this was coming eventually but yea, the omniscient thread for comics and graphic novel discussions, and whatever the hell else. Guess ill start by listing some shit i follow now, and some other recommendations that others might not have read yet:

Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughn
In technical terms, this series is pretty much over at this point with only one more issue to be released. But i seriously had to mention it as it is by far, the best series I have read that was current in the last few years. The story itself is interesting, i.e. a world where all male mammals are killed off except for the series protagonist, but in actuality, the strength of the series comes from the deep and elaborate personal stories Vaughn crafted for his array of characters, and the relationships between these various people that develop.
issue #1 -


Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman
This series has been running for awhile but I recently just jumped into it. By the title its obvious that it concerns zombies though I wouldn't say its at all your typical fare. Its unique actually for its emphasis upon trying to build a new lifestyle within a world already overrun by zombies, instead of simply trying to fight them off, or stop their spread. In this case as well, Kirkman pays great attention to developing his characters in a progressive fashion where they are changed for better or worse, under these harsh conditions.
issue #1 here -


Other shit I follow but too lazy to say anything about:
100 Bullets
Army of Darkness (currently, From the Ashes)
Buffy Season 8
DMZ
Ex Machina
Fables
Marvel Zombies 2
Runaways
Suburban Glamour
The Sword
Wolverine Origins


And in terms of other shit, Im not sure how well known they are but the Luna Brothers are a recent find of mine. Their current title is up there, The Sword which I like but its too new to say anything about. I read their "Ultra" on a whim and it was a surprisingly refreshing take on the whole superheroes as realism perspective, where in this case the female protagonist has to balance her celebrity life as a superhero....which has various levels to it, and her personal life which is plagued by tabloids and the like. Possibly their most famous work Girls is a strange examination upon gender dynamics. I wont say much about it except that I consistently find their writing and art are both highly unique. Their art especially is pleasing as I find there is a sense of realism to it.
You can find the first issue of all 3 at the same link for Walking Dead

Do you usually get the hardcopies for these or get them digitally?

I get all issues digitally, then for the ones I like ill go buy the collections or whatever once they are released. Id love to have single issues but its just too expensive to do it that way, so I hope by buying the collected volumes Im giving back to the industry enough...

I have to say though, buying comics most often then not, is so much more rewarding then say buying a movie or album versus simply downloading it. Reading off a monitor seriously is not the best way to go, not to mention no matter how good the scanner is, you never get the full effect of some of the effort these guys put into the artwork. For example, I just got the oversized limited edition hardcover for Girls, and the page size is actually bigger then the height/width of my monitor...so yea

actually Na if your interested in any title or whatever, I can hook you up with alot of god ways to get them through downloads. Im just not going to post them here cause of issues with piracy or whatever, so just PM or something

I have always been conflicted with downloading comics, I normally buy the editions, but its kinda hard since they are expensive and there are so many good series out there to buy, thats what keeps me from reading more comics the money I need to spend for them, so I have been tempted to download.

I dont condone or try to justify downloading but, I find it hard to believe you dont at all. I mean come on, then do you not dl any anime/manga too? Not to mention music, copyrighted images (i.e. scans), movies, etc..?

But on the issue of the cost of comics, I honestly find that most if not all pricing is reasonable. It defintely depends on what you buy like some of the marvel collections are ridiculously expensive. I think I spent 25 bucks on the main House of M softcover, which is somewhat odd when compared to the fact Black Hole which is bigger, hardcovered and definitely at least looks much more expensive to produce was only 10 when i bought it.

music yes I do, im not saying its wrong or someting that shouldnt be done, I just don't like to do it because I think the quality drops and I don't know its better to look at them on the page and to own them. I have black hole I bought it on ebay cant remember what it cost, I think books like 100 bullets that cost like 16 or 20 when the paper used on it is cheap paper and its a paperback are expensive.

I download manga, but only manga that is not licensed, movies I don't download, tv series yes, I have downloaded some American comic books I downloaded hellblazer because its a huge series and I don't think id find it all if I wanted to buy it, other then that I haven't read any comic book downloaded.

I'm on the 6th volume of Y: The Last Man, and I just have to say... effin' win.

hah oh wow, i didnt realize you read it til now Na. Dude you might want to check out Vaughn's other stuff. I think actually, most of my first forays into comics were mainly by him, i.e Y-The Last Man, Runaways, & Ex Machina. Pride of Baghdad is also a must too, its quite short so defintely worth the time.

