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not every comic book is actually in color Welcome to the Comic Book sampler thread! This is part of a joint effort between ADTRW and BSS to introduce each other's users to series they might otherwise skip over due to preconceptions about their respective mediums. Western comic fans might think all manga is Naruto and Bleach, while manga fans might think all comic books are superhero dreck. These threads are here to help introduce you to new series you might enjoy but otherwise not be exposed to. Some you've probably heard of, others may be more niche, but the goal of this thread is to collect excellent series in one place for people to try out, with places to buy them whenever possible. Western comics are read left-to-right while manga is usually right-to-left. ADTRW Comic Book thread BSS Manga thread If posting your own recommendations for comic books and graphic novels to read, please include some sample images to showcase the art style, a 1-2 paragraph rundown of the general story of the series(no spoilers if you can help it) as well as your personal thoughts on it, and links to where it can be purchased(usually places like Amazon or Comixology). Without further ado, let the recommendations begin! I'll start off with a few of my own, though I'm not an expert, I've read some outstanding series in the past and can vouch for at least a few. Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers, Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye and Transformers: Robots In Disguise Last Stand of the Wreckers    You might be surprised to see Transformers comics on a list of "must-read" series. It's true, Transformers media has been extremely dicey, quality-wise, basically since its inception with very few exceptions. Indeed, most is garbage. Until, that is, Last Stand of the Wreckers came along. Nick Roche, with James Roberts co-writing, expanded the scope of the Transformers universe past just Optimus Prime and Megatron(though they're mentioned). Garrus-9, the Cybertronian equivalent of Alcatraz, has suddenly shut down and all the inmates have taken over. It's up to The Wreckers, The A-Team of giant robots, to fix this problem, and to find out WHY Garrus-9 is so important. The storytelling, characters, and violence are amped up far past what previous series went by, and it does not overstay its welcome since it is a 6-issue miniseries. Extremely high quality artwork, with a villain whose facial features are Caligula-inspired. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye    After Last Stand of the Wreckers came some other stuff, and finally, it was decided to sorta soft-reboot the Transformers universe with The Death of Optimus Prime(part of MTMTE's first issue), wherein the legendary Autobot-Decepticon war that has raged for four million years comes to an end with the "reformatting" of Cybertron. The Transformers comics continuity was split into More Than Meets The Eye, and Robots In Disguise. MTMTE follows the crew of the Lost Light as they leave the strange world Cybertron has become to search for the Knights of Cybertron, the legendary Transformers who left Cybertron millions of years prior to spread the good word of Primus to the universe. Due to a "malfunction" of the jump drive when they leave Cybetron, they're thrown halfway across the galaxy. Lost and without direction, they begin a hazardous trek to continue their mission and uncover the mysteries of their race in the process. MTMTE is James Robert's masterpiece of TF fiction. It expands the Transformers mythos in many many ways not done before, creating reasons for certain forms, cultural biases, religious beliefs, expands the view of Cybertronians and their insane 4-million-year-long war from the perspective of aliens and noncombatants, and both creates new characters and infuses one-note nobodies from Generation 1(the original TF line from 1985) with incredible amounts of character and style. It's an amazing cast-adrift story of a ship full of crazy idiots who constantly get into classic Star Trek-esque shenanigans on various planets. The storytelling, character interactions, humor, drama, romance(!) and action are all outstanding, and he's very much able to make hard swings from comedy to drama or action in a heartbeat. The original characters he creates all have great chemistry with the rest of the crew and feel totally natural, as well as the villains and non-transformers being interesting characters that give the feeling that there's far more to the universe than Earth and Cybertron. Probably my favorite comic book series. It's apparently been so successful that Hasbro has put out something like 20 new Transformers toys based on the comic designs and characters, rather than the other way around which is what always happened before. Robots In Disguise    John Barber tells the other half of the Transformers story, after the Autobot/Decepticon war is over. Cybertron's been reformatted and turned into a sprawling wasteland of technological organisms and feral