Comics Extravaganza - Pow Bang Smash!

[Ben X]

By the way the final issue of The Private Eye is now up at http://panelsyndicate.com/

 

Dammit, I wanted to beat you to this one! Well, now the final one has come out, it's a good time to recommend the series again. It's PWYW and I can vouch for the superb quality of at least the first nine issues! It looks gorgeous, it's clever, funny and exciting, and all the money goes to the creators.

[N1njaSquirrel]

So help me out guys. It's my friend's birthday next week, and I'd like to get him some cool comic book he hasn't heard of, but is totally amazing. Any recommendations?

 

He likes Saga, Niel Gaiman and Batman, but really he likes any comic book. any suggestions guys?

[Tanukitsune]

Does Lumberjanes or any of your favorites exist as a collected volume yet? If they like Batman, maybe the Killer Joke or Long Halloween?

[Mangela Lansbury]

Maybe the first trade of the Prophet relaunch? It's kiiiiind of a mix of those three things, sort of.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Does Lumberjanes or any of your favorites exist as a collected volume yet? If they like Batman, maybe the Killer Joke or Long Halloween?

 

I think that he's read the main Batman books. I haven't read Lumberjanes either. As for other Favourites, the only thing he hasn't read is Black Science, which he's borrowing off of me :/

 

 

Maybe the first trade of the Prophet relaunch? It's kiiiiind of a mix of those three things, sort of.

 

The Prophet? I shall give it a look!

[tberton]

So help me out guys. It's my friend's birthday next week, and I'd like to get him some cool comic book he hasn't heard of, but is totally amazing. Any recommendations?

 

He likes Saga, Niel Gaiman and Batman, but really he likes any comic book. any suggestions guys?

 

The first trade of The Wicked + The Divine would be a great choice.

[Ben X]

It would be expensive to get him the whole lot, but if he likes Saga then Y: The Last Man is a good bet. Same writer, and it's a finished, self-contained story. Or you could get him Private Eye, as recommended above!

[Codicier]

So help me out guys. It's my friend's birthday next week, and I'd like to get him some cool comic book he hasn't heard of, but is totally amazing. Any recommendations?

 

He likes Saga, Niel Gaiman and Batman, but really he likes any comic book. any suggestions guys?

 

Do you have any idea which artist/writers work he liked on Batman? It's tone could vary hugely

 

 

The first trade of The Wicked + The Divine would be a great choice.

 

I think i actually prefer Phonogram (in particular The Singles Club) to W+D of Gillen & McKelvie's works. Part of that i think is because it hits my age & music taste so spot on, and is basically set in Bristol exactly the same time i was living there however equally i think it's stronger just for being a fully self contained story arc rather than just vol1 of a ongoing series.

 

Infact tbh that's my main rule when buying other people comics, the work has to be standalone.

 

So lets see for the Gaimen style stuf, Phonogram & W+D cover that but maybe if you want something with a distinctly darker on the supernatural tone of things you could go with Grant Morrison's The Filth but warning it is actually a bit disturbing so tread with care on that one (maybe take a look at it in store somewhere).

 

For the Batman stuff personally I associate the series most with Alan Moore & Frank Millar, so Perhaps V For Vendetta & Sin City? but as i say above it entirely depends on what artists/writters they like.

 

Outside of single volume stuff The Authority, Powers, Preacher & Promethea are all great and all in some way were reflections of some of the stuf going on in things like Gaimen's books and the superhoero comics of their time & as Ben X says Y: The Last Man is a great book of a slighlty more modern era (which in turn references preacher )

 

 

 

[N1njaSquirrel]

I've heard of the Wicked + Divine, as well as Y. I haven't heard of The Filth either, but a quick google and that might be his jam. (He liked Cryptozoic man, which is pretty gruesome).

 

Depending on my local comic book store's prices, I might get him all 3!

 

 

Do you have any idea which artist/writers work he liked on Batman? It's tone could vary hugely

 

Unfortunately not. He lent me Year One though (which I hear is staple batman nowdays, so that might not be of any help).