Anyways read a few more shit over break. From purchases, I got the Loeb/Sale's Batman: Haunted Knight and Catwoman: When In Rome. Both are typical of Loeb's writing and I found the art in When In Rome to be especially well done. Also, while I was bored in Stockton, I finally picked up Love & Rockets. The volume I picked up was pretty much by random, Maggie the Mechanic, but luckily it seems to be the start of the Locas stories. Its kind of hard to get into at first, but by the end of the volume, i pretty much fell in love with it. I especially like how Jaime Hernandez does a sort of magical realism and also matures his characters in a very realistic fashion, i.e characters are not static and the character Maggie pretty much changes completely in appearance by volume's end.

Pretty much out of boredom, I also read the whole run of The Loners in one sitting. My general opinion of it is that its entertaining, but somewhat generic. Some of the stuff they pull off at the beginning in terms of how the missions are planned out are both elaborate but believable which is refreshing, but by the end it pretty much turns into a whole James Bond/Rambo thing losing any charm it originally had.

Probably the biggest surprise of all in terms of new comics is that of Alan Moore's newest edition to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga, the Black Dossier. I have to admit that I wasnt the biggest of fans of the first two volumes most likely because I found the writing somewhat dry. The way he crafted the characters, lore and was able to interperse so many different mythologies is amazing, but I found his storytelling lacking. The Black Dossier on the otherhand was a complete surprise. Not so much for its story, but what Moore was willing to tryout in regards to completely challenging the medium. The book itself is a mix of comics, random snippets, and prose. Its hard to explain how the actual work is organized without giving too much away but basically the Black Dossier which is an item within the narrative is literally the comicbook itself. Thus aside from the comic panels, much of the actual content is made of up random pieces of writing and prose that the characters within the story are actually reading and trying to piece together. This leads to alot of breaking of the 4th wall, and attempts to tear down the confines of the medium. The darn thing even comes with 3-D glasses that allows for a climax that literally pops out at you.

American Virgin - by Steven T. Seagle
Somewhat of a surprising title to me personally as I had heard the name come up often but never really had any interest in it. The whole run was posted on freecomicbooks.org the other day so I thought I'd give it a shot out of boredom. At first, it seemed very unattractive with its introduction of a neo-Christian nutjob as the protagonist on some wierd twisted chastity camapaign urging the youth the abstain from sex til marriage. Of course the comic itself is nowhere as conservative as its character, nor does the particular character stay static.
Essentially, within the first issue Adam the protagonist is eagerly awaiting the return of his girlfriend so they can consumate their relationship, but she is beheaded on live television in South Africa. From this point on, the series take a turn towards a large inner discourse between issues offaith and sexuality where he questions what he had previously stood for. Its hard to really sum up the series surprisingly in either major themes or narrative, as I found I was continually surprised by where the developments lead. This almost usually never happens, and I found especially within the last few panels of the series, it took a complete 360 degree turn away from any percievable expectations.

Also on a sidenote, the series has great cover art done by Joshu Middleton, seen above and his link below:
http://joshuamiddleton.com/

Links for the whole thing are available through 4chan's rapidsearch:
http://rs.4chan.org/?s=american+virgin

"Virgin will do for global sexual myth, history and practice what Preacher did for gross-out action and Hellblazer did for demonology. "

— Steven T. Seagle,

I have never read any comics, with no real reason why, but they are something I'd like to explore more. I did download some of Y The Last Man based on your review, Crap. I plan to start it as soon as I can. I have a friend who's in grad school and taking a graphic novel class and loving it. She suggested The Blanket to me recently. Ever heard of it? She really enjoyed it.

that quote is actually very fitting....

Blankets is a great read definitely. Thompson has both a great talent for drawing as much as he does in some truly honest semi-autobiographical story telling. Funnily enough, its also another work that deals heavily with religion and having one's whole worldview sort of twisted.

I think honestly, the best place to start for comics is to go for more of the graphic novels/one-shots. Actual series I find are usually more promising imo but can be a hard place to start especially if you dont have loads of free time and such. i.e. sometimes comics like Y The Last Man may not hit home til your far into the series.