beasts that have actively turned on the Transformers that used to call it home. Prowl, Bumblebee, Starscream, and Metalhawk(two Autobots, a Decepticon, and a NAIL, or non-aligned), among others begin to rebuild their shattered world. Refugees from all over the galaxy, Cybertronians who fled the war rather than pick a side, start showing up en masse, and it becomes a political hotbed as they try to force the former Autobots and Decepticons out for ruining their home planet(among thousands of other worlds, but that's beside the point). The open door of the refugees showing up from across the galaxy means many characters you'd otherwise never see in the G1 universe, including Beast Wars characters, make appearances and even become main characters. It's an interesting series that posits the question of what happens when you suddenly "turn off" the war that these mechanical beings have lived millions of years fighting. While I don't think it's as good as MTMTE, it's definitely still better than pretty much everything else beforehand. Recommendations from other goons: Hawkeye Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, Annie Wu, and others  Hawkeye - often referred to affectionately as Hawkguy - is one of the least superhero-y superhero comics around. "Wait a second," some of you are almost certainly saying. "Don't superhero comics have decades of intertwined continuity and self-referential stories that I'd have to wade through in order to appreciate this series?" Hawkeye has anticipated your question, which is why the opening issue begins by saying, in effect, "This is a book about what Hawkeye does when he's not doing all that superhero-y Avengers stuff." All you need to know is that he is the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He fights criminals of Indeterminate Eastern European Origin, adopts a dog who likes pizza, spends time in the hospital, is Great At Boats, pisses off his girlfriend, loses a fight to a mime-looking dude, hangs out with his estranged brother, and then poo poo Gets Real. Along the way he makes some terrible life choices.   There is an issue told from the point of view of Hawkeye's dog and an issue told almost entirely through lip-reading and sign language. The latter issue I read with my wife, who is partially deaf; by the end she was openly crying, telling me "this is the comic book I've wanted to see my entire life and I never knew it until now." So it scores points with me for that. The final issue of this volume of Hawkeye, #22, is due out very shortly, so the full run will be available for your perusal; a new volume will be coming shortly thereafter, with a new (and very good!) creative team, but this is a fine opportunity to get a complete story told from beginning to end from a team at the very height of their creative powers. You can pick 'em up digitally via Comixology. There is nothing about this series that is not wonderful. Read it.  TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, MIRAGE (1984) and IDW (2011) "Four turtles. Four brothers. Genetically reborn in the sewers of New York. Named after the Renaissance masters and trained as ninjas." ~ TMNT, 2007 Originally conceived as an homage to the grim tones of Daredevil and Ronin, and the mutability of New Mutants and Cerebus, over the past 30 years, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have made the most of their bombastic, self-explanatory name. What began as an independent comic book published by Mirage Studios in 1984, Playmates Toys and Fred Wolf Films helped develop into a worldwide phenomenon. And, while most of humanity might be more familiar with the goofy charm of the 1987 cartoon, after three subsequent television series, six movies, a live stage show, video games, fruit pies, an interminable action figure line, t-shirts, bath towels, keychains, cereal, water bottles, and anything else that could have possibly had their visage plastered on it, Leonardo, Michaelangelo (sic), Donatello, and Raphael are still at their best in understated black and white. The original comic book series created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird has gone through multiple reprints, though previously only the first few arcs and stand-outs like Michael Zulli's Soul's Winter had been collected. Current editions of the original run are available through IDW Publishing, who also publish a monthly series that pulls content from all previous iterations and streamlines it into a new, more coherent universe, and a second monthly title based on the most recent cartoon, now in its third season on Nickelodeon. Personally, I recommend these five collections of the Mirage title that debuts with the origin, builds to the Turtles' final confrontation with The Shredder in Return to New York, and ends with the epic 13-issue City At War storyline that had Eastman and Laird return to the book after nearly 30 issues of questionable canon. The IDW series is also highly recommended, and has a much more straightforward reading order. As of this writing, it is around 80 issues in length, including all mini-series and one-shots, and can be found here on Comixology, starting with a free #1.    