Recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire!

Hellboy has amazing art and atmosphere, but not so much with the writing. Also, Alan Moore's Top 10 and Grant Morrison's first New X-Men trade (or hardcover)!

If you want to impress indie girls, though, Craig Thompson seems to be popular these days.

Stuff I tend to recommend no matter what someone answers that question with: Sandman: The Doll's House (a serial killer convention!), Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl? especially if you've ever been into superhero stuff, Animal Man, and Torso (true crime, Eliot Ness vs America's first serial killer). I'd say Fortune and Glory, Bendis's autobiographical thing about having a book optioned by a movie studio and his experiences with that, but you live in LA, don't you, or am I remembering wrong? There might not be anything new for you in that.

Lone Wolf & Cub is good because although there are many volumes of it, most of them are collections of self-contained stories and don't need to be read in any particular order, and you won't be left on any cliffhangers or anything.

Ultimate Spider-Man is virtually guaranteed to please if you liked the Spidey movies (the first volume of USM has a very similar feel and pacing to the first half of the Spidey movie).

Grant Morrison's recent arcs in New X-Men are very popular on ILC, if you're like a returning ex-comics fan, or were into the X-Men movies, etc.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is much, much better than the movie, which applied the comic to the script much as Auntie Mame recommends applying vermouth to one's martini.

Watchmen is a classic I think you have to have been a superhero fan to love, and The Dark Knight Returns is a classic I think you have to have read in 1986 to love the way it wants to be loved, so I'm not sure I recommend either of them. Sin City might work, though.

I recently lent Watchmen to a friend who'd never read a comic before and he adored it.

Also I appreciate this will probably be redundant what with yr supply of roommate stories but you should read Hate! by Peter Bagge - any of the collections are fine.

Not really a graphic novel (actually a collection of newspaper strips) but the recent Amy & Jordan book by Mark Beyer is excellent and well worht buying. Very bleak and depressing, but absurd and funny with it. On one level the art is really terrible, on another it's amazing - Beyer draws like a mentally disabled young child, which gives everything this "art brut" quality.

That's an ongoing series. If you want a complete story in one book, I'd have to say... Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan.

Sounds good. I'm going to have to check it out now!

VG, Barry Ween's great! If you hate it, I'll ... I don't know, I'll give you some of my gum or something.

There's a single-volume collection of the black-and-white Seattle-set issues coming out in the next few months, so that'll be a good bet.

From Hell
Epileptic
Wigwam Bam (or Jaime Hernandez's much bigger _Locas_, which includes it)
The Frank Book

For more superhero-y kicks: Watchmen really is that good; the Mark Millar-era Authority explores similar issues in a very different way; I thought Alias (the Brian Michael Bendis/Michael Gaydos series, no relation to the TV show) was the best mainstream comic in years and years. (It's about a woman who used to be a superheroine but couldn't hack it in the big time, so now she's a P.I., drinks way too much, and tends to end up sleeping with various B-list superheroes.)

I love The Invisibles more than just about any other comic, but my take on it is that it's sort of weak near the beginning and becomes an unstoppable juggernaut in the last few volumes. Other people think exactly the opposite.

I thought this was directly related to the tv show (i.e., the show is based off the comic)?

Alias = anal sex
Powers = monkey sex

And, yeah, Alias is damn good stuff - the series-ending story (Purple) is probably the high point.

recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire

If we have new people on ILC can we revive my European porno comix thread please?

i LOVE comix but honestly i haven't been able to keep up with them in years. some stuff i love: watchmen, dark knight returns, crisis on infinite earths, many of the major superheroes... i dunno, i guess that describes pretty much any comic fan!!

i guess the last collection i was into was league of extraordinary gentlemen.

what else should i get? top 10? people seem to like that...

the point is i've had lots of freelance work this summer & i can finally justify blowing $50-$100 on comic books. so let's get crackin'!!

!!!!!!!!

...

!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm so excited. i'm going tomorrow after work.

It's about a plucky young lady who's also Britain's best spy! And they talk a lot in those delectable London accents, and fight terrorists while they wearing typically English suits!

its very entertaining.

http://www.thefourthrail.com/images/reviews/100404/queenandcountry27.jpg

http://www.onipress.com/preview/qc08pg08.jpg

Is that gun in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Wait- that doesn't make sense.

S1ocki: DC: The New Frontier = mondo-sized mini-series by former animator / current comic superstar Darwyn Cooke covering the entirety (and I mean the entirety) of the DC Universe circa the period right before the Silver Age kicked into gear, full of clandestine goings-on and space boggins and dinosaurs and groovy architecture and ALL THE GOOD STUFF. Here's what an ILC search turns up: WOOT! (watch out for spoilers!)

