What are your favourite comics?

Does anyone actually like The Dark Knight Returns? I thought it was pretty well crap.

The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison, Steve Yeowell, and Phil Himinez.

And I am ashamed to have forgotten to mention Leo Baxendale's Bash Street Kids. Jack Kirby and Baxendale are the only two people I've met who turned me into Pathetic Gibbering Fanboy, probably because I adored their work when I was a child, before I was interested in writers and artists. Meeting Kurtzman and Miller and Eisner and the Hernandez Brothers was good, but not the same.

Davy Law's Dennis The Menace (the UK one, that is) was great too.

(also music wise: i love el-P cos he IS transformers)

post spidey ayn randy (heh)ditko is occasionaly genius. Mr A? dr strange

I am enjoying Mike Mignola's Hellboy and Grant Morrison's the Filth at the moment.

More seriously, I am a lifelong Peanuts fan, and a recent but deep convert to Dilbert. I also sneak a look at the Archies in the newsagents even though I thought they were all a right bunch of pratts back when I was actually in their 'target demog'.

Does anybody else remember the Perishers with Marlon, Maisie, Wellin'ton, the brilliantly named Dirty McSquirty, Boot the dog and co?

Ben Katchor was terrific, but I've not read anything by him since Raw's heyday, I think.

The Perishers was possibly the best ever UK newspaper strip.

I reckon British Newpaper strips in general < their American Counterparts. We never had anyone like Herriman, Segar or McKay working for the daily national press.

On a related note which might interest Krazy fans, I just got a 1950 hardback edition of the collected 'Archie and Mehitabel' by Don Marquis stuffed cover to cover with Herriman's illustrations. I love it to pieces.

I'ma gonna chill now, this could get SO dorky.

Quite so, my good man. :-)

Totally random list of favourites:

"Asterix"

"Love & Rockets"(the latter years)

"Calvin & Hobbes"

From Hell

Cerebrus

Bone

Preacher

Maus

V For Vendetta

Sandman

Metrpolitan

"Justice League International" (the Keith Giffen years)

Strangers In Paradise"

Incidentally, can anyone tell me why Disney comics, so widely available everywhere from Brazil to Scandinavia, are so obscure in the U.S.?

"Nancy, look at that chair."
"That one?" (pointer finger connected to chair by dotted line)
"Yes, Nancy. It is the only thing in the frame."

I do not like it at all but for some reason I can't help myself from reading Brenda Starr whenever it's around, even though it's just sitting there, wating to suck a la Family Circus.

- X-Static
- anything by Brian Michael Bendis EXCEPT Ultimate Spider-Man (and I blame Mike Bagley for that) and Alias (and I blame that Monday Night Football intro from last night)
- The Ultimates (!!!!!!!!)
- 100 Bullets
- The Incredible Hulk
- the 5 back issues of Planetary I found
- New X-Men
- Ruse
- the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo Fantastic Four

You want reasons, feel free to ask.

I wanted to like that Jim Mafhood (sic?) Image one-shot, but (art notwithstanding) all that hippie jazz/hiphop reefer counter-culture poop didn't do a damn thing for me. (Oooo, MTV sucks!?!) And I miss Ragmop.

i bought some comics this weekend! for the first time in, oh,. 6 months. the new dork (eh.) and some "humor" comic for nancy (eh. seemed funny in the store but i think the lighting and comfortable couch tricked us.)

annnnnywayyy...a very, very incomplete list. i wuv comics!!!!!!!:

peanuts (esp. 1955-1970)
krazy kat (esp. the "tiger tea" storyline and the holiday stories)
little nemo & dreams of the rare-bit fiend
the "monsieur jean" series by dupuy and berberian
breakdowns by art spiegelman
la mouche by trondheim
the x-men (claremont years, but especially #120 through about #250)
swamp thing #21-64
it's a good life if you don't weaken by seth
gasoline alley sunday pages
eightball, but especially "art school confidential", "ugly girls", "blue italian shit," "caricature", and "ghost world"
the gospels by chester brown (attn. drawn & quarterly: COLLECT THESE PLEEZ!!!!)
the work of jim woodring, but esp. "frank, in: the river", "what the left hand did", "invisible hinge", and "particular mind"
acme novelty library (FUCK OFF ETHAN), but esp. #10 and the collected jimmy corrigan book
jet cat comics by jay stephens
love & rockets (natch), but especially "flies on the ceiling", the "ray stories" ("above the window lurks my head", etc.), "the death of speedy", "human disastrophism", "wig wam bam".. (i havent read any of the new series: my secret shame.)
school is hell by matt groening
"indeterminacy: john cage funnies" by robert sikoryak
"here" by richard maguire
the boulevard of broken dreams by kim & simon deitch
the work of r. crumb, but esp. "patton", "that's life", "where has it gone (the beautiful music of our grandparents)", "uncle bob's mid-life crisis"...oh hell, anything in weirdo, really.
"planet of the jap" by suehiro maruo
palestine, yahoo #4, and soba by joe sacco
"it was the war of the trenches" by jacques tardi
the harvey pekar/r. crumb collaborations
from hell by moore & campbell
"in the days of the ace rock & roll club" by eddie campbell
tintin by herge
oh, and r. crumb's sketchbooks (which may well be more important than his comics)
mad #1-25
the work of osamu tezuka
the work of carl barks, but especially the donald duck four-color issues
fantastic four #1-100
"master race" by bernard krigstein
the spirit by will eisner
spider-man #1-30-ish (whenever ditko quit)
raw, but esp. the second book-sized volumes
the work of jack cole (yes, even the playboy stuff)
"cobalt 60" by vaughn bode
the politcal cartoons of tom toles
calvin & hobbes
nausicaa of the valley of wind by miyazaki
thimble theater by ec segar
new hat by tom hart
cave-in by brian ralph
cages by dave mckean
city of glass by paul auster & david mazzuchelli/paul karasik
jack t. chick tracts (& the really fucking scary 70s comics whose name i can't remember at the moment.)
high society, church & state vol. 1 & 2, jaka's story & melmoth by dave sim
doom patrol #19-63(?...whenever morrison quit)
animal man #1-26, but esp. #24-26
"minnie's third love" by phoebe gloeckner
the ec war comics(frontline combat/two fisted tales by harvey pekar and various
grendel #16-19
big numbers by moore and sienkievicz (sob...)
mage by matt wagner
the following sandman issues: "a midsummer night's dream", "three septembers and a january", "ramadan", and the final issue
daredevil, the frank miller issues (especially the final ones..oh and the one where elektra dies!!), also the miller/mazzuchelli issues
watchmen by moore & gibbons
akira by katsuhiro otomo
little lulu
"heavy flow" by julie doucet
the later zot! issues by scott mccloud (oh and understanding comics too)
batman year one by miller & mazzuchelli
the comics of moebius
corto maltese by hugo pratt
king-cat comics by john porcellino
the biologic show by al columbia
monkey vs. robot by james kochalka
usagi yojimbo by stan sakai

"manga": okay, look...manga - like euro comics - are not inherently any "better" than american comics. they are far more commercialized (so scratch that "defense") and being a much larger industry therefore produce an exponentially larger amount of crap. no amount of revisionism or boosterism by scary anime fans will reverse this.

pete bagge: the alt-90s are OVAH. as should be his career.

"punk" comics: you know what i'm talking about...kaz, the french, mark beyer...sometimes a bad drawing is just a bad drawing!!

underground comix: yes, yes...incredibly important to "opening the medium to personal expression", but do you actually want to sit around and READ any of these noodling stoner jams or tittie comics in 2002? (special "what the fuck is wrong with people?" note to: spain, s. clay wilson, robert williams, and the air pirates.)

lorenzo mattotti: the epitome of pretty but dumb.

auto-bio comics: joe matt, denny eichhorn, colin upton, ed fucking brubaker...round them up and shoot them into the sun.

will eisner's late work: how many times can this old man tell the same nostalgic socalist immigrant tale??

harvey pekar: so a guy writes oblique little snatches of half-story about his real life and suddenly he's a literary genius...oh, wait...

zippy the pinhead and dilbert: dialectic brothers in arms of absolute suckage.

weirdo: surely the pigfucking aesthetic brought to comics.

maus: as "emotionally involving" as being pelted with nerf balls.

the dark knight returns: well, duh.

heavy metal: no amount of moebius reprints change this from being the maxim of comics.

early 90s alt-comics in general: the emperor's new clothes, all.

vertigo comics: adult = naked tits, cursing, exploding heads = late night cinemax.

this nu-wave of middle of the road not-quite-mainstream-not-quite-alternative books (cf. bone, although i sort of like bone): elfquest for the 21st century.

roberta gregory: giving feminism a bad name since 1990.

political cartoons: neither political, nor cartoons. discuss.

r. crumb's "when the goddamned niggers (or jews) take over america": not shrewd.

new yorker fetishism: a poor investment in ones future.

super-hero parodies: are still super-hero comics.

eros comics: do not delude yourself into thinking drawn pornography necessarily = Art.

and finally:

comic book stores: BURN THEM ALL.

Pinefox: haha I'm not going to even talk about it!

mark: forbidden planet dublin seemed okay, HOWEVER, i'm going to just assume you have never had the uh "experience" of stepping into an american comic book store. nancy is uncomfortable going into most of them. olympia's comic book store has really spoiled us. (there's a couch! and they actually don't mind if you look through the books before you buy them! and they occasionally sweep up! and it's well lit! and no large grimacing cut outs of wolverine in the window! etc.)

I'm reading Gunsmith Cats it's a bit pervy.

"manga": okay, look...manga - like euro comics - are not inherently any "better" than american comics. they are far more commercialized (so scratch that "defense") and being a much larger industry therefore produce an exponentially larger amount of crap. no amount of revisionism or boosterism by scary anime fans will reverse this.

Right on.

maus: as "emotionally involving" as being pelted with nerf balls.

The first volume is meh, but the second is funny, scary, sad and disturbing in equal amounts. "Overrated" perhaps, but not crap.

the dark knight returns: well, duh.

A really good book that spawned a mountain of crap.

vertigo comics: adult = naked tits, cursing, exploding heads = late night cinemax.

Ok, not everything on Vertigo is automatically any good- but naked tits, cursing and exploding heads doesn't necesairly exclude good storytelling, does it?

super-hero parodies: are still super-hero comics.

That's why I like 'em!

dark knight...i re-bought it a few months ago, because the used bookstore had it for like 3 bucks...i really dislike the fascist regan-era overtones, the satire is really bald/bland...i'm just not convinced it's any good...factor in what it spawned (which technically could include image comics and 90s marvel, which could - although this is a little extremist - make it the book which even eventually crippled the industry) and ugh. the whole "adult super hero" comic strikes me as one of those "someone had to do it sometime", and while watchmen isn't perfect, it's scope at least exceeds miller's piddling parochialism.

maus has enough structural problems (the, uh, problematic anthropomorphism) that it continually keeps me at arms length. also, i can think of a half dozen comics, if not more, that deserved the pulitzer and the wider recognition more.

as for super hero parodies: that's why i like em too. but there was this risible trend in the 90s where this simple fact was overlooked and used as a way to sell them as top-shelf art comics or whatever. blah.

If you like pulpy crime homages / rip-offs, 100 Bullets is URGENT AND KEY. The art is most excellent, and, yes, I like pithy pun-filled dialogue. I also snag Fables (for the art) and Transmetropolitan (for the art - did this get cancelled / ended?) Please note that love of art also inspires me to buy Promethea and the upcoming Jim Lee Batman run.

The only complaint I have about my comic shop is that it's been dead quiet every time I've gone. Very, very odd to browse for 15-20 minutes and hear nothing but the fan and the occasional page turn. It's worse when they boot up the Playstation. Plus, they have no back issues. A refreshing lack of the boys-club vibe permeating most shops I've been to. And I will take THAT over listening to some jerk talk crassly about the business and gullible fans over the phone w/ a colleague REALLY FUCKING LOUD.

C&H is just a bit over-praised, I think.

like the dark knight returns 2! (actually, i haven't finished reading it yet but disappointing so far). enjoyed the original though, but yeah, like watchmen, it made it hard for everything that followed. (actually, there was a lot of good batman stuff that followed, arkham asylum, the killing joke, year one...)

others, most of which have already been mentioned:

swamp thing. first 'american' comic i bought, started with issue 46 after reading a review in the melody maker. BAD place to start, middle of american gothic, crisis crossover episode, didn't have a clue what was going on but enjoyed it enough to buy a few more and ended up with a complete run of, what, 170 odd? fave issues: the sound of hammers must never stop, the autopsy, issue 60 - the totleben collage issue, the demon king trilogy.

sandman. the 24 hours (#6) and dream of a thousand cats (#18) issues especially. and the one that introduced nada (#9).

deadline. in fact anything by bond or hewlett. always prefered wired world to tank girl though. i get the impression bond is bad at finishing art on time as everything he does eventually gets finished by someone else.

anything by chris bachalo (did steampunk finish with issue 11?)

shade the changing man. (bachalo and hewlett together, great use of the new digital colour seperation as well)

hellboy, concrete, sin city (not keen when he started adding all those colours though), 300 spartans.

plastic forks, stray toasters. i always think of them as connected somehow, both originally published around the same time i think and both squarebound. anything by sienkienwicz looks great. ditto ted mckeever.

mr punch, violent cases. even enjoyed the goldfish book. but not the alice cooper book 8)

bought pretty much everything on the vertigo imprint for the first three years and then everything i like stopped and they replaced it with crap about faeries. these days it's only hellblazer and 100 bullets.

before all this there was dredd, especially the dark judge stories. and halo jones esp book 3.

'how long has she been dead?..'

andy

jess: an obvious question, but have you read The Invisibles? Also (more for your list of hates) will you marry me?

christ, i forgot about that old thread already. nice to know i don't contradict myself too much.

i bought the first 7 or so issues of the invisibles when it came out and lord knows i tried to like it; it just seemed a little too blunt and easy from the man who created the brotherhood of dada. i didn't like the "destroy this comic"/"it's just cheap entertainment" shtick. well, duh, grant! but your other comics exuded this without the council tower block meets abbie hoffman vibe. in fairness i heard it did get better as it went along, but i'm poor.

nancy has a couple issues of optic nerve and i re-read them today since i'm sidelined with the flu and they're the only comics in the house i haven't read 4000 times. they're rubbish.

Point taken, it ain't exactly subtle. The main reason I like DKR is:

a) It's a great portrayal of Batman, who's my all-time fave.

b) Superman is shown for the spineless boy scout he is.

"Year One" is even better as far as the characterisation of Batman goes.

like the dark knight returns 2! (actually, i haven't finished reading it yet but disappointing so far). enjoyed the original though, but yeah, like watchmen, it made it hard for everything that followed. (actually, there was a lot of good batman stuff that followed, arkham asylum, the killing joke, year one...)

The concept itself was enough to scare me off- it's the comic book equivalent of a Sex Pistols reunion.

oddly though, for something that you would think has been gestating for 15 years, it's odd how rushed some of it is, and how elements flagged in the first book are just forgotten about by the third (e.g. the BatBoys).

started rereading first issue last night and i think FM takes just a bit too much pleasure in drawing carrie in that catsuit.

it just feels scrappy in some way, probably cos he's (re)introducing characters left and right and whilst it's nice to see them all still alive, the high numbers of them mean that you know they'll be nothing but cameos. the computer colouring is distracting at times as well. and the cover of part 3 is a dreadful, fauvist nightmare.

why was there a delay of 6 months between parts 2 and 3 btw, anyone know?

enjoying it though.

andy

the high numbers of them mean that you know they'll be nothing but cameos.

Cf: "Kingdom Come" (there's one for the overrated list!)

Me, I've been reading "The Essential X-Men, Vol.1". First got this a few years ago, and was sorely disappointed by how, well, cheesy it all seemed to me then, but these days I love it! Highlights:

* Lang's speech about his inherent superiority in comparsion to mutants, culminating in "I'm better than any of you! Better than all of you! And now that I've reached my flying gunship, I'll prove it!" (I can't WAIT to use that line in everyday conversation)

* The fact that, when they go to Ireland, they meet leprechauns and the writers don't even TRY to give some sort of half arsed explanation on how/why these exist (they don't even further the plot much in a way that other characters couldn't have- they're just kinda THERE, because hey, LEPRECHAUNS!) When Wolvie grumbles "this ol' canucklhead don't believe in no leprechauns" (or something similarly lame), one of the little guys replies "well, maybe leprechauns don't believe in talking wolverines, either!" Gotta love that.

* The sadistic captions. Best example: Wolverine is walking to the hospital where Jean Grey is recovering with thoughts of getting into a romantic relationship with her, to which the captions repeatedly quip "not gonna happen, bub!" Then he walks in and sees that all the other X-Men are already there, to which the caption says "We told you so, Wolverine. Because you really should have expected that Jean's friends would stay as close to her as possible until they knew her fate. One way or the other. But then again, maybe you SHOULDN'T have, after all, you've NEVER had any FRIENDS!"

Barks and Rosa's Uncle Scrooge
Moore's From Hell
Miller's 300
Smith's Bone
Loeb and Sale's Long Halloween
Age of Apocalypse
and....
Miyazaki's Nausicaa (the movie should have never been made; read the comic and find out why!)