Love & Rockets One of the longest-running independent comics in the American comics industry, remarkably still staying strong and fresh after the several changes of the alternative comics guard. Drawn by brothers Hernandez - Jaime and Gilbert (and Mario in the earlier issues), - it is a slice-of-life comic with very minor fantastical and magical elements. Jaime tells stories about Maggie, Hopey and Ray - latino punks in 80s LA; Gilbert's magnum opus is the story of Palomar - a border town in Mexico. While not strictly moving stories in 1:1 real-time, the timespan of comics and their publication is pretty close, presenting a fairly unique case in comics, showing the growth of characters and their relationships over decades. The prime form of publication for Love and Rockets is magazines (and annual books in the latter years) that contain the stories of both brothers under one cover, but the collected editions offer their stories separately. The publisher has the recommended reading order. The paperbacks are very affordable and nicely made; they are also availiable digitally on Comixology, where the publisher frequently does the discounts on the whole series. Generally, it is recommended to start with Jaime, as he has a more appealing style and his storytelling is more linear. A common recommendation is also to start at the second volume of his - The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.    100% - a drama about six city dwellers in the Blade Runner-ish future: messy, low-tech and mesmerizing. The artist behind it, Paul Pope, is a strong believer in the "world comics", drawing influences from the comic book traditions of USA, Europe and Japan. Manga readers would find themselves at home here, as Pope loves the kinetic approach and extensive sound lettering of Japanese artists. Five issues collected in 1 volume (softcover and hardcover)    Richard Stark's Parker. A beautiful, pitch perfect adaptation of the books about the ruthless criminal without a moral code, the one who puts being a professional before anything else. While there were several movie adaptations of the Parker books, ranging from great (Point Blank) to dreadful (theatrical cut of Payback), no one came closer to replicate the cold quality of the novels than the retro-minded Darwyn Cooke. Not limiting himself to just kicking rear end in basic storytelling techniques, Cooke experiments with the form, employing different visual styles while drawing multiple heists, and plays with abstraction, achieving results unimaginable in motion pictures. 4 volumes: The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score and Slayground. I highly recommend the Martini edition - an oversized book collecting first two volumes with a lot of extra materials. From Hell Alan Moore (words), Eddie Campbell (pictures)    A dense story that uses the Jack the Ripper murders as the starting point for an exploration of the darkness at the heart of Victorian society and the birth of the 20th Century. The black and white art is frequently stark and brutal, bringing to mind newspaper illustrations of the era, while the story is laden with conspiracy and occult themes. It is not a pleasant book, but it is an excellent introduction to Alan Moore's work outside superhero comics, and the collected version contain his annotations and commentary which makes for a fascinating read after finishing the main story. Amazon, Comixology Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, by Sean McKeever  Marvel doesn't always just do superhero comics. They also made romance comics back in the day (indeed, John Romita Sr., one of the most iconic Spider-Man artists of all time, got his start on romance comics), and there have been several attempts to resurrect the form since. These have met with various levels of success (don't ask about Trouble. Just...don't), but Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane hits it out of the park. Although Spider-Man is a recurring presence, it's Mary Jane's story, as she struggles with her feelings for Spidey, Harry Osborn, and Peter Parker. Sean McKeever makes every character in the book compelling and entertaining. There's four volumes intotal (Mary Jane, Mary Jane:Homecoming, and Spider-Man loves Mary Jane volumes #1 and #2), but the first three by McKeever tell a complete and touching story. Spider-Girl, by Tom DeFalco  It seems most comic readers are still asking this question, though not necessarily for the right reasons. Her name is May 'Mayday' Parker. She thought that she was just another high school student until one day she learnt that she was the daughter of Spider-Man and inherited his amazing powers. Having learnt the family credo of 'With great power comes great responsibility', she takes up the mantle of Spider-Girl! This was my own introduction to comics, and I remain shamelessly partisan as a result. That being said, despite dialogue that might be termed 'hokey', in