Is Blade: The Immortal a title I’m unfamiliar with, or a miscommunication of the title of Blade of The Immortal?
If the former, I reccomend Elfquest and Lucifer. In the latter, I can’t really decide whether I’d reccomend BotI or Elfquest more.
I’ve gone through phases that I was obsessive about both. Elfquest has a wonderfully developed world, and BotI has a slightly tighter story - since it has to spend less time on the world-building, and has a smaller regular cast. The singles of BotI included a little glossary of Japanese terms that may be unfamiliar, I don’t know if the collections do, too. The art in both is great (although very different).
Lucifer, if you get it, should be saved until after Sandman - or at least after a particular collection (which will be obvious once you read it), for best effect.
Hellblazer and Groo are also good choices.
On the others: I was unimpressed with Books of Magic, haven’t read American Flagg or Lone Wolf and Cub (In the latter case because I can’t find it in anything resembling completion when I can afford it), and can’t get enthused enough about Star Wars to reccomend it.
I vote for: Lone Wolf and Cub; Groo and American Flagg. Elfquest is good, and I would’ve put it ahead of Lone Wolf and Cub. Why these books? I think it gives you a good cross-section of some very fine comics. Groo is a funny book and Mark Evanier is a clever writer. American Flagg is arguably Howard Chaykin’s best work. Granted, everyone’s tastes and opinions may vary, but there’s mine.
I’m sorry to hear about your surgery. I hope everything goes well and you keep us all posted. Best wishes.
I hate to say “None of the Above”, but I will, simply to be sure you’re not missing the following:
Barnes and Noble: Ultimate Spider-Man Collection. Issue 1-50 of Ultimate Spider-Man, one volume, $50, ten percent off on the cover.
Barnes and Noble: Marvel Masterworks in softcover: Spidey, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny X-Men staring with Giant Size, FF, Avengers, Daredevil
Astro City: Life in the Big City, and the following four.
Kingdom Come
Superman: Secret Identity. (The story of the Clark Kent of Earth-Prime. Kurt Busiek.)
Bone: Complete series in one TPB
Girl Genius. Various collections. Two, at the moment.
XXXenophile collections. It’s Foglio, it’s porn, it’s healthy.
Superheroes by Robert Mayer. Reprinted recently. Seminal adult superhero novel.
Dirty Pair collections by Adam Warren.
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
PS238: With Liberty and Recess for all. You need this. You really really need this.
I’m sure you have at least half of these, but they’re all darn good. Some are art.
All of Astro City, except for the most recent storyarc, has been collected in trades. They are, in order:
Life in the Big City. First miniseries.
Confessions: First, what, eight issues of the second series. The Batman storyline.
Family Album. Second eight issues or so. Several smaller arcs. A Riddler type, a Spidey type, a FF story. (Astra’s in there, right?)
Tarnished Angel: This one’s noir. Robert Mitchum as a long suffering supervillian (Juggernaut/Wrecker type. Strong, but not too smart) gets out of jail, and tries to make a life for himself. But someone’s killing his friends.
Each story is self-contained, they’re about twenty bucks a pop, they’re big and thick. The series isn’t over, but each of the selections are self contained arcs, as the next arc has all new characters and plotlines. And it’s the best superhero comics you’ll ever find. Local Heroes will be the next TPB to come out.
PS238? http://ps238.com/
It’s a grade school for the kids of superheroes. Speaking as the kid of a teacher, and a student teacher, it feels right. Same person who writes Nodwick. There’s some introductory stuff on the page. Issue 0, mostly.
Oh, and how do you feel about classic Superman?
Alan Moore’s Supreme
and
Alan Moore’s Supreme: Story of the Year
are pretty much classic pre-crisis Superman stuff. Which reminds me. It’s thin, but if you haven’t read it, there was always one that had a special place in my heart. It was a two parter, one in Action, one in Superman. (Adventure?)
Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?
Alan Moore got to write the last pre-Crisis Superman Story. It’s worthy.
