The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[Skummy]

Alan Moore has tried to defend the criticism of him in relation to Before Watchmen - that he's "borrowed" literary characters and used them in new situations countless times himself, so he's no different to DC for it - and while I agree with the sentiment, his attempt to express it is probably the least eloquent he has ever been, and only serves to fulfill the "crotchety old man" reputation that he doesn't really deserve.

Essentially, he's said that he's part of a long literary tradition of stealing characters and doing "literary mash-ups", while DC have co-opted an entire universe from a "cheated old man". But...yeah...he didn't do a good job of explaining it.

Basically - League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls et al are fine because they don't profess to be canon. They're new stories with old characters, in different universes. The problem with Before Watchmen is that it professes to be directly related to the original work. I'm still dead against it, as you can probably gather.

That said, the good news is that we have two new League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen books coming out! Century 2009 (the "final" book) in (hopefully) June, and Nemo: Heart Of Ice (apparently a Jules Verne/HP Lovecraft "mash-up", which sounds delightful).

So there's good news from the Alan Moore camp, which makes me damn happy.

[AnnIQ Edison]

In unrelated talk (I didn't know where to put this):

I saw this and then realised that my only TPB of Superman falls right in the middle of this story arc, where Superman is in heaven talking to Jon Kent.

Also, I just got The Mask Omnibus Vol. 2 in the mail today. Been waiting for the right time to have some spare cash so I could buy this. Glad it's finally here.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

I'm probably really dumb for just noticing this, but is it me, or does Scarlet Spider's costume remarkably resemble Flipside's, from Spider-Man 2099?

A couple of pics for comparison, spoiler'd because of the size.

Flipside:

Scarlet Spider:

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Is anyone here up up-to-date (more or less) with Fables? I remember loving the first four volumes of it when I read them years back, and I carried on with it until about Vol.9, but stopped reading, partly because I'd stopped reading comics in general, but also because I felt like the last couple of volumes hadn't been anywhere near as good as the first few.

Anyway, I discovered my Fables collection at my parents house earlier and re-read Vol.1, and liked it just a much as I did originally. I see that the series is up to about 17 volumes now, so I'm wondering how it holds up? Is it worth sticking with beyond Vol. 9? I'll at least re-read what I have and might continue on from there.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, it's still good. I've read everything through vol. 16. Slight dip in quality after they finish the stuff with The Adversary but still good.

[Skummy]

Because my comic book habits tend to revolve entirely around Mr. Moore, I just finished his Neonomicon, which came out late last year. Holy fuck, it's one of the genuinely darkest comic books I have ever read, easily the darkest by Alan Moore, and it's incredible. It's a modern take on the H.P. Lovecraft mythos, with a hell of a lot more sex, which normally I'd be dead against in a Lovecraft pastiche or homage yet, somehow, it all works. Brilliantly.

Going to take a break from Moore and plow through some old Steve Ditko stuff for a while, before re-reading all of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in time for Century: 2009.

[HailtotheYo]

So apparently I have Iron Fist 1-7 ... pretty good condition too. I'd forgotten all about them. Finding some pretty good gems in my other boxes as well. ASM 238 and Cpt Marvel #1 ....

[Jimmy]

Okay, I'd love some more stuff to read at the moment. I've just started reading a bunch of Marvel Zombies and I'm also finally getting around to reading The Question again, both of which I really like. I think I'm going to get myself '52' and maybe 'Marvel 1602'. So yeah, I haven't read that many graphic novels, so I'd love some ideas on acclaimed runs and such that I can really get into. I dig the big ideas, like 52, 1602 and Marvel Zombies but I'd definitely be up for just reading a really good run on some comics. This isn't DC/Marvel restricted, Warren Ellis' Fell is one of my favourite comics of all time. I'm thinking of reading more Alan Moore stuff, too. Don't fancy Walking Dead yet, but yeah, I'd just love any suggestions please.

[Herr Matzat]

Whenever someone asks i just have to plug "Bone". Also "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" will always and forever stay one of my most fav comic books.

