Pipeline - Jan 29, 2013

[CBR News]

Augie looks at Alan Davis' 1991 return to "Excalibur," dubbing it the "most professional fan-fic of all time." Plus, more links about French comics, digital comics and revisiting 2012 predictions


Full article here.

[Shingen]

Man, that Excalibur run was amazing, and my absolute favorite. I'm a staunch fan of Claremont, but Davis' run by himself was the best Excalibur ever done.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Man, that Excalibur run was amazing, and my absolute favorite. I'm a staunch fan of Claremont, but Davis' run by himself was the best Excalibur ever done.

Agreed. Sadly, the book limped along for another 60 issues. Pee-Yoo, Ben Raab!!

[tunasammiches]

I'm so glad someone is writing about this specific run. It. blew. my. mind. I was new to Excalibur and started with issue 42. I had been reading X-Men, X-force, and Uncanny X-men for a little over a year and I remember that vertical front fold, with all the X-teams on opening up Jim Lee's X-Men #1. I had also collected his x-men trading cards, and was curious about characters like Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers, and Kitty Pryde. That all led me to Excalibur and Alan Davis's work and I was smitten. It was a thrilling read! Great characters, great plot threads, great art, and by the time I got to issue 50 I was just crazy for anything Excalibur. My only gripe is that I wish Davis's bad guys were meatier, and not so whimsical at times. it would have been nice to see an excalibur baddie establishing longevity and relevance throughout the rest of marvel's universe.

Great article.

[Frank]

I agree with the auteur saying it was probably the best and most professional fan-fict of all time(this and Avengers Forever). You have to watch in giggling amazement how Davis justify that Kitty, Kurt, Brian and Meggan were together because they were destined to become one being, a cosmic entity that healed reality.

[Jean-Michel]

Thank you for the analysis. I am fan of Davis' art, and I learnt a lot by reading the article.

[oletheros]

I missed last week's column, otherwise I would have piped up with some French language recommendations because I'm in the same boat - I have a pile of BD that I'm itching to read, but my French is poor at best. I was lucky enough to find a freelance French teacher up the street from me who is willing to sit down and help me translate my comics in realtime, line by line. It's slow going, but very rewarding. One of the best resources she gave me was the Oxford French Cartoon-strip vocabulary builder that has comics by Claire Bretécher and is very effective as a way to introduce you to ground level vocabulary words and concepts.