Tai Lam on a Bike

East of West is probably the best self-contained story I've read recently in the general genre of comic series, graphic novel, and manga. It's longer than one collected book, yet isn't a series that feels like it's going on forever, such as Naruto or Boruto.

I will say that the very of East of West seems to be relatively anticlimactic compared to how it starts, yet it is still better than the ending of the original Matrix film trilogy.

Regardless, East of West still ends way better than The Empty Man, which I felt started really well but then ended in a rather mediocre fashion — much like the Matrix trilogy.

I sort of wished that production of the comic series Godslap, which was co-created by MoistCr1TiKaL, would release more frequently, as well as comic series of Outlast: The Murkoff Account and the vampire comic series Sucker.

(Though, to be fair, the continuation of the Murkoff Outlast comic that I am invested in can't finish anytime soon, as the game Outlast III hasn't been released yet.)

Apparently, as of November 2023, the third and final volume of Sucker is in production. I really liked this one because it had some rather sharp social commentary on Big Pharma... maybe too sharp, given that Volume 2 was released on March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic really started in the US.

(The following links are probably NSFW-risky links, though not completely explicit, for the Sucker comic: Volume 1 and Volume 2 are published by Polite Strangers. This series was originally crowdfunded on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo — I was able to find these links despite some difficulty.)

Conclusion

From my experiences, I think most time reading comic books and graphic novels should be done alone. It's how I discovered all of these unique stories that almost no one in mainstream media outlets (both in TV and film) would even consider exploring. It's not just online ARGs, analog horror, and SCP Foundation-esque entries that have more wildly creative ideas than even the most unfiltered indie film and TV projects.

I think some of my formative time spent in public libraries was reading graphic novels alone. You learn by osmosis how to form your own opinion regarding media literacy.

I would love to see The Private Eye comic adapted into a A24-like two-part miniseries, as this finished serialization by December 2015 and is really prescient in a post-Snowden era and the post-COVID technology chilling. The screenplay and basic storyboard is at least 50% towards MVP of a screenplay script, if you think about it.

Also, adapting Xombi Volume 2 as a stand-alone three-part miniseries for the character Xombi would be my highest personal cinematic adaptation goal. I think DC could consider exploring some “experimental” media entries, similar to that of the 2022 Werewolf by Night film special from Marvel; as much of its DC cinematic and television entries are pretty disconnected already.

I mean, Spider-Man: Homecoming completely avoided redoing Tom Holland's being bitten by the spider and yet the film did just fine. So, we wouldn't have to trudge through David Kim's origin story. If your story is good, then it's good. A superhero-like character doesn't always have to be an origin story to have a compelling story.

Lastly, there is some music (just two tracks) that was created for East of West, which is available on Bandcamp at a cost of “name your price” (including free).

Really random and funny postscript

Speaking of Bandcamp: Nathan Barnatt, the IRL actor who plays the character Dad, also has a Bandcamp for all of the original music and songs created for the Dad series.