particular DeFalco's...limited grasp on teen slang even back when the stories were written, the emotional core of the stories remain solid, especially May's relationship with her parents. At the same time the book while still having dramatic stakes avoids descending into poorly-written angst like so much of 'teen hero' stories. The quality remains consistently good (with only a single issue written by Sean McKeever-who wrote it very well), so if you find the first few issues to your liking, you'll probably enjoy the whole series. Journey Into Mystery, by Kieron Gillen  'Change is good.' You're probably familiar with Loki. Loki the antagonist, Loki the schemer, Loki the villain. But Loki knew himself as that too, and tired of it. And so, he died. Died and came back as a child, with none of his memories and scant traces of his magical power. However, the rest of the Nine Realms still remember the old Loki all too well, and Kid Loki will have to use his cunning and whatever allies he can muster to keep the nine worlds safe and overcome their mistrust. But can Loki really change? And will the rest of Asgard let him? Basically everything you need to know in advance about this story is told in the recap page of the first issue, and then Kieron Gillen leads us all throughout much of the mystic side of the Marvel Universe. It's especially compelling, since for the first time in a very long while, Loki is once more unpredictable. And that, of course, is what led to this story in the first place. Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O'Malley  Meet Scott Pilgrim. He's a twentysomething slacker in the mysterious land of Toronto, Canada, currently dating a high schooler after a bad breakup. However, this relationship soon falls by the wayside when American ninja deliverygirl Ramona Flowers starts rollerskating through his dreams (this is not a metaphor). However, dating Ramona has its pitfalls - Scott will have to defeat her Seven Evil Exes to finally date her - and probably have to do some growing up along the way. Although the nominal plot revolves around Scott's defeating the evil exes, his maturing from a slacker who only he (and Knives Chau, his hopelessly lovestruck fake high school girlfriend) think is cool into a degree of maturity is the real heart of the story. Virtually all of the supporting cast is enjoyable to read (with Scott's gay room-mate and best friend Wallace shamelessly stealing every scene he's in) and have their own flaws and foibles, and O'Malley manages to thread the needle of making his leads flawed enough to be believable, but still likeable enough to care about. It can be found on Amazon (both in black-and-white paperback and new colour hardcover editions), Comixology, and even its own app with added interactivity Thanks to Yvonmukluk, Fatherboxx, Inkspot, DivineCoffeeBinge, and Doctor Spaceman for their contributions to this OP. 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 14:01
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what? no hellboy or judge dredd? the incal is essential as well the incal:  life in an extraordinarily lovely city in space, by jodorowsky and moebius. came from the ruins of the cancelled dune adaption. fantastic art, do not get the re-release with ugly digital art hellboy:  he came to earth to destroy it, ended up deciding to help save it instead. there's jokes, there are people dying, there are giant cthulhu like monsters. upcoming anime blood blockade battlefront is apparently a ripoff judge dredd:   he's not a good guy. he's the law, he follows it to the letter. its really good. he actually ages in the comic and things change permanently and there's a huge universe and all that. all collected in easy to find omnibuses, you can skip the first one since they only really settled down on his character in the second one. Davincie fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 15:18
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I am not a comic book person, per se. I've read some good stuff in my time, but not nearly enough. Nobody else was willing or able to make this thread, so instead I took people's suggestions based on what they were willing to write summaries of. If there's a series you're surprised is not on the list, please post summaries as asked. Thank you for putting the bare minimum into your recommendations, at least.
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Feb 19, 2015 16:23
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I'm a big fan of Bandette: Bandette is a thief. Who is French. Who is not named Lupin. Bandette steals:  Bandette fights:  Sometimes, Bandette even helps the police:  Bandette is a light, charming, and Eisner Award-winning tale of
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Feb 19, 2015 16:37
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please take your lovely western comic books out of my forums.
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Feb 19, 2015 16:41
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Oh shut up, Dick.
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Feb 19, 2015 16:44
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someone post the spider man 9/11 tribute comic book where doctor doom is crying because of the terrible actions of the terrorists
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Feb 19, 2015 16:51
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trying to convince people to read manga and comic books is like having bareback sex with them without telling them you're hiv+
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Feb 19, 2015 16:55
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I've always been really fascinated by the Marvel universe and all of its thousands of storylines, huge cast of characters, and multiple-yearly events. But the same thing which makes it fascinating to me also presents a huge, huge barrier when it comes to jumping in. It strikes me as imposing -- even more imposing than reading 1000 chapters of a manga that had been published for 20 years -- to struggle through potentially thousands and thousands of issues in order to get the full backstory. Even if I look at issue #1 of some trade paperback, it presents me with a stable of dozens of characters with intertwining histories, and an ongoing continuity that stretches back decades. I can't understand a thing about what's going on in any given collection, and that is a big hurdle to me. I think that's why I found it easier to get my comic-reading itch scratched by reading manga, because with those I can at least start from Chapter 1 of a series and follow it to its latest. So, in a roundabout way, where's a good place to start if I wanted to get into the Marvel continuity? How does one even start reading the superhero universes? For the record, I'm not just a manga reader! I've read one good series that is set in the Marvel universe -- Brian Vaughan's Runaways. That was pretty nice, because it was a clean start with unique characters, so it was a lot easier to follow.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:06
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Basically every GN by Bryan Lee O'Malley is worth reading.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:32
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DrSunshine posted:So, in a roundabout way, where's a good place to start if I wanted to get into the Marvel continuity? How does one even start reading the superhero universes? Avengers series (New Avengers and the adjectiveless one) written by Brian Michael Bendis was the "spine" book of Marvel for about seven years, but there is no such title at the moment. The current Avengers comic is impenetrable to newcomers, I think, way too many references to in-universe history and inside baseball. I suggest reading the Captain America by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, it was the basis for the movies, and I easily followed it back when I was only getting into superhero comics. (Amazon, digital)
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Feb 19, 2015 17:37
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DrSunshine posted:So, in a roundabout way, where's a good place to start if I wanted to get into the Marvel continuity? How does one even start reading the superhero universes? There have been many, many attempts to give a good answer to this question and every one has been less than successful. I wrote up the Hawkeye description in the first post, and there's a reason I picked that book - because you need almost no prior exposure to the Marvel Universe to understand it. That makes it a good gateway drug, so to speak. And that's the best answer I've got; your best bet is to find the right gateway to ease you in. The thing to keep in mind is that all that stuff you're worried about not knowing is stuff that, in the vast majority of cases, you won't actually need to know. To choose one example that's relatively famous, to enjoy Spider-Man fighting Doctor Octopus, all you really need to know is that Spider-Man has spider-powers and Doctor Octopus has metal arms and they fight. You don't necessarily need to know about the time Doctor Octopus tried to hijack the space shuttle in order to disperse a chemical into the atmosphere that would molecularly bond with the world's cocaine supply and turn it poisonous so that all the world's coke addicts would have to buy an antidote from him and make him super-rich. (Yes, that happened.) I mean, I think I understand where you're coming from - it's the same reason I won't watch Doctor Who because I know that if I get hooked on it I'll want to watch all of it and then no one will see me for three years while I track down every single lovely old-time-y episode and turn myself into a walking compendium of Time Lord knowledge, which is less a reflection on the show and more a reflection of the fact that I get obsessive easily. And there's no good answer. If you're the kind of person who's going to want to know everything... then maybe this isn't the medium for you. Which is a lovely answer, I know, but the best one I can give. But if you're just looking for a good entry point, something that'll let you get your feet wet without needing to leap into the pool, so to speak, then the self-contained solo books - something like Hawkeye, to again toot my own proverbial horn, or a prior Fraction/Aja collaboration with Ed Brubaker called The Immortal Iron Fist which I should have brought up too - are your best bet, because they let you get a feel for the style of superhero comics and the kinds of stories they're good at without immersing you in the nitty-gritty bits of continuity porn.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:37
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superheroes are bad
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Feb 19, 2015 17:43
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Feb 19, 2015 17:45
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One of my IRL friends is a big comics fan (he also reads manga, he's not total scum), but I, like DrSunshine, am intimidated by the way the stories are told. I should read Scott Pilgrim though, he has recommended it to me multiple times in the past and it sounds funny. Good luck with your outreach program!
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Feb 19, 2015 17:52
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DrSunshine posted:So, in a roundabout way, where's a good place to start if I wanted to get into the Marvel continuity? How does one even start reading the superhero universes? Honestly, honestly, just try not to care. When I got into comic books in high school I really didn't know poo poo about characters, and once in a while I'd be like "why is Wonder Woman black, and her mom, and why is Captain America supposedly dead" but stories rarely hinged on that. Stuff like Journey Into Mystery recommended in the OP technically came out of a huge crossover with stupid rear end plots, but that stuff isn't central or even important to enjoying a really, really good story about Kid Loki trying to be a good guy. I do not have a good typed up summary, but I think Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is a classic line-up of superheroes told in a classic way. The stuff that happened before the series started still impacts the line up and characters but it doesn't feel like you're missing any info. How and why stuff happened didn't matter that much, just that some characters are dead or gone and welp, this is how things move along after that. It feels to me like a really good and tightly written movie, but it exists right in the middle of the real Marvel universe with its stupid plots and histories. But also none of that outside matters and it is generally disappointing when you actually read about how random guy died or turned evil or whatever.
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Feb 19, 2015 18:00
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this is a cool idea you fuckin babies
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Feb 19, 2015 18:07
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Davincie posted:superheroes are bad Yeah. There are cool non-super things out there but you'd never know it based on what gets talked about.
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Feb 19, 2015 18:17
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Srice posted:Yeah. There are cool non-super things out there but you'd never know it based on what gets talked about. A good comic that's not one of the bad ones in this thread is Gipi's Notes For a War Story. It's a self contained volume about kids growing up in the fallout of an unnamed east european civil war  His art uses really clean, simple linework with beautiful inkwashing that really shows off the tone of the simple shapes, It's a great read if you can find it. The ending still sticks with me even though I read it as a kid. Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 18:26
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people who read western comics be like  people who read manga be like 
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Feb 19, 2015 18:28
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You should delete the whole op and replace it with my choice, if you want to be taken seriously op
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Feb 19, 2015 18:29
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actually, with mine
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Feb 19, 2015 18:30
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Davincie posted:actually, with mine ill compromise, but the judge dredd book should be the collected cursed earth book, cause its a good starting point and a huge variety in characters and locations and situations
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Feb 19, 2015 18:32
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i actually said that one, thats in the second omnibus
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Feb 19, 2015 18:33
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ah fair
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Feb 19, 2015 18:34
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my favorite part about cursed earth dredd is that it predated jurassic park by like 15 years they oughta get credit for that
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Feb 19, 2015 18:36
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fatherboxx posted:Avengers series (New Avengers and the adjectiveless one) written by Brian Michael Bendis was the "spine" book of Marvel for about seven years, but there is no such title at the moment. The current Avengers comic is impenetrable to newcomers, I think, way too many references to in-universe history and inside baseball. I completely agree with this statement, but as a lifelong marvel fan, holy poo poo does the current avengers arc loving own.
