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[Holtz]

Monster is about a japanese doctor in Germany who saves a little boy from dying, and that boy turns out to be the Monster of the title. Good stuff.
Read Batman Killing Joke by Alan Moore.

Then look for Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman:

And if you are into zombies at all, Walking Dead is a must:

 

[Amir0x]

Monster is about a japanese doctor in Germany who saves a little boy from dying, and that boy turns out to be the Monster of the title. Good stuff.

did you just ruin the twist for me :|

already read killing joke.

 

[Holtz]

did you just ruin the twist for me :|

already read killing joke.

That happens in the very first volume, and that description is in the Amazon site. So no, no surprises ruined.:lol
More awesome comics:
Supreme by Alan Moore:

By Frank Miller and David Mazuchelli:
Daredevil Born Again

Batman Year One:

 

[Amir0x]

That happens in the very first volume, and that description is in the Amazon site. So no, no surprises ruined.:lol

Definitely sounds like something I would have liked to stumble upon in my own reading, though

More awesome comics:
Supreme by Alan Moore:

What's Supreme about?

 

[Holtz]

Definitely sounds like something I would have liked to stumble upon in my own reading, though



What's Supreme about?

Supreme was a crappy Superman knockoff Rob Liefeld created for Image, but it was turned from crap to gold when Alan Moore was given the reins. He ignored all the crap that came before, and created the ultimate homage to the Superman Mythos using Supreme, everything from the Golden Age to the present. A classic. You can find more info about his Supreme run here.
And you asked what Monster was about, and i told you. Just saying he is a japanese doctor working in Germany involved in a murder investigation doesn't work to sell the title to people. Monster is 18 volumes, the saving the boy happens early in vol. 1, there is a ton of other twists in there.

 

[Amir0x]

I dunno about Supreme then. Superman is probably the character I dislike the most of any major superhero... he's the least relatable... so any homage might fall on deaf ears with me. Which is why I sorta like Supreme Power!

 

[Spike Spiegel]

What about Age of Bronze?

 

[Holtz]

Yeah, i'm not a Superman fan myself, but it's freaking Alan Moore, man. :lol Supreme was amazing, the guy knows his stuff. Have you read Daredevil:Born Again and Batman Year One from Frank Miller?

 

[Amir0x]

Yeah, i'm not a Superman fan myself, but it's freaking Alan Moore, man. :lol Supreme was amazing, the guy knows his stuff. Have you read Daredevil:Born Again and Batman Year One from Frank Miller?

Not Born Again, but I've read Year One. What does Born Again do that would make me, typically not a fun of superhero comics, dig it?

What about Age of Bronze?

I've heard about this! It's about Troy, right? Is it really as good as they say?

 

[Holtz]

If you liked the style in Year One, Born Again is very similar since it involves the same creative team. I don't want to go into spoilers, but it's the best Daredevil story ever IMO, and Frank Miller was on fire back then. I didn't even like Daredevil before reading this story, and i was a huge fan after it was over.
And yeah, speaking of Frank Miller, have you read the 300?

 

[Amir0x]

yeah i read 300, it's in the first post

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

If you like Adrian Tomine and or Dan Clowes stuff, then:

Love and Rockets. There's a ton of it, try either the giant "Locas" or "Palomar" books, or for smaller trades, "Death of Speedy" or ""Human Diastrophism." These are some of my favorite comics, ever.

Chris Ware stuff. There's a book "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth" which the titles does not describe at all. It's the story of a guy who meets his deadbeat dad for the first time when he's middle-aged-- interspersed with flashbacks to his grandfathers story in 1890s Chicago. Great, great stuff.

Anything by Peter Bagge. I suggest starting with "The Bradleys" if you can find it, and then the "Hate" collections.

 

[Fatghost]

Whether you like Superman or not, you should definately read Busiek's Secret Identity. It's great.

 

[KingGondo]

By Brian K. Vaughan, who also wrote Y: The Last Man.

A civil engineer named Mitchell Hundred is exposed to some kind of bizarre material that allows him to communicate with almost all kinds of electronics and machinery. This allows him to stop robbers' getaway cars, control the jetpack on his back, and stop... certain terrorist attacks from happening as intended. Definitely an alternate history.

