Reccomendations, please

[KathleenJ]

I finally live in a city with easy access to actual comic book stores, and I'm not used to it. Up til now, that's been the main thing missing from my nerddom - actual print comics. I wanna go and get a big stack of comicage. I've been borrowing stuff from a friend, but I want to go buy my own.
So, you guys got any reccommendations for me? Comics, graphic novels, manga...I like it all.

[Dalhar]

Haven't visited a comic book store in some years now, but..

First of all: Watch your wallet!
Second: There are unbeliavable amounts of crap out there, especially meant for the adolescent. With all kinds of marketing and trickstery. Online comics are relatively clean, because no one has much hope for earning money anyway. Print comics are wild west.
There are differences between the stores, find a good one. Be picky. There are gems out there, but it sometimes takes a trained nose to find'em.
The staff often has a clue but can be reluctant to offer them, as they don't want to offend the different minded. Good staff who knows your taste can be invaluable, though.

Then, what I'd consider "classics" (keep in mind I haven't visited comics stores in a while)

Moebius:
The hermetic garage of.. (Patently absurd)

Mattotti:
Fires (Of bright colours, rational thought and a fleeing mind. Light-hearted isn't the word.)

Dave McKean:
Cages (A meaning of art and life. Watch out for heavy symbolism.)

(DC/Vertigo)
Sandman (Dream stuff)

(Ditto)
Death: The meaning of life (A meaning of life)

By "Your Choice", Justin seems to enjoy Akiko.
Childrens stuff really, but ahh.. Ten out of ten points for originality and sweet innocent fun.

Franquin:
Gaston Lagaffe (Crazy humor)

(Slave Labor..)
Johnny The Homocidal Maniac (If you're in for the truly sick. PS: Don't try to read more than one issue at a time. )

(British)
The tale of a bad rat. (Serious about child abuse)

Joe Sacco does some of the best war journalism ever.
"Palestine", for example, is a must-read.

More to come...

[Justinpie]

I don't know what Akiko is. Did I break the law again?

Also, you DO realize that they've been doing Simpsons comics for about 10 years, right Kath?

For more in the alt-manga stuff, check with the boys of Bhag.

[Al_fayyed]

"The Boys of Bhag," eh? I like it -- it's snappy, and lets us pretend that we still have some adolescence left despite our college degrees.

I'm going to let Isu-kun do the vast majority Japanese media suggestions because I'm a snooty person who doesn't buy manga outside of Japan. Actually, it's not that the translations are bad -- although some are -- it's just that, when I was in Japan, I could get manga at a third of American prices. And I read Japanese. Let's not omit that. So I just kind of feel cheated paying $8 for the right for someone else to disagree with me.

So, if you can find the Kodansha publications bilingual Love Hina manga, where the Japanese text is moved out from the bubbles and left at the side, and a very amusing British guy's English text is put in, get that. It's smut (and pretty much straight male smut at that), but it's linguistically educational and well-drawn.

Also, Dark Horse's translation of Dominion: Conflict 1 (No More Noise) is pretty good -- first, you get a concept of how much Masamune Shirow thinks through even his throwaway, silly worlds without having to know too much technical Japanese. It's also got a great complexity of plot; if you follow what everyone's saying in the background, sometimes it's important.

As for the comics I'd recommend:

• Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway (if you can find the trade paperback in print)
• Deadpool 1-4 (I can't vouch for the quality after that, but when Deadpool takes on the Taskmaster using "the my left foot style pioneered by Daniel Day Lewis" and then claims to be "the original feather-plucking walrus, hoo-koo-ka-frickin'-choo," that won it for me)
• Art Spiegelman's Maus series, if you haven't read it already. Spiegelman draws his life with his father and how his parents' experiences during the Holocaust influenced his home dynamic 40 years later in the United States. It's pretty heavy stuff.
• Three of DC/Vertigo's alternate universe stories I thought were pretty good: Kingdom Come (the Apocalypse as told by DC characters), Speeding Bullets (Superman IS Batman). and Doom Comes to Gotham (HP Lovecraft n' Batman). All are available in trade paperback.

I guess you're supposed to go off and read Sandman, Preacher, and Seeker, but Sandman didn't do much for me (very pretty and well-written, though), Preacher ditches its high moral ground and just is generally pretty gross after the first trade paperback, and Seeker was waaaay too esoteric for me to get into.

I also stopped reading Jhonen Vasquez after that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac where aliens make a man have sex with a chicken. I still can't believe they put Invader Zim (another of his creations) on television.

[KathleenJ]

Hey, thanks for all the suggestions, guys! I'll definitely try to check some of this out. Some of these I'm familiar with, many I've heard of in passing, many I haven't.
This is my one source of geek shame - when the conversation turns to print comics, I'm all but lost.
I've been borrowing manga from a friend lately. But of course, I don't know nearly enough to be picky about it. I'm only in my first year of Japanese classes. I wish I would have started when I started university two years ago because I would be so much farther now. I love it.
Dahlar, you mentioned that there's a lot of mass marketed crap in print comics...no doubt, but I'd say there's at least as much crap in webcomics. Just different kinds of crap. Hell, let's just go back to that famous quote that "99% of everything is crap". ...anyone know who said that? I'm straining my brain trying to remember, but nothing.
Anyway, I'll bear these suggestions in mind when I wander to one of the area comic shops again.
And yes, Justin, Simpsons comics are one thing I DO have. I have about four collections of them in book form. Or I did, at my old house.

[Drooling Fan Girl]

Girl Genius by the Foglios (Issue 1)

http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius/ ... cover.html

And Finder (Issues 15, 19, 23 and a short story)

http://www.lightspeedpress.com/legends.php

Both these sites have full sample issues of the comic in question on-line. I've gotten Girl Genius up to issue 5.

Take Care
DFG

P.S. Bad toonist. No appoligies. If you get burnt out or sick, then we never get to know what happens next. Take Care of yourself, ok?

[Dalhar]

I don't know what Akiko is. Did I break the law again?

Heh. No.
But that last panel had the stance, the smile, the look, the general body shape, just about everything except the hair and some other details of main character Akiko of just that comic.
When she starts the story, telling about her recent adventures on the planet Smoo.

The story starts when the (ten year old?) Akiko gets rushed off to a strange planet to save the crown prince (and single child of the king) from the clutches of a living tower. (Of, mostly, gothic style.)
She is almost eaten, but remembers to thrw her tootbrush first into the mawing gape, and the whole tower falls apart.
The happy ensemble all knew she could do it, and she's returned to the royal palace where the king and the prince is greeting her.
Turns out it was all a setup, 'cause the similar-aged prince has huge crush on her and wants to marry.
Akiko , however, wants to wait at least till secondary school before she makes such a huge decision, and since then, she's dragged off to Smoo both now and then on the most grueling (and exciting) adventures.

[Dalhar]

I also stopped reading Jhonen Vasquez after that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac where aliens make a man have sex with a chicken. I still can't believe they put Invader Zim (another of his creations) on television.

But also, like Valentino's ganster folm classic (whatitsname?), it does have a message behind all the madness.

[Dalhar]

Dahlar, you mentioned that there's a lot of mass marketed crap in print comics...no doubt, but I'd say there's at least as much crap in webcomics. Just different kinds of crap. Hell, let's just go back to that famous quote that "99% of everything is crap". ...anyone know who said that? I'm straining my brain trying to remember, but nothing.

True enough but still
One:
I always give these warnings, it's hard wired. Nothing personal.
Have gotten some real strenge looks from people not having prior warnings about this, so better safe than sorry.
Two:
Welcome to the world of mindfuck. Using psychology and marketing technique, not to make great stories or resolve anything, but to get the readers as hooked as possible.

[Justinpie]

True enough. We have a word called "Marvel Zombie" here, which basically means a reader who has been pulled in by one of Marvel's titles at some mediocre point, and don't read it because of the art or story, rather that they simply need to "find out what happens". Certainly it applies to more than Marvel Comics, but it's become a famously tongue-in-cheek way for Marvel diehards to refer to themselves.

