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I think it was a pretty good guess that this is where I would put my question, so here we go:
With all the Comic book / graphic novels coming out, I've wanted to dive into the various ones and read them. Learn the back story of the good guys, the bad guys, and everyone in-between, essentially read their mythology. It soon dawned on me though that this would be a task way to difficult for a causal reader such as myself with limited funds, specially with some of the older one. This being more true for comics such as X-men and Batman, with 60 some years of history, I would have no idea where to start. Graphic Novels on the other hand are a little easier, since most of them are A) the issue is longer and the series is shorter.
I've always loved Batman and have always wanted to read up on the mythos of him and his just as famous villians. The same with X-men.
Seeing the Watchmen trailer made me want to look into it and read it.
I've recently came across an arch in the Marvel Universe called Marvel Zombies. I like Marvel and love zombies so I wanted to look into it.
What I'm looking for are other such sets (both comic and graphic novel) that I could find (relatively cheap) and read and not need to get a ton of issues. So any suggestions on Batman/X-men themed ones as well as other ones that I should read would be great.
For Batman, start with Batman: Year One, Batman: The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs, and The Dark Knight Returns. That's some of the more iconic Batman stuff, and it's all self-contained.
I've been out of the X-Men loop for a while, but the entire Astonishing X-Men series is pretty much just an iconic take on characters, told with a widescreen/cinematic flair.
Marvel Zombies started in Ultimate Fantastic Four: Crossover, and continued into UFF: Frightful, Marvel Zombies, Marvel Zombies 2, Marvel Zombies Dead Days, and Marvel Zombies v.s. Army of Darkness.
All of these should be readily available for purchase from Amazon or your local Barnes and Noble. Amazon offers a reduced price and free shipping on orders over twenty-five dollars for graphic novels though, so I'd go that route.
I think it was a pretty good guess that this is where I would put my question, so here we go:
With all the Comic book / graphic novels coming out, I've wanted to dive into the various ones and read them. Learn the back story of the good guys, the bad guys, and everyone in-between, essentially read their mythology. It soon dawned on me though that this would be a task way to difficult for a causal reader such as myself with limited funds, specially with some of the older one. This being more true for comics such as X-men and Batman, with 60 some years of history, I would have no idea where to start. Graphic Novels on the other hand are a little easier, since most of them are A) the issue is longer and the series is shorter.
I've always loved Batman and have always wanted to read up on the mythos of him and his just as famous villians. The same with X-men.
Seeing the Watchmen trailer made me want to look into it and read it.
I've recently came across an arch in the Marvel Universe called Marvel Zombies. I like Marvel and love zombies so I wanted to look into it.
What I'm looking for are other such sets (both comic and graphic novel) that I could find (relatively cheap) and read and not need to get a ton of issues. So any suggestions on Batman/X-men themed ones as well as other ones that I should read would be great.
For Batman, start with Batman: Year One, Batman: The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs, and The Dark Knight Returns. That's some of the more iconic Batman stuff, and it's all self-contained.
I've been out of the X-Men loop for a while, but the entire Astonishing X-Men series is pretty much just an iconic take on characters, told with a widescreen/cinematic flair.
Marvel Zombies started in Ultimate Fantastic Four: Crossover, and continued into UFF: Frightful, Marvel Zombies, Marvel Zombies 2, Marvel Zombies Dead Days, and Marvel Zombies v.s. Army of Darkness.
All of these should be readily available for purchase from Amazon or your local Barnes and Noble. Amazon offers a reduced price and free shipping on orders over twenty-five dollars for graphic novels though, so I'd go that route.
Yeah Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is a pretty good bet.
Mike Carey's run on X-Men is a lot of fun as well, but focuses more on tertiary characers (Rogue, Sabretooth, Cannonball, Cable, Mystique, Iceman) so I'm not sure if that strikes your fancy.
Get Astonishing in hardcover. The art deserves the bigger size.
I've got the first Astonishing hardcover, its amazing. Contains the first twelve issues. Does anyone know if the rest is in hardcover form yet, or when they will be?
I'm super new to comics... I've read some here and there, but you would not be able to call me a comic book reader. I show OCD behavior, and I love collecting things, so I think comic books are kind of bad for me. Because I'm the type of person would would want to read from the beginning and keep up-to-date. Which is why I think Graphic Novels are more my thing, as probably the same goes for certain arcs of comic books.