After 9/11, Hundred runs for NYC mayor and wins, and he is forced to balance the pressure of politics with the responsibility of being The Great Machine. Excellent, clever, nuanced stuff. The art wasn't initially up my alley, but it grew on me. Harris uses still photos for reference, then pencils and lays over color.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

Here's all you need:

Desolation Jones/Fell: Warren Ellis redefines crime comics as anyone knows them with gritty fantastical realism and some of the best art you've ever seen.

Seven Soldiers Of Victory/All Star Superman: Remember when you said you'd prefer non-Superhero stuff? Here Grant Morrison proves you painfully wrong.

100 Bullets/Loveless: Brian Azzarello weaves the most intricate criminal conspiracy ever to be seen in comics in the first, and recreates the closest approximation to Deadwood you'll ever see in the second.

That ought to hold you for a while.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Addendum to my earlier post: Pictures.

Jimmy Corrigan:

Locas:

Palomar:

Link to preview of Palomar:
http://www.artbomb.net/preview.jsp?t=palomar#

 

[MrToughPants]

Batman vs Predator

Deathmate

 

[8bit]

If you can find them, Alan Moore's Miracleman & Grant Morrison's Zenith are absolutely worth trying to track down.
The former is a middle aged man who finds out he used to be the powerful man on the planet, the latter a superpowered asshole who has to deal with a multidimensional invasion.

Also, Morrison's Doom Patrol.


And yeah, these are cape books, but they're probably the best examples of doing something different with the concept.


---


Also, I have to second Love and Rockets.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Oops, Jimmy Corrigan is in your initial post. Well.... for everybody esle reading, then.

 

[Uncle]

Also I hate almost all manga, so we can leave that out.

I'd still recommend Lone Wolf and Cub.

"Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story of Ogami Ittō, the Shogun's executioner who uses the Dotanuki battle sword. He was disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan and has been forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigoro, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub"."

Spoilers at link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub

 

[borghe]

Batman vs Predator

Deathmate

seconded.

well guys, I'm off to the Motley Crue concert. Sure hope my VCR records The Cosby Show and Seinfeld.

 

[iapetus]

100 Bullets is inexplicably missing from the original list. Given everything else that's on it, I'm sure it's just a typo. YMMV, but I'm greatly enjoying the Lucifer series that's one of the best spin-offs from Gaiman's Sandman stuff. Obviously not as good as the source material, but it still has its moments.

Oh, and I just bought the full run of possibly the most special comic book in the history of mankind:

And I think you should as well.

 

[FnordChan]

I'm late to the party, but what the hell.

Frank - Jim Woodring's surrealist masterpiece, based loosely on his dreams. To be precise, his incredibly ****ed up dreams. Haunting and highly recommended, the whole shebang is available as a single hardcover volume from Fantagraphics that is absolutely worth the scratch. Here's a review, courtesy of Artbomb.

The Cowboy Wally Show - I'm not sure I can get away with using "infamous" to describe this early work by Kyle Baker, but what the hell, I'll throw it out there anyway. Our hero is being interviewed for a career retrosepctive about his drunken, one-man assault on the media. Take, for example, his film career, including a week spent filming a no-budget hackjob Hamlet for tax reasons...while in prison:

Absurdist deadpan humor at it's finest. Here's a short preview. See also Why I Hate Saturn.

Cerebus - Proof positive that the pursuit of art can drive you mad. Dave Sim started self-publishing Cerebus as a Conan parody in the late 70s. After a few years, the series moved away from sword and sorcery and more towards politics and satire. Around this time Sim did a whooooole lot of acid, declared that he would publish Cerebus as a 300 issue comic series by a single creative team, and proceeded to keep his promise. Unfortunatly, the man went insane roughly halfway through.

So, where does that leave us? The first half of Cerebus is absolutely amazing. Skip the first volume (the early Conan gags) and start with High Society (collecting issues 25-50, and a steal at thirty bucks), where Cerebus discovers the wonders of politics. If you like High Society, go back and read the first collection, then move on to Cerebus's adventures with religion (Church and State volumes 1 & 2, issues 52-113), followed by the character study Jaka's Story (114-136).

Unfortunatly, it's downhill from there. The next short volumes (Melmoth, Flight, and Women) are pretty decent, but then Dave gets bogged down in misogyny partway through Reads, makes a brief comeback for Minds, then completely drops the ball around issue 200. The rest of the series chugs along without much in the way of plot . That said, the art is amazing (not to mention the lettering), and reading each issue of Cerebus as it came out was always interesting if not especially entertaining.

Does Cerebus succeed as a single, 6000 page graphic novel? Hell no. Is the first 3000 or so pages still worth reading? You beatchya.

And that's enough evangelizing for the moment. More later.

FnordChan

 

[Amir0x]

100 Bullets is inexplicably missing from the original list. Given everything else that's on it, I'm sure it's just a typo. YMMV, but I'm greatly enjoying the Lucifer series that's one of the best spin-offs from Gaiman's Sandman stuff. Obviously not as good as the source material, but it still has its moments.

Yeah, I'm up to date on 100 Bullets. I also read much of Lucifer already. It's hard to remember everything I've read :lol

Re: Cerebus

i had heard about that from someone before, and they really seem all over the place about it... it honestly is too gargantuan to me to try to really tackle it i think. Maybe when i have more time.

Anyway, started reading Midnight Nation... decent so far. Not blown away, but decent. Marquis hasn't come in yet.

 

[Eric P]

Cerebus - Proof positive that the pursuit of art can drive you mad. Dave Sim started self-publishing Cerebus as a Conan parody in the late 70s. After a few years, the series moved away from sword and sorcery and more towards politics and satire. Around this time Sim did a whooooole lot of acid, declared that he would publish Cerebus as a 300 issue comic series by a single creative team, and proceeded to keep his promise. Unfortunatly, the man went insane roughly halfway through.

So, where does that leave us? The first half of Cerebus is absolutely amazing. Skip the first volume (the early Conan gags) and start with High Society (collecting issues 25-50, and a steal at thirty bucks), where Cerebus discovers the wonders of politics. If you like High Society, go back and read the first collection, then move on to Cerebus's adventures with religion (Church and State volumes 1 & 2, issues 52-113), followed by the character study Jaka's Story (114-136).

Unfortunatly, it's downhill from there. The next short volumes (Melmoth, Flight, and Women) are pretty decent, but then Dave gets bogged down in misogyny partway through Reads, makes a brief comeback for Minds, then completely drops the ball around issue 200. The rest of the series chugs along without much in the way of plot . That said, the art is amazing (not to mention the lettering), and reading each issue of Cerebus as it came out was always interesting if not especially entertaining.

Does Cerebus succeed as a single, 6000 page graphic novel? Hell no. Is the first 3000 or so pages still worth reading? You beatchya.

And that's enough evangelizing for the moment. More later.

FnordChan

cerebus is the single most important work in independant comics.

i am a huge fan. i got into it around the halfway mark and have loved each consecutive volume.

sadly, the mysoginy does get to nearly everyone, but i still feel that it's worth slogging through.

Jaka and Astoria are two of the best written female character I think i've read in modern literature (my absolute favorite female character is Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair), and i suggest that anyone who has the time, patience and ability to seperate artist from art check this out.

High Society, Church and State and the Mothers and Daughters saga are absolutely essential reading.

 

[Wolffen]

Maybe I missed it, but I saw no mention of Astro City. Kurt Busiek rocks at pretty much everything he does, and all of the Astro City books have been great. Best one, though, IMO was:

.

 

[iapetus]

Astro City deserves the recommendation.

And has anyone recommended Girl Genius yet? Started out in print form, but has switched over to an online format. It's great stuff, and I believe you can still buy most of the back issues from the site.

