Must have comics

[jambo]

The Walking Dead.

B/W series that has been running since '03, great if you love zombies and wonderful character development.

[davidjay]

george carlin... oh, wait. you meant "graphic novels". sorry.

[J Ed]

I really should go to The Beguiling - I hope it is still there.

sure The Beguiling stil exists, and specialises in the kind of arty alternative comix Im sure youd prefer
and in that neighbourhood is another BMV, this one the size of a department store ... the fourth floor is entirely comics, with several tables full of remaindered comics related books ... theyre on the block immediately east of the Future bakery
also the BMV next to Worlds Biggest Bookstore has many comics
they tend to sell backissues much cheaper than the normal comics shops, and they get all the remaindered art books, sometimes a quarter the original price
I recently picked up the Humbug book from them for $25- ... Humbug was one of Harvey Kurtzman's failed attempts to create another satiric magazine after leaving MAD (which he created), loads of wierd beautiful art from Bill Elder, Jack Davis, Arnold Roth and others

[David Smith]

Here is the best comic related site on the net

http://superdickery.com/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=45

[nosaj]

I just remembered what I bought a few weeks ago, the Seven Soldiers of Victory (Part 1)

[nosaj]

I have really been enjoying the Marvel Civil War stuff recently...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_%28comics%29

[Enish]

"Me and the Devil Blues" by Akira Hiramoto



It's hard to find in book stores, but you can find volumes one and two on Amazon.

[J Ed]

I like my comics historical, and theres a lot of beautiful collections of older comics coming out these days ... Fantagraphics, once known for their hip alternative comics, are surpringly now putting out many of the best archival collections but theyre not the only ones

a couple recent recommendations:

Four Color Fear
published by Fantagraphics
beautifully done full colour scans of legendary early 50s preCode horror comics
prior to the imposition of the Comics Code, horror comics were very graphic and bizarre, not really meant for kiddies at all
EC and Atlas (Marvel) were the best known horror publishers, and theres archival reprint programs for both of them, but this book gathers the best of the rest
Harvey Comics in pertickler put out some of the weirdest horror comics before the Code, you know Casper and Richie Rich Harvey Comics? once upon a time put out comic books that looked like THIS!
as well as a few hundred pages of full colour scanned comics theres several dozen pgs of fine print explaining the history of the various artists and publisheres represented
this one has two covers because the first printing sold out so quickly
the editor, Greg Sadowski, a couple years earlier put out Supermen in the same format, focusing on the very earliest years of the superhero genre, his thesis being at first a superhero comic could be anything, but with WWII the genre became constrained by formula

the other one I recommend just came out

Blackjacked and Pistolwhipped: A Crime Does Not Pay Primer.
published by Dark Horse
Crime Does Not Pay was a truecrime comic published from 1942 until the Comics Code put them too out of business
it claimed to be the bestselling comic of its time, yet never has been reprinted before this
the stories would be 9 1/2 pgs of exciting bank robberies, ripoffs, casual murders and high speed chases before in the last panels the criminal was either sentenced or more typically shot down in a hail of bullets
the bullets were frequently depicted going in one side of the victims head and out trhe other
and in the title logo, the word CRIME took up a third of the cover, with the words DOES NOT PAY being a little easier to miss
somehow the US Senate got the crazy idea this comic book was a Communist plot to lure a generation of children into a life of juvenile delinquency and it was forced out of business
Im not so crazy about the cover on this one, wishing theyd used some of the original artwork instead, but what theyre showing is that one of the editors of the original comic did himself go to prison for murdering a ladyfriend, in precisely the depicted manner, which adds a real life twist to the whole true crime concept

both these comics reprints, and many other current ones besides, are done with scans
amongst comics fans this is controversial, because of the muddiness of the colour, the imprecise blacks, and the persistence of errors like misregistration, yet technology has gotten so good a patient restoration expert can correct for all that and make a scan look even better than something printed from the original plates - in both of these the scans are very good indeed

[danielcaux]

The Maxx, I have never read the comic, but the TV cartoon they made from it was quite awesome back in the day. I really like how they did the whole layout of the show, more like a moving comic page with sound than like regular cartoony animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvhA5T8QRgw

[wiped]

george carlin... oh, wait. you meant "graphic novels". sorry.

