RFR - No spandex, no autobio

Bertozzi's The Salon comes immediately to mind.

Oh shit, yeah! You've talked a lot about that one, but I keep forgetting.

When I was going on about MW a while back, a friend elsewhere said Seiichi Hayashi's "Red Colored Elegy" and compared it to a French New Wave flick. haven't tracked it down yet, though.

Don't feel that it's got to be super highbrow or anything - I haven't looked at ILCx faves Scott Pilgrim or Action Philosophers yet, but I think they'd probably count.

Yes indeed on both. How about some Kevin Huizenga? Peter Bagge's "Buddy Does Seattle"? My old standby, Carla Speed McNeil's "Finder"? The David B. stories in Mome?

I'm a HATE fan from way back. Others duly noted - I took a look at some Finder once and it seemed really interesting, but something you'd be well advised to start with from the start and I saw one from later on.

I actually recommend starting with the fourth or fifth volume of Finder ("Talisman" and "Dream Sequence," respectively). Both entirely self-contained.

I just recently read the first six volumes of Finder and would certainly recommend those. I read them in order, but, like Douglas says, "Talisman" is a great place to start. I think that was the first one that produced an emotional response instead of an intellectual one.

I really liked Phonogram, even though that also kind of felt like an Invisibles rip-off (or at least like something Morrison should have written several years ago).

Action Philosophers was pretty fun, and Comic Book Comics is like reading 10 Cent Plague, but, you know, enjoyable.

Comic Book Comics is like reading 10 Cent Plague, but, you know, enjoyable

O RLY

Woodring. The Frank Book. Get it now. NOW. One of the best things ever made by people.

Tales Designed To Thrizzle. New issue just out, getting much love from the ILCors.

Sleeper is kind of paranoid espionage shit. Technically involving superheroes, but only in the most tangential sense. And very good. Written (shockingly) by the man currently destroying the X-Men. And soon to be a movie starring Tom Cruise! Don't let that stop you.

Stray Bullets. Everyone (including Lapham himself) seems to have forgotten that this exists.

Seconded on the Woodring. There's a cheap paperback "Frank" book out now or imminently, but it's in black and white, which means it doesn't include "Frank in the River," which may be the single greatest comic book story ever. (I said "may.")

I just started reading some Stray Bullets. That book is crazy. The thing is that his depictions of Baltimore losers seems just like some of the bonkers people I grew up around in Indiana. The thing that is really kind of daring is the cruelty that surrounds the kids. It isn't that kids cannot be that cruel, but it is unusual to see this cruelty being depicted in a comic book. I like how the time line jumps around. I'm hooked and will end up reading the whole thing.

I also just read the first two trades of Girls by the Luna Brothers. That is a pretty odd series, I guess horror is probably the closest way to describe it but it has some funny panels.

Re Girls, (SPOILER) I got hooked on that too, but the ending sucks.

Recommending Jim Woodring to me is more or less like recommending breathing, eating and drinking. But hey! Thanks! Recommending Brubaker is just like recommending chocolate cake.

btw, Manhog Beyond the Face whoops Frank in the River's ass

AGE OF BRONZE, the first SIN CITY trade, FINDER, 100% by Paul Pope, LUTHER ARKWRIGHT, THE COWBY WALLY SHOW, CASANOVA, THE OTHER SIDE, SCALPED, CAGES (with some hesitation), CRIMINAL.

More or less off the top of my head.

Age of Bronze--hell yes! And then there's always Cerebus, especially the blazing High Society - Church & State I & II - Jaka's Story sequence. And how about Death Note, which will certainly hit all your "paranoid espionage" sweet spots?

Also, the first half of Wm. Messner-Loebs' JOURNEY series just got reissued in a fat $20 paperback from IDW--kickass adventure story about a Michigan frontiersman in the 1860s or so, sort of like Will Eisner doing a landlubber version of Popeye. I can't wait to reread it.

Charley's War - Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun
The Incal - Jodorowsky and Moebius
Corto Maltese - Hugo Pratt
Get a Life - Dupuy & Berberian
Isaac the Pirate - Christophe Blain
Notes for a War Story - Gipi
Lucky Luke - Morris and Goscinny
The Push Man and other stories - Yoshihiro Tatsumi
The Chaos Effect - Christin and Bilal
Gemma Bovary - Posy Simmonds

DOGS AND WATER - ANDERS NILSEN

Oddly, my 10 year old nephew loves this.

God I love you guys. You've recced a bunch of stuff I love already, which bodes really really well for the stuff I haven't read.

