comics binge

[deird1]

The more I watch Linkara ripping bad comics to shreds, the more I feel like writing comics.

It's just... he'll point out that a plotline is really dumb, and I promptly think "He's right! It would work so much better if they started at the museum!" and before I know it, I'm mentally rewriting the entire thing and making it awesome.


Linkara also leaves me wanting to frantically read as many good comics as I can get my hands on - which it a pity, because it's really hard to find comics I like enough to spend $30 on. (Welcome to Australia, home of EXPENSIVE EVERYTHING.)

I know a lot about comics, but, actually, I haven't read very many. In fact, so far the comics I've read are:
- Asterix (fun, and I really should read them again now that I'm old enough to get the jokes)
- Tintin (most unrealistic ways to get out of danger EVER)
- Ultimate Spiderman (really fun - although I preferred the movies)
- Ultimate X-Men (interesting, but not enough to keep reading)
- Buffy season 8 (horrible in every conceivable way)
- Runaways (absolutely excellent, until they changed writers - Joss Whedon should seriously never be allowed near comics EVER AT ALL)
- Y The Last Man (kinda boring)
- Marvel 1602 (truly wonderful, but required an enormous amount of comic history knowledge)
- random issues from the Silver Age (usually featuring at least one person turning into a monkey, and really corny jokes)

So far, the ones that I consider to be worth at least $30 are Ultimate Spiderman, and Runaways.

...and I can't just buy a random comic in the hope that it might be worthwhile. I've tried that - and it never is worthwhile.


I'd also like to try Marvel Zombies and more of the Ultimate series, but that's all I've got. Anyone else have suggestions?

Comments

[velvetwhip]

I was always a big fan of The Tick and its spin-off Man-Eating Cow.


Gabrielle

[deird1]

Hurrah for The Tick! That's another one I've been planning to read one of these days...

[velvetwhip]

It's well worth reading, and I like Man Eating Cow even better.


Gabrielle

[redsixwing]

Digger.. in case you're not already reading it. :3

And Girl Genius makes me happy, three days a week, with remarkable art, an occasionally bogglingly weird story, steampunk, and mad science.

The Sandman series is excellent, with a note that it's Neil Gaiman and he's occasionally clueless. (That series in particular has one instance of trans* fail that makes me ragey, but overall it's still really good.)

If you can stand a great deal of political insight and Brave-New-World style dystopia mixed with yr. regularly scheduled vulgarity and violence, Transmetropolitan is amazing. But vulgar. And violent. It's Warren Ellis doing what he does best.

.. and I see you've already read 1602. *g*

[deird1]

Steampunk! *pounces*

Thanks for the recs!

[mauvedragon.livejournal.com]

Seconded on girl genius

[silveronthetree]

Ooh! I can answer this one. I'm kinda obsessed by comics at the moment. I haven't read much Marvel stuff but I'd recommend Young Avengers (a bunch of teenagers who set themselves up as sucessors to the Avengers). I slightly prefer them to the early Runaways issues. Sadly I started with Joss's run and it put me off.

On the DC side I'd suggest Blue Beetle. Jaime is a Mexican-American teenager who picks up a scarab one day and discovers that it is actually a piece of alien technology, which fuses to his spine and gives him superpowers, which he uses to fight crime. He's unusual among comics heroes in having a very supportive family and friends who know his secret identity.

I'm a massive fan of Batman stuff but I'm not entirely sure where to start reccing, there is way too much awesome!

[deird1]

Ooh... Young Avengers...

[(Anonymous)]

I'm guessing you're not fond of Joss Whedon and comics but his Astonishing X-Men is well worth checking out. Warren Ellis' Planetary is a good bet too.

Simon (or simonf on LJ)

[deird1]

I'll bear it in mind...

:)

[stultiloquentia]

Can I interest you in a manga? I've been enjoying the hell out of Fullmetal Alchemist. I watched the whole anime and loved it, then picked up the manga in a ho-hum sort of way, because it was there, and I thought I might as well go digging for extra world-building details, since I want to write fic. And fell tail over tea kettle. It's WONDERFUL. Sly and geeky and goofy and badass in a way the anime only hints at, for all it's the same story.

[deird1]

So - in your opinion, should I start with
a) the anime
b) the other anime
c) the manga

Because I've been wanting to check out that story for a while (which, come to think of it, is partly your fault), but I've never quite figured out where to start.

[stultiloquentia]

Depends on availability, I guess. The manga, I'm currently discovering, is head and shoulders above both anime, but if you can't get your hands on it easily, and you're impatient, go ahead and watch Brotherhood. The difference is tonal. For some reason, Arakawa's humour, which is an absolute delight on the page, comes across as somewhat grating on screen. YMMV. The plot and characters are gorgeous in both.

[redsixwing]

Ooh! Fullmetal Alchemist is completely awesome, it's true. I'd recommend starting with the manga, because it is the awesomest awesome that FMA has to offer.

[snickfic]

Despite your Whedon disclaimer, I actually quite liked Fray. It is very Whedon, but mostly in the good ways. Both te characters and worldbuilding are colorful and intriguing.

Second the Sandman rec, although I've actually only read the first two volumes. It's big epic stuff with the Gaiman imagination ramped up to 11. (It doesn't start finding its feet until the end of the first volume, though; it gets much stronger in volume 2.)

Also, I'm told FreakAngels is good, although I haven't dug into it yet - post-apocalypse, grumpy twenty-somethings with superpowers, and FREE.

[verity]

Comics/graphic novels I love
- Love and Rockets (CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS HARD ENOUGH - I prefer Jaime's storyline)
- Sandman
- Blankets (by Craig Thompson)
- Transmetropolitan
- Lost Girls

[shapinglight]

Anything by Alan Moore is worth checking out, though some of it is rather pretentious. Promethea is very beautiful to look at, and Top 10 is rather fun.

I agree about Joss Whedon. He should never be allowed near comics again. I didn't like his stint on Astonishing X-Men either. It was boring.

[iosef.livejournal.com]

Girl Genius
Sandman
Hellblazer
Sin City (violence warning)
Any Alan Moore (Warning: Lost Girls has several potential triggers including explicit graphic sex)

[guy-who-reads.blogspot.com]

Hmmm, comics. Well, first up, I have a short list of webcomics that I read regularly in my sidebar, here: http://guy-who-reads.blogspot.com/ - it's about half-way down on the left. Some of them are good, some are excellent, some are mediocre. Girl Genius has been recommended above, so I'll just add a +1 to that rec.

Second, Scott McCloud's Zot! is worth taking a look at - it's been fairly recently collected in book form. It's arty and black and white, while still retaining a great deal of the form and feeling of a traditional superhero comic.

There was a further rec, but I can't remember the title, alas. Perhaps it will come to me.

[guy-who-reads.blogspot.com]

I remembered the other rec - Strangers in Paradise. It's lushly illustrated, in colour. Story-wise, it's a high school soap opera, with all of the soap opera-y logic; people are suddenly revealed to be secret agents, or related, or not related, or sleeping with each other, or not. It toys with some sort of science fiction elements, as I recall, but it's not really SF.

[deird1]

Hurrah! Many things I've never read! Thanks!

[urania_calliope]

I've enjoyed: Sin City (boobies and violence), Sandman (creepy imagery), Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock (my current fav) and Star Wars: Legacy (this takes place over 100 years into the future so if you don't know anything about Star Wars that's fine, it's really excellent though). Marvel Zombies is SO gross (ha ha!) but hilariously awesome. If you like steampunk you could check out 'Freak Angels' which isn't really steampunk but has some of the aspects. It's a post-apocalypse taking inspiration from some of John Wyndham's stuff.

Good luck!