Including Blankets, I'd recommend the following to get a good taste of whats out there. Most of the following are available as one novel or short collection.


For your stereotypical superhero fare:
Batman: The Killing Joke
A great look into the character of the Joker, and arguably the definitive version of him as of yet. Its about a half hour read, so relatively short.
Batman: The Long Halloween
A pretty hefty collection but a must if your interested at all in Batman. Includes basically the whole rogue gallery including the transition of Dent to Two-face.
DC - The New Frontier
Personal preference but one of my favorite huge crossover events of any large label. I found great both for its ability to introduce newcomers to a large multitude of characters and also to put them all into a story that didn't seem at all forced. I tihnk an animated movie of this was just released but havent seen it so cant really vouch for that.
Watchmen
Honestly, probably the one book that really got me interested in comics and specifically, the genre of superheroes. Actually this was one of the first comics I ever read and was a real eye-opener in terms of revealing how such a seemingloy cheesy genre could also be a respectable artform. Easily one of the greatest comics of all time.


For some Realism:
Palestine, and generally anything by Joe Sacco
Essentially hes a comic-journalist but has a great sense of humor. Hes definitely worth a check if the whole superhero/fantasy thing isnt your fare.
Pyongyang
Part journalistic, part autobiographical. It essentially details the day to day happenings of the animator working in North Korea's capital. Its actually a great look into how fucked up the society is there so its worth a read simply for that.


And the rest...:
Black Hole
Definitely a personal favorite of mine which looks at youth and sex in a very 50s-esque horror film manner.
Fables: 1001 Nights Of Snowfall
This is actually a sort of side collection for an ongoing series but it can be easily read by itself and enjoyed. Its essentially a collection of different takes on classical tales and fables, which also provides much of the back story to the actual series.
Pride of Baghdad
A fictionalized retelling of the pack of lions that escaped from a zoo in Baghdad shortly after its bombing. So yea...if you know the incident I'm talking about this comic may already be spoiled for you, either way its a pretty powerful commentary on the war itself.
V for Vendetta
Not going to bother saying much about this since I'm sure everyone has seen the film. Only thing needed to be said is the comic is nothing like the film aside from a general plot narrative. The themes and whatnot are not related in the slightest to the American liberal commentary that was apparent in the Wachowski's version.

Thanks Crap! That's a great bit of info/recs, and it's nice to have a suggested place to start. Otherwise it can be daunting XD

A great series with a great setting, you would have never thought that a series about journalism would be this good but it is, makes you want to pick up a camera, the cover is really great by Riccardo Burchielli which is the artist for the series, the writer is Brian Wood which is a pretty nice guy actually met him at comiccon last year, I was surprised vertigo brought almost everyone which was great since vertigo is by far the best comic book publisher out there they are not afraid to take risk which is probably why they have so many great series under they're belt.

The setting is New York City in the near future. A civil war is taking place between the United States of America and the Free States. The Free States are described in the first issue as being "New Jersey and inland"; in issue #8, it is revealed that "the Free States are an idea, not a geographical entity";[1] the movement began in Montana and made its way east. The Free Armies and the U.S. military met at Allentown, Pennsylvania where both sides decided that they did not want to fight, after which the Free Armies descended on New York; the exact chain of events from hereon has yet to be revealed. Manhattan is the location of the demilitarized zone between the two warring parties. In an interview, Brian Wood described the back-history as the citizens of Middle America having risen up against the pre-emptive war policies of the US government, causing a Second American Civil War. He expanded on this in a more recent interview:
“ Midwestern militia groups revolt against their local governments in protest of rampant U.S. adventurism overseas and, in the absence of the National Guard, are able to gain far more ground than they thought possible. Small insurgent groups pop up in towns and cities across the country, and a sizable force, the Free States Army, pushes toward Manhattan. The city proves too big for them to take, and also for the U.S. Army to defend. The war stalls there, a stalemate, neither side being able to shift things.[2] ”

Manhattan is mainly empty, with only 400,000 people still on the island (compared with 1.5 million in the 2000 census), populated only by the poor — who were not evacuated —, snipers and holdouts. Wood has described the setting as: "Think equal parts Escape from New York, Fallujah and New Orleans right after Katrina".[3]

The protagonist is Matthew (Matty) Roth, a naïve photo journalism intern from Long Island, who enters the DMZ with a news-crew. He becomes trapