Comics, anyone?

Does anyone here read comics? BESIDES shit like Watchmen, Walking Dead, or Scott Pilgrim? Any Grant Morrison fans here? Or has anyone read Asterios Polyp? LOEG?
 
How you can call some of the top selling comic series of all time shit is a bit beyond me.
 
How you can call some of the top selling comic series of all time shit is a bit beyond me.
Civil War is the top-selling event of the decade, and it is shit. All those comics I listed are good, but overrated and mostly intro stuff for newbies. Moore's best work is not Watchmen. It's Swamp Thing.
 
i'm an amateur when it comes to comics, but ones that really stood out for me were black hole, sandman (obviously), swamp thing, the dark knight returns, and old man logan.

old man logan is probably the only one that needs any description, dystopian future where all the marvel villains banded together and took over america. wolverine is a poor farmer who hasn't popped his claws in 50 years. i normally have no interest in general superhero stuff but this put a very intriguing spin on it, and the art is fantastic.
 
McNiven's pencils are good in OML. The plot would almost be interesting, but Millar's work is too over-the top for me. Spider-bitch, really? DKR is still fucking amazing though.
 
McNiven's pencils are good in OML. The plot would almost be interesting, but Millar's work is too over-the top for me. Spider-bitch, really? DKR is still fucking amazing though.
i found the gratuitous corniness to be part of its charm. it's what made it still feel like a superhero comic to me.
 
Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" is essentially the only work of his you ever need to read.


The best comic I've ever read, though, is Calvin and Hobbes.
 

v

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I really disagree regarding Moore, I think V for Vendetta was his best work, but that's really a matter of opinion.

I liked Earth X from Marvel a lot when I read it a few years ago in a book store. But, you really needed to know who the characters were beforehand to "get" the story. Luckily, I grew up with comicbooks, so I found it really easy to get into and enjoyed it immensely. As far as "post-current continuity" series go, Earth X is probably my favorite. It got a little ridiculous with the Celestial/Galactus stuff, but nothing is perfect.

I also like the Ultimate imprint of Marvel. While I haven't read past volume 1 of Ultimate X-Men, I read the first 3 or 4 volumes of The Ultimates and loved it. I felt like the characters were much deeper than their 1960 counterparts. Captain America trying to fit into modern culture on his one day and kicking the shit out of nazi aliens was really cool obviously, but I liked the angle of being a superhero just being a job with a government. Ultimate Spider-Man was fun too, if only because I like the little soap operas that form any continuity's Peter Parker's life. I don't keep current with comics really, so I don't know what happened after Harry died but whatever.

I also like the original Silver Surfer series from the 1960s, the one from BEFORE when he was treated like normal superheroes. If you haven't read it, then I definitely suggest looking into it. It may not be quite as deep as later works, but the Silver Surfer character is a lot deeper there than he is when they decided to let him just be a cosmic badass in the 80s. His godlike powers contrasted with his childlike innocence and eloquent philosophical spoutings make him really intriguing to me. The book luckily was canceled before it got TOO too repetitive, but he does manage to fail to escape Earth every single issue.

The original Proteus sequence from the "new" X-Men (as in the ones that had Thunderbird) was also really cool imo. Proteus was kind of a cool way to get across the whole "people are really small" theme that Marvel loved back in the day without having to resort to giant purple godmen who snacked on planets.

And I fucking loved Watchmen !_!

As a kid I read my dad's old comics from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. My favorites were Iron Man, the Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Metal Men. The normal kid stuff.
 

Don Honchkrorleone

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I like early Batman, Batman after the EQ in Gotham, V for Vendetta and early Marvel Thor and Iron Man.

Yet, the best IMO is Monica's Gang.
 

Layell

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I read Atomic Robo because I loved Brian Clevenger's 8-bit theatre so much.

I used to be big on sprite web-comics, with my two all time favourite being 8-bit and Kid Radd (good luck finding a compatible version, you'll probably have to download it).
 
ohhhhh boy.

some pearls have already been exposed; but who here has read anything by garth ennis? irish dark funny man. wrote preacher, which i consider to be a comic masterpiece, lots and lots of punisher under the mature imprint MAX where he went with the most basic idea of the punisher as a white and black immoral serial killer, and puts him on a more 'realistic' (i dont like using this word with comics but) tone, killing people trafficers, pedophile rings and some darker stuff. he also wrote the very underrated hitman run on DC.

garth ennis is currently writing the boys, which i feel is a brilliant book - it's a deconstruction on the super hero world stuff, where you find yourself rooting for the crazy psychopaths because the heroes are much worse. it's full of shock moments, and people say they dislike ennis for all the swearing and violence, but most of his violent bits are not only crazy awesome but also make a point, not being just gratuitous violence. highly suggest.

punisher

the boys


warren ellis is also one of my favorite writers. wrote nextwave, which is probably the funniest superhero comic to date, and transmetropolitan, which plays like this: hunter s- thompson. on the future. being a badass journalist. go read, it is amazing and gripping from beginning to end.

nextwave

transmetropolitan


speaking of alan moore, did anyone here read his run on top 10? it is very cool stuff too, about a world where everyone is a superhero and you read the adventures of the police in a world like that. chockful of references.

also i am loving grant morrisson's story on batman, as confusing as it may be. big comicsalliance reader here.
 
The first maybe, uh, 70 chapters of Ultimate Spiderman was pretty good. Was a really enjoyable read. After that it got pretty bad.

Favorite graphic novel would have to be Long Halloween, though. Best Batman I've read. Dark Victory was good, but I don't think it compared.

As you can tell, I don't delve into comics all that often, and when I do, it's pretty mainstream. Oh well.
 
ALSO holy shit how could i forget my absolute favourite. the maxx is what got me into comic books. ignore the terrible tv adaptation. in my opinion it is a true masterpiece.
 
definitely a fan of charles burns -- black hole is one of my favorite graphic novels. i've been meaning to check out his new series, x'ed out.

i'm also intrigued by brian chippendale's (drummer for lightning bolt, black pus, et cetera) work. i recently got my hands on maggots and i have to say, this guy's comic work is an almost synaesthetic representation of brian's music -- spastic, hyperactive, overwhelming. maggots is drawn on the pages of, if i remember correctly, a japanese sales catalog, and the panels are read somewhat randomly (some left to right, others right to left, others i haven't quite figured out). it's somewhat of a task, but i like it because i like the way brian's mind works. been meaning to check out his newest, if n oof i think it's called.

my uncle was (and is) a big comic head and i read a lot of his stuff growing up. he had a lot of justice league comics which i really enjoyed. i remember receiving some issues of young justice (teen versions of like, superman, flash, wonderwoman -- superboy, impulse, and wondergirl respectively, if i recall correctly -- and others, of course. impulse was my favorite by far!). really liked that stuff. and nightwing! especially nightwing #28, with tad ryerstad's story. i'm fascinated by sociopathy, for some reason.

of course, gotta acknowledge swamp thing, watchmen, v for vendetta. alan moore is class.

recently i've been working through the early issues of a series called cerberus by david sims. i guess you could call it one of the more 'underground' series from the 70's and early 80's. it starts off as a, let's see, pretty straightforward heroic fantasy about a sword-swinging cartoon aardvark (who, by the way, looks really funny set against the realistic humans populating the comic) but as the series progresses, the narrative evolves to include a lot of complex satire and, i would say, subversive social criticism. i'm only in the early issues so far, but i'm already picking up on sims's narrative shift. pretty neat.

some kind soul just donated almost the entire series(es?) of both sandman and y: the last man to my school's cafe, so i've been peeking through them when i'm there for coffee or whatever.

also, i just found some issues of frank miller and david mazzucchelli's batman in my closet. pretty neat. i'm going to read them after this post, probably!

oh and i've been watching amc's tv adaptation of the walking dead -- it's sooo good. my dad bought issue one i think, so i'm going to try to swipe it when i'm home sometime.

definitely a fan of this kind of storytelling, and i'm always looking out for new, good stuff to check out. i'll keep my eyes on this topic. definitely going to check out some of the stuff you posted, doomsday.

i learned to read from calvin and hobbes!
 
i know a lot of stuff already but what most people don't realize is that the comics medium is ever-growing, and at this time and age there's already thousands of libraries behind us. i still consider myself a rookie at comics

i'm very passionate about comics as a medium, lol. i am actually writing a story myself - a straight/silly superhero story - but i plan on putting it online as a webcomic. i have lots and lots of ideas flowing around in my head for stories!
 

muffinhead

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Does anyone here read comics? BESIDES shit like Watchmen, Walking Dead, or Scott Pilgrim? Any Grant Morrison fans here? Or has anyone read Asterios Polyp? LOEG?
.___________________________________________.

I fucking love that book, it is amazing.
 
@doomsday, mostly:

awesome re: your own work, i'd definitely like to see what you come up with. i think comics are a really cool way to tell a story -- there is so much more storytelling available to the storytelling (as opposed to straight up writing, which is what i do mostly lately) because you're incorporating the visual. of course, it's a lot more work (at least, empirically) because, well, you have to draw AND write your story.

i started mapping out and sketching for my own, let's call it a 'graphic novella' for now, entitled 'i am ice cream.' a lot of it is pulled from my own life -- the main character, ice cream, is heavily based in personal experience. so far, it's about ice cream and a few of his vigilante friends (tinker and how, and ice cream's cat of course), who are stuck in velvet city, a city being taken over by a creature called the groan who is converting the population into mindless, giggling creatures called murmurs. as with a lot of my writing, partly i'm trying to represent psychological trauma and depression as outside, active forces -- as characters, or villians, or something like that. the comic itself is pretty surreal so far, though i've since pushed it aside thanks to school and whatever. i really want to follow through with this though -- it seems like it could turn out really well.

sometimes when i read over my posts i feel like i come across like a madman.
 
That's good, because those are by far my favorites of all time...Like literally those three...
 
Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" is essentially the only work of his you ever need to read.
Ehh, his novel work is pretty great, and all of his Death stuff is amazing.

I really disagree regarding Moore, I think V for Vendetta was his best work, but that's really a matter of opinion.

I liked Earth X from Marvel a lot when I read it a few years ago in a book store. But, you really needed to know who the characters were beforehand to "get" the story. Luckily, I grew up with comicbooks, so I found it really easy to get into and enjoyed it immensely. As far as "post-current continuity" series go, Earth X is probably my favorite. It got a little ridiculous with the Celestial/Galactus stuff, but nothing is perfect.

I also like the Ultimate imprint of Marvel. While I haven't read past volume 1 of Ultimate X-Men, I read the first 3 or 4 volumes of The Ultimates and loved it. I felt like the characters were much deeper than their 1960 counterparts. Captain America trying to fit into modern culture on his one day and kicking the shit out of nazi aliens was really cool obviously, but I liked the angle of being a superhero just being a job with a government. Ultimate Spider-Man was fun too, if only because I like the little soap operas that form any continuity's Peter Parker's life. I don't keep current with comics really, so I don't know what happened after Harry died but whatever.

I also like the original Silver Surfer series from the 1960s, the one from BEFORE when he was treated like normal superheroes. If you haven't read it, then I definitely suggest looking into it. It may not be quite as deep as later works, but the Silver Surfer character is a lot deeper there than he is when they decided to let him just be a cosmic badass in the 80s. His godlike powers contrasted with his childlike innocence and eloquent philosophical spoutings make him really intriguing to me. The book luckily was canceled before it got TOO too repetitive, but he does manage to fail to escape Earth every single issue.

The original Proteus sequence from the "new" X-Men (as in the ones that had Thunderbird) was also really cool imo. Proteus was kind of a cool way to get across the whole "people are really small" theme that Marvel loved back in the day without having to resort to giant purple godmen who snacked on planets.

And I fucking loved Watchmen !_!

As a kid I read my dad's old comics from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. My favorites were Iron Man, the Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Metal Men. The normal kid stuff.
I highly disagree that modern super-hero comics are kid stuff, disemboweling people, killing kids, having orgies, ect., are not stuff things that strike me as child-friendly.

ohhhhh boy.

some pearls have already been exposed; but who here has read anything by garth ennis? irish dark funny man. wrote preacher, which i consider to be a comic masterpiece, lots and lots of punisher under the mature imprint MAX where he went with the most basic idea of the punisher as a white and black immoral serial killer, and puts him on a more 'realistic' (i dont like using this word with comics but) tone, killing people trafficers, pedophile rings and some darker stuff. he also wrote the very underrated hitman run on DC.

garth ennis is currently writing the boys, which i feel is a brilliant book - it's a deconstruction on the super hero world stuff, where you find yourself rooting for the crazy psychopaths because the heroes are much worse. it's full of shock moments, and people say they dislike ennis for all the swearing and violence, but most of his violent bits are not only crazy awesome but also make a point, not being just gratuitous violence. highly suggest.

punisher

the boys


warren ellis is also one of my favorite writers. wrote nextwave, which is probably the funniest superhero comic to date, and transmetropolitan, which plays like this: hunter s- thompson. on the future. being a badass journalist. go read, it is amazing and gripping from beginning to end.

nextwave

transmetropolitan


speaking of alan moore, did anyone here read his run on top 10? it is very cool stuff too, about a world where everyone is a superhero and you read the adventures of the police in a world like that. chockful of references.

also i am loving grant morrisson's story on batman, as confusing as it may be. big comicsalliance reader here.
Ennis is great, and you're from CA? I used to post a lot on CBR and Jinxworld.

The first maybe, uh, 70 chapters of Ultimate Spiderman was pretty good. Was a really enjoyable read. After that it got pretty bad.

Favorite graphic novel would have to be Long Halloween, though. Best Batman I've read. Dark Victory was good, but I don't think it compared.

As you can tell, I don't delve into comics all that often, and when I do, it's pretty mainstream. Oh well.

USM is still one of the best books out there. Probably the most consistent book in the last 10 years.

.___________________________________________.

I fucking love that book, it is amazing.
Never said it wasn't, but Moore's other work is on par or better with it. Like "From Hell" for example. The only thing that was horrible that he's written is the Killing Joke.

I think he used the word "shit" as a synonym for "stuff." I don't think he was calling any of those comics "shit."
Yeah, obviously I've read and loved those books too.

That's good, because those are by far my favorites of all time...Like literally those three...
Expand your horizons. Read We3, From Hell, Y the Last Man, Runaways, Asterios Polyp, Joe the Barbarian, and Promethea.
 

Firestorm

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Heh this thread reminded me to get back to reading Fables. My friend introduced it to me a little bit ago and nagged me enough times to start. To be honest, the only comic series I had been following in the past little while has been One Piece so it was hard for me to adjust to such relatively short story arcs, but it's really pretty interesting.

The plot revolves around fairy tale characters who fled the world of fairy tales and fables and settled in New York City and have their own society of Fabletown. It's a little hard for me to sell but if you have fond memories of childhood stories like Snow White, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, etc and don't mind it being blown up with graphic violence and sex, it's a good read!
 
Ehh, his novel work is pretty great, and all of his Death stuff is amazing.
His other stuff is good for sure, but a lot of the idea he uses in his other work are showcased in Sandman. You get enjoyment from reading his other stuff, but you don't actually 'miss' anything if you've read the entirety of Sandman.
 

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