Corto Maltese, seconded
Rocketo is also fun (and the writing/editing gets better in the second vol)--though where are the new issues Frank Espinoza??? Nearly spandex, but more pulp fantasy.
Ben Towles's Midnight Sun is nice.
Am very much enjoy The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics right now, b/w reprints of noir stuff from "Morphine, Murder & Me" to Charles Burns & Alan Moore

I would second Woodring, Brubaker, Laham (provisionally), Age of Bronze, Early Sin City, ANYTHING by Kyle Baker, Cages, Criminal, JOURNEY!!!!!, the high points of Cerebus, Isaac the Pirate, Tasumi and Goscinny.

I'm assuming you're already down with Brian K Vaughn, Bill Willingham and Greg Rucka.

People ignore funny animal/kiddie books at their own peril: strongly recommend Usagi Yojimbo, Jeff Smith, Dungeon (anything by Trondheim really), Sfar, Castle Waiting, old issues of Critters, Little Lulu, old Barks, Don Rosa, Stig's Inferno, Miyazaki, Milton Knight, ....

Done much in the world of manga? My love for Tezuka knows no bounds: Buddha, Phoenix and Astroboy are modular and easy to get. Dragonball and Death Note are similarly fun and engaging and addictive.

I should really go through my collection and pull some gems to recommend for this thread. I think I will.

If you'd like a great course in learning how to sustain an extensive narrative, I'd recommend checking out any of the current bonanza of classic comic strip books: Popeye, Annie, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates... those guys could do engaging sixty to eighty page stories without blinking an eye that linked into the next sixty to eighty page story and the next for about fifty years.

Oh god, I'm going to go to the Strand now aren't I. Yes I am.

This thread makes me wish I had a jillion dollars.

If you'd like a great course in learning how to sustain an extensive narrative, I'd recommend checking out any of the current bonanza of classic comic strip books: Popeye, Annie, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates... those guys could do engaging sixty to eighty page stories without blinking an eye that linked into the next sixty to eighty page story and the next for about fifty years.

You also might want to check out 50s and 60s Dan Dare if you're into long, richly imagined multi-layered narratives.

Don't think any of that stuff has been reproduced in the states.

Corto Maltese is probably my second favourite comic ever after Tintin, so I'm gonna third the recommendation. Gripping historical adventures taking place all over the world in the 1910s and 1920s, combined with Hugo Pratt's cynical yet humanist worldview, a fine sense of political history, and large dose of magical realism. Plus his line is very beautiful in all its simplicity. Though I've gathered that it's not very easy to find the English-language editions of the comic...?

An FT article by Martin Skidmore has given me a timely reminder of the existence of Charlier and Moebius' excellent western series Blueberry. The huge confederate gold storyline (which I think may be available in a single volume now) is sprawling, complex pseudo-historical storytelling.

I'd like to reiterate that BAKUNE YOUNG is quite awesome.

The "Confederate Gold" story is available in one volume, or at least it was, as of a couple years ago. But it's not in color and the reduced size of the collection makes it less than perfect. Hopefully IDW will get the idea to reprint all the BLUEBERRY material like they're doing with TORPEDO.

AHHHHH! Torpedo is so amazing! Just read one story in the Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics! GUH! Puts Criminal in its candyass place (I haven't read Criminal since #1, but it seemed pretty candyass).

What is this Torpedo you speak of?

Torpedo 1936 is a Spanish gangster comic originally created for Alex Toth in the early 80s, but after two stories, Jordi Bernet took over. The one story I've read is HUBBA HUBBA good.

I find those Torpedo books creepy.

Kyle Baker's Special Forces
The Walking Dead

is all I can think of that's not covered above. Jeffry Brown's Bible Stories too, I guess.

COMPLETE TORPEDO
http://www.milehighcomics.com/comicindex/nice/July-2009/Title-TORPEDO-HC--2009---1-by-IDW-PUBLISHING.html

I'll be buying that. Again, IDW is doing great work; thank god for 30 days of night and bullshit buffy and transformers books.

the rub: translation by Jimmy Palmiotti

Palmiotti, of course, being the Skeet Ulrich to Ed Brubaker's Johnny Depp

I bought the first collection Air, and even though the story started kinda slow, I thought it kept getting better and better. The fifth issue with the flying city was already pretty awesome. Now I'm hoping the series won't get cancelled, and that there will be new collections. Have any of you been buying it in single issues, does it keep up the same quality?

Oh yeah, according to Wikipedia the second Air trade paperback will come out next month. I certainly will be getting that one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-THREE-ALTERNATIVE-SMALL-PRESS-GRAPHIC-NOVELS-NEW_W0QQitemZ220474807117QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item335552934d&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
Not a fan of Storm but the other two books are TOTALLY worth ten bucks.

Tuomas, what do you like about Air? I was buying the issues but thought there was less and less to it as it went on.