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Making up comic time....

post #1 of 23
11/27/07 at 2:34am
Thread Starter 
No, not the time one would waste reading comics, but I haven't been reading consistently since 1991 or so.

I was a huge Xmen fan in the 80's but after the Mutant Massacre, I felt the stories and character development were sacrificed for an over abundance of action. I purchased everything Image produced when it was new, and I was pretty disappointed. The art was phenomenal(except Liefeld) but the stories didn't do much for me. At the same time, I was getting more into Independent books, I was a huge fan of Comico's Grendel, MiracleMan, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, the Clive Barker comics that came out in the late 80's, and much of what Dark Horse was doing at the time. With the raise in prices and attention to school, I eventually I faded away from it.

Fast Forward to early 2000's and a friend of mine let me borrow a few America's Best Comics titles, and I was really impressed. So in the last year, I've been playing catch up, and I realized, I've missed a lot of great stuff.

Here's a list of the tpb's I've gotten and loved recently:

All Hellboy/BPRD anything. Lobster Johnson etc. I love that world.
Preacher
Planetary
Top Ten/Forty Niners/Jax
The Authority
League of Extraordinary Gentleman
100 Bullets
Invincible
Bone one vol. edition

All these have come at the recommendation of friends, though some of their recommendations I haven't liked so much. For instance - I got the first TPB of Powers, and after hearing so much good about it, I thought it was very mediocre - does it get better? I'm willing to purchase some more. I was also recommended Gen 13 by Gail Simone and I hated it.

I picked up Mousegard, and while it was really cool looking, I didn't get much thrill out of the story.

I've been told to pick up Y the Last Man(I will), and some Marvel Ultimates stuff, but I'm super skeptical about hero fare from Marvel. I'll give it a shot if I hear more praises.

I've read some Grant Morrison JLA stuff, and I thought it was really cool, but I haven't read any of his other stuff.

So, if you guys are willing, I'd love to hear some recommendations, especially if you can kinda grasp what my taste is like from the recent titles I listed. Thanks.
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post #2 of 23
11/27/07 at 4:41am
I would recommend Brian Michael Bendis' POWERS, and the Grant Morrison's awesome comic trilogy WE3.
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post #3 of 23
11/27/07 at 5:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by barbelithbomb
Also worth checking out: Warren Ellis' Nextwave (a miniseries from marvel; not really in continuity, though it does deal in the superhero universe. just insane humor and fun), Jonathan Hickman's The Nightly News (a miniseries from Image, dealing with the news and media and cults. It's described as Network meets Fight Club. The design sense at work in it is amazing), and Casanova, by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba (from Image, superspy psychedelia full of pop culture and insanity.)
Those all sound right up my alley. Awesome.

Graynadian - I take it you skipped over the part where I said I read Powers tpb #1 and didn't like it so much - Does the story change much over time? With so many rec's for that series, I feel like I just haven't gotten to the good stuff yet.
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post #4 of 23
11/27/07 at 6:21am
I'll second the WE3 recommendation.

I enjoy Astro City, but I don't know if it is for everyone. I got the first TPB (Life in the Big City) from the local library and enjoyed it, and I think I've read about 80-90% of everything out there, and in general I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

I've heard some good things about Rising Stars as well, but I haven't managed to get around to it as of yet, so I can't personally recommend it.

Most of the other stuff that I read you have on your list already, so good for you!

I've also been reading Buffy Season 8 (and now Angel: After the Fall), but if you weren't a fan of the series, this is probably not useful for you. If you were a fan of the series, you may also want to give Fray a try. I've also been reading the TPBs for Asonishing X-Men, and it has been decently fun, but nothing to go crazy over. I just gave it a try because it was Whedon.

My wife also reads Blade of the Immortal and thinks that I would really like it, but there is so much out there that it seems daunting, and I'm pretty busy at the moment, but I'll get around to it eventually.

