm back after reading Chris' review and it makes me wonder: I liked the first books, I thought they were a fast, engaging read and Anita really seemed like a badass. But was it really more tell than show there too, just as it is in the comics? I don't remember. I know we were presented with a character that was already an established effective executioner and animator and had a reputation.
As Chris points out, Anita doesn't do anything very exciting in this comic, only talks and it's the other people doing the interesting things, and worse, in this last one, it's happening off panel. Can anyone remember if things were like that in the books too?

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

There was still a lot of telling and showing, but I think a lot of us let it go because the book was still interesting. Even if she liked describing the colour of her Nike swooshes every damn book.

Come to think of it, LKH really did kind of write like a comic book writer; plenty of them assume new readers are jumping on all the time, so they constantly re-state the obvious or exposition their arse off. Like X-Men during Claremont's first run: "I am STORM! I control the WEATHER!" as said character is surrounded by lightning and obviously directing. Every. Freaking. Issue. As much as I like old Claremont, he was a prime candidate for that problem. Especially bad in a comic book, which is visual.

So in effect, LKH is now out-comicing the comic with her Wordy McWordiness.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes. On my re-read of Laughing Corpse a couple of years ago, I was bitching "Why are we dealing with Anita again?" because all she does in the story is get everyone else to do the work for her while stuff happens to her on occasion and then finally she's spurred into action with Dominga Salvador. She gets Irving to do all the legwork and then the villains succumb to monologue syndrome to tell her the rest.

One of my biggest complaints in reading the comic adaptions is that they're painfully faithful to the source material. So we get these panels of nothing but narration WHEN THE PICTURES DO THAT JOB. So I kinda blame LKH's micromanagement here that she has to approve the script and the drawings before they can be used and if she'd just take her hands off the wheel and let the comics people do their thing, we'd get a better comic. Also, not drawing things out over fifteen issues would help. I was so happy to find out that the Laughing Corpse would only be five issues, but then part two happened and I was left "..." after the debacle of Guilty Pleasures, I thought they would have learned that drawing things out over twelve issues was sometimes physically painful for other people. And not in a good way.

THAT SAID, apparently the comics are incredibly popular. I had a brief chat with my comics guy a while back and I was trying to explain DO NOT READ THEM, NO REALLY HERE ARE MY REASONS and he got all O____O about it and told me about their popularity.

[triss-neya.livejournal.com]

They're popular? really? O_O

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for Adaptation Distillation (but then I had hope that someone else would be in charge of the comic and not LKH); less Anita thinking and more action and putting more faith in the art itself to get the story across. That would be great. It would mean less Anita whining and posturing in her thouths...

I'm a little scared of re-reading the fist books. I remember liking them and if I read them again I'll probably notice all the annoying things already there, from the very beginning. I guess it was one of the first books I read in that genre and my expectations weren't very high. :(

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Re-reading things after so long is actually pretty good. Or it is for me. Yeah, I pick up on more of the technical errors and problems with the story itself -- early in the series, they're baby books still trying to find their stride, and it's weird to realise the sexual undercurrent was always there -- but to be fair, I went looking for those in an attempt to pinpoint the exact moment of Suedom/shark-jumping. It's also a nice refresher on how things used to be, and the errors early in the series are nothing compared to the errors later. :\

[jerel.livejournal.com]

That old woman? Is totally Aunt May.

I think that, in the future, all dialogue in the book should be replaced by trash-talk from the 1980s WWF.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

I totally second this.

[kd-lalala.livejournal.com]

Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse: Book Three: Executioner

That is a THIRTEEN WORD TITLE, folks, count 'em. Has she by chance mentioned at some point WHY exactly they split the issues up so oddly?

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

*dresses up like Linkara* This comic sucks! The total cockblocking of anything potientaly interesting is so irratating.