your top 10 all time comic book series/graphic novels...
 

for serious geeks only.

1. the watchmen; written by alan moore; illustrated by dave gibbons.
an obvious choice, but cmon, its perfect.

2. batman: the killing joke; written by alan moore; illustrated by brian bolland.
hadnt read this since i was a kid, but after watching the 'dark knight' i had to pick up a copy, ive been obsessed ever since. its almost perfect, the art is amazing, and moore's writing is as usual, top notch. the ending with batman and the joker sharing a joke and a hysterical laugh is excellent. only thing i dont dig about this is the origin story, joker should have no origin story.

3. batman: the dark knight returns; written and illustrated by frank miller.
probably the only series that as a story could compare to the watchmen. the aging batman is an interesting conception of the icon, and the art, well, is fantastic.

4. wolverine: origins; written by daniel way; illustrated by steve dillon.
i just thing wolverine is the raddest superhero ever. this is his best solo series

5. the swamp thing; written by alan moore; illustrated by tom yeates
one of the greatest testaments to moore's talents. he took a stupud as fuck comic series about some super hero plant monster, and totally revamped it into a terrifying horror comic series about a hero plant monster. i remember when i was a little kid i had this videotape animated swampthing movie, i used to watch it millions of times over with my dad. i was 8 when i discovered there was a comic book about swamp thing, when i found alan moore's version, my eyes were stuck to that thing for months.

6. sin city; written and illustrated by frank miller
it got really trendy after the movie, but anyone who has read these cant deny how fucking awesome, fucked up, and spooky they really are. the neo noir meets horror tales of murderous prostitutes, a psychopathic cannibal with a pet wolf, a yellow head child mollestor, and marv, how the fuck could any geek not love this? the movie aint bad either.

7. from hell; written by alan moore, illustrated by eddie cambell
a terrifying look into the motives driving jack the ripper. the book is as scary as any true crime novels, its like 'helter skelter', only it has awesome pictures.

8. uncanny x men; writen by stan lee (and a shitload others); illustrated by jack kirby
its original x men, it fucking rules.

9. batman: year one; written by frank miller; illustratred by david mazzuchelli
it says in the liner notes that in the early 80s, dc was getting smoked by marvel comics (with good reason). they knew thier biggest series were becoming dated. they had to revamp thier franchise, and started with thier three biggest icons; superman, wonder woman, and batman. the problem with batman was that his back story was already perfect. so instead of changing his origin, they simp;y improved it. and with the help of frank miller, improved it they did. excellent origin story, very interesting conception of bruce wayne, and easily one of the most violent of all the batman series.

10. v for vendetta; written by alan moore; illustrated by david lloyd.
so fucking ambitious. nobody would ever think of comics as a means of warning the public of a bleak dystopan future.

well, from this thread you have now all the proof you need that im a nerd. i could care fucking less.

its also obvious that i am really into the work of frank miller and alan moore. moore is like the william s burroughs of comic books if you ask me.

Stickboy
Hate
Schizo
Meat Cake
Cages
Dirty Plotte
Loose Teeth
Yikes
Trailer Trash
Exquisite Corpse

Everything I know about comics (which seems like a lot to my roommate and some friends but its really just limited to knowing origins and particular events like Secret Wars) but I've never really read a whole series or anything. I just read whatever my brother got when I was so young (I think around eight).

However, I did just finish reading Watchmen for the upcoming film.

Love & Rockets by Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez
ACME Novelty Library by Chris Ware
Secret Comics Japan - Edited by Chikao Shiratori
Eightball - Daniel Clowes
A Panorama of Hell - Hideshi Hino
El Borbah & Big Baby - Charles Burns
Goodbye & Other Stories - Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Buddha - Osamu Tezuka
Superfuckers - James Kochalka
Hicksville - Dylan Horrocks

Did you ever read Yummy Fur, or Hate?

i haven't been a comic book fan for a long time, i used to read comics when i was 3 and then there was this huge span where n more comics-- however

PREACHER has been some of the most awesome shit i've read in a while.

the rest, i'm still sniffing around. LOVE & ROCKETS i've liked, but i'm not sure of what i've read or in what order, etc.

I have this! I think there are only 4 in the series, right?



it's been too long for me but: STRAY TOASTERS

si senor

everyone here seems to be into the more underground type comics. i like a love a lot of those too, but it seems that comic books is the one medium where i prefer the more popular ones to the more underground ones

I am stricking to graphic novels, not comic series like love and rockets, hate, or 8-ball, even though I love them)

WATCHMEN - have read it 6 times. it always hits me hard.

MAUS - have read it 4 times. fascinating and so personal. unbelievable story.

FROM HELL - have read it three times. so freaking great, and the chapter where , without much dialogue, they show the final murder of jack the ripper. that shit freaks me out every time. fascinating ephemera too, including source material listings and discussions of every scene!!!

DARK KNIGHT RETURNS - have read it 5-6 times. shoplifted the leather bound collected copy back in the early early 90's. fucking amazing amazing amazing

Yep, some of Chester Brown's stuff I like, but I get a bit tired of these "sensitive" comic writers writing about themselves, Hate I like but I wouldn't call it a favourite.

i agree

what kind of a sentence is that?

