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What's good?

iconoplast

06:27 / 04.03.06

So, when I go to the comic shop every few months, I check to see if there's a new Planetary (usually no), a new Ultimates (usually no, maybe one), or a new Supreme Power (maybe one). Sometimes I'll buy a Hellblazer TPB or a couple of issues for the current story arc.

But those are pretty much the only titles I follow, and even then what I do isn't really following.

Now thanks to Barbelith I have discovered digital comics.

And I have caught up on the Ultimates, am collecting Arion, Lord of Atlantis (You have no idea how happy this makes me), and figured I'd finally go and read V for Vendetta.

... what's good these days?

Jack Denfeld

06:47 / 04.03.06

Walking Dead. 26 issues or so are already out, art's good, good Romero style zombie story with survivors trying to reform a society, goody goodness.

DavidXBrunt

16:03 / 04.03.06

2000 A.D., 1470 odd issues old and going through a revival of quality that means it's producing some of the best material since Sam Slade suffered through national song year, Ace Garp kept on truckingz, Slaine went Shoggy and the A.B.C.'s spread the word.

As with every anthology there are good and bad patches but generally we're rocking just fine.

iconoplast

16:41 / 04.03.06

Yeah, I should have been clear - the micale of the etherwebnet makes transmission of almost any issue of any comic ever. possible.

I'm feeling sort of overwhelmed and dont know what to ask for.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:51 / 04.03.06

James Robinson from Starman is doing an 8 issue stint on the Batman books, and effectively clears the last 15 years of "grim and gritty" and makes the character a hero again.

I'm a giddy fanboy about it.

Isadore

05:08 / 05.03.06

Warren Ellis's Global Frequency is over now, but its twelve-issue run was a remarkable look at a remarkable organization intended to protect humanity from the mistakes of its leaders. The pilot for the canned TV series is available to download from various not-exactly-legal venues, and is a rather good adaptation, considering they had to sanatize it for mass-market consumption (and inexplicably added a out-of-place romance subplot).

Kurt Busiek's Astro City is an ongoing (but often delayed) series about an independent superhero universe, and dealing with the heroes and villains and normal folk alike on a very human basis.

sleazenation

13:16 / 05.03.06

Oh to be able to walk with barbelith through a decent books store with a full range of graphic novels...

AS ever I will recommened Jason Lutes Berlin for its engaging narrative and and masterfull cartooning - Lutes uses page layout and design language with a precision other comic creators can only dream of...

I'll also recommend Paul Grist's Kane - a police proceedual about cops in various stages of corruptionand compromise - its also remarkably witty and densely intertextual...

I've also mentioned Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville... a wonderful tale of a town in new zealand where *everyone* reads comics and the library there that contains every comic ever published...

the credible hulk

16:46 / 05.03.06

Well, as you mentioned Planetary and Ultimates, you might want to try Volume 1 of the Authority. Big superhero stuff written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Hitch.

sleazenation

21:11 / 05.03.06

Authority is a big dumb action movie, no more, no less. It's the JLA with swearing. All about the spectacle, but somewhat lacking in substance - which is fine if that's what you are looking for is spectacle and explosions...

the credible hulk

22:24 / 05.03.06

I agree with you, for the most part. It IS a big dumb action movie. I really should have mentioned that the first 12 issues are pretty much all that's good of it. I keep forgetting that volume 1 extended past Ellis's run.

So anyway, yes. The Authority is all about huge action. But I think Ellis and Hitch manage to do it well. The writing is tight, the art is fantastic and the ideas and concepts are a fair bit more original and interesting than standard superhero fare.

sleazenation

08:01 / 06.03.06

I guess I have different expectations of what I'd class as 'good comics'. It's not that I think, for example, Ellis's run on Authority was bad, it most emphatically wasn't, it was certainly head and shoulders above most other superhero comics being published at the time... but that isn't really saying all that much.

To return to the action movie metaphor, it certainly sold popcorn, and was well made as an example of the action movie genre, but I want MORE than that out of 'good comics'...

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