 

[Joseph Merrick]

the current CONAN book on Dark Horse is great great. same writer as Astro City, Kurt Busiek. it's up to issue 28 at the moment. I think Mike Mignola, Hellboy guy, is writing the next story-arch of 3-4 issues.. but Kurt is still with the book

 

[borghe]

cerebus is the single most important work in independant comics.

not to pick nits, but I personally believe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles deserves that title. Why? Because it was (IMHO) the first independent title that showed you could make an INSANE amount of cash without having to whore yourself to Marvel or DC. Not to take anything away from Cerebus (and fnord's brief summary is perfect), but TMNT is really the American dream, in comic format. Not to mention the first couple dozen issues are actually a blast to read.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

It's the weirdest thing that flaming misogynist Sim writes a couple of deep and interesting female characters. Jaka's Story was one of my favorite parts of the series.

Cerebus is genius. Hard to access genius, but genius nonetheless. I never finished it, and probably never will, but the good parts are gold.

I think the propoer way to read Cerebus, unfortunately, is to slog through the early parody stuff and read it in order, or else read about half of High Society and then go back. The end of High Society benefits greatly from knowing what happened early on.

High Society, Church and State, and Jaka's Story are some of the finest comics I've ever read.


Aside: I once wrote a paper on college on a 2-page spread from Church and State, which had no action or dialogue. In it, Cerebus is trying to get to sleep.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

TMNT was important from an businesss perspective, but I don't think it's very relevant from a creative perspective.

But I think Zap Comix #1 is more important than either, from both a business and creative perspective.

 

[Joseph Merrick]

another book to check out; MADMAN by Allred. totally awesome. 4-5 trades out of it at the moment. book is supposed to be back this year, or some time soon.. after the madman movie (rodriguez) is finished is all we know, so that might actually be a while. heh..

 

[FnordChan]

And has anyone recommended Girl Genius yet? Started out in print form, but has switched over to an online format. It's great stuff, and I believe you can still buy most of the back issues from the site.

You beat me to it, but Girl Genius was definately on my list of titles to pimp. The early issues are steadily being put up on the website for free (with two full volumes available as we speak), so anyone interested should start here. Steampunk adventure with mad scientists, tons of adventure, and plenty of wacky hijinx. It's terrific and, hey, most of the series is available free online! Very highly recommended.

I think the propoer way to read Cerebus, unfortunately, is to slog through the early parody stuff and read it in order, or else read about half of High Society and then go back. The end of High Society benefits greatly from knowing what happened early on.

This is a good point, though I'm often afraid someone will get partway through the early barbarian gags and decide they just don't see what all the fuss is about. Going through the whole shebang starting from the first volume is probably the best reading order, but I don't think it hurts too much to go with High Society first; I've made more than a few converts that way. Either way, the first volume should definately be read before, say, Church and State.

FnordChan

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

You beat me to it, but Girl Genius was definately on my list of titles to pimp. The early issues are steadily being put up on the website for free (with two full volumes available as we speak), so anyone interested should start here. Steampunk adventure with mad scientists, tons of adventure, and plenty of wacky hijinx. It's terrific and, hey, most of the series is available free online! Very highly recommended.



This is a good point, though I'm often afraid someone will get partway through the early barbarian gags and decide they just don't see what all the fuss is about. Going through the whole shebang starting from the first volume is probably the best reading order, but I don't think it hurts too much to go with High Society first; I've made more than a few converts that way. Either way, the first volume should definately be read before, say, Church and State.

FnordChan

Yeah. I got my wife into Cerebus with High Society, I think I just had to explain the ending.

Church and State would make no sense at all without reading High Society first.

I think Jaka's Story could be read and appreciated stand-alone, but it's very different from the chapters before it.

 

[VALIS]

Thankfully, it's only about the first 10 issues of Cerebus which are tough to get through, after that and the introductions of ...hell, I'm forgetting their names... the Groucho Marx mayor/king-guy, and the psycho super-hero-guy, things were at least fun until Sim really found his legs.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Thankfully, it's only about the first 10 issues of Cerebus which are tough to get through, after that and the introductions of ...hell, I'm forgetting their names... the Groucho Marx mayor/king-guy, and the psycho super-hero-guy, things were at least fun until Sim really found his legs.

Lord Julius and the Cockroach/Captain Cockroach/Moon Roach/Wolverroach/Sacred Wars Roach/Swoon/normalroach and then I lose track.