 

He's lent me The Preacher, as well as All-Star Superman. When I said batman I was more thinking of some obscure run that's really good, or a similar DC/Marvel run.

 

He got me Animal Man for my Birthday too, which is really great, so he has a pretty broad knowledge of super hero stuff.

 

Thanks for all your help guys!     

[tberton]

I think i actually prefer Phonogram (in particular The Singles Club) to W+D of Gillen & McKelvie's works. Part of that i think is because it hits my age & music taste so spot on, and is basically set in Bristol exactly the same time i was living there however equally i think it's stronger just for being a fully self contained story arc rather than just vol1 of a ongoing series.

 

Infact tbh that's my main rule when buying other people comics, the work has to be standalone.

 

That's fair, although I'll say that, in terms of Phonogram, The Singles Club holds up a lot better than Rue Brittania. The standalone policy is a good one, though. Also, not sure if you're aware of this, but Phonogram Vol. 3: Immaterial Girl is coming out this summer, so that's something to look forward to.

 

Back to Ninja's request, one other thing I thought of, if you'd like something a bit further off the beaten path, is Emily Carroll's Through the Woods. It's a collection of scary stories told in comic form and it's top notch.

[Codicier]

I've heard of the Wicked + Divine, as well as Y. I haven't heard of The Filth either, but a quick google and that might be his jam. (He liked Cryptozoic man, which is pretty gruesome).

 

Depending on my local comic book store's prices, I might get him all 3!

 

 

 

Unfortunately not. He lent me Year One though (which I hear is staple batman nowdays, so that might not be of any help).

 

He's lent me The Preacher, as well as All-Star Superman. When I said batman I was more thinking of some obscure run that's really good, or a similar DC/Marvel run.

 

He got me Animal Man for my Birthday too, which is really great, so he has a pretty broad knowledge of super hero stuff.

 

Thanks for all your help guys!     

 

Was the Animal Man he gave you the "revival" 4th wall breaking one penned by Grant Morrison? If so that might lead me to push my recommendation for The Filth a bit harder, but it REALLLY is weird stuf so i do advise a try before you buy on it.

 

 

That's fair, although I'll say that, in terms of Phonogram, The Singles Club holds up a lot better than Rue Brittania. The standalone policy is a good one, though. Also, not sure if you're aware of this, but Phonogram Vol. 3: Immaterial Girl is coming out this summer, so that's something to look forward to.

 

Back to Ninja's request, one other thing I thought of, if you'd like something a bit further off the beaten path, is Emily Carroll's Through the Woods. It's a collection of scary stories told in comic form and it's top notch.

 

Sadly Through The Woods is quite hard to source in the UK being out of stock in most places, and only available for a big markup elsewhere. It's on my wishlist but i guess i'm waiting for a new print run.

 

& yeah Vol. 3 of Phonogram should be interesting, there's always been a autobiographical element to it as far as Gillen is concerned and i wonder how the fact he's now working with Major IP's like star Wars etc will affect the way he see's himself since Dave Kohl was clearly more than a little based on him.

[tberton]

Well, Immaterial Girl is focusing mostly on Emily, so I don't know how much Dave will factor into it.

[TheLastBaron]

Promethea might be good (just saw that Codicier mentioned it already so consider this me seconding it). It's Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III doing metaphysical so if he liked Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison (I'm assuming the latter based on Animal Man) it might be a good shot. 

[N1njaSquirrel]

Thanks forall the suggestions guys! I'm going to my comic book shop tomorrow and I'll see what they have!

[N1njaSquirrel]

So in the end I decided to go with The Filth. I did look at every book in the store, but decided that The Filth is more likely to be something he hasn't read, which was a main prerogative so that I can look like a 'cool' 'hip' and 'clued up' friend on the comic scene.

 

Although he did tell me today he hasn't read Promethea. Darn.

 

I did read a chapter of The Filth when I got home, and whilst it has a lot of nudity and was weird, it was all a good weird, and I felt it'd be something he'll hopefully like. 

 

Thanks for all your help guys! I now have some awesome suggestions for myself too! 