Also: it might be a smidge expensive, but it is totally worth it. AND your lack of knowledge going in don't mean a damn thing. (I might actually reread this tonight, assuming I can find all my copies.)

how big is it? one thing i loved about watchmen was that it was bound in one paperback but it was meaty!! lots of GNs i can read in one sitting, sadly

S1ocki, it's actually split up into two $20US volumes - both volumes are over 200+ pages, tho, and feature BONUS MATERIAL that us pamphlet-buying plebes didn't get. I think a mondo-sized HC is coming out soon, but DON'T WAIT - ORDER TODAY!

So this is how you comic folks deal with a bit of feminist criticism? Harrumph!

S1OCKI! There's this recent 5-issues series (by Dan Slott & Ty Templeton) that covers the relationship of Spidey & Torchie throughout the years - early in the 60s (wallflower era), late in the 60s (when PP was macking Gwen Stacy AND MJ Watson), 70s disco SPIDEY-MOBILE era, 80s black costume / Secret War era, and today. It is amazing fun - having knowledge of the history that surrounds these stories definitely adds a little something, but Huk-L didn't know squat about Marvel, and was over the moon! Also: it's probably the best Spidey-stuff to be had since I don't know when - funny, charming, & just a hint of bittersweetness to ground the whimsy. This might be nostalgia talking, tho. It's been collected in a manga-sized book, so it should be fairly inexpensive.

[xpost]

Tuomas, I just wanted you to let go so I could get up on it.

Oh, and here was I thinking that it might be some sort of marketing strategy to lure in more male readers! Silly me.

Also, Tuomas, you do realize what level Queen & Country is being pitched at, right? It's fighting on the same level as Drawn & Quarterly / Fantagraphics stuff, not the spandex stuff. Also, maybe this isn't true in Fjordville, but women have breasts, so deal.

http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=324

I assume that's the Q&C story Tuomas read. That's also the one story of Q&C that I haven't read.

i also like grant morrison stuff but haven't read much beyond some invisibles collection i picked up at a used bookstore a few years ago (I forget which one... something about infiltrating area 51... also it was REALLY slim for a trade which annoyed me)

DC: The New Frontier seconded.
Spider-Man/Human Torch: I'm With Stupid seconded as well, but be warned, it's been collected in a "digest-sized" volume, so, um consider yourself warned.
Have you read the She-Hulk stuff?

If you're looking for a good superhero epic sorta in the vein of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Cosmic Odyssey is pretty good. It's only a handful of heroes, but they have to team up with DARKSEID!!! to save the universe. Art by Mike (Hellboy) Mignola.

cosmic odyssey, that sounds... intriguing!!

really, in some ways this may be my pathetic attempt to "keep up"

Is that the answer every spandex artist who draws impossible female bodies gives?

The Yellow Kid, judging from the article you linked, that was the exact story I read.

Having read that article, I agree with Tuomas.

(x-post)

Have you read Gotham Central, Slockster?
It's Homicide: Life on the Streets in Batmanville (sometimes with dialogue lifted DIRECTLY from H:LOTS, but I don't see how that's a drawback in any fashion, except maybe legally).
The following is a panel from Officer Down, the Bat-Saga where Commissioner Gordon gets shot and decides to retire, which essentially set up Gotham Central:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/hukl/gothlots.jpg

And the women in GC are mostly of pretty average dimensions, even the lesbians! (and there's lots of 'em)

I don't think it's a marketing scheme, I think it's an artist who likes drawing cheesecake.

I don't think it's an impossible body standard, based on the pictures in that article. Possibly there are X-Force-standard impossibilities in the rest of the comic.

if you like Grant Morrison you ought to try the first couple of Doom Patrol trades - they are excellent fun, with a DC super team taking on the forces of surrealism and art terrorism!

If you can stand manga, I just belatedly discovered Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix, and it's astonishing.

what's seaguy all about?

The one thing people seem to be totally glossing over re: Q&C's TITTAYS ("glossing over") is that the particular depiction in question is anomalous to most of the rest of the series. In fact, if you were as cool as me, you'd know that the artist in question received a ton of flack from readers complaining about her knockers. Just about every other artist draws the character with less pronounced and more realistic punchbags. That said, there's always been a disjunction between the realism of the story and the art -- the first arc has been considered too cartoony, and people who say that are complete maroons.

Oh and Gotham Central thirded, and and and RUNAWAYS (the first run of 18 issues which has been collected in annoyingly little pocketsized TPBs, but there's a new HC that you can find for just about the same combined price) and almost everything that Brian K. Vaughan is currently writing.

GOING TO COMIX STORE NOW

WILL REPORT BACK LATER

ANYWAY

i got TOP 10 vol 1 and DC: new frontiers vol 1!!

but dudes!!

there was so much i could have bought there. if i hadn't just bought alan braxe - the upper cuts on double delicious vinyl i woulda gone TOTALLY hog wild. i will return. and i will tell you guys what i think of what i got as soon as i read them. which will probably be 5 minutes from now!!

(i almost got runaways but they were in these very... "teen"-like editions, in the kid's section & i got embarrassed!! and they were digests. like i think huk said. or somebody. and then nice comics dude told me the whole series was coming out full-sized in hardcover in like a week for the same price as the three digests)

and i like all the bits, all of the origin stuff... though to be honest the book offered very little payoff, it really felt like it was ALL setup, especially the way it kept cutting b/w suggestive stuff. does the second book make it all worth it? do things really kick into gear?

I think Paul O'Brien's fantastic, but I wouldn't call him a journalist at all. He is the best comics reviewer, though.

I'd call Rich Johnston the best comics journalist, actually.

Stuff mentioned on this thread that I'd recommend: Top 10, From Hell, Runaways, Queen & Country, Spider-Man/Human Torch.

Stuff nobody's mentioned: Human Target, Astonishing X-Men.

There's at least three trades out there, maybe four. The first one should collect the original mini by Milligan and Edvin Biukovic; the second one is "The Final Cut" which was conceived as a self-contained graphic novel, but it also worked as a start point for the recently cancelled ongoing monthly, which has at least one trade collecting the first five or six issues. Scripts range from really good to amazing since Peter Milligan wrote all of them, and even though all of his body of work is concerned with similar themes, this is the one comic book that I seem to find most connected to his "Shade, The Changing man"; to the point it feels like its natural progression. The art is also consistently great; it might seem weird since there are at least four different pencillers (Edvin Biukovic, Javier Pulido, Cliff Chiang and Cameron Stewart), but all of them are very tasteful artists.

The one thing people seem to be totally glossing over re: Q&C's TITTAYS ("glossing over") is that the particular depiction in question is anomalous to most of the rest of the series.

If by "glossing over" you mean "specifially addressing", then yes I see what you mean.

whoa!! that sounds SO insanely up my alley. are these collected?

Hahahahahaha

Given some of the previous remarks, it needed to be explicit that the arc in question was not representative of the art of the whole series.

Well, he's a columnist, which is a form of journalism. He's the George Will of comics. Er, not really, since George Will is a complete twat, but, um...

Err...well, I bought the first mini when the single issues came out, so I have no idea how much the paperback is. The second trade, the one that reprints the hardcover, well, yeah, it's pretty expensive for a softcover, so I don't know what to tell you. It certainly was worth my money; being the Vertigo standard to pair a (supposedly) decent script with lousy art, it's such a pleasure to read a comic that breaks the rule and features both a great script (Milligan as usual) and great art. Though now that I think about, it shouldn't be that surprising, since Milligan's always surrounded with extremely talented creative partners (with the exception of Clayton Crain, of course)

It was my favorite Vertigo ongoing in years, and its cancellation was a real shame.

i think new frontiers might have been... a bit of a letdown!

Also, I bought issues 2 & 3 of Smax when I was in Chicago. Why the fuck have I not read this yet? It's great!

Though there are the few books that do live up to the hype.

Personally, I can't recommend the ESSENTIAL HOWARD THE DUCK highly enough, though it's not a proper graphic novel. The Morrison DOOM PATROL books are outstanding as well, but don't expect straight superheroics (or straight anything for that matter).

*packs up, runs away*

Sounds good to me.

New Frontier does pay off story-wise. There's a lot of build up in the first three issues. Things really get moving in the second half. Which is one of the reasons why I loathe the whole "split the story" route DC took in publishing the trades.

I've heard that the recent ASTONISHING X-MEN was becoming rather...pants... Is that the consensus around here or am I missing out on Greatness?

top 10 book 1 i totally got into, especially towards the end of the collection, i got immersed for sure. i guess i'll pick up book 2...

what else, though, that is the question.

I'm reading David Boring by Clowes now. I keep thinking of the following lyrics as I'm reading: I like big butts and I cannot lie...

I think Clowes' shorter stuff is his best - I loved the Twentieth Century Eightball collection.

walking dead? whatever it's called. i read it and the x-men book so far... good times!!