Example: I love zombies and quite like superheros (partly due to recent movies) and recently heard about the Marvel Zombie set. Which I now own Volume 1 & 2, as of today. This is an example of a comic book I could read because I've heard: it has a very clear beginning, I don't need to read anything prior, and I can stick with it (I read that a 3rd volume is coming out).
As far as graphic novels go, I was looking into Watchmen, because of the movie.
Other ones I've come across in this thread or from movies that look interesting to me are:
The Walking Dead Set
Crawlspace XXXombies
Hellyboy Set
300
The Sandman Set
I'm also really into Batman, and the mythology behind him and the villians. I've heard, from this thread, about various "graphic novels?" that are good. The question mark and quotes are because I don't know what you guys would call them (again, I'm not up on the lingo). Such as: Arkham Asylum, The Killing Joke, and Hush, to name a few. Would those types of things fulfill getting a good backstory on Batman and Co. (probably mainly Joker) as well as have a beginning and end type of thing going?
I'm also into the X-men. X-men confuses me the most. I know there are giant books with many of the issues in them; would those be good for the mythos part?
Also, anything else you want to suggestion? I really love zombie stuff. I'm ok with superhero, it's just I would need backstory type information as well if I'm not firmilar and I don't want to start in the middle some where.
I didn't run across it in this thread, and I was going to suggest: Back in middle school (7 years ago) I read this graphic novels called Maus. There were two volumes, and is the story of a man and his family trying to survive as Polish Jews during the Holocaust. But it's told with the characters being animals (I.E. The main character is a mouse.) Here's the wiki page for it: Maus. I thought it was great, you might too.
P.S. - Stupid question, and I tried to get it from the context, but when you guys use the term "trade", what are you referring too? I understand "issue" (a single comic book), but I couldn't get "trade". Is it the compilations of comic books? Thanks in advance.
P.S. - Stupid question, and I tried to get it from the context, but when you guys use the term "trade", what are you referring too? I understand "issue" (a single comic book), but I couldn't get "trade". Is it the compilations of comic books? Thanks in advance.
Trade is short for Trade Paperback. Just a paperback collection of 4 to 6 issues, usually collecting a single story arc.
P.S. - Stupid question, and I tried to get it from the context, but when you guys use the term "trade", what are you referring too? I understand "issue" (a single comic book), but I couldn't get "trade". Is it the compilations of comic books? Thanks in advance.
Trade is short for Trade Paperback. Just a paperback collection of 4 to 6 issues, usually collecting a single story arc.
Thanks. So my Marvel Zombie would be Trade, only it's hard cover. Gotcha
you should definitely check out the walking dead. if you're interested in the x-men, i think grant morrison's "new x-men" is a pretty good introduction to the modern versions of the major characters and generally where they stand today. honestly wikipedia can catch you up on a lot of the basics of character's histories, and if anything sounds particularly interesting to you, pretty much every major x-title is collected in trade somewhere.
if you're interested in seeing a sort of "joker through the ages" snapshot, there's a trade called "greatest joker stories" which has just been reprinted thanks to the new movie. it collects some prominent and usually pretty good joker stories. some people don't like it, but i think the superman story "emperor joker" is pretty interesting. it's quite long, but the bonus is that it's all collected in one big trade, so it's easy to get and read.
if you're interested in seeing a sort of "joker through the ages" snapshot, there's a trade called "greatest joker stories" which has just been reprinted thanks to the new movie. it collects some prominent and usually pretty good joker stories. some people don't like it, but i think the superman story "emperor joker" is pretty interesting. it's quite long, but the bonus is that it's all collected in one big trade, so it's easy to get and read.
I wasn't looking for just the Joker (not to say I wouldn't want to read all about him), I just used the Joker as an example because the novels that have been mentioned numerous times in this thread seem to deal with him. I'd like to read more about Scarecrow personally because I don't think they did enough with him in the movie. But all the villians would be nice.
I'll put down the x-men stuff on my list of things to look at.
EDIT - I forgot a series. I've tried finding the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff. I know that there is a trade of them, but that it was discontinued. Any ideas on that, other then ebay?
