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Underground > Comic Books >

Best indie comics?

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06:33 / 01.05.04

does anyone have any advice about their favorite indie comics? I'm puttin my own together and wanting to see some others. I've been wantin to for a long time. Any thoughts on this would be loved!!!

06:57 / 01.05.04

favourite indie - wow that's a quite broad question - like favourite films I find it difficult to decide

I'd automatically say Strangehaven, Kane and Berlin and if you are looking into different formats check out toomuchcoffee man - the comic that became a magazine...

12:25 / 01.05.04

Small Favors

17:10 / 01.05.04

Kane's mine - fantastic character and really stylish art.

22:01 / 01.05.04

Love and Rockets.

Just beautifully done.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:55 / 02.05.04

I have recently fallen for the very sweet little romance comic "True Story, Swear To God." Simply drawn and a story of emotion that isn't forced or melodramatic. I like it a lot.

05:32 / 02.05.04

Stray Bullets, Kane, Strangehaven, Berlin.

Haus of Mystery

12:53 / 03.05.04

THB. (or any Paul Popism)

13:47 / 03.05.04

Mr Redbull and the Fabulous Radio Shacks.

15:24 / 03.05.04

Johnny The Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez. South Park meets Kafka meets American Psycho, as conceived on the US goth scene. With metaphysical touches, and highly inspired, Loony Toons in Hell type art. It's really very good.

18:29 / 03.05.04

STRAY BULLETS by David Lapham. Powerful, funny, disturbing, exciting, heartbreaking, and you never know what's going to happen next. Great artwork too. Give it a try and tell your friends.

XXII:X:II = XXX

23:12 / 03.05.04

Pretty much all the ones mentioned thus far are all quality. Here's a few for me:

MILK & CHEESE / DORK / anything by Evan Dorkin
FINDER by Carla Speed McNeill
BEAR by Jamie Smart
DARKHAM VALE by Jack Lawrence
COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND... (on its third series now, sort of a darker Harry Potter) by Ted Naifeh
THE PAIN, WHEN WILL IT END? by Tim Kreider (pants-squirtingly hysterical)
DIGITAL GRAFFITI by Alex Frith and Gez Fry
SUGAR FREE DAYS by Cole Johnson
STREET ANGEL by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca
SUBURBAN FOLKLORE by Steven Walters
THE POGOSTICK by Al Columbia and Ethan Persoff
INFINITE KUNG FU by Kagan McLeod
DEEP SLEEPER by Phil Hester and Mike Huddleston
GRRL SCOUTS / STUPID COMICS / anything by Jim Mahfood
BLUE MONDAY / SCOOTER GIRL / anything by Chynna Clugston-Major

Plenty more I could name but I figure that's good for a running start. Yes, I spend entirely too much money on comics. Ask me if I care.

VJB2

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

23:52 / 03.05.04

Ooooooh! Lists! Any chance we could make this thread a bit more interesting? Just a little? You know who you are, list makers.

21:40 / 05.05.04

Two books I haven't read yet but apparently pretty good:

Teeneagers from mars
Brat pack

The latter is in TPB form, the former came out last year in comic format.

15:30 / 08.09.05

im not sure if this is considered indie any more, but im suprised it hasnt been listed yet. you should pick up Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine. his comics are usually short stories, maybe 2 or 3 per issue, but they are just amazing. the man touches on some of the moments in life you never knew existed, i just cant describe them. maybe you will like it maybe not.

but heres a link to scans of his much much older work, before he actually started doing full length comics, but you get the idea.

http://www.punkasspunk.com/tomine/

16:17 / 08.09.05

I may be wrong, but it seems like a lot of the books listed belong to the indie comic school of light, very self aware, true life tales. I don't have anything against these, but I'm wondering if anyone could put to the Grant Morrison of indie comics, or the Alan Ball of indie comics, people who do books that are a bit bigger in scope and content, but aren't period pieces. I guess I want a book that leaves me in complete awe of it at the end, not something that's mainly about light humor or confessional romance.

And just a disclaimer, I like those kinds of indie books, but I don't like them enough to make it worth buying them, so I'm looking for something that leaves you overwhelmed by its greatness. So I guess it's about separating indie comics as a genre from indie comics as a method of production.

admiral sausage

16:52 / 08.09.05

Hmmm ...........

Love and Rockets or Hate... probably Love and rockets

16:57 / 08.09.05

PatrickMM, if you haven't read Finder yet, then it sounds like just the kind of comic you're looking for. It's incredibly original and well written sci fi in a sci fi world that has never been seen before. I can't get enough of it. Everybody should be reading it.

www.lightspeedpress.com

New issues won't be coming out again until 2006, but its best read in graphic novel form anyways. I've never shown it to anybody who didn't go nuts for it.

17:20 / 08.09.05

Scott McCloud's ZOT! Loved that book.

And I'll second "True Story, Swear To God," which is quite good.

imaginary friend on the phone

17:25 / 08.09.05

I have a total crush on Teenagers From Mars.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:27 / 08.09.05

I'm noticing that a lot of the "indy books" are ones that haven't come out in a while.

Is it because people are wallowing in nostalgia, or are there not a lot of good indy books out now?

Convince me to buy a book on the shelf (or one I would have to special order) NOT published by Top Shelf, because that seems to me where all my indy dollar go.

And no, Image is not an indy.

18:24 / 08.09.05

Small Favors

I don't think porn qualifies as indy. Good porn, though.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

18:28 / 08.09.05

Solitaire, check out Jordan Crane's just-released The Clouds Above, put out by Fantagraphics. It is flat out gorgeous.

The Natural Way

19:00 / 08.09.05

Strayfuckin'bullets.

19:31 / 08.09.05

Girl Genius by Phil Foglio.
Well, anything by Foglio, really.
Girls Genius is in a sort of limbo right now, as far as I can tell. It was published by Foglio's company, Airship Press, up until issue #25 or thereabouts. Now it can be found as a regularly updated webcomic (link) that's supposed to be released as TPBs.

Foglio, for those not in the know, is responsible for the comic adaptation of Robert Asprin's Myth books, several Buck Godot series (my personal favorite), XXXenophile, and the Phil & Trixie strips that used to show up in (I think) Dragon Magazine. His style is wild and tooney, and his writing contains excellent wordplay and slapstick.

Girl Genius is a humor comic set in SteamPunk-era Europe. Mad Science, practiced by "Sparks", is responsible for the sinking of England and the general destruction of Europe and the Middle East. Clanks (giant warbots) roam the countryside. Order has been brought about by Baron Wolfenbach, a Spark, who rules what's left with an iron fist. Societies' best hope, the Heterodyne Boys, disappeared over a decade ago.

Into this comes Agatha Clay, Girl Genius, trying to find out exactly what the Hell is going on...

19:43 / 08.09.05

I used to love reading "Hate" Comics by Peter Bagge that was a fond memory of wiling away the time for me, as was "Mister X" by Bill Siencewitz which conjured up a cyberpunk noiresque feel to it.

I also liked a comic called "Trailer Trash" and I can't remember who the hell wrote it or illustrated it.

Of couse the Savoy classic "Lord Horror" had it all it was by Michael Butterworth I think, and "Big Black Kiss" which was a classy noir comic.

I then went all DC VERTIGO and MANGA.

00:03 / 09.09.05

I think that increasingly people who would have previously been doing 'indie' comics, are now eschewing comics, or more specifically, preserialization, entirely opting in preference to create OGNs. From Marjane Satrapi to Rich Koslowski and beyond, comic creators are making strip stories that fall outside of the 32page format that characterises much of the Output of MArvel and DC and has long been seen as the 'standard format' for comics in the US. Comics are no longer about a ongoing market presence in the form of a regularly released periodicle - they seem to have moved off the spinner racks and onto the bookshelves...

01:08 / 09.09.05

I'm assuming that by indie you mean not DC or Marvel and nonsuperhero in tone? Well, those are the parameters by which I give you this recommendation (seconding or thirding those who have already mentioned it):

Berlin, by Jason Lutes. Probably the most accomplished comics composer working to date, definitely at the very least up there with people like Seth, Dan Clowes and Chris Ware for mastery of the potential of the artform. Berlin is the story of the city and its inhabitants in the late 1920s, in the lead up to the coming-to-power of the National Socialist party. It touches a lot on the politics of the era, but does so by looking at how those politics directly affected the lives of the city's inhabitants by causing them to lose their jobs, join political parties, meet accidentally, fall in love and out of love, travel, and so on. Often Lutes will have a page or more with absolutely no dialogue whatsoever that is just transcendental in the beauty of the way it communicates so evocatively without words. It's just fucking amazing. I've been literally brought to tears by Berlin more than once. The first six issues are in trade paperback these days. The individual issues come out irregularly, but they're worth the wait. The story's up to issue 10 at the moment, focusing on a travelling jazz band of black Americans and a decadent club scene reminiscent of the film Cabaret in its setting.

Artbomb has a good review of most of Lutes's work to date. In fact, in terms of indie stuff as defined by my above statement, Artbomb is a pretty good place to check out indie stuff in general - good reviews of a wide range of graphic novels in various genres outside the spandex punching club.

02:27 / 09.09.05

Strangers in Paradise, by Terry Moore, surely. The very same plot is going on for ten years now, but it is still fresh, beautiful and addictive.
I've read an essay about "Demo". 12 issues showing normal people in a normal world discovering superpowers... didn't find the comic book, but I would like to read it...

06:43 / 09.09.05

I really don't see superhero comics and indie comics as being mutually exclusive - look at comics like Jack Staff...

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:23 / 09.09.05

Although Jack Staff is now printed by Image, which is owned by DC, yes? I agree, however, that indie comics can deal with superheroes - lest we forget, there are a ton of really, really bad indie superhero comics out there of the BABES WITH BLADES variety...

12:32 / 09.09.05

DC doesn't own Image, DC owns Wildstorm, perhaps that's what you were thinking of...? Image is an entity unto itself.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:34 / 09.09.05

Ah yes - quite right.

06:04 / 11.09.05

/I've been literally brought to tears by Berlin more than once./

Agreed.

The ending to City of Stones does come to mind.

22:31 / 26.08.06

Okay, I wanted to bump this because I have just gone insane for Sott Pilgrim and I was hoping for any recommendations generally in the ballpark - I guess funny, or relationship-based, preferably book size rather than floppy, reasonably easy to find? I'll probably start with the list at the back of volume 3, but welcome any other tips.

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