You might really be surprised at what your library has to offer - that’s how I’ve been satisfying my Captain America thing lately because the least exciting weekend I can imagine starts with my fiance opening up the long boxes.
olivesmarch4th:
AMEN. I don’t think there’s a single comic-book writer whose work is as consistently good as his. Hulk, Young Justice, Supergirl, Aquaman, X-Factor…he’s amazing.
Heck, I still remember his run on the “New Universe” series Justice. Such a minor title in the grand scope of comic-dom, but I can still vividly remember many scenes and lines. One of those is a joke that I still love to tell (it requires facial expressions, that’s why I don’t straight-out post it here. But in a comic book, it’s great).
Yup, I just went to Zombie Planet which is really close to my office and my home. They were super friendly and nice, though I had an entertaining moment. I wasn’t really listening as I was browsing…apparently they were bashing Robert Pattinson in Twilight. I kind of wandered over there and they looked at me and said “Oh, no, you’re not a Twilight fan, are you?”
I said, “Me? Good heavens, no! I’m actually kind of sick of vampires altogether.”
They said, “Oh, god, we thought you were coming over to hit us because we were mocking it.”
Anyway as said, they are not cheap, so I just bought three. I bought Watchmen, because everybody and their brother recommends it, and when I glanced through it, I liked the art.
I bought a Hellboy one - the one the second movie was based on. I really thought the second movie was disappointed and am hoping the comic will be better.
And I bought a Call of Cthulu one because the art was just gorgeous.
I saw no Y the Last Man.
They had Fables but they only had the first four books in this really expensive hardcover. They said they’d be getting the softcover in soon.
He laughed when I mentioned Scrooge McDuck, and I don’t think he had it.
They do not have Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
I looked at Deadpool. I really wanted to get one, but there were like 20 and I had NO idea where to start. There didn’t seem to be any “origin story” or beginning.
I forgot entirely to ask about Hellblazer.
And he showed me a ton of other stuff. They have a whole wall of DC and…argh I’m blanking on the other one. They have an even bigger wall of “new comics”, and a decent sized section of trade paperbacks.
Then I wandered around the gaming section a bit - pretty good selection. A nice store.
I am going to try the library tomorrow when I return Unseen Academicals. I have no idea what they even have.
One more thing. I started reading Watchmen in the car when I got back here…I had a few moments before I had to come in. I can tell I am already hooked on the comic, so I think I made a good choice.
Thanks all!
“The other one” is Marvel.
Right. My mind was like NOPE! WE AIN’T REMEMBERIN!
Get on their mailing list. They’ll send you coupons that are good for twenty percent off your entire purchase.
If you liked Watchmen, you’d probably also like Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid and The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith.
I did. I also got a frequent shopper card. Every $10 gets a stamp, and then after $100, I get a free $10. Not bad!
Seconded.
Good recomendations.
I’m really happy you’re reading Watchmen. That was the first graphic novel I ever read. And I was like, “Oh, comics are art!” It completely blew every preconceived notion I had out the window - and the beauty of it is thatonly in that medium that story could be told. Just breathtaking.
I would also highly recommend Planet Hulk, which is just beautiful. It’s a good standalone trade paperback if you just want to dive in.
Well, the publishers aren’t helping with the way they number them.
Personally, I prefer webcomics anyway. More continuity of creative vision, and pretty much free!
But yeah, if you like, say, Incredible Hercules, ask someone who works in a comic shop, or people in an online community (this is one thing journal networks like LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, and DreamWidth are good at) like noscans_daily, for help in finding them.
I get most of my trade paperbacks from Amazon these days and I know they have all of those for sale. So it’s easy to start at #1 and you can read what people have to say about the stories to see if you would be interested or not. And usually it’s cheaper than the comic shop.
I forgot about Kingdom Come. Another of my top five.
If you want nice art this is a good one. Alex Ross painted the whole damn thing. Each panel is a painting.
The story is it’s the future and Superman and most of the old schools have retired and the next generation of heroes and bad guys are more interested in fighting each other than about the safety of the public. So something has to be done about these unruly bastards.
Any recommendations on where/how to start on Deadpool?
Yeah, I got into Y: The Last Man by checking out volumes from the local library.
In general, you just start somewhere and start pulling at threads, I think.
NO.
Watchmen is a deconstruction; why would you start with that over the source material? Also, it’s ridiculously dark.
OK.** Maison Ikkoku**, comedy, science fiction, dystopias. This is my planet. Warning: I’m not that up on new stuff, since my comics-junkie phase was in the 1990’s.
There’s a lot of Predator, Aliens, and Terminator stuff, the trick is finding it all. But it’s out there.
For lighter stuff akin to (but not the same as) Maison Ikkoku, try Azuma’s stuff: Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba&!
Also, there is a lot of other Takahashi stuff (lot of comedy, but also some horror). I like the “Rumic Theatre” stories, but I think they are out of print. I read some in inter-library loan.
Of Western works, maybe Strangers in Paradise would work for you, but I never got into it myself.
Dystopian sci-fi? Maybe** The Ballad of Halo Jones**, if you can find it? Ian Gibson’s art is pretty trippy. I mean, it’s still Alan Moore, so vomiting is…certain. Second thought, never mind.
Try Carla Speed McNeil’s stuff instead. Lots of fantasy biotech, some creepy dystopian stuff, but an art style more Takahshi-esque as well.
Oh! Svetlana Chmakova. Her series are pretty self-contained. And trippy awesome.
(Note that I am not recommending female-written girly stuff to you because you are a woman. I’m recommending it because that’s a lot of what I like. But, that said…)
If you can find some** Alien Legion**, give that a shot. Really alien aliens in a sort of groundpounder foreign Legion unit IN SPACE. The first series is by Alan Zelenetz, who had some old-warrior poetry in him. The second is by Chuck Dixon (of 1990’s Batman/Nightwing/Robin fame) and more action-movie.
But this is besides the point of your question.
_
There are websites that critique comics and advertise them:
Scans_Daily, the infamous slash community banned from LiveJournal when one of its members told Peter David to Die In A Fire. They are still around, and still very very gay. They do excerpt a lot of other neat stuff, though; it’s not all slashy stuff.
Comic Book Resources has a lot of stuff. Like Comics Should Be Good!
I’m not sure where to start on blogs. MightyGodKing isn’t that much about comics now, but you could just pick stuff out of his page of links at random, and get some hits.
There are some tumblrs. Like DC Women Kicking Ass, which is superheroes, of course.
Marvel and DC used to have official websites with discussion boards, but I don’t know what kind of state those are in. I can’t find DC’s right now.
http://www.comicboards.com/ seems to still be up.
Sorry, I guess my opinion on Watchmen is nonstandard. It is clever (one of the cleverer things Alan Moore has ever done) but it annoys me (as does Moore in general) for meta reasons. Long story.
I don’t agree with the part about Watchmen being too dark but I do agree it’s a bad first book in the superhero genre. It’s a meta-work - it’s about the superhero genre. If you don’t go into it already knowing the genre, you’re going to miss a lot of the point.
Of course, this was a lot truer back in the eighties. Nowadays, most superhero comic books start out in the post-Moore post-Miller world. Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns* are now just the origins of what’s become the new standard.
*And Elementals. I’ve always said Bill Willingham doesn’t get the credit he deserves.
Hey, Willingham is clever, crazy, *and *American. He’s our nutjob horror writer. Well, him and Joe R. Lansdale.
Take that, limeys!
If you like Batman and dystopias, you really can’t go wrong with one of the classics: “The Dark Knight Returns” by Frank Miller. (But by all means avoid the sequel “The Dark Knight Strikes Again”)
And I would be remiss in my duties as #1 Maxx-head if I didn’t recommend The Maxx by Sam Kieth. A trippy, surrealist, psychological spin on the super-hero genre, with gorgeous art.
As much as I like to support my local comic shop when I find a good one, if price is an issue, you can often get TPB’s for 50% or less than cover price on amazon, ebay, etc. (sometimes used, sometimes even new). I recently bought 6 Buffy TPB’s, new, from an amazon seller for a total of $50. (the last 2 of “season 8,” which list at $17 each and 4 of the Omnibuses, which list at $25 each)