I think I'll end my rambling there, and hopefully you find something from there to be useful.
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post #5 of 23
11/27/07 at 3:45pm
If you're going to read Y: The Last Man, be sure to check out Ex Machina. Now that's a damn good book.
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post #6 of 23
11/27/07 at 4:28pm
Thread Starter 
Excellent! Thanks everyone.
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post #7 of 23
11/27/07 at 6:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HunterRose
Those all sound right up my alley. Awesome.

Graynadian - I take it you skipped over the part where I said I read Powers tpb #1 and didn't like it so much - Does the story change much over time? With so many rec's for that series, I feel like I just haven't gotten to the good stuff yet.
Powers only gets consistently better, culminating in Vol. 7 where it takes off.
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post #8 of 23
11/28/07 at 3:33am
The Goon is great.
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post #9 of 23
11/28/07 at 5:34am
The Walking Dead
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post #10 of 23
11/28/07 at 5:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul Ahn Ice
Powers only gets consistently better, culminating in Vol. 7 where it takes off.
I have a good buddy that I only see about once a month that lends me large piles of comics. He made me read Powers and Fabels until I liked them. Both started off pretty rough, but now I'm addicted. I even ended up buying a bunch of Powers TPB from him when we met the artist and he rebought the collectors set to get it autographed.

Y the Last Man, X-Statix (which spawned from the revamped X-Force), Ex Machina, and Grant Morrison's New X-Men also caught my fancy.
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post #11 of 23
11/28/07 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers
I have a good buddy that I only see about once a month that lends me large piles of comics. He made me read Powers and Fabels until I liked them. Both started off pretty rough, but now I'm addicted. I even ended up buying a bunch of Powers TPB from him when we met the artist and he rebought the collectors set to get it autographed.
I was the same way, my friend forced me to read Powers even though I wasn't too thrilled with the first couple of Vol.'s, and I thank him all the time for making me stick with it. The slow and deliberate pace of the first few volumes pays off in a very big way.
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post #12 of 23
11/28/07 at 1:42pm
You should, Vol. 1 is great only in retrospect because of how many clues it drops for later stories that alter that whole world. The first time I read the first vol., I was actually pretty disappointed.
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post #13 of 23
11/28/07 at 2:46pm
Second Scalped.

Ellis' run on Stormwatch.
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post #14 of 23
11/28/07 at 3:52pm
All Star Superman, motherfuckers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul Ahn Ice
You should, Vol. 1 is great only in retrospect because of how many clues it drops for later stories that alter that whole world. The first time I read the first vol., I was actually pretty disappointed.
This is something I've come to really like about Bendis. I was just re-reading New Avengers and it's pretty crazy all the little hints and implications about the Skrull invasion that are in it. A lot of them are hard to miss as they're significant plot points, but you get the idea.

If you're interested in reading an unabashedly fun, loud comic book, New Avengers is pretty good. A lot of people have a lot of problems with it, and I did at first, but I find once you just let go and read it it's a pretty good time.

Daredevil, as in all of the recent stuff, has been great although I'm not too keen on the current story. Look for the Bendis/Maleev stuff. It's really really good and quite engrossing.

Any Garth Ennis Punisher work is in desperate need of a look from you. Read the Marvel Knights stuff first, and then read the MAX.
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post #15 of 23
11/28/07 at 8:14pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul Ahn Ice
You should, Vol. 1 is great only in retrospect because of how many clues it drops for later stories that alter that whole world. The first time I read the first vol., I was actually pretty disappointed.
See, that's what I was hoping to hear. Very cool.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smeagol
Any Garth Ennis Punisher work is in desperate need of a look from you. Read the Marvel Knights stuff first, and then read the MAX.
Sounds good to me. I was a big fan of Punisher: War Journal in the 80's.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric C
And I don't know if you've read it because you didn't mention it, but Sandman.
Yeah, I have read Sandman, but not in a long time. I could stand to re-read it for sure. Before buying the new stuff, I re read Watchmen, Ronin,some Grendel stuff and DK.

