Some really great work has come out of the Dark Horse brand over the years. I did not realize they did a re launch of Magnus. I love the old Russ Manning artwork. It has that really cool B Movie feel to it. I'm actually interested in seeing how a modern writer and artist will handle the character. The beauty in the mid 60's is there did not need to be allot of depth because super hero comics were primarily read by nine year old boys. These days they have the challenge of appealing to a wider audience that will find it hard to accept that Magnus with no specific super powers was trained from infancy to break steel with his bare knuckles. Still, I love it, the idea of a leotard wearing bad ass taking on a robot army with nothing but his bare hands, it makes for some killer B movie scenery.
I've loaded the book, I'll give it a read and share my observation.
Let me preface this by saying, reading a comic book in digital form has never really done it for me. I miss sitting back and turning pages, being able to skim back through after the first read, even the cheesy adds for X-Ray glasses, I miss those too. Just something about digital that feels off for the medium.
That said, Magnus is an relic from a by-gone era. I enjoy its simplicity, its straight forward, it does not take itself seriously, but its missing a critical component, an artist the caliber of Russ Manning. Its missing that extra touch, the thing that made the classic books special. Unfortunately I just don't get that same thrill looking at the artwork, and when your story is more or less, Bad Ass in red leotard kicking robot can, the artwork is a critical component.
I'm still happy Dark Horse did this promotion though, its cool, I'm just not that pleased with Magnus.
CB, you are right, I can't expect it to re capture the magic it had for me when I was younger. I'm not complaining, I'm really not, its still a fantastic promo.
It's reminded me of how I miss my lazy afternoon's being able to sit around and actually read this stuff.
Comments
I've loaded the book, I'll give it a read and share my observation.
That said, Magnus is an relic from a by-gone era. I enjoy its simplicity, its straight forward, it does not take itself seriously, but its missing a critical component, an artist the caliber of Russ Manning. Its missing that extra touch, the thing that made the classic books special. Unfortunately I just don't get that same thrill looking at the artwork, and when your story is more or less, Bad Ass in red leotard kicking robot can, the artwork is a critical component.
I'm still happy Dark Horse did this promotion though, its cool, I'm just not that pleased with Magnus.
It's reminded me of how I miss my lazy afternoon's being able to sit around and actually read this stuff.
I also prefer real comics to digital, but I'm not going to complain about free digital comics either.