I’ve recently switched my subscription service, and the new service gives increasing discounts for subscribing to a certain number of books. After setting up my titles, I notice that I’m only two away from an additional 5% discount, which would be the equivilent of getting one sub entirely free. Right now I’m subscribed to these books:
Authority
Avengers
Black Tide
Fables
Fantastic Four
JLA
JSA
Legion
Outsiders
Paradigm
Plastic Man
Queen & Country
Teen Titans
Ultimate Fantastic Four
Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate X-Men
Ultimates
Walking Dead
Wanted
Y: The Last Man
So what should I add to get my discount up? I like books that have a mostly self-contained continuity so that I don’t have to be cross-checking others, which is why I have no X-books, Superman, Batman, or Spiderman. For that matter, I’m already subbed to all of the mainstream superheroes I want.
Other than that, I like sci-fi, spy stories, horror, dark fantasy, pretty much anything as long as it’s well-written.
I think the Crossgen book Negation is damned good and stands on its own. There have been soem damned fine surprises and a few issues that were written very, very well.
Otherwise, you have a pretty good list. I was going to suggest Fables, but I see you already get that.
Okay, I think that’s enough. Basically it’s about a bunch of high schoolers that find out their parents are supervillians. In the process of running away from home, they discover and gain various abilities and items that they inherited from their parents. Of course, the parents are not happy about this and are tracking them down. Very good read. (It’s made by Marvel)
Have to disagree on the new GI Joe titles. I found them to be pure drek.
For pure weirdness, pick up Sock Monkey from Dark Horse. Although, it doesn’t really come out monthly. If you get four issues a year, you are doing well.
That’s all I can think of right now. There are more, but you are not interested in mainstream superheroes. Fair enough
Runaways is by Brian Vaughan, writer of Y -TLM. He also writes Mystique for Marvel. Although technically an X-book it stands alone as Mystique is a covert operative for Professor X and none of the X-men or their pals (besides the Prof. and Forge) know she’s working for him. Both are good books, although neither are as good as Y, IMO.
I also enjoy Gotham Central, about the Gotham City Police Department. It’s almost entirely continuity-free. Issue #13 came out this week and so far I believe that Batman has shown up in only about 10 or 15 panels. I haven’t read another Bat-book since Gotham Central started and I’ve never been lost.
For dark fantasy and horror (with some comedy thrown in) try the Inuyasha graphic novels published by Viz. Viz has discontinued its monthly comic installments, but this has enabled them to put out their graphic novels out more frequently. They’ve also reissued their earlier Inuyasha graphic novels in a smaller, more inexpensive format.