[tberton]

Not exactly sure if this is the right thread for it, but Laura Hudson just posted this article about Jason Shiga, a guy who makes weird papercraft, choose-your-own-adventure comics. They sound ridiculously cool.

[TheLastBaron]

That's really cool, I read his (Jason Shiga's) book Empire State and thought it was pretty good, haven't read any of his other stuff, I guess I should. 

[dibs]

The Filth is completely fucking insane.

Enjoy.

[Tanukitsune]

Stop what you're doing right now and read this comic about a girl falling in love with an animatronic Karl Marx!

[thefncrow]

I saw this thread last night and ended up re-reading The Filth because I hadn't read it in several years.  Still great.  Makes me think I should maybe do a re-reading of that whole cycle, going back to Flex Mentallo and The Invisibles before giving this a go again.

 

In other Morrison stuff, I finally got around to reading Ultra Comics, and, man... I don't know if it's possible to produce a comic that is more meta than that.  I think I liked it, but I think that one's gonna take a few more reads to really sink in.

[TheLastBaron]

I saw this thread last night and ended up re-reading The Filth because I hadn't read it in several years.  Still great.  Makes me think I should maybe do a re-reading of that whole cycle, going back to Flex Mentallo and The Invisibles before giving this a go again.

 

In other Morrison stuff, I finally got around to reading Ultra Comics, and, man... I don't know if it's possible to produce a comic that is more meta than that.  I think I liked it, but I think that one's gonna take a few more reads to really sink in.

I haven't been reading much of anything from the big two the past couple years so I have completely ignored The Multiversity up until now (though part of that is because I figured I'd wait until it was all done and collected, and I think I actually did buy the PAX Americana issue and never got around to reading it).  I heard a lot of good stuff about this issue though, so I picked up Ultra Comics and man, I think that might be the most Grant Morrison book Grant Morrison has ever done.  I mean that in a good way, It just seems like a really distilled version of Grant Morrison's brain and the way he thinks about comics (or at least the way I think Grant Morrison thinks about comics from reading a lot of his work including Supergods and also reading interviews with him).  He really likes to explore the whole "what does it mean to be a super hero" thing, or even what does it mean to be a comic book, and this was an interesting study of that.  There's definitely didn't get a lot of stuff and agree it's going to take a few more read (and even then there's going to be stuff I miss), but I'm glad I picked this up.

[Tanukitsune]

I've read the first two issues of Squirrel Girl and the first volume of Ms. Marvel and they were both amazing! If I hadn't read the other Ms./Captain Marvel stuff a bit first I would have been very confused by how Kamala gains her powers.

 

Is it a good thing that I felt that at the end of the first volume of Ms. Marvel ended too soon? I guess I was left wanting more. ;

[JonCole]

I was a little split on Ms. Marvel's power origins, I kinda thought the Inhumans/Terrigen Mists thing was pretty deep down the lore rabbit hole but it was also nice because the body transformation is a really interesting play on a teenage, out-group coming of age thing.

 

Since I've subscribed to Marvel Unlimited I've been diving through a lot of the old Marvel stuff, but I did decide to recently catch up with some currently running series and have been enjoying Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, and Hawkeye very much. I'm also happy to report that Thor #1 just hit Marvel Unlimited, so I finally get to see what the fuss is about with that series.

[Tanukitsune]

I think Scribd might be pretty similar to Marvel Unlimited, that's were I read a ton of the old Ms. Marvel. I haven't read the Inhumans part yet, but I know Lockjaw is involved so I'm sure I'll be happy about it.

[TheLastBaron]

I just finished Southern Bastards #8 which ended the second small arc and man this book is just so good. I just finished it on a Monday which is the longest I've ever waited after an issue has come out (which is on Wednesday.) Scalped was my favorite book when it was coming out, I'm almost certain it's my favorite series in the 2000's, and I thought there wouldn't be another series like it but so far Jason Aaron is doing it again (not to discount how much Jason Latour is doing as well). It's not for everyone, but it's basically everything I like in comics. It takes the intimate/personal stuff I like in books like Essex County and Optic Nerve and combines them with the character-driven crime stuff I like in books like Stray Bullets and Criminal.