Hellblazer = I’m a major Hellblazer fan, but I’ve got to warn you: the TPB program is notoriously spotty and inconsistent. There are major gaps that should be traded but aren’t, and trades of plenty of stuff that’s mediocre. The first volume is particularly crippled, but trading only the first nine issues of an 11 - 12 issue arc. :smack:
Lone Wolf & Cub - Is almost universally acclaimed, but take a look at the dimensions of the books themselves. I find the tiny size almost impossible to read for extended periods of time. YMMV.
Books of Magic - I’m in a minority in enjoying this series. Consider yourself warned, most comics fans don’t like it. There are only six TPBs, but about ten TPBs worth of material. The bits that aren’t traded, aren’t traded for a reason
American Flagg HC - Some really outstanding material, and this HC covers a complete story arc. There’s lots more untraded material that comes after, but the very best of it is in here.
E-Sabbath: Thank you for the info. I’ll look for the Astro City stuff. I have the Supreme trades, and they are indeed wonderful stuff, and the trade of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.
Selkie: Thank you for the info. The size of the Lone Wolf and Cub books doesn’t bother me; I have small hands.
Well, consider the context in which they usually see hot Asian chicks. It’s not that they’re shy, it’s that they’re trying to keep an eye out for the inevitable tentacle monster attack.
Yeah, I think I’d have described it in the same way. I’ve recommended Preacher on the boards before, and I think that’s more or less my standard disclaimer. It’s got a fairly particular approach to concept of manhood and male bonding that wouldn’t appeal to a lot of people, of either gender. Sort of like Ernest Hemingway, really, except with more gags about male-on-male anal rape. Some people can really get into that sort of masculine mythos, even if, like myself, they have no interest in living it. Other people read it and roll their eyes so hard they damage their optic nerve. And I don’t want anyone getting angry at me 'cause I made them go blind.
Of the other series you’re considering, I’ve only read a few.
Hellblazer has significant cross-continuity with Swamp Thing, and some minor cross-continuity with Sandman and Lucifer. John Constantine was first introduced in the pages of Swamp Thing. Selkie covered the problems with the TPB collections, though. Still well worth it, in my opinion. Plus, if you read them now, you can be properly outraged by the Keanu Reeve hatchet job of a movie that’s coming out this Summer.
Books of Magic I’ve only read a few of, and I have no idea what’s going on. There’s clearly significant story elements that do not appear in any of the BoM TPBs that I’ve been able to lay my hands on. What I’ve read has been quite good, but also frustrating. I’d pass on these for now.
Groo I loved when I was a kid, but haven’t ever read as an adult. Don’t know how well it holds up now, but I still use phrases from it in everyday life.
Lucifer is absolutely brilliant, but wait until you’re done with Sandman before you get started on it.
Elfquest is probably the only one of the list that I can unreservedly recommend that you get right away. Just get the first four TPBs, though. That’s the original story-arc. It’s a wonderful epic with a perfect and immensely satisfying ending that is somewhat diminished by all the inferior (although still not exactly bad sequels). Plus, the coloring after the first four books takes a distinct downturn, and the last couple are in black and white. (The comic was originally in black and white, but the vivid palette of the TPBs is a vast improvement, IMHO)
Since someone else mentioned him, I’m going to second anything Phil Foglio has ever done. XXXenophile is the best kind of porn: the kind that’s still completely entertaining on an entirely non-purient basis. It’s funny and clever and well drawn on top of being sexy as hell. My only complaint is that it’s very much created with the heterosexual male libido in mind, but like I said, the comics are fun as comics, not just as porn.
But mostly, Foglio is known for his non-adult work, such as Myth Adventures, Girl Genius, and Buck Godot. All of them are excellent and highly recommended. Myth Adventures is his comic book adaptation of the Robert Aspirin novel of the same name (he only did the adaptation of the first novel and, unsurprisingly, that’s the only adaptation that’s still in print) and is so much better than the original novel it’s kinda embarassing. Buck Godot is an earlier work that’s a mildly satirical space opera. The art’s a little rough, but the wit is pretty good. Girl Genius I haven’t actually read (shamefully enough) but odds are it kicks ass, too. He’s also done a lot of other work, such as the What’s New? with Phil and Dixie strip that used to run in Dragon magazine, and a passle of Magic: the Gathering cards. He’s easily one of my favorite comic artists, and should be much, much more famous than he is. (And he’s not exactly obscure, either.)
Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is also crazy brilliant, but I’ll let someone else extol its virtues, which are many.
Simply to add to Miller’s comments on Phil Foglio: he also did two mini-series for DC, Angel and the Ape and Stanley and his Monster, both of which are nothing short of fantastic, though neither has been collected as a trade paperback. Nonetheless, once you finish Sandman, I urge you to try and get your hands on the SahM back-issues, as it plays with the conventions of the DC mystical-horror-Vertigo universe in very amusing ways.
I blame Phil for getting me into Magic: The Gathering. That said…
If you liked What’s New with Phil and Dixie (Which, by the way, came back in the pages of The Duelist, the M:TG magazine, then transitioned back to Dragon for a few good years), you’ll like Nodwick, the story of a long suffering henchman to an adventuring party. Same author as PS238. http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/nodwick/
(Hm. Phil and Kaja may not want to talk to Aaron for a while after PS238 #10 comes out. This, I have to see.) If you like Phil, you’ll like Aaron. As far as who’s better, Phil’s been doing it longer, and is more polished. Aaron’s better than Phil was when he started, though.
I do want to hear Kaitlyn’s opinion of PS238, though. It’s so rare to find someone who reads superhero comics and has teaching experience. Irate mothers whose children are, clearly, prodigies… tote bags… playground dynamics… and the blue denim skirt. All there.
My take on some of the other titles that’ve been mentioned:
Blade of the Immortal: I’ve never wanted to burn a book as much as the first volume of this. I saw it and thought it was an interesting concept, kind of a more “hip” version of Lone Wolf and Cub that had more magic in it. Instead, I thought it was self-consciously “edgy,” ridiculously violent and mean-spirited, and horribly misogynistic. I don’t think I’m a prude about such things; there’s been stuff in Preacher, for instance, that genuinely offended me and I found it difficult to read, but I still respected what he was trying to do with the book. Blade of the Immortal is just trash, IMO, with no redeeming value.
Hellblazer: This is one of the few series that I collected every issue of, up until around the end of Garth Ennis’ run. The Jamie Delano years are great, but as already mentioned haven’t all been collected in TPB format. A great starting point for this book is Dangerous Habits, which I recommend to anyone, even those who don’t have any interest in the rest of the series. It collects Garth Ennis’ first few issues of the book and is just one of the best story arcs ever done in comics, period.
Lone Wolf and Cub: I’ve always thought of it as a comic book version of an Akira Kurosawa samurai movie. If you like Yojimbo and Sanjuro, you’ll probably like Lone Wolf and Cub. Very slow paced with flashes of extreme violence, told in a very cinematic way.
Funny. I have exactly - and I mean exactly - the opposite reaction.
While Blade makes me cringe, sometimes, there’s a story to it that makes it worth reading, and characters that I cared about what happened, even if I didn’t always like them.
Preacher is the biggest piece of garbage I’ve ever bothered trying to read. There wasn’t a story worth reading, and the only person I cared about what happened to them one way or the other was that one in-bred brother, who I wanted dead just so the bestiality discussions would at least die down a bit.
Samura was telling a brutal story (it’s about revenge, murder, and suicide, after all) about less than pleasant people. Ennis was doing his best to be offensive for no good reason, far as I could tell.
Offensive? I’ll tell you what’s offensive…that you have so little sympathy for those whose desires are a luttle different from yours…for example, those who like worshipping giant meat-women, or who like having sex with endangered species of animal.
Garth Ennis’s sensitive soul poured itself out in these heart-rending, yet eye-opening depictions. How dare you judge??
I have the Criterion Collection editions, as well as Seven Samurai and the Samurai trilogy. This is going at the top of my list for next month’s purchase.
The loval library has a pretty good selection of graphic novels, including a number of Astro City books.
Is there any more to volume one than what’s collected in Life in the Big City? (I borrowed that and Family Album, plan to borrow more on my next trip.) All the other collections they had in were from volume 2.