With multiple rec's counted here, I'm looking at:

Y the Last Man
Ex-Machina
Powers
WE3
Scalped
Rising Stars

Ive had friends also recommend The Walking Dead - then some friends say they don't like it....

Im very interested in Ellis's work on StormWatch, so I'll try to find that.

I read some of Astro City that a friend let me borrow, and though I don't actually remember the story, I do remember enjoying it, so I'll probably get that too.
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post #16 of 23
11/28/07 at 8:45pm
I thought Walking Dead was good in a very Soap Opera way, but it covers a lot of the same tracks George Romero already laid with the original Dawn of the Dead.
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post #17 of 23
11/28/07 at 9:31pm
If you want a big epic read, try Seven Soldiers. Like most of Grant Morrison's bigger projects, though, it takes a fair amount of work on the part of the reader. Also, it's a rare example of a book that needs to be read, if possible, in single issue form rather than as trades (because you can mix 'n' match the order, and I'd recommend reading it at least twice in different sequence: once in the order they came out, and once through each miniseries #1-4 consecutively.) You can definitely spend a few weeks parsing the whole macroseries--good value for your comic buyin' dollar.

It's not revelatory or anything, but I've always been a big fan of Moore's run on Supreme, which is basically the often-overlooked bridge between 1963 and his ABC work like Tom Strong, Top Ten and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It anticipates Morrison's work on All-Star Superman by a decade, and in some ways is even better. If nothing else, it's a fun reworking of the Silver Age.

As always, I'd like to direct people's attention to Carla Speed McNeill's "Finder", a black and white indie book that's been around for a good long while now, and is well worth a look. Very inventive storytelling, reads like a cross between the better 80s indie books and the better webcomics.
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post #18 of 23
12/10/07 at 6:12pm
Thread Starter 
This weekend I picked up Scalped, WE3 and Ex Machina.

I started to read Scalped, and right off the bat, it looks really good, so I saved it to savor for last.

I started with WE3 - holy crap - sad. I couldn't help but think of all my pets I've had when I read it. It could have been way worse in terms of sadness. I loved the way he captured how particular animals might really speak. I especially loved that the antagonists seemed to be really scared of Number 2.

I started reading Ex Machina last night, and so far so good.

Thanks again everyone.
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post #19 of 23
12/10/07 at 7:06pm
I just caught up on Powers last night, and I think I know where it's going. And I like it. Seriously, make it through the first few books and you'll be rewarded.
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post #20 of 23
12/10/07 at 7:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers
I just caught up on Powers last night, and I think I know where it's going. And I like it. Seriously, make it through the first few books and you'll be rewarded.
That's weird, b/c I just reread Vol.'s 7 and 8 last night. I still love 'em. I paged through some of the earlier ones, and man...some of the early ones don't even compare to some of the later ones. Keep strong, you will be rewarded.
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post #21 of 23
12/10/07 at 7:21pm
If you haven't read Vl. 10 ignore this, but (swipe)do you think that they're turning Pilgrim into a super villain, and setting up some kind of epic battle between her and Walker?
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post #22 of 23
12/26/07 at 3:32am
Thread Starter 
Finished Scalped and Ex Machina this week.

I'm not feeling Scalped all that much. In the first tpb at least, every single character is way over the top not to mention Dashiel isn't a convincing fed.

Ex Machina is great. What a refreshing book to read. I love the art, the political difficulties, and the unique character development. Some of the story developments via flashback can leave me unfulfilled, but not too terribly. I've read up to vol 4 of the tpb's and I wanted to see more of Pherson.

Since I've gotten my fiancee to read: Preacher, Watchmen, all the Harrry Potter's, Snowcrash and now Tad William's "Otherland"(Which I highly recommend to any fans of post-cyberpunk), I'm now going to read a book she's recommended for me, and that book is: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand...

......

I'll check back here in a few months.
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post #23 of 23
12/26/07 at 10:20am
Fell
Ellis' current run on Thunderbolts (begins issue #110)
Godland
Runaways
Scott Pilgrim
Gutsville
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