That’s no longer true.
Forgotten Realms : Forbidden Sands of Anauroch was to be a six-issue tiny-hardcover limited series, and they cancelled it after two issues.
Too bad, I liked it.
I liked both Jon Sable and Grell’s art, and the stories were quite engaging, although they seemed to need more time to tell as the series went on.
Of course, there was also the one issue where Grell had Sergio Aragones illustrate. Grell took care of the doings of the regular characters while Aragones did the art for the storybook characters in one of Sable’s (well, Flemm’s) stories. Priceless!
Two things:
- Otto, how do you see Grimjack as a Superhero book? I see it as high fantasy full of grey areas of right and wrong and therefore pretty “Not super-heroey”–I’m just looking for your thoughts on this, not trying to argue.
- I just remembered “Alien Legion” which I think is the only Marvel imprint on my list of “Non-super-hero titles.” I’d love to see that come to life as a series or movie.
Daisy Kutter–The Last Train
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975419323/qid=1135979093/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7121894-7248733?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Set in a strange, Futurist version of the Wild West, female ex-bandit Daisy Kutter is forced into one last train robbery. But all is not as it seems.
Wry humor, an appealing lead character, a real feel for the West, & fun art.
More non-superhero 80s gems: (Aside from Comico’s JONNY QUEST)
Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones’ GROO THE WANDERER. Not only funny, sometimes ascerbic social commentary, maniacally well-drawn (particulalry the first three years) – just a flat out terrific series. I have to say I’ve never been a big Rufferto fan, but I appear to be in minority opinion. I missed out on big chucks when I was inc college and I’m still trying to piece together the entire run.
The first three compilations of Reed Waller and Kate Worley’s OMAHA THE CAT DANCER, which manages to be about the only furry erotica I’ve ever read that has value beyond titillation. I liked Omaha, Chuck, Joanne, Shelly, Rob, etc. I hated that Worley died but find it extremely interesting that both her former husbands (Waller and Jim Vance) are collaborating to finish the series.
Paul Chadwick’s CONCRETE. There are no words. This is one comic book I’d love to see developed into a mini-series or something. It touches on everything from envrionmental issues to politics and cover-ups to the media to American pop culture and the cult of personality. Reading Harlan Ellison led be Chadwick, so that can’t be all bad.
Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ dystopian GIVE ME LIBERTY. Granted this is 1990, but who cares. Another one of Frank Miller’s capably hardass black female protagonists (Ranked significantly above RONIN’s Casey McKenna and SIN CITY’S sexpot Gail), Martha Washington is a heroine we can all believe in, and the storybook romance between her and Baby’s Breath Wasserstein is one for the ages. Beyond that you’ve got a demonized Cabrini Green, Burger Wars, a germobobic and psychopathic Surgeon General, an army of cloned blond Amazons, a despotic president, a cloned psychic, a wimpy president and a smarmy officer who finally gets what-for. I’d love to see this as a movie, too, if only for the Amazon Jungle war sequences and TV commercials alone.
Also: 1970s series LONE WOLF AND CUB. My favorite reference was their unannounced cameo in SAMURAI JACK.
Well, I did say superhero-type book, but I’m not hung up on it or anything. Call it a super-anti-hero book.
Other non superdupe books that I liked, apparently alone on the planet, were Dakota North (lasted five issues, although she did show up in an issue of Spider-Man and Power Pack) and Fashion in Action (quarterly, lasted two issues).
Sandman is superhero? 
Is this the modern, Gaiman Sandman or one of the earlier ones? I guess Constantine might be considered superhero-related but even that seems like a stretch of the genre to me. I’d think Constantine was supernatural/horror, and Sandman fantasy.
Sandman isn’t, itself, a Superhero book, but it is undeniably, sometimes rather intimately, actually, connected to the Superhero books - particularly multiple versions of the JSA.
Morpheus shares part of his soul with Wesley Dodds - the original Sandman (which causes Wes to have prophetic dreams).
Morpheus’ ruby spent a significant amount of time in the possession of Dr Destiny, an old JLA foe. (And he visited the JLA and Arkham Asylum in the process of attempting to recover it, encountering Mr Miracle, J’onn J’onnz, and the Scarecrow, along with Dr Destiny, in the process.)
By various circumstances, Morpheus meets Hector and Hippolyta Hall - former members of Infinity, Inc., Silver Scarab (later Sandman, later still, Dr Fate) and Fury. Their son, Daniel, takes over as Dream when Morpheus is killed - and thus has appeared a few times in JSA, where Hector, until recently, was Dr Fate.
