Must have comics

[Hogtown]

Enlighten me.

I need some winter reading.

[mosespa]

If you haven't read "Watchmen" by now, you have no business calling yourself a comic fan, imo.

[Hogtown]

I borrowed that from a friend about two years ago (still have it). I have the first few issues of the Sandman and a few others I cannot remember now.

So, anything along the lines of these are good...

Come on people, make me a fan.

[wiped]

Strontium Dog : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog
Rogue Trooper : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Trooper
ABC Warriors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Warriors
Ace Trucking Co : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Trucking_Co.
Bad Company : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Company_(comics)
Slaine : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1ine_(comics)


what can I say ... I was a big 2000AD fan ....

[PublicImage]

'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Prufrock and Other Observations'.

[David Smith]

Bat Man; The Dark Knight Returns is a classic too

[PublicImage]

'The Killing Joke' is a fine Batman comic. And 'The Long Halloween'.

[Hogtown]

What about Mouse, or whatever it is called by that Spiegelman, or whatever dude?

An trippy comics or philosophical ones? I mean, reading about people in tights and capes is alright for a while...Watchmen is good because they are characters with issues. Wasn't Marvel the pioneers of this derpessed hero thang?

[drafsack]

Try viz

http://www.viz.co.uk/

[mosespa]

I don't know if they're still publishing them, but if you can find any back issues of The Human Target...it's well worth a read.

[davidjay]

What about Mouse, or whatever it is called by that Spiegelman, or whatever dude?

"maus". yeah, that's a good one.

[oz1701]

my favorites from childhood -

and

[ddebil]

Try viz

http://www.viz.co.uk/

I have!

[J Ed]

Art Spiegelman's MAUS is excellent, I actually learned almost everything I know about the Holocaust from that comic, as high school history class tended to gloss over what really happened
Spiegelman worked out a whole new cartooning style for that one, to minimise the pretty pictures and put emphasis on the words, its a comic book that actually deserves the otherwise pretentious "Graphic Novel" designation
Spiegelmans also got a new book out, Breakdowns, actually a reprinting of his long out of print first collection
also a couple years back he did In The Shadow of No Towers, about his own personal 9/11 experience: his studio was just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center

and if you want to lay out some serious cash, track down his 1980s anthology series RAW - I know the Beguiling (a Toronto comic book store HogTown will be familiar with) usually has a set above the cash register but they want big $$$ for those
nosaJ Im sure youd like the way Spiegelman approaches comics, he's a real artschool intellectual type, always deconstructing past forms and revealing the political subtext - if you hear or read interviews with him he seems to know the whole history of comics but doesnt think much of superheroes at all

Wasn't Marvel the pioneers of this depressed hero thang?

indeed Stan Lees early issues of Spiderman and the Fantastic Four were revolutionary for this amongst other reasons
superheroes before this had (almost) always been shown as walking talking ideals of patriotism and manly values, Stan Lee gave us a Peter Parker who spent more time worrying about how he was going to pay the rent than catching crooks, and the brooding embittered Thing who'd pick a scrap with the Human Torch just when he was really needed to save the world
the story there is Marvel Comics was on the brink of collapse in 1961, and assuming he might not have a job tomorrow Stan decided to write a comic book he himself would be interested in reading instead of repeating the same formulas he'd been cranking out for 20 years - the assumption previously had been comics were only read by children and the mentally defective, but Stans last ditch effort found an audience and by decades end Marvel had overtaken DC as the biggest selling comics company
I'd recommend early issues of Spiderman if youre interested in this, particularly the Steve Ditko drawn issues - theyve been reprinted many times, and Marvel offers its classic comics as phonebook sized "Essential" volumes where you get 2 or 3 years worth of continuity in b&w on cheap paper for less than $20-

Any trippy comics or philosophical ones? ...Watchmen is good because they are characters with issues.

Alan Moores other series like Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, From Hell and the League of Extraordinary Gentleman are all philosophical, satirical, subversive and often trippy, his run on Swamp Thing is especially trippy
too bad his MiracleMan series is long out of print, the last half dozen issues of that make Watchmen look like the SuperFriends - he too sees the superhero as being an inherently fascist ideal, or at least he wrote an unforgettable comic book that persuasively argues this

one of my favourites Im reading these days is Will Eisners The Spirit, which was a weekly 7 page comic book distibuted in the 1940s as a Sunday newspaper supplement
Eisner was one of the early pioneers of the comic book, and he wanted he freedom to write and draw for a more mature audience, so he swung this deal with a newspaper syndicate
The Spirit was the best drawn and best written comic book series for many decades, and DC has reprinted the entire run in a 26 volume series
theyve also put out 2 "Best of"s in more affordable paperbacks

theres a Spirit movie coming out directed by Frank Miller, I have no idea what thatll be like but please dont judge the Spirit by the movie, go straight to the original Eisner comics, which are easy enough to find
DC also has a current Spirit series by a much younger creative team, which is supposedly OK, but again Id recommend ignoring it and going straight to the real stuff Eisner wrote and drew 50 years ago

[David Smith]

Try viz

http://www.viz.co.uk/

Legend

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