The niftiest thing on it is the progression from “horror comic” covers for titles such as DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME to watered-down wussy covers by the late 1950s.
PS: Definintely, you should invest in THE BIG BOOK OF DEATH. Worth it for the guide to the Great Cemeteries of the World alone…I was delighted that they included Green-Wood, which is just 20 blocks from me here in Brooklyn.
People have named a lot of great comix here. But here’s a few favorites of mine that haven’t been mentioned.
Anything by Matt Howarth - his two main series were Those Annoying Post Bros. and Savage Henry but he also did a number of one shots.
The Desert Peach by Donna Barr - The WWII adventures of Erwin Rommel’s gay brother.
Omaha the Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley - An ongoing story about a anthromorphic feline stripper.
Box Office Poison - sorry I don’t recall the creator of this one.
Knights of the Dinner Table by Jolly Blackburn - Admittedly kind of a one-note satire about D&D fanatics. But it’s been running fifty issues now and has managed to expand from its origins rather than shrink into self-parody. Besides I wanted to mention one series that was still being currently produced.
Strongly agree with all of the above, and would like to add a few classic underground comic of the 60s. For single-artist titles I would nominate
**The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers ** is probably the longest-running series. Early issues are collections of shorter stories, but some of the later issues are full book-length adventures that spoof everything in sight and have top notch artwork as well. As a bonus, the **Fat Freddie’s Cat ** that ran along the bottom of the one-pagers is priceless.
**Wonder Wart Hog ** The name says it all, though it actually began in one of those hot rod cartoon magazines of the early to mid 60s. Whimsey at its finest.
**R. Crumb’s ouvre ** B’god the man WAS underground comics with Zap and his other titles. You gotta love the guy who came up with the “Keep on Truckin” bumper sticker (not to mention the cover art for the Big Brother and the Holding Company’s second album)
Of the multi-artist issues, I’m particularly drawn to (pun intended) **Mother’s Oats ** with incredible psychedelic adventures from artists Sheridan and Shrier, and
Air Pirate Funnies and Dan O’Neil’s Comics and Stories which took Disney’s cartoon characters and plunged them into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, to the non-amusuement of the Disney empire who hired a boatload of lawyers and quashed them.
Other titles worth looking for of that era include **Trivial Annoyances ** and **The Little Green Dinosaur ** that horny, time-traveling pipsqueak.
Ah, the memories…
Fantagraphics used to meet all my comics needs. Neat Stuff by Peter Bagge, which segued into Hate. Absolutely kills: a dead on depiction of the early to middle '90s. I’ve met Bagge twice at cons, and he is terrifically cool.
Acme Novelty Library featuring Jimmy Corrigan The Smartest Kid on Earth by ??? Takes a while to bend your mind around it, but it is exquisite.
(You and Your) Big Mouth: drawings by Pat Moriarty, stories by various. Brought a story Henry Rollins wrote to a signing he did. He did a double take, then flipped it to see the cover and said, “Oh yeah!”
Cud by Terry LaBan. A short feature called “Karmin’ Around” never fails to make me bust a gut.
Real Stuff: stories by Dennis Eichhorn, drawings by various.
Toyed with some others, but those were the only ones where I liked the stories as much as the art. Did not like Peep Show, art or stories. I had, or have (it may be lurking about still) the poster with all the characters dancing.
Most of these seem to have faded away. Hate and Real Stuff had definite endings; the others apparently just evaporated. Not impressed with Bagge’s recent effort, entitled Yeah. I like Clerks, but how often do they publish a new one–every two years?
There’s a series named Promethea, put out by the same people who do Tom Strong. Strictly speaking, Promethea is a superhero, but any comic book which attempts to explain the creation story from Genesis in terms of modern evolutionary theory and tie that in with Jewish mysticism, the teachings of Alistair Crowley, and a joke has got to be OK.
Chris Ware. I have the hardcover collection of Jimmy Corrigan, which I love. It’s beautiful. Time online named it the best comic of 2000, in a tie with Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde, which is also the shiznit. (The article is at http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,91291,00.html <–You’ll have to cut and paste that, since apparently vB refuses to parse URLs with commas in 'em.)
For multimedia fun, the PRI show This American Life had an episode you can listen to in RealAudio in which they talked to Chris Ware.
Oh yeah, for those who liked What’s New? with Phil and Dixie, and for those who wonder what the big deal is with this Foglio guy: Phil and Kaja Foglio have a new series called Girl Genius–I just got the second issue.
Oh, I didn’t even think of Jon Sable Freelance earlier! I still would like to complete my run of that! Mike Grell is notable for his use of middle-aged heroes: Sable, Green Arrow, and the hero of Warlord were all over 30. That doesn’t seem strange at first, but considering how many characters are maintained as eternally young, it’s sadly unusual.
In a pulp-detective vein, there was also Ms. Tree by Max Collins and Terry Beatty–sort of a 1980’s Sam Spade. I have the later DC issues. I liked the “Midnight” backup feature.
And Mike W. Barr’s Maze Agency was fun for short fair-play mysteries. Twenty-four page comics aren’t the greatest mystery format, but it was cute. (And the early ones are largely drawn by Adam Hughes!)
And there’s the classic Alien Legion: gritty stuff, sort of a Foreign Legion concept, in space, with really alien aliens.