Quite a few of the supporting characters are old DCU characters - Bruit and Glob, Destiny, Cain, Abel, Eve, and the Three-That-Are-One coming to mind, particularly (B&G were the sidekicks of the 70s Sandmen, the others all hosted various anthology books, including House of Mystery and House of Secrets, which introduced Eclipso and the Martian Manhunter.)
The Endless have occasionally appeared in other DCU books - 4 that come to mind immediately are Dream in JSA (at least twice), Dream in JLA (at least once since Sandman ended, perhaps once or twice before that), Dream in Sandman Mystery Theater (Vertigo imprint, but explicitly within DCU continuity), and Death in Legion of Superheroes (a small, single panel appearance, but it is her, and it’s pretty damned cool).
Death also appeared in Captain Atom #41, of all things.
If you want to get very historical, try the early works of Lynd Ward, such as God’s Man (1929) and Mad Man’s Drum (1930), which have gotten recently gotten affordable reprints courtesy of Dover. I bought a copy of the latter, and it’s a fascinating, beautiful, and disturbing work. The woodcut work is exquisite, and I understand why Will Eisner himself lauded Ward’s works as some of the most important int he early development of the medium.
I’m sure I don’t need to introduce A Contract With God, And Other Tenement Stories, or explain its significance to the medium, do I?
The mid-1980’s saw Don MacGregor & Gene Colan (yes, that Gene Colan) collaborate on two Nathaniel Dusk miniseries, which center around a 1930’s New York private eye. They’re very good, particularly the what I’ve read of the second, Apple Peddlars Die at Noon. Coloring is astonishingly good, and waaay ahead of its time, for the mid-1980’s, too. Here’s a good quick summary.
Although perhaps not quite early enough to qualify, the early 1990’s Baker Street, with Sherlock Holmes recast as a punk woman (just go with it) is always worth a mention. There’s a recent reissue of the old issues in one convenient volume for those not interested in tracking down the sometimes HTF back issues.
DC’s entirely too short-lived Paradox Press furnished a few crime fiction gems besides Road to Perdition, including the three volume La Pacifica.
This site describes the very rare Toadswart d’Amplestone TPB from Epic Enterprises better than I could: “A gothic melodrama of blasphemous ambition, tragic fate, madness, and murder. All the mythic elements-- a sorcerous prince, a doom-plagued castle, a misshappened dwarf, and sinister sorcery–are brought to you in Tim Conrad’s breathtaking wash paintings.” All I’ll add is that “breathtaking” doesn’t even begin to cover the artwork - reading the book is an experience even for those, like me, who aren’t normally attracted to the subject matter.
Most fans of Dean Motter’s work (Terminal City, Mr. X, Electropolis) haven’t heard of his obscure Epic Enterprises GN, The Sacred and the Profane. Words really do fail me - it’s a mystery set amongst a dense mixture of theology and science fiction, and I’m quite sure there are layers of meaning that slippped right past me.
Yeah, Tengu explained my logic pretty well.
Add to the list Dreamwave’s six-issue Transformers vs. G.I. Joe: Divided Front, a six-issue limited series that ended after the first when the publisher imploded.
Oooh, I had forgotten Nathaniel Dusk – man that would be a great movie – I loved those two Minis!
And curiously enough, this reminds me of Ms. Tree, which, though again, not thrilled with the are (see Grell above) had some great stuff going on in it.
Since the topic is “old gems”, I’ll stick to pre-Vertigo, pre-manga invasion titles. Although a lot of what I would list has already been mentioned. There’s also a question of whether certain titles are technically superheroes titles or not. (Nexus? Dreadstar? Strikeforce: Morituri? Scout? Grimjack? Mage? I’d classify Yes, No, Close, No, No, Close.)
Elfquest and Cerebus were the two big dogs of independent comics and both Dave Sim and Wendy Pini were at the height of their creative powers in the early 80s. Sim showing a mastery of layout and panel design, as well as a gift for snappy dialogue in Cerebus. Pini was putting together an emotionally powerful epic story.
DREADSTAR didn’t start out particularly superheroic, but after it moved to Marvel’s EPIC line and as the series wore on, it took on a decided superheroic tone. Once Vanth underwent the costume change, absorbed the powers of his destroyed sword, could fly and deliver power punches – well. Those superhero trappings were decidedly interspersed within the galactic war meme of the Instrumentality/Monarchy, but when Peter david took over the writing chores it also took a much lighter tone.
How bout Matt Howarth’s Keif Llama series? Good science fiction. OK art, but the writing is much, much better.
Too bad he insists on “publishing” his stuff on CDs now. I wanna read a book, dammit! :mad: