What Is The Worst Thing You Ever Read?

[gryhpon]

What is the worst piece of writing you ever read, be it in comics or novels or anything?

[Weetomuncher]

The ingredients list on a tin of hot dogs I'd just eaten.

Ugh...

[Night Swordsman]

Wanted, Issue #6.

Prey, by Rachel Vincent.

Death's Daughter, by Amber Benson.

52 ,Infinite Crisis, and Final Crisis.

The Majority of the Clone Saga(90's version,not recent) from the Spider-Man comics

The Silmarilion, by JRR Tolkien


Each of these came to my mind quickly. I am quite sure there is worse, but these earned a place in "wtH" category for me.

[Grazzt]

"The Eye of Argon" (link is to the MST3k version, because it is far too painful to read on its own).

The second worst was from a Valdemar anthology (Sword of Ice, in case you were wondering). It's called "Chance" by Mark Shepherd. Really, really bad. So bad I could actually had to put the book down to laugh at it a couple of times. For the curious, it's basically the story of Vanyel's romance with a guardsman that was briefly alluded to in one of the novels. Take that concept and remove any possible romantic or erotic content that it could possibly contain, despite the author's desperate attempts at ramming it in.

[Chris Hansbrough]

Originally Posted by gryhpon

What is the worst piece of writing you ever read, be it in comics or novels or anything?

[Night Swordsman]

Originally Posted by Chris Hansbrough

<giggling>

Omg. I am actually curious enough to try to read that....

[FeminineMystique]

Hey Nightie...I agreed with a lot of your choices but two struck me as odd darling, so I thought I'd ask about them

Originally Posted by Night Swordsman

Wanted, Issue #6.

See, I actually kind of liked this. You expect Wesley to have become jaded, to turn away from the self destructive, ultimately fatal path he's on and be a better man after seeing what the "Screw the rules I have money" life of a supervillain is like. But instead it turns out he's just as screwed up as his father and he's probably going to wind up the same way. I think it's quite a good subversion of the expected ending

[52

I didn't like the Wonder Woman parts of this...and Black Adam was too heavily focused on I feel, as another of Johns Villain-Sues. But other than that I quite liked it:

[the4thpip]

I flipped through a novel based on the computer game "Doom" in the store where I worked once and it was... different.

As far as comics are concerned, Ben Raab's Excalibur and Beechen's Countdown.

[FeminineMystique]

Originally Posted by the4thpip

I flipped through a novel based on the computer game "Doom" in the store where I worked once and it was... different.

As far as comics are concerned, Ben Raab's Excalibur and Beechen's Countdown.

I thought Dini was the main writer on Countdown?

If it was Beechen no wonder it was so bad!

[Night Swordsman]

Originally Posted by FeminineMystique

Hey Nightie...I agreed with a lot of your choices but two struck me as odd darling, so I thought I'd ask about them



See, I actually kind of liked this. You expect Wesley to have become jaded, to turn away from the self destructive, ultimately fatal path he's on and be a better man after seeing what the "Screw the rules I have money" life of a supervillain is like. But instead it turns out he's just as screwed up as his father and he's probably going to wind up the same way. I think it's quite a good subversion of the expected ending



I didn't like the Wonder Woman parts of this...and Black Adam was too heavily focused on I feel, as another of Johns Villain-Sues. But other than that I quite liked it:

I thought 52 was a mess, and the original premise of explaining OYL was felt tacked on...a "opps! We almost forgot we had to do this too", and most of the events just felt blah.
I know i am a minority about 52, but i just felt it lacked focus and storytelling. And i disliked most parts in it.

As for Wanted...i LOVED the first five issues. I really,honestly did. The sixth issue read like a rewrite...a "I can not stand you people, just give me your money and fuck you" from the writer. Seriously. The bit with Wes's dad was stupid (why couldn't he just actually be DEAD???) and felt cliched(i knew it the momment he showed up WHY he was there, and it felt dumb and lifeless).

If it wasn't for the last issue, i would of considered Wanted on of the greatest mini's i have ever read. Instead it ends up a waste of a good premise.

[Infra-Man]

I keep saying My Little Blue Dress is the worst novel I've ever read, but it's really not so bad so much as the author tried way too hard to be clever. It wound up reading like one of those meandering, overlong jokes with a bad punchline as told by a wannabe Dave Eggers.

I've read some really bad stories, essays, and poems in various writing workshops. The bad stuff was simplistic or didn't really have anything to say or, perhaps worst of all, was just boring. Even on a sentence-by-sentence level, the bad stories weren't particularly well crafted either; lots of attempts at elegant writing and dazzling descriptions that fell flat because there was no regard for the music of words or the flow of language or how to express the underlying proposition of each sentence.

More recently, I've read/done line edits for a couple of short stories by someone I know that are just abysmal. Of the six or so pieces of his I've read, all of his stuff is really misogynistic, scatological, and juvenile, and it seems like he has nothing but contempt for his characters.

[FeminineMystique]

Originally Posted by Night Swordsman

I thought 52 was a mess, and the original premise of explaining OYL was felt tacked on...a "opps! We almost forgot we had to do this too", and most of the events just felt blah.
I know i am a minority about 52, but i just felt it lacked focus and storytelling. And i disliked most parts in it.

As for Wanted...i LOVED the first five issues. I really,honestly did. The sixth issue read like a rewrite...a "I can not stand you people, just give me your money and fuck you" from the writer. Seriously. The bit with Wes's dad was stupid (why couldn't he just actually be DEAD???) and felt cliched(i knew it the momment he showed up WHY he was there, and it felt dumb and lifeless).

If it wasn't for the last issue, i would of considered Wanted on of the greatest mini's i have ever read. Instead it ends up a waste of a good premise.

Fair enough darling. I agree Wes's dad turning up, alive and well, pretty much came out of nowhere given everything prior had made it pretty clear he was dead and gone.

But I did get a kick out of 52, as it brought back some long forgotten characters in an interesting way. And it gave us Batwoman

[Spackling Compound]

Recently the worst novel I've read was "The Historian". Just crap on crap on crap.

Comic-wise, too much bad out there to tell but I got two stinky tpb's: The Lightning Saga and The Return of Hush. Both were so bad they made me want to drive back out to the Borders and demand my money back.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Its likely Amazing Spider-Man now. Just a complete lack of knowing the character , knowing life , and editor who seems to think "We have to do this to complicate Peter's life..." Its just that what he's doing is creating more lame Threes Company comedy than real life.

The Tom Brevoort mandate completely misses what makes Peter Parker , Spider-Man . He believes in this mandate that "youth" should over-ride the Power and Responsibility aspect of the character. Its like saying ...Batman should no longer be inspired by his parents deaths , he just wants to kick ass of criminals for the hell of it.

That to me is what makes Spider-Man such a sad pathetic read now in a lot of ways. They have these pros , they have an old editor like Brevoort , but sadly ....they miss what makes Peter Parker work. And after a year and nearly 70 issues , they aren't ever gonna get it.

Whats worse is a good solid writer like Mark Waid turned in the shittest story I have seen him do . (Amazing Spider-Man 612)

[Grazzt]

Originally Posted by Spackling Compound

Comic-wise, too much bad out there to tell but I got two stinky tpb's: The Lightning Saga and The Return of Hush. Both were so bad they made me want to drive back out to the Borders and demand my money back.

Out of curiousity, what was wrong with The Lightning Saga? I was thinking about giving it a shot, and want to know exactly what it does wrong to help me with my decision.