The XXXombies thing looked to be nothing more than a weird porno zombie movie and terrible
Shit I thumbed through it once
And that is exactly what it was: Terrible. Stay away
Batman, get the ones people have mentioned, and Dark Knight Returns
For most big series, you can try to get either the Essential trades, for Marvel books, or the Showcase Presents trades, for DC
Those are the ones that collect large chunks of the series in question, in chronological order
It's handy for reading the older stories
The XXXombies thing looked to be nothing more than a weird porno zombie movie and terrible
Shit I thumbed through it once
And that is exactly what it was: Terrible. Stay away
I'm a big fan of zombies... and porn... and weird... and movies... It might be terrible but I think I would enjoy. I enjoy stuff like that. I'm a huge fan of horror movies and I've seen (and own) some really terrible ones.
I'll look into the essential stuff.
The What If? set sounds quite interesting. I've heard good stuff from here, so I'll probably look into it as well.
I'm not sure if What If? is collected, but you can check
What If? is greatly improved by knowing how the story is supposed to go, so I'd recommend holding off on those yet
if you're interested in seeing a sort of "joker through the ages" snapshot, there's a trade called "greatest joker stories" which has just been reprinted thanks to the new movie. it collects some prominent and usually pretty good joker stories. some people don't like it, but i think the superman story "emperor joker" is pretty interesting. it's quite long, but the bonus is that it's all collected in one big trade, so it's easy to get and read.
I wasn't looking for just the Joker (not to say I wouldn't want to read all about him), I just used the Joker as an example because the novels that have been mentioned numerous times in this thread seem to deal with him. I'd like to read more about Scarecrow personally because I don't think they did enough with him in the movie. But all the villians would be nice.
I'll put down the x-men stuff on my list of things to look at.
EDIT - I forgot a series. I've tried finding the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff. I know that there is a trade of them, but that it was discontinued. Any ideas on that, other then ebay?
I would reccomend Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men over Grant Morisson's stuff. It's a much more traditional "classic" X-Men story.. Grant's New X-Men stuff is a little.. out there.
If you are interested in the real classic stuff, Marvel has this line called "Essentials" which is basically big phonebooks of black & white comics on cheap paper. It's not the best quality but you get like 25-30 issues in one for like 10-12 bucks. Most of the classic Chris Claremont X-Men run is collected in this format - particulary the first 2 Essential X-Men collections which cover the entirety of the Phoenix Saga, which is the story that turned X-Men into a mega hit.
Bale, if I am interested in getting into X-Men, should I read Whedon's Astonishing? I've really only read Ultimate X-Men which was okay, I suppose.
I've read some misc X-Men and I always feel like I'm expecting more than I actually get. Messiah Complex was probably one of the best things I've read in a while, though.
Bale, if I am interested in getting into X-Men, should I read Whedon's Astonishing? I've really only read Ultimate X-Men which was okay, I suppose.
I've read some misc X-Men and I always feel like I'm expecting more than I actually get. Messiah Complex was probably one of the best things I've read in a while, though.
Yes, read Whedon's Astonishing.
And if you liked Messiah Complex you would probably like Mike Carey's stuff too, the first trade of which is called Supernovas.
Get Astonishing in hardcover. The art deserves the bigger size.
I've got the first Astonishing hardcover, its amazing. Contains the first twelve issues. Does anyone know if the rest is in hardcover form yet, or when they will be?
According to Amazon, Hardcover Vol 2 is out December 31 2008
Get Astonishing in hardcover. The art deserves the bigger size.
I've got the first Astonishing hardcover, its amazing. Contains the first twelve issues. Does anyone know if the rest is in hardcover form yet, or when they will be?
According to Amazon, Hardcover Vol 2 is out December 31 2008
Can someone tell me what the must-reads are if you enjoy series like Y: The Last Man and Planetary? I only recently got into comics and it's kind of overwhelming how much stuff there is out there. I specifically like series like those mentioned above, so if anybody could name some that are similar and considered essential reading I'd greatly appreciate it. One-shots or 60-episode sagas, it doesn't matter. Thanks!
I picked up an X-Men compilation comic in the library and they had a short story about The Blob going to a rodeo. He's minding his own business until the locals give him grief and then he starts wrecking everything. The rodeo cowboys try to rope him and tie him up but they get tossed. Then an ordinary guy walks up to the Blob and makes a bet that he can do one thing the Blob can't....and then the last pages were ripped out.
I picked up an X-Men compilation comic in the library and they had a short story about The Blob going to a rodeo. He's minding his own business until the locals give him grief and then he starts wrecking everything. The rodeo cowboys try to rope him and tie him up but they get tossed. Then an ordinary guy walks up to the Blob and makes a bet that he can do one thing the Blob can't....and then the last pages were ripped out.
