Comic Recommendations!

[The Other Dave]

At Izakayahammer this year, the topic of comic recommendations came up, and since we have a dedicated movie thread I thought it might be cool to start a similar thread for comics. Whee!

As I said that night, though, I don't really read that many paper comics, but I do read a lot of webcomics, many of which are even safe for work! Here are a few that I think might be in the wheelhouse of Nahoyahammer peeps.

Kill Six Billion Demons is an interdimensional gnostic kung-fu romance about an unwitting barista who is given Ultimate Cosmic Power, the seven black emperors who want to tear it out of her head, and her sidekicks, an angel cop made of stone who knows millennia-old martial arts, and a cigar-chomping, fanfic-writing devil sorcerer with a mysterious past. Good stuff!

Mare Internum is more traditional science fiction, about exploration of Mars in a plausible near future. Warning: it has some pretty heavy stuff - the very first page starts off with an attempted suicide, and it sometimes gets darker - it's very much in the "heavy psychological study" field of science fiction, but it has a lot of humor as well, and the science is good and clearly well-researched.

False Positive is a horror anthology series, lots of little self-contained stories. Hard to sum up for that reason, but it's very well-done.

Stand Still, Stay Silent is a sort of happy, dreamy, slow-moving comic about post-apocalypse Scandinavia. Plus there's magic now for some reason? Often very funny, balanced with some weird body horror elements. It starts off with a pretty extended preamble before a time jump to after the world ends, but if you don't like the pace of the first few pages you probably won't dig the pace of the comic proper either.

I'll finish with Prague Race, a very-pretty-to-look-at modern comedy horror fantasy deal with trolls and werewolves and the cutest walking shark you ever saw.

(Also, of course, there's Oglaf. Don't look at that one while anyone is looking over your shoulder, but it really is very funny.)

[Primarch]

Well, I am a reader of "paper comics", though since it is tough to get those over here, I usually look online for digital versions.
Viewcomic.com has a bunch of comics you can read for free, though I'm not 100% sure on how marvel/dc and the like feel about it. Hellocomic.com also had a load, but it appears to be down at the moment.

Some reading recommendations

Invincible - Starts out as your standard 'kid develops super powers' style story and then quickly forges it's own theme/style. Well worth a read. Issue 0 is a recap of the first two years of the story. DO NOT READ IT!!! It contains massive spoilers.

The Darkness - A mafia hitman wakes up on his 21st birthday to find that he is the bearer of an ancient power known as the Darkness, which grants him immense power so long as he doesn't go into the sunlight. Originally released as three arcs with a break of several years between them, there are definite changes to the story and pacing, though all of them are pretty good.

The Punisher (Marvel Max) - The original Punisher was a pretty dull comic back in the day when all comics followed the Comic Book Code. Then Garth Ennis got hold of it. Welcome Back Frank is an amazing story arc, followed by Army of One. They go a long way towards making the Punisher one of Marvel's mor interesting books.

Fables - A story about Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf and Jack (of the beanstalk fame) and how they set up a community in the real world after their own is conquered by an unknown enemy. Nicely paced, the story starts off with the Fable community having been around for a while and gradually fills in the back story as it goes along.

Hellblazer - A long running series about a magician called Constantine and all of the trouble and problems he gets caught up in. The initial story arcs are really wordy and, while they do set the scene for the character, they aren't great. Later issues are much better, though quality obviously varies with the writer. The 'Freezes Over' story is a great piece of writing and well worth a read.


There are loads of other great comics around, too many to list here, but having a thread for the subject is a great idea.

[Konrad]

The last "real" comic I bought, as in dead tree and ink, was "From Hell", Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. That was 3 years ago. Absolutely brilliant, but not something you'd leave lying around for the kids to page through. Both these guys are sooo smart, just reading their comments in the final notes section left me floored.
Alan Moore need no introduction. Eddie Campbell is a fine artist, if you like your stuff, skritchy and scratchy and obviously crow quill inkery. He did a series called Bacchus, that was excellent in that Neil Gainman-mythological-figures-slumming-around-in-the-modern-world, vein.
"Concrete" by another really smart guy Paul Chadwick is another fave of mine. Probably the most thoughtful, intelligent, and down to earth " man abducted by aliens and who ends up with his brain transferred into a near indestructible stone-like alien exoskeleton" story I've ever read.
These days, I regularly read (via this internet thing) .......
Atomic Robo, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, The Secret Knots, Dinosaur Comic, Surviving the World, Dilbert, Doonesbury (mostly reruns these days, sort of sad how political jokes from 30 years ago still work...) Dresden Codak, Vattu, Order of the Stick and (hide the children's eyes) Spying with Lana.
And okay, I'll confess, Oglaf
I'm sure I'm missing some.

[Primarch]

Order of the Stick is good, for anyone familiar with RPGs it's a must read.

I'm not a big fan of Alan Moore, but of course the name is one I think all comic book nerds have heard of. Personally, I prefer Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Gail Simone and a lesser known writer called Jimmy Palmiotti (sp?) who did a bunch of super hero stuff I liked back when I read real comics.
Plus, I can't forget Simon Furman who was largely responsible for my favourite comic series when I was a kid.

[The Other Dave]

Vattu / Rice Boy / Order of Tales are right up there in my top ten, lots of good storytelling going on there, with a cool "weird fantasy" vibe. Very deliberate pacing, in Vattu especially, but the writer has clearly put a lot of thought into his world and the way he wants to tell stories in it.

Oh! I forgot Bird Boy as well. Fantasy with a very mythic feel - in the sense that it's set in a mythical world rather than in the sense that it's about super-powerful demigods.

[me_in_japan]

Pretentious but extremely well written and hugely influential - The Sandman is absolutely worth a read. The first book is ok, but it really shines later in the series.

I'll second Prim's recommendation of Hellblazer. I haven't read it since my uni days, but I still remember it well.

Preacher is awesome, although I suspect most folks here will have already read it.

Of course, all of those are long since finished (actually not sure about Hellblazer) but as for current stuff, I'm liking Saga, which is a big space opera kinda thing where two soldiers from enemy cultures fall in love and have a kid, and the whole story is narrated by the kid (it starts a wee bit before she's born, and she is currently maybe...5 or 6? A wee girl, anyway). It's a big sprawly story full of aliens and bounty hunters and some pieces of art that actually made me stop and say out loud "I have never before seen that drawn in a comic" (or in real life, for that matter*)

Other things I'm reading include: Injection by Warren Ellis (a group of people magically hack the Internet and make a kind of sentient AI with magical powers. It doesn't end well.)

The Wicked and the Divine, by Gillen McElvie, is about a group of gods and goddesses who reincarnate every tumpty years and perform as music idols (because they need the worship/isolation). It's a little derivative of some ideas floated in Sandman, but the art is nice and the writing is snappy.

Sex Criminals, by Matt Fraction, is a story about a girl who...well, every time she climaxes everything in the world freezes and she can walk around while everything else is suspended in time. She meets a guy who has the same thing happen (they share the same frozen moment) and they decide to use their powers to...rob banks. Obviously. This is actually a fun comic, and is the only one out of everything I listed that made me laugh out loud. It's also less smutty than you might think. Certainly less so than oglaf (but then I'm not sure how it'd be possible to be more smutty than oglaf)



*eg a dragon engaging in autofellatio. No really. And that's not the weirdest one.

[Primarch]

A little old now and it's been finished for a while, but 8-bit Theatre is good.

http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/02/ ... ing-where/

[ashmie]

Me and MiJ have a buddy in Mie who is wanting to sell his entire collection of comics. Either in bulk or piecemeal. He has Marvel, collectables from the 50s, Daredevil you name it.
If anyone wants to take a look at his collection please contact me or MiJ.
Cheers.

[me_in_japan]

Its a very, very big collection, btw. Some runs of more than 100, and some very collectible oldies. Plus, lots of collected editions, hardbacks etc. I think he's hoping for both/either large bulk buys for those wanting to buy complete runs, or more expensive old single issues for the collectors. As ash says, any interested parties should contact me by pm or on this thread. The friend in question is Jon Richards, for those who may know him, btw.

[Konrad]

Oh forgot, "Romantically Apocalyptic"- utterly gorgeous rendering. The story is ....Hitchikers meets Doctor Who meets The Matrix meets Doctor Strangeglove....maybe.....The colors will melt and then lovingly caress your eyeballs. Zee Captain's antics will melt and then lovingly caress your mammalian thinking parts.
And I dig "Supermassive Black Hole A*" ( hear the "A*" is pronounced "A-star"). It's a space opera/adventure/conspiracy story. The main character a mostly silent, femme fatale, super assassin/mercenary/spy. The art and dialogue is very simple, minimal. Each episode is like a single panel storyboard for a sci fi movie. hmmmm, Just crossed my mind, maybe that's just what is going on.