That Akika story sounds pretty neat - I am Officially Interested. And I wonder - if books are as insanely cheap in Japan as Akhmed says, could we have them shipped to us and still save some cash money over the domestics?

I'm willing to bet your parents already have Maus, Kat. There was also that other one your dad let me borrow about the reporter in Yugoslavia - I forget the name of it though, maybe he knows.

Sam and Max should be required reading in English classes.

[Drooling Fan Girl]

Joe Sacco Safe Area Gorazde http://www.fantagraphics.com

[Al_fayyed]

Sam and Max should be required reading in English classes.

I second the motion --
"New York, New York, it's a wonderful town! The Bronx is up and the Bowery's down! The mimes are food for the bums underground...New York Newwww Yorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!"

Also, when I said "Seeker," I meant "Finder." It's worth a read, although I think I outdid the footnote thing with David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which I liked, but it was 800 pages of footnotes on a 1300 page novel. You should probably pick up a copy of that for your next transcontinental flight, Kat -- it's a dystopian satire that includes, among other things, an army of legless French Canadians and the US giving all its toxic waste dumps to Canada.

Isu-kun may not in fact read this forum regularly, so let me suggest the manga that he probably would:

• Astro-Boy, or anything else by Osamu Tezuka
• Great Teacher Onizuka

I can't think of any others that he would absolutely agree with; probably Akira.

My favorite manga artist of all time is Narumi Kakinouchi, writer of the Vampire Miyu comics. Miyu is a longtime obsession of mine because it has the three key elements of horror manga:

1. You gotta wait for the scary to happen.
2. No happy endings.
3. Cheerful schoolgirls must die!

So, that's my suggestions for manga.

[Drooling Fan Girl]

Rumiki Takahashi!!!!!

Ranma 1/2, Lum, Rumiko World, The Mermaid's Scar (I think?)

Take Care
DFG

[ZOMBIE USER 6185]

Since Manga has already been covered I'll just mention some North American titles that I like.

"Crimson" and "Out There" (I'm a big fan of Humberto Ramos)

Ultimate Spider-Man (One of the few Marvel Titles that I do like)

Young Justice (50 issues and they still have the same writer and artist) (To lazy to provide a link)

Also, you can not go wrong with Frank Cho.

[KathleenJ]

Ooh, more suggestions!
This is great. You all are awesome. I feel like I should have a better reply right now, but I'm pretty tired.
Tomorrow!
Also, thanks for the support, DFG!

[EteRock]

I happen to like "Bone" myself


That just sounds so wrong.

[Dalhar]

Yeah, Bone is great fun. At least the first book or three. I got the feeling things watered out with time, but who knows by now.

[Boobookittyfark]

I suggest The Ultimates (alcoholism, wife beating, and a guy who claims he's "The God of Thunder") by Marvel.

Green Arrow- A liberal womanising playboy deals with coming back from the dead

Some of Crossgen is cool, and is there is a comic there for everyone's taste more or less. (And with no ads)

And I think you would really get into the new Hawkman. I have an issue here I meant to send up with Justin....

(This is really Ben BTW)

[KathleenJ]

Awesome, awesome.
Thanks for all the suggestions, everybody...now I just need to inherit a comic-buying fund from some obscure wealthy relative.
I'm taking note of all these ideas, to at least check on their availability.
When Justin was here, we kept meaning to go to this comic store that's literally just a few blocks from where I live, but somehow it didn't happen.
As for graphic novels, I know for a fact my folks do have Maus and Safe Area Gorazde back home...I'll try to pick them up when I'm home for the holidays. That was one of those weird things where I'd wanted to read both for a while (Maus is famous, and I'd read a review of Gorazde when it came out), and apparently I didn't realize we owned them until not long before I moved. That sounds strange, but you should see my family's house. Individual books are easy to miss, because there are thousands, and almost every wall is covered with bookshelves. It was just habit to walk by the same books every day, and see them, but not mentally process what they were.
also..

Welcome to the world of mindfuck. Using psychology and marketing technique...

Heh, you don't have to welcome me to that world, I live there.