What was the trick?
See his own penis without the aid of a mirror.
Seriously though, I read that story and can't remember either.
The challenge is rather a simple one… something that anyone but Blob can do. Blob accepts, and then the man touches Blob’s toes. Pretty funny stuff, and even Blob can’t resist laughing at the joke. A nice resolution to a potentially (more) violent conflict and an overall satisfying story.
With thanks to comixfan.com, from whence I stole that.
Can someone tell me what the must-reads are if you enjoy series like Y: The Last Man and Planetary? I only recently got into comics and it's kind of overwhelming how much stuff there is out there. I specifically like series like those mentioned above, so if anybody could name some that are similar and considered essential reading I'd greatly appreciate it. One-shots or 60-episode sagas, it doesn't matter. Thanks!
If you liked Planetary, you might want to look into Fell or Global Frequency; they're both by the same guy who did Planetary and have the same format of every issue being a full, contained story, although they don't have anywhere near as much of an over-arcing plot as Planetary.
Is there anything like a canon of graphic novels? Like, the all-time must-reads? I know about the most famous ones like Watchmen and V for Vendetta and such but surely there mustve been loads more over the decades that are considered essential reading. I am especially interested in slice-of-life ones (like what Kevin Huizenga and the like do) but any genre has my interest so all suggestions are welcome.
god i have been looking everywhere for that for years. i cannot find it, and it's one of the few grant morrison books i don't own, with the added insult that the art is by philip bond, one of my top five favorite artists. where did you get it?
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For Batman, start with Batman: Year One, Batman: The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs, and The Dark Knight Returns. That's some of the more iconic Batman stuff, and it's all self-contained.
I've been out of the X-Men loop for a while, but the entire Astonishing X-Men series is pretty much just an iconic take on characters, told with a widescreen/cinematic flair.
Marvel Zombies started in Ultimate Fantastic Four: Crossover, and continued into UFF: Frightful, Marvel Zombies, Marvel Zombies 2, Marvel Zombies Dead Days, and Marvel Zombies v.s. Army of Darkness.
All of these should be readily available for purchase from Amazon or your local Barnes and Noble. Amazon offers a reduced price and free shipping on orders over twenty-five dollars for graphic novels though, so I'd go that route.
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Yeah Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is a pretty good bet.
Mike Carey's run on X-Men is a lot of fun as well, but focuses more on tertiary characers (Rogue, Sabretooth, Cannonball, Cable, Mystique, Iceman) so I'm not sure if that strikes your fancy.
This is the first volume of Astonishing
and here is the start of Mike Carey's X-Men.
I've got the first Astonishing hardcover, its amazing. Contains the first twelve issues. Does anyone know if the rest is in hardcover form yet, or when they will be?
Example: I love zombies and quite like superheros (partly due to recent movies) and recently heard about the Marvel Zombie set. Which I now own Volume 1 & 2, as of today. This is an example of a comic book I could read because I've heard: it has a very clear beginning, I don't need to read anything prior, and I can stick with it (I read that a 3rd volume is coming out).
As far as graphic novels go, I was looking into Watchmen, because of the movie.
Other ones I've come across in this thread or from movies that look interesting to me are:
The Walking Dead Set
Crawlspace XXXombies
Hellyboy Set
300
The Sandman Set
I'm also really into Batman, and the mythology behind him and the villians. I've heard, from this thread, about various "graphic novels?" that are good. The question mark and quotes are because I don't know what you guys would call them (again, I'm not up on the lingo). Such as: Arkham Asylum, The Killing Joke, and Hush, to name a few. Would those types of things fulfill getting a good backstory on Batman and Co. (probably mainly Joker) as well as have a beginning and end type of thing going?
I'm also into the X-men. X-men confuses me the most. I know there are giant books with many of the issues in them; would those be good for the mythos part?
Also, anything else you want to suggestion? I really love zombie stuff. I'm ok with superhero, it's just I would need backstory type information as well if I'm not firmilar and I don't want to start in the middle some where.
I didn't run across it in this thread, and I was going to suggest: Back in middle school (7 years ago) I read this graphic novels called Maus. There were two volumes, and is the story of a man and his family trying to survive as Polish Jews during the Holocaust. But it's told with the characters being animals (I.E. The main character is a mouse.) Here's the wiki page for it: Maus. I thought it was great, you might too.
P.S. - Stupid question, and I tried to get it from the context, but when you guys use the term "trade", what are you referring too? I understand "issue" (a single comic book), but I couldn't get "trade". Is it the compilations of comic books? Thanks in advance.
Trade is short for Trade Paperback. Just a paperback collection of 4 to 6 issues, usually collecting a single story arc.
Thanks. So my Marvel Zombie would be Trade, only it's hard cover. Gotcha
if you're interested in seeing a sort of "joker through the ages" snapshot, there's a trade called "greatest joker stories" which has just been reprinted thanks to the new movie. it collects some prominent and usually pretty good joker stories. some people don't like it, but i think the superman story "emperor joker" is pretty interesting. it's quite long, but the bonus is that it's all collected in one big trade, so it's easy to get and read.
I read it a few times when I was a kid
I wasn't looking for just the Joker (not to say I wouldn't want to read all about him), I just used the Joker as an example because the novels that have been mentioned numerous times in this thread seem to deal with him. I'd like to read more about Scarecrow personally because I don't think they did enough with him in the movie. But all the villians would be nice.
I'll put down the x-men stuff on my list of things to look at.
EDIT - I forgot a series. I've tried finding the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff. I know that there is a trade of them, but that it was discontinued. Any ideas on that, other then ebay?
This version comes with several other stories Alan Moore wrote for DC during the 80s ranging from good to fuckawesome, for only a few dollars more.
I saw that one at the store this morning. Thanks for the info.
This stuff can be really confusing.
Shit I thumbed through it once
And that is exactly what it was: Terrible. Stay away
Batman, get the ones people have mentioned, and Dark Knight Returns
For most big series, you can try to get either the Essential trades, for Marvel books, or the Showcase Presents trades, for DC
Those are the ones that collect large chunks of the series in question, in chronological order
It's handy for reading the older stories
I'm a big fan of zombies... and porn... and weird... and movies... It might be terrible but I think I would enjoy. I enjoy stuff like that. I'm a huge fan of horror movies and I've seen (and own) some really terrible ones.
I'll look into the essential stuff.
The What If? set sounds quite interesting. I've heard good stuff from here, so I'll probably look into it as well.
What If? is greatly improved by knowing how the story is supposed to go, so I'd recommend holding off on those yet
I would reccomend Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men over Grant Morisson's stuff. It's a much more traditional "classic" X-Men story.. Grant's New X-Men stuff is a little.. out there.
If you are interested in the real classic stuff, Marvel has this line called "Essentials" which is basically big phonebooks of black & white comics on cheap paper. It's not the best quality but you get like 25-30 issues in one for like 10-12 bucks. Most of the classic Chris Claremont X-Men run is collected in this format - particulary the first 2 Essential X-Men collections which cover the entirety of the Phoenix Saga, which is the story that turned X-Men into a mega hit.
I've read some misc X-Men and I always feel like I'm expecting more than I actually get. Messiah Complex was probably one of the best things I've read in a while, though.
Yes, read Whedon's Astonishing.
And if you liked Messiah Complex you would probably like Mike Carey's stuff too, the first trade of which is called Supernovas.
According to Amazon, Hardcover Vol 2 is out December 31 2008
PSN/XBL: dragoniemx
Awesome thanks!
Except the hardcover is nicer paper and has redone art by Brian Bolland
The Stories of Alan Moore is an awesome deal, too, though.
What was the trick?
See his own penis without the aid of a mirror.
Seriously though, I read that story and can't remember either.
Oh, here it is.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
With thanks to comixfan.com, from whence I stole that.
If you liked Planetary, you might want to look into Fell or Global Frequency; they're both by the same guy who did Planetary and have the same format of every issue being a full, contained story, although they don't have anywhere near as much of an over-arcing plot as Planetary.
Stuff comes out on wednsdays right? But thats in the US, what about worldwide (i'm in the UK)
e; Probably could have gone in the general questions thread.
I'd check out both The Escapists and Pride of Baghdad by Briak K. Vaughn
A Life Force is a really good one. It tells the story of ordinary people living through the depression in a neighborhood in the Bronx.
god i have been looking everywhere for that for years. i cannot find it, and it's one of the few grant morrison books i don't own, with the added insult that the art is by philip bond, one of my top five favorite artists. where did you get it?