I think the Yummy Fur series on it's own was incredibly good, but it did spawn a lot of rubbish. Hate was just good fun, like an Andy Cap for Big Black fans.

A compound-complex sentence strongly lacking a predicate, I think.

In no real order:

Watchmen
Y The Last Man
Star Wars: Dark Times (I like a lot of Star Wars shit honestly)
Sin City
Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Long Halloween (I like Batman comics in general)
Astonishing X-Men
Ultimate Spider-Man (I stopped reading this, but it was good a while ago)
Pax Romana
Locke And Key (This is fairly new, and I'm liking it so far)

I've never actually read a graphic novel. Weird.

i like this thread as i will start reading comix soon.

That was a fucking great mini-series thing. My friend got the actual comics when they came out and I was extremely jealous. I was a few weeks late and they were already going for a fortune, so I got the graphic novel version.

I've actually read all of these except for the Uncanny X-Men. Really liked the Wolverine too. A friend of mine has a brother that had all of them and he was my library. Also, I really liked the Moebius/Stan Lee collabs for Silver Surfer and liked Airtight Garage and some other Moebius titles. Although, The Dark Knight Returns story is okay, I seem to remember that I didn't really dig the illustration as much as you. I rank Year One higher, or at least I think I do.

as far as x-men goes i much prefer chris claremont's run on uncanny x-men and grant morrison's run on new x-men. astonishing x-men is great too, as were the district x and nyx mini-series.

as far as comic storytelling goes, it really doesnt get much better than 'the dark knight returns'. youre right about the art thugh, miller is a fantastic writer, but a medicore artist.

yeah, the graphic novels are better, they have all the alternate covers. i always prefer just buying the series as a graphic novel, you get everything for like 14 bucks, instead of one issue for 8 bucks, plus all the extra stuff the graphic novels have.

wolverine is boss. my favorite superhero next to batman. the origins story is great, he has retrieved his memory and hes out for blood.

anyone else excited for 'x men origins: wolverine', the wolverine prequel to the x men franchise being filmed right now. it takes place when wolvie was just a regular mutant with his amazing healing power, animal like skills, and super strength. and prolly ends when he gets the adamantium skeleton. hugh jackman reprised the role, and hes getting paid 20 fucking million bucks to do so. the movie also has motherfucking gambit!!

holywood's best movies lately seem to be comic movies.

graphic novels:

i forgot persepolis!!

maus i liked but it didnt blow my mind-- its not like i hadnt read tales of the holocaust before.

but persepolis was really awesome.

now the adaptation of paul auster's city of glass disappointed a little-- perhaps mindblowing for people who encountered it coming from comic books-- but since i had already read the original story, it was a bit disappointing-- i hate to have images imposed over what my imagination has already colored. and it didn't work so well anyway.

I'm pretty pumped for the new Wolverine shit and FINALLY some Gambit action!!

The only Marvel character I like more than Gambit is the Hulk.

Jonah Hex
Steve Ditko's Shade the Changing Man (original series)

are you kidding? MILLER has fantastic art! when dark knight returns came out in NINETEENFUCKINGEIGHTYSIX it blew everything away! the art in that is amazing! beyond amazing!

he does all the art for sin city as well. fucking genius drawing. beautiful art. grad AAAA art.

I was going by memory. But more importantly, it's not "art" in my book anyway. Or at least it's rare when it is. It's illustration. At best it's fine craft. There's a staggering amount of difference between comic book illustration and fine art. But yeah, I know what you meant, at least I guess I do. Comic books, tattoos, what have you...there's just very little difference between it and something like Thomas Kinkade...really. Good graphic design and commercial art, "good" concert posters and good photographs and the like are usually made by someone with a fine art background and can be said to be somewhat artistic, I suppose. Same goes for the greats like, I don't know, Jack Kirby or something. The craft is so fine it deserves real respect as art in that case. Anyway, just an axe I'm grinding.

Moon Knight
Akira
Death Note
Amazing Spiderman
Civil War

how could i have forgotten akira?!

anyway, i don't really understand why people always cream themselves over frank miller, sin city is totally corny, the dark knight returns is good, but hardly a master work. and as far as 80s comic artists go Jaime Hernandez & Charles Burns were way ahead of Millerin terms of style.

I've only read Daniel Clowes graphic novels to completion. I think there needs to be a film made of "Like a Velvet Hand Cast in Iron." People would watch it and go "What the fuck is this shit?"

I did read part 1 of Akira and I really loved it, but I never read the whole series.

the whole series is an expensive, but totally worth it investment.

I'm a marvel guy but I do read manga also.

i hate it when people use the word "investment" in this sense-- as something that's gonna grow monetarily and take care of you in the future or something.

Eh I've found myself reading akira several times again so I guess in terms of long term use its an investment..

so you can trade it for 2 akiras now?

sorry, this is a small peeve of mine-- having to do with people's ideas about money, etc. nothing personal.

Haha its cool. XD
And I never took it personally, yer cool.

You folks know Asterix?
He's like Batman , except he has only one gadget in his belt.

Know of him.
Nevver really read it though.

fucking a, i grew up reading asterix & tintin

AWESOME STUFF.

asterix is particularly fucking funny when youre 12. holy shit i devoured those.