On the DC/Marvel front there is some oldisch stuff like Spider-Man: Blue, Kingdom Come, The new Frontier if you want something conclusive with spandex. - "Y - The last man" is a great conclusive story, i liked "Girls" a lot too.

On the side of newer comics were you can catch up to monthly releases there would be stuff like "Chew", "Invincible", "Animal Man" or "Sweet Tooth".

I just started reading "Rachel Rising" wich seems to be pretty good.

[Jimmy]

Sweet, I'll have a look at a couple.

Is House Of M any good? I remember reading some of the Spiderman stuff, but not the actual thing.

[Herr Matzat]

Comixology has some first issues free. Obviously a single issue dos not do the full series justice (especialy bone changes a ton along the way) but you´ll get some idea of what direction the art stile and writing is heading.

Girls #1

http://www.comixology.com/Girls-1/digital-comic/MAR051667

Y - he last man #1

http://www.comixology.com/Y-The-Last-Man-1/digital-comic/MAY020277

Chew #1

http://www.comixology.com/Chew-1/digital-comic/APR090337

Bone #1

http://www.comixology.com/Bone-1/digital-comic/DEC042663A

Invincible #1

http://www.comixology.com/Invincible-1/digital-comic/NOV021764

[Skummy]

If you're looking at reading Alan Moore, that's definitely my area.

What have you already read? Watchmen is obviously the big one, and justifiably so, as it's the best deconstruction of the superhero genre you'll find.

Aside from that, V For Vendetta would probably be his second most famous, and a good introduction to the kind of thing he does more these days; full of political allegory, incredible artwork, and playing around with the conventions of the medium. Most importantly, though, it's a great story.

League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is absolutely incredible stuff, insanely well-plotted for a Moore comic (plotting usually being his weakest point), and just a lot of fun to read. I'm going to re-read the whole thing myself soon, ahead of the last installment coming out later this year.

From Hell is another classic, and one of the best drawn comics I've ever read. Even moreso than V, it's very much an Alan Moore project, rather than him tackling anything even remotely resembling a superhero story; it's full of everything that makes Moore brilliant and eccentric - psychogeography, historical and cultural references aplenty, magic, conspiracy, and the idea that all things in life are interconnected. It's a fantastically well-written piece of fiction - as with all Alan Moore comics, don't let the mediocre movie put you off.

Outside of his more famous stuff (read: the things that have been made in to movies), I'd recommend The Ballad Of Halo Jones for some good fun sci-fi stuff, Tom Strong for pretty much the polar opposite of Watchmen - a brilliant homage to silver age comics - his recent Neonomicon, which is easily the darkest, creepiest comic I have ever read, a sexed up modern day take on the Lovecraft mythos - or my personal favourite, Promethea, which is the best "magic" comic since Steve Ditko's work on Dr. Strange and, in many ways, probably surpasses that. It does have a tendency to get bogged down in rhetoric, though.

Big Numbers is fantastic too, though sadly unfinished - it only went two issues, but it's the most gorgeous comic I've ever read. It doesn't really get started, but I can only imagine what was to come. It's nice as a curiosity.

More conventionally, his work on Superman, Batman, Swamp Thing, Miracleman and Captain Britain is rightly considered among the best work on each of those characters.

[Jimmy]

Brilliant, I'll check a bunch of them out. I loved Watchmen, I read it before the movie and it blew me away. As I've seen the V movie, I don't really want to read that novel as much (though I'm sure it's probably better than the movie, even though I love the film). I think I'll definitely check out League of Extraordinary Gentleman. I have a soft spot for the film (but that's because I haven't seen it since I was a kid) and I've heard great things about it.

Have you read Planetary? I heard good things about that and it got me interested.

[Skummy]

V is drastically different to the movie - it's insane that they made a film of that book, and the words "anarchy" and "fascism" don't get used once.

I've never read Planetary, but it sounds like it would be right up my street.

[GoGo Yubari]

Don't bother with House of M.

For superhero comics... can you give me some specific characters/titles you're interested in? I keep putting this off because I keep overthinking it, I usually start with Frank Miller's Daredevil (and if you liked that then subsequently Kevin Smith's "Guardian Devil" arc followed by Bendis' run) and then start trailing off.

