I’ve recently finished the entire Preacher series, which has been my baby for well over a year. I’ve converted half my teammates to Preacher fans, and they were as sad to see it end as I.
But all good things come to an end, and I’m ready to move on. Damnit, I need a new obsession. And this is where you get your chance to pimp your favorite comic book series.
I want a series collected in TPB form, as I don’t have the money nor the time to be chasing down individual issues. It has to have strong writing and strong plot. It has to be easily found in the United States and in English, so sorry, no untranslated manga please. I’ve already either collected or read the following:
Garth Ennis’ Preacher
Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The first volume of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.
Chris Claremont’s God Loves, Man Kills.
James O’Barr’s The Crow.
I’m currently considering the comic version of George R.R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight. I’ve started on William Tucci’s Shi and have been looking at David Mack’s Kabuki with serious interest.
Third for Transmetropolitan. The whole run is available now in TPB, so no waiting for the next installation, and it’s even money which is better: Transmet or Preacher.
Planetary is also pretty cool, although it has a much more “anthology” feel to it. The third TPB is a collection of Elseworlds-style Batman crossovers, which are particularly entertaining.
I love the anthology feel of Planetary: it jumps genres and does pastiche and homage with the same excellent artist, writing and coloring team.
The only reason I don’t recommend it is that it’s taking painfully long to complete. Go to the library and see if they have the first volume. If you like it, wait until the whole thing’s over and THEN buy the trades.
The Planetary crossover collection, however, is merely okay. The only one that sings is the Batman team-up illustrated by John Cassady.
Fourth for Transmetropolitan, because while Preacher’s ending is somewhat perfunctory, you gotta love Spider Jerusalem’s last words.
I personally feel that Transmet offers better overall reading than Preacher. However, I concede that Herr Starr is by FAR the more entertaining villain.
It gets mentioned in every single “Recommend me some comics” thread, so it gets plenty of recognition. Don’t know why there aren’t more threads dedicated to it, though. Maybe because it’s so damn good, there’s nothing to debate about it.
'Course, if you want to start a thread on it yourself, I’ll be there with bells on.
A very violent Japanese series (translated by Dark Horse/Studio Proteus), set in Japan’s medieval period, about a man named Manji who is cursed with immortality until he kills 1000 evil men - then he will be allowed to die.
It’s quite good - or at least the first few arcs were. I haven’t read it in a while.
Actually, I believe it’s going to be a quartet of three-issue arcs, broken up with individual one-shots. The idea being that Buseik et al don’t want to alienate readers who might be put off by an ultra-long narrative.
And we’ll finally learn just what the heck happened to the Silver Agent to earn the disdain that’s been hinted about since the beginning…