I hear tell they’re making GROO into a movie, done in SHREK-like animated style. Which will either really suck or be really brilliantly twisted. Gobble up some Groo, especially the first 60 issues or so when it was really funny and meticuously drawn by Sergo Aragones.
I recommend reading The Complete Frank Miller Batman, of which I still own a hardbound copy: which lovingly contains **BATMAN: YEAR ONE ** and BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS in one volume, properly consigning the DK2 sequel and McFaralane’s and Miller’s SPAWN/BATMAN team up to the junkheap they belong in. (well, I actually like SPAWN/BATMAN, goofy as it is, but DK2 is filth.)
Completing the DARK KNIGHT/WATCHMEN 80s triumverate is the inexplicably overlooked DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN storyline, in which Daredevil loses everything important to him as a hero and still manages to claw a victory. Just terrific revelations about both Daredevil and Captain America, some of the best superhero art ever captured on paper and an Avengers cameo that still makes my jaw drop.
Get ahead of the curve so you can look down in elitist contempt and the bandwagon jumpers who arrive late at the SIN CITY depot when the movie cmes out next year. Read any of these trades.
Anything by Brother Hernandez 'Beto from LOVE AND ROCKETS. Jaime, I’m not so much a fan of.
Now that’s they’re finished, I can also recommend Jeff Smith’s BONE and Dave Sim’s CEREBUS.
Recommending Cerebus to a new comic reader is just cruel, Askia.
Elenia, Cerebus is a major comic book series. But before you jump into it, be warned that it’s seventeen volumes long and runs to over 6000 pages. And it’s not an easy going read. Plus, the author went insane about two thirds of the way into it.
:eek: Isn’t that all female comic-book superheroes? Sean Factotum, I don’t know how you inferred that I have “more” time on my hands. One of the events my company sponsored is over, but we have two more - one in October, and one in November! Comics aren’t a casual decision, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I will hit the libraries first of all. I’ll probably try to stick to just a couple of things at a time. (X-Men, and some types of manga).
Little Nemo, I’ve been in Earthworld Comics and it is positively overwhelming. For those of you not in the know, there are stacks and stacks and boxes and crates of comic books all over the place and you can’t see hide nor hair of anything! So I thought I’d ask you guys first what you recommend.
Elenia28, congratulations on trying comics. There’s a lot of great material out there, especially for someone willing to do a little digging. I floundered quite a bit at the beginning of my comic reading, but the rewards were well worth the efforts.
Most libraries do in fact carry graphic novels; some of them carry a very extensive selection. If your local branch doesn’t, almost everything is available via interlibrary loan.
When it comes time to buy books, by all means start at places like eBay, Half.com, and Overstock.com. There are some tremendous deals to be had that help keep the costs manageable. Amazon.com usually offers pretty decent discounts, too. Some on-line specialty dealers to try include Khepri. Mail Order Comics, and Discount Comic Book Service (though be aware that DCBS has been known to have some customer service problems).
As far as specific titles, wow. There’s so much to choose from. I started into comics as a result of the first X-Men movie, but despite some extensive reading of the line, I found myself disappointed by almost all of it. The movies did a better job with the characters and themes than the comics have. And, as others have stated, the X-titles are a huge, sprawling behemoth that can be expensive to follow.
One source of recommendations I haven’t seen mentioned on this thread yet is Artbomb. I wish the reviews were a little fuller, but the site is still a great pointer towards some quality material that’s otherwise hard to hear about.
I hate to have to tell you this, but Earthworld is one of the least cluttered comic book stores I’ve ever seen. Two people can walk past each other in an aisle, you can see most of the books on the shelf, the check-out area is accessible, the back-issue area isn’t a pile of boxes stacked five high, and you can actually see from one end of the store to the other. These are not common attributes of a comic book shop.
Don’t know why I thought that - obviously some entity from beyond was tampering with my mental facilities (a plot recycled from …)
Seriously, I loved collecting. I was a huge X-Men fan when Storm, Wolverine, Kitty Pride, Colossus, etc. first made the scene ('80s.) It’s just that when the second Secret Wars arc started, I had to buy issues of titles I wasn’t interested in just to keep up. That didn’t make any sense to me. And I never understood why there were, what, four or five Spiderman titles going each month. But Marvel decided to boost sales with cross-overs, and that practice offended me.
I had read a lot of the DC titles even earlier - ‘70s. I didn’t like that Superman was physically invulnerable (yeah yeah, I know, Kryptonite and magic, yada yada yada), a select few others were nigh unbeatable, and the rest were like folks at a Halloween party. So I strayed away from that. And don’t even get me started on the revising of the characters’ histories!
But if you want to preview new material, why not also drop into a book store. The major retailers all have graphic novel sections, with racks of compilations made from series (and lenient browsing policies.) Essential this and that. It’ll give you a chance to see some characters and companies that you’ll find interesting. And I did like the Watchman series, which has been brought up.
But I still think you’ll have less heartbreak and more disposable cash joining a rugby club, even with the medical bills.
I disagree. CEREBUS is, IMO, the pinnacle of the comic art form. Sim’s done stuff that Eisner never even dreamed of and things that no one will duplicate for a long time (whether it’s that no one will try because of the associations with the evil misogynist or because he’s that far ahead is a matter of debate).
Sim did go nuts well into the series, but that’s a minor quibble. You can stop reading long before that and the story will be fine. In fact, I believe that Gerhard stated in the FOLLOWING CEREBUS #1 interview that the story stopped for him when Cerebus returned from Pluto.
I highly recommend that you pick it up. I have two comments regarding this:
Don’t start with Cerebus (or vol. #1 SWORDS OF CEREBUS). It’s a nice example of a growing talent but kind of obnoxious. Get HIGH SOCIETY (Vol #2) first. If you like it, go back and read #1 then start on CHURCH AND STATE. By then you’ll know if you want to start or stop (and have made it about 2500 pages into the series).
There are a lot of riffs on the comic book industry in the beginning volumes. When my girlfriend read them, she was somewhat frustrated that there were the obvious jokes that she didn’t get. She made it through the series OK, but I think not knowing the references takes away a lot.
Re: Bone. It was a nice little series and was just released in a handy one volume book (2000 pages, IIRC) for about $40. I would recommend going with this.
Also, for some more comic-strippy fun, check out LIBERTY MEADOWS which is a lot of fun and available in several collections as well as an ongoing series that is supposeldy every bi-monthly but I don’t believe them. The reason BONE reminds me of this is that the autor of Liberty Meadows swiped a joke from Bone. I emailed him to ask about it and never got a reponse (from all accounts, he’s really good with returning email, so I wonder if he was avoiding it or if he never read it).
As I hear it, recently a major comics fan started working there and she lobbied to have the high-quality titles of trade paperbacks carried there. Sandman, DKR, Watchmen, Astro City, Swamp Thing…
Where you go depends on where your interests lie. Interested in the familiar, iconic superheroes? You’ve probably picked up enough from pop-culture to start reading some anthologies. Like, you only need to know the bare minimum of Batman’s (and Jack the Ripper’s) origins to read “Gotham by Gaslight” which sets him in late-1800s America.
rjung. GROO is obviously very meticulously drawn by Sergio Aragones. I just prefer his linework in the first sixty odd issues compared to his later work on the same title. The detail he put in the drawings and page layouts during the first five years of GROO is just insane. If you carefully compare the detail of say, random copies of the first 12 issues and a cross-section of the last 12, laid side by side and page by page, it’s pretty apparent.
GROO elucidator Mark Evanier is very loosely connected to the GROO project, but I haven’t seen anything on www.imdb.com yet. I think I saw this at www.AICN.com.
Let me second Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor’s recommendation for Usagi Yojimbo. It has superb story-telling meshed perfectly with beautiful artwork. Its setting is medieval Japan, captured quite well. Pick up any of the paperback collections; the story arcs are easy to enter at any point.
