Suggest a fantasy comic book for me to try

I am in Afghanistan, kind of fried by the end of the day and ready for some escapist fun.

Please suggest some fantasy comic books for me to try. There are a couple of limitations:

  1. It has to be available through an ipad app, as I have no access to stores;
  2. No chainmail bikinis, or cheezy sex bunny crap;
  3. It has to be well drawn, or else what’s the point of reading a comic book?;
  4. Real characters who behave like real people;
  5. Ideally, it wouldn’t require a lot of back story, the reader would be able to just dive in and go

Fantasy authors I like in order:
Jack Vance (by far my favorite);
Ursula LeGuinn (Earthsea were some of my favorite books when I was a kid)
George R.R. Martin (the first 30,000 pages or so)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I think it’s available on mobile apps, but Looking For Group is a fantasy comic that cheerfully subverts a lot of the tropes that fantasy roleplaying games have created. Its about 600 pages long by now, so lots of content. The plot does matter but you can did right into the archives and go from there. It is not chainmail bikini cheesy sexy bunny crap.

Here’s the first page, hope it works for your mobile device.

Phil Foglio adapted the first two Myth Adventures books into comic form, and it’s within your price range. There is a woman in a bikini, and at least one adult situation that I remember, but for the most part, the comic is about the story, not about T&A. However, if you can’t have a bikini pictured on your screen because of local customs or laws, I’m not sure that this will be OK in your area.

Thanks I’ll check them out. I’m downloading from US itunes, so it’s not an issue of local censorhsip, I just find the whole chainmail bikini thing cheezy. I’m hoping there is such a thing as comic books for adults.

You read the Myth Adventures online, you don’t buy it. But the story is complete, so you don’t have to try to catch up to today’s story, and then keep up with it.

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman stories are as good as everyone says they are, though I’m not sure if you can get them in ebook format. They are definitely for adults.

Sticking with more traditional fantasy, a couple related DC books…

Madame Xanadu (only 6 issues up so far, out of, IIRC, 25 total) and Demon Knights. (On the latter, Exoristos has some pretty absurd armour, but Ystin and the Horse Woman are more reasonable, and Xanadu’s outfit is impractical due to being a fancy dress. Also, most of the characters are pre-existing characters - Vandal Savage, Etrigan, Madame Xanadu, Shining Knight - but it wouldn’t be a problem to go into it cold.)

Yes, it’s one of the few long series DC has available complete in digital format right now (though Lucifer (70 out of 75 issues available) and Death: The High Cost of Living are the only spinoffs in digital format, yet).

I would definitely suggest Elfquest. All issues are currently available free online. I would link but I’m still not that handy with my smart phone yet.

It follows a tribe of wolf rider elves who are chased from there homes. Once they discover that there are other tribes of elves scattered around the globe, their leader decides to both unite the tribes and discover their origins.

It’s the longest running Independent comic book in history, going strong for 30 years. The art is fantastic and the characters are well fleshed out. There’s plenty of issues to keep you busy for a long time.

Wow, I’m really enjoying Sandman. What else is out there that is this good? It doesn’t have to be fantasy.

I’m sorry but I don’t know if this is on your App but Fables makes for good fantasy. The first few issues focus on Storybook characters living in our world but as the story moves on the focus shifts back to the fantasy worlds they left behind.

Also thank you for your service.

If you are interested in web comics, one good one is Goblins: Goblins -

The art is pretty crude initially, but it does get a lot better. Also, it starts as a parody of D&D tropes, but it gets deeper as it goes along.

Fables is excellent fantasy. I love how the various fables have changed over the years. Who would have thought that Goldilocks would turn into a machine gun toting revolutionary with a taste for bestiality?

Oh, if you can get Bone, do so. Very, very good. I resisted getting it because I thought it was gonna be all cheezy, but it’s not. Also, Y: The Last Man is very good, though I thought that the last book seemed to be rushed.

Thanks for the tip, but I’m not in the military, I work on development projects.

Then thank you for your service.

Also, if Grimjack is available anywhere online it’s another worthy title. A dimension traveling anti-hero that was one of my favs growing up.

Linky! Elfquest online comics page

Start with the Elfquest - The Original Quest issues (#1-21). That is the series that started it all. Incredible art and fantastic characters and story.

I tend to consider myself a NOT a comic-books fan type of person.

I discovered Gaiman’s Sandman via the SciFi book club’s offerings of the monthly issues recompiled into graphic novels. I love his stuff so much I’m collecting the Ultimate Sandman volumes. It’s fantastical stuff, but not LeGuin/Martin D&D setting material. [I know the Vance name, but I’m not familiar with his works.]

There are nude or partly-clothed people in it once in a while, but not in a Lara Croft/Wonder Woman/Boris Vallejo’s Women sort of way. It’s definitely for adults — not for the images but for the very cerebral scripting by Gaiman with lots of classical literature and history involved.

If I could +1 this, I’d give it +9999 of them.

—G!
Hush Little Baby
Don’t Say A Word
And Never Mind
That Noise You Heard
. --James Hetfield (Metallica)
. Enter Sandman
. Metallica

It’s not about T and A, but it is, occasionally, about Tanda.

If you’re interested in webcomics (and a lot of the suggested titles are webcomics) Digger starts here. If you like very pragmatic fantasy, it doesn’t get more pragmatic than this. And it won the Hugo for best graphic novel this year.

It’s got geology and anthropology and talking animals and oracular slugs. I’ve read it more than five times. Even knowing what’s coming, I always laugh. And there are three places where I always cry.