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Recently I tapped into an integral part of geekdom that had nearly passed me by: comic books.

That also means graphic novels, which I had minor relations with, and I had read a few comic collections here and there, but I've been driven to expand my repertoire quite a bit.

I ended up taking recommendations and making an exorbitant Amazon purchase full of books of all types, which I've only barely touched upon, starting with Marvel 1602 and Watchmen. Those were good choices. As we begin to see comics become more prevalent in the film and entertainment industries, I think there'll also be an upswing in interest

(I bought a Walking Dead volume that is about the same size as me, which I have trouble lifting.)

Open for discussion: What are your favorite comics? What would you recommend to new comic readers of all kinds? Which do you wish were more in the spotlight?

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I am contractually obligated to recommend Phonogram and Phonogram: The Singles Club, by Keiron Gillen (because my best friend worked with him, but also because they're also really good graphic novels, especially if you were a teen in the 90s).

I also distribute Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, volumes 1 and 2 to new readers; the newer Leagues are less brilliant but worth a look. I might also suggest Moore's Promethea; it gets crazy later on but it's worth sticking through it for sheer what the fuckery.

Finally, Bill Willingham's Fables - might as well get to know it now, before the video game.

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A few I have really enjoyed:

From Hell by Alan Moore

The Push Man (and subsequent collections) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware

Louis Riel by Chester Brown

Black Hole by Charles Burns

Blankets by Craig Thompson

Get a Life by Dupuy and Berberian

The Golem's Mighty Swing by James Sturm

It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth

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Oop, here's a sideline: Journal comics. On the cray-cray end there's Rowland's 0.02% true Overcompensating; in the I-hate-this-person-after-reading-his journal-comic middle there's Kolchaka's American Elf; on the want-to-share-a-drink-with-this-dude end is Weing's Journal Comic.

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Louis Riel by Chester Brown

Bloody awesome. Check it out. I found Asterios Polyp to be really interesting, as well as Stitches by David Small. I pretty much can't stand super-hero-y stuff, but do very much love a good graphic novel.

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Maus is amazing.

If you like people in capes try Identity Crisis.

Edit: Is Persopolis worth picking up? I really like the look of it.

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Edit: Is Persepolis worth picking up? I really like the look of it.

Yes! The film's also great, too.

Comics for new readers? Depends what angle they're coming from. The comics-journalism work of Guy DeLisle is accessible, yet engrossing, tackling massive political topics with a delicate touch. His new book, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, has just come out. I've just had a whale of a time reading through the most recent 30 issues of The Walking Dead, but it's a serial / soap opera at heart, so don't expect any resolution whatsoever, even after 100 issues - just pure, unrelenting misery. Well-written misery, though.

For literary, geeky types there's always the work of Adrian Tomine, who mostly works in shorter comic fiction, but his Shortcomings novel is as bitter, scathing and navel gazing as the best mid-80s Woody Allen films. For more fantasy-literary types, there's always Sandman, which is Neil Gaiman's sprawling masterwork.

If crime is more of your thing, check out anything by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. They've collaborated on a bunch of series that take noir conventions and shake them up. There are six volumes of Criminal, which are (sort of) standalone stories with a crime fiction flavour, and they've just finished the first book of Fatale, which is a mix of film noir, pulp and Lovecraftian horror.

And so much more.

Also, yes, Phonogram. Especially the second series, which has little relation to the first, and is better in every regard. Good shout, Subbes!

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(PREENS.)

They're working on a third one, but I forget the release date because I am rubbish.

I don't know McKelvie, but I drank with - and, I think, spilled a drink on - C-Monster (Keiron Gillen). He is good people. Also he has a podcast that is in-depth discussions with fellow creators and it is good.

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I'll second Subbes recommendation of Phonogram and Singles Club. They're excellent.

Two other favourites from recent years:

Asterios Polyp is a quiet story, very beautifully told.

Meanwhile by Jason Shiga is a nuts, visual choose your own adventure comic. It starts with a choice between vanilla or chocolate ice cream, but quickly raises the stakes.

Fun Home

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Oh, so I have to be the one to recommend Ellis' Planetary? Dammit, Nach.

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Hahaha :)

Planetary is excellent too. It takes place in the same universe as The Authority, but where the latter is all gung-ho heroics and apocalyptic drama, Planetary has a more sedate spirit and a sense of wonder. It tells quieter stories; the heroes in it Do Good Things and are very human. It took a long time for them to get around to finishing it, but they gave it a very good ending.

Transmetropolitan is also fucking excellent, and one of the few series that's complete on my shelves.

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Transmetropolitan is also fucking excellent, and one of the few series that's complete on my shelves.

Oooh, I have the first of that and have been meaning to get more.

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If you enjoyed Watchmen, I'd recommend picking up Halcyon.

In a similar vein, Warren Ellis' "Superhuman Trilogy", a set of three independent stories that look at the concept of superhumans from different perspectives, is pretty great - Black Summer, No Hero and Supergod.

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Second on Fun Home and Shortcomings. I read the latter during a similar fight with my own girlfriend, and the fact that the main male character is a projectionist and so am I made the whole thing a bit much for me. I was pretty much totally gutted. Still, very glad I read it. Haven't read Persepolis myself, only seen the film, but the girlfriend loves the books and I've been meaning to swipe her copies of them and give them a read for forever now. I should probably get on that.

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I highly recommend every story on this site: http://rice-boy.com/

Start with Rice Boy, then Order of Tales, read all the little short stories, then enjoy Vattu which updates three times a week. You can buy Rice Boy and Order of Tales as enormous printed volumes as well!

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If we're talking about webcomics as well (which we should as print is for suckers*) you should all already love Hobo Lobo of Hamelin. You're honor-bound by virtue of associating with its maker in these here fine forums. :buyme:

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* Prt.

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I highly recommend every story on this site: http://rice-boy.com/

Start with Rice Boy, then Order of Tales, read all the little short stories, then enjoy Vattu which updates three times a week. You can buy Rice Boy and Order of Tales as enormous printed volumes as well!

I second this recommendation.

I read literally Way Too Many webcomics. I'll have to think about which ones I'd actually recommend, now that the floor is open for them.

Except for this one I don't have to think about this one. http://www.buttercupfestival.com/ It is basically just surrealism in comic form. The artist also writes a lot of poetry, I guess, so that makes sense, somehow. Some of the comics are also just goofy little dialogues. The quiet kind of fun, rather than the wild 'n' crazy shit that is in most webcomics. It is my favorite webcomic by far. (Also, I prefer Series II to Series I.)

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20183_900x1350.jpg

Started this this weekend, really really enjoying it so far. Morrison's run of Batman is really really solid.

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I read BlackSad yesterday, and it's fantastic. It's a detective comic, and a really good one, but I think there are some people that would be turned off because all of the characters are anthropomorphic. If you let that deter you from checking it out it's really your loss because it's such a good book, and the fact that everyone is part animal imho makes it better. It's basically normal people that are represented as animals, i.e. a lot of the cops you see gathering evidence are dogs, there's a white supremacist character who is an arctic wolf, there's a character who is a rat and even in a normal context you would still basically think of him as a rat. It just makes everything more expressive, and on top of that Juanjo Guarnido's art is already incredibly expressive. It's also just plain amazing. The art in this book is better than any other graphic novel I have ever read. It's just amazing. There's so much goddamn detail in each panel. Check out http://blacksad-gallery.blogspot.com/ to look at some of the pages and get a feel for it, it's just fantastic.

Another book that is completely different but equally awesome is Afrodisiac. It's a design masterpiece and a love-letter to 70's comics, the production quality is amazing, there's so much time and effort put into it, the pages are aged and really look like you're reading a comic from the 70's, there's even things like crayon drawing on some of the pages so it feels like you're reading a comic that some kid had. As for what the actual book is about, Wikipedia sums it up pretty well. "The book is a detailed pastiche of 1970s "trash" culture, especially the blaxploitation heroic archetype. The titular hero is an over-the-top '70s-era, kung fu-fighting pimp character depicted in adventures that cross multiple comics styles, from space aliens and flying saucers to dinosaurs to Richard Nixon to Hercules to giant monsters to Dracula. Afrodisiac's production design faithfully evokes the visual style of old comic books, down to faded color schemes and wrinkled, creased covers." Definitely recommend.

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Anthropomorphic characters! There we go. There's a webcomic.

http://www.lackadaisycats.com/

It's a comic about the prohibition era, but with cat-people. It's a pretty serious tone, so they're just cat-people for the sake of being cat-people, kind of like BlackSad appears to be. Pretty great art. Hasn't been updating of late, which is a bit disappointing, but up until now I've liked it a lot.

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Another book that is completely different but equally awesome

(=Afrodisiac)

Blacksad always catches my eye but I can't shake the (probably unfair) feeling that such painterly comics often disregard the writing side of things.

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