[Jimmy]

Sure.

I'm not too interested in some of the biggest characters; like Superman or Spiderman (but that's because I've read a shit load of Spiderman stuff over the years). I'm not really that interested in Iron Man or Hulk, but I'd be interested in reading some Captain America or X-Men stuff. So, yeah, when it comes to Marvel I'm not too interested in the big, big names, other than Cap and X-Men, but would be really interested in lesser characters or slightly less big names like Daredevil or Moon Knight.

With DC I love The Question and anything Batman. I loved Year One and The Long Halloween. I'm not at all interested in most of DC's big names like Superman or Wonder Woman. Stuff like Swamp Thing really peaks my interest, because it's a lesser character I can get more involved in.

I loved Fell by Warren Ellis so I'm completely open to any indie comics.

I'm not sure I expained that too well, I'd be happy to answer anything more specific if it helps with suggestions.

[GoGo Yubari]

Okay. For Daredevil, it's like I said. Start with Frank Miller then move on to "Guardian Devil" then to Brian Michael Bendis and then finally to Ed Brubaker. Mark Waid is writing the comic right now and it's pretty good though not super-compelling.

For Question, uh. That's not so easy. I'm sure there's stuff if you really like Renee Montoya as Question (I don't; two great tastes that don't go great together for me). If you like Montoya in general, though, check out Gotham Central which was a fucking awesome comic.

Can't help you on Moon Knight, but for Cap I really like much of what Ed Brubaker's done. It's very heavily tied into the major event comics like Civil War, though.

X-Men... hmm. I'm not really the major X-Men fan I used to be and I've come to realize that there really isn't any one X-Men run I can point at and say "wow, this is the best it's ever been. Give Chris Claremont's original Uncanny X-Men run a look; it's the most iconic run on that series of all time (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby may have created them but they probably would be a semi-obscure second-tier team if not for what Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne did with them (and Len Wein too, but he only wrote Giant-Size X-Men #1). Grant Morrison's run is probably the second-most important or so in terms of what you should read.

Also, read X-Force/X-Statix by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred, but not until after you read some other X-Men comics so you can get how awesome the twist of it is.

For Batman, if you liked The Long Halloween you'll presumably like Dark Victory. Same creative team, continuation of The Long Halloween's story. No Man's Land was pretty good, and Knightfall gets boring after a certain point but definitely read the first book of it where all of Arkham Asylum is set loose upon Gotham all at once.

Also, in more general recommendations; Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's runs on Justice League, Mark Waid and maybe Geoff Johns' runs on The Flash, Geoff Johns' run on Green Lantern, Kurt Busiek's run on Avengers, and all of Secret Six.

[Jimmy]

Sweet, cheers. That's a lot of stuff I'm interested in reading. I've got a few things I've found to work through first then I'll get started on them.

Have you read 52? I'm very interested in that and just wondered if you'd got an opinion on it.

[GoGo Yubari]

I read 52 for a while and then got bored. It will probably be better when read all at once, but I would maybe recommend reading Infinite Crisis first?

The problem with the big DC events is that they were really incapable of doing them as standalones all that well and they're a lot more continuity-heavy than Marvel's. If you wanted to do a DC Universe big event primer, I would consider reading Crisis on Infinite Earths (the series that led to DC rebooting itself the first time), then Countdown to Infinite Crisis/Infinite Crisis, then 52. Skip Final Crisis because it's bullshit, and Blackest Night is very optional because it's not like it matters anymore, but in spite of how grim and gritty it was I liked it okay. And then DC started doing a lot of stuff I liked as a whole riiiiight up until it rebooted entirely and made me ragequit reading their books.

EDIT: Do you have decent libraries with a lot of stuff? Honestly, part of what I did with comics was I just started checking out and reading everything because I was a high school student who spent a lot of time on buses.

[GoGo Yubari]

... oh, what the fuck, has nobody mentioned Sandman? Read Sandman, and put it pretty high up on your priority list.