I finally read League of Extraordinary Gentleman vol. 1 the other night. It's excellent, of course, but now Maddie and I have a theory about LXG and Top 10: whichever one you read first is going to be the one you're the most impressed by, and then the other one is just "oh, that's nice, another finely crafted ultra-referential Alan Moore team book".

top 10 i found entertaining but it was such a grab bag, it felt like a playground for ideas moore couldn't fit anywhere else. which is not such a bad thing!! but lxg felt a lot grander.

(I still have to read LXG vol. 2)

Don't.

(I still have to read top 10 vol. 2)

Do.

Answer: LOEG!

(Not having read the source material - and who could possibly have read it all? - for LGX can be a plus, sometimes, too: like at the start of the second volume, all that outer space stuff, was just a delightful WTF to me.)

but i am more of a sucker for the lxg long-arc stuff than the top 10 stuff where the stories seem more issue-confined. perhaps this is rockist of me!! or perhaps it comes from my addiction to long-arc tv (cf buffy etc).

http://www.enjolrasworld.com/Jess%20Nevins/League%20of%20Extraordinary%20Gentlemen/LoEG%20index.htm

Dude, sorry about the couch, man.

reviving this thread!

how great is o'neill on this? (btw read top10 first)

(not that you were very specific, but for everyone else...)

"Oh aye, he's always getting killed, that one."

Hmm can people quickly throw out some names of Graphic Novels that I should acquire (nothing superhero)

I have:
-Jimmy Corrigan
-Ghost World and David Boring (I don't think I want any more from Clowes)
-The Frank Book
-Ordinary Victories
-From Hell
-Blankets (well my sister has it)

-I probably need all the Maus stuff (I remember liking it)

If I go for another Moore book I would go for The Swamp Thing stuff

Ed the Happy Clown

(and Clowes' best is Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, which isn't really anything like his later stuff)

If you're looking for more weirdy, dreamlike stuff along the lines of Frank, Rick Veitch's Rare Bit Fiends (collected in a series of three trades entitled The Dream Art Of Rick Veitch) is a perennial fave.

(and Clowes' best is Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron,

rong

which isn't really anything like his later stuff)

troo

Don't forget this thread's twice as large bizarro sibling, which has many great recommendations that I'm still slowly working my way through:

recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire

Jaime Hernandez, Locas
Gilbert Hernandez, Palomar
R. Crumb, Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 4 (reprints Zap #0 and #1)
some Moebius sf

1000 Full length Stories/Compilations that belong on your shelf or How to create a great and praiseworthy comic collection and also go broke (a comics journall-ly type list thread)

yeah, the problem is too many recommendations actually. That's why I'm looking forward to see the results of the decade comics poll.

Hmm can people quickly throw out some names of Graphic Novels that I should acquire

― Dave Matthews Bann (CaptainLorax), Tuesday, December 15, 2009 11:23 AM

3 people throw out some names, two days later Lorax complains that too many people replied to his request

lol

i put Ordinary Victories on my library reserve, hope it's good

No - what I meant by too many recommendations is reading through all the graphic novel threads - not the 3 people who helped me look up some new stuff that might fit my flavor profile (you all kinda know what sort of graphic novels I like based on the ones I mentioned owning).

Ordinary Victories has great colorful art and stylish minimalistic-looking people. The second half of the series (part 3 and 4 released as What is Precious) didn't have as good of a plot as the first one but it was good all the same. I remember one reviewer said that these books were a little too meandering since there isn't any huge consistent theme/motif on the surface but I appreciate a good story even if it's just a fluid depiction of reality rather than a carefully tooled, systematic story.

i think ordinary victories is great when read front to back. and i think there's a lot of carefully tooled systematic story in there! it's just naturalistic and vaguely autobio is all.

well I meant tooled as in the story incorporates metaphorical themes and motifs that are more than just the theme that is plain to see (it's really hard to explain this), but yeah it's a naturalistic story with some of the best images I have ever seen which are definitely carefully tootled.

I have no doubt that there is some theme/s that you find when you really read into the character/s

it's a good story.

I wish I could draw a lot better (and QUICKER)...one of the great things about graphic novels is that, even when the scope is really ambitious, there's this great punk-like feeling of "oh, *I* could do that..."

There's certainly plenty of good storytellers and comic makers who aren't the best draftsman. Dash Shaw comes to mind immediately.

Dash Shaw is an INCREDIBLE colour artist though, I would never look at a non-b&w piece of his and think "I could do that!" - his colour sense is so great, and so well-deployed as a storytelling tool, that it's the most significant thing about him as a cartoonist IMO*

*haven't read BBB

agreed, but i'm thinking b+w

haha, i'm with you ZS