[J Ed]

this is my favourite comic book of the last year:

Donald Duck - Lost in the Andes
Fantagraphics has just put out the first volume in their planned definitive archives of the Carl Barks Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comics
Barks drew Donald Duck for approx 25 years, starting in 1942, and was one of the best storytellers in comics even though he laboured all that time in anonymity
he gave Donald much more character than he had in the cartoons, and had him (and Huey Dewie and Louie) go on adventures around the world, including Scotland, Persia, India, the Andes, and ShangriLa
in 1949 he added the character of Uncle Scrooge, the worlds richest duck, as a new foil to get Donald sputtering in rage, and Scrooge quickly became Barks favourite character, going on his own adventures round the world and revealing an increasingly complex backstory involving the Yukon goldrush and exploration in Africa
Fantagraphics is now planning a complete archival series, starting somewhere in the middle where Barks was really hitting his stride ... this first volume is really a nicely designed book as well as having essential content

look at this pg for an example of how good Carl Barks could draw comics
innovative panel arrangement to suggest falling through space
followed by the detailed oblique view of an ancient city hidden beneath the fog

[danielcaux]

I'm pretty sure I saw that last image of the golden temple in one episode of Duck Tales when I was a kid.

[Meandthem]

Lost of Barks' work got a wishy-washy treatment in Duck Tales, I guess...

This is about the forth or even fifth time I start to collect the entire works of Carl Barks.
First the original magazines, then the Carl Barks Library, then the CBLiC, then the Danish Carl Barks Collected Works - and now I'm stuck on Fantagraphic's edition, ha ha...
Nuts!

I like the non-glossy paperquality of the Fanta's, but am a bit worried about the coloring (?!)

Anyone got the Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse-books?

[J Ed]

hey MeAndThem glad to see youre a Barks and Gottfredson fan!!
if you have all those expensive and now hardtofind collections you are a dedicated Duck fan indeed
do you know about the INDUCKS?
probably if you already have all those versions but if not its a good resource for tracking down which story has been reprinted where, an online database of Disney comics from all over the world

I've looked at the new Fantagraphics Mickey Mouse books but have yet to pick them up, they're very hefty sizewise
they appparantly also include the earliest preGottfredsen strips too that never got officially reprinted before because of the anachronistic caricatures of african folks
I like Gottfredson's stories a lot too .. he also made Mickey Mouse an epic adventurer but his style has completely different qualities to Barks - I always think it looks real flat and modular, playing with the 2dimensionality of the printed page
whereas Barks has depth and detail and gives his ducks a wider range of emotion than most more "realistic" cartoonists ever attempted

colourwise I think the colours in the new book are mostly flat, not using gradients like they did in the Gemstone books that came out a few years back .... I know that was a big issue amongst some purists I've talked to
and they seem fairly muted, as they might have appeared on newsprint back in the day, rather then the garish 100% full colours on slick paper that were used on the early Marvel Masterworks and DC Archives
I actually stumbled across four 1948 issues of Walt Disney Comics and Stories in a antique store in the middle of a stack of 1990s Wolverines!!!, after already being told everything in the pile was $3- apiece (one of my best comics scores ever, I think), and at least two of those same stories are in this new book so I should compare the colours ... registration is definitely improved, thats one aspect of modern printing to be grateful for

[Meandthem]

...and you're into Will Eisner, too!
Seems there are more things that unite us, than separates us.
Also the quest for old comics - you know the feeling, when you come home with a snotty, semi-worn old comicbook, that just saved your whole day, haha.
My best finding was the whole run of 1955-56 Anders And & Co (WDC&S in Danish) in a garbage-container - VG+ to NM condition. Take that!

Ya, I know INDUCKS - thanks for your concern - it's a great knowledge-base.
Do you know about http://dcf.outducks.org/viewforum.php?id=2?
Great site with in-side knowledge from both producers, artists and commons. I can recommend that...
You're right about the gradiant-thing, but the color-issue is important to let the producers know, that "the more the merrier" is not the way to go.
That's what I like about the CBL - it's just Barks' inking, nothing else to distract!
...but now, off to work!