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Feb 19, 2015 18:57
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Superheroes suck. Scrooge McDuck comics by Carl Barks and especially Don Rosa are the best Western comics. When Scrooge was young, he went on thrilling adventures, and when he was old, he went on thrilling and wacky adventures with his family. Sometimes movies rip off or borrow things from it. The stories are great, and the art feels really alive and expressive. Barks created a neat history for the character and his family, which Rosa extended. He meets a lot of historical characters, outwits bad guys and finds approximately every treasure there is. There's a lot of small detail going on in most of the panels at once:  Look at this tough guy:  There's also jokes:  It's not artsy, it's not deep, but it's Fun and Good. You can probably find some story collections online if your grandparents didn't leave you with a decades old box of Donald Duck magazines. Ottumon fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 19:02
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A couple of more recent comics that are both good and do not require extreme knowledge of the Marvel canon. The books are new enough and short enough that I can't really go into details without spoilers so... Thor: God of Thunder was described in BSS as a comic that looks like it could be spray-painted directly onto the side of a van and it is and it's fantastic. It's got that 80s heavy metal vibe so much it could be a Conan story. Basic storyline is that somebody is killing gods and Thor suspects it might be all his fault, and he goes off with a hammer to find out and/or smash whatever did it. It's a mini-series so it's finished and collected and the ending delivers in the literal best way possible. Go read it.    Ms Marvel The newest Ms Marvel (not Captain Marvel, she's her own thing) is also new, and also great. It follows a young Muslim girl who is a huge nerd and suddenly gets superpowers and so (obviously) sets out to be a superhero and solve problems. It's more street-level than superheroic so think Spider-Man more than Iron Man. It's funny and cute and the art is nice and there's only a single book to follow with some cameo appearances in other stories so far.    Hawkguy is also great as the Captain said. Marvel is putting out some really great stuff right now. ALSO WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS I WAS BEATEN TO SCROOGE MCDUCK HOW DARE YOU. Edit: One more in this post's theme of 'fun and no bullshit about decades of back-issues': Rat Queens is a swords-and-sorcery comic about a gang of four loud- and foul-mouthed adventurers who live in a town that barely tolerates them and who tend to be both the cause of solution to their own problems. This could have been a recipe for disaster, cheap schlock and awful dialogue, but the Rat Queens themselves are all fantastic, the secondary characters are all memorable and funny, and the art is great.   
Pierson fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 19:10
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Pierson posted:ALSO WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS I WAS BEATEN TO SCROOGE MCDUCK HOW DARE YOU. ha ha I forgot to mention that you probably shouldn't read the comics not touched by Barks or Rosa. They're generally not very good.
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Feb 19, 2015 19:19
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Ottumon posted:Scrooge McDuck comics by Carl Barks and especially Don Rosa are the best Western comics. yeah, if you're some sort of effete european
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Feb 19, 2015 19:22
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Pierson posted:Thor: God of Thunder Okay, thanks Pierson! These two seem real cool, I'll check and see if my library has them!
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Feb 19, 2015 19:36
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I also wrote up a big thing about Scroog McDuck  Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit  http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/prison-pit.html?vmcchk=1 Digital http://www.amazon.com/Prison-PRISON-Johnny-Oct-01-09-Paperback/ Paperback If you enjoy ultraviolent manga, you'd be hard pressed to find a comic more ultra or violent than Prison Pit. It's the drawings you made in your middle school notebook come back from the dead as a five book, 500+ page murder and gorefest. It's stupid, juvenile, excessively violent, and it rules. Afrodisiac   http://www.amazon.com/Afrodisiac-Brian-Maruca/dp/1935233068 Hardcover Afrodisiac is like a scrapbook of comics from an alternate universe where we created blaxploitation instead of superheroes. It's a huge sendup of the blaxploitation genre, the 70s and comics in general. It's funny, badass and mystifying in equal measure. It's pretty cheap on Amazon, to boot! Frank   http://www.amazon.com/The-Frank-Book-Jim-Woodring/dp/1606995006 Paperback Frank is about the surreal travels of the titular Frank, a "general anthropomorph" who lives in the world of Unifactor. I'm not sure what else there is to say about it, but it's really compelling and the art is really good.
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Feb 19, 2015 19:47
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I'll write more once I am on a real keyboard, but Ms. Marvel, Rat Queens, From Hell, Scott Pilgrim, and Saga all completely rule.
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Feb 19, 2015 19:52
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GorfZaplen posted:Afrodisiac It is also legally free to read in a browser on the publisher's website http://www.adhousebooks.com/books/afrodisiacfullpreview.html
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Feb 19, 2015 20:00
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I'd add Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to the "big two, recent, ongoing & good" list, since it's only two issues in. Requires no previous knowledge since all the comic does is make fun of characters & continuity anyways.Chinaman7000 posted:Honestly, honestly, just try not to care. When I got into comic books in high school I really didn't know poo poo about characters, and once in a while I'd be like "why is Wonder Woman black, and her mom, and why is Captain America supposedly dead" but stories rarely hinged on that. This is the ONLY good approach to start that will keep you sane. Pick a character or team that seems interesting and just hop in (or ask for what their most recent 'good' book is). Did they reference a past event that sounds cool or develops a character you like? Go find that and read it, the order's not really going to change much for you. The paradigms shift all the time anyways since Marvel and DC can't help themselves every year or so.
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Feb 19, 2015 20:07
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I'm on a roll: Prophet is a re-launch of a very old comic you should make sure to never, ever check out, and if I had to compare it to anything I'd compare it to Blame!. It's a comic about a lone man who crash-lands on a very alien planet with a single mission, and the comic follows him as he does it. It's very quiet, almost dialogue-less for long stretches, and a lot more attention is given to the world around Prophet than to the character himself. You are basically a passenger on an annotated view of the man as he interacts with a world around him that for the most part is trying to kill him very badly.    The Immortal Iron Fist #1-27 is another street-level book written by Matt Fraction (Hawkeye and a whole other bunch of stuff BSS likes very much). The entire run functions as its own self-contained world that doesn't require any prior knowledge outside of the fact that Danny Rand is the Iron Fist, a man who attained total mastery of Kung-Fu by fighting an immortal dragon inside the mystical city of Kun-Lun, and uses his powers and the immense fortune his parents left him to fight crime and do good deeds like a mystical Batman. Luckily this particular series focuses a lot less on the Batman side of things and a lot more on the mysticism. If you enjoy stuff like crazy martial arts, old Bruce Lee films and fighting tournaments straight out of old 80s ninja movies you should give this one a chance.    And finally another check-mark in the 'Marvel are making comics that are good and funny', The Superior Foes of Spider-Man asks 'what the gently caress is it all those weird day-glo dressing C-list jobbers do between jail and Spider-Man beating them up?'. Answer: They bumble around trying for One Last Big Score.   
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Feb 19, 2015 20:23
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Transmetropolitan is another loving incredible series but it's been way way too long since I last read it and I don't remember much so if someone else wants to do a recommendation thingy go for itSharkopath posted:A good comic that's not one of the bad ones in this thread is Gipi's Notes For a War Story. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 19, 2015 20:33
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Captain Invictus posted:in fact I would like people to post absolutely anything non-manga/manwha because there's a ridiculously wide swathe of it and a lot of the good stuff gets drowned out by the sheer number of series out there   
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Feb 19, 2015 20:41
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| # ? May 6, 2024 17:45 |
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Captain Invictus posted:Transmetropolitan is another loving incredible series but it's been way way too long since I last read it and I don't remember much so if someone else wants to do a recommendation thingy go for it Yeah, okay.  TRANSMETROPOLITAN DC Comics, Vertigo Imprint Warren Ellis, Darick Robertson Transmetropolitan is the story of Hunter S. Thompson In The Future. Now, for any right-thinking person that should be enough to send you out to pick it up ASAP, but just in case you're a dullard, here's some actual detail.  The violence is over-the-top. Everything is over the top. Ellis and Zircher's view of the book's setting, called simply The City, is lurid and absurd and somehow instantly recognizable. Young addicts take drugs that turn them into cybernetic organisms. Genetic traits are available in any pharmacy; Spider took the anti-cancer trait years ago so that he could get away with chainsmoking nigh-constantly. Humans with no brainstems are cloned, harvested, and sold as food products in the popular Long Pig restaurant chain. The well-to-do can afford material feedstock for their home Maker autofactories; the poor have to make do. Horrible people do horrible things all the time and Spider, as much as he doesn't want to, cares about these things and wants them to stop. And that's his problem. Transmetropolitan is the story of a gonzo journalist and his filthy assistants taking down a President only to see a worse one come around, and along the way finding themselves too famous to do their job properly and having to burn it all to the ground. It's a book about Truth, and its cost. Also it's a book about insane amounts of violence, drug-taking, and intensely risky behavior. It couldn't be anything else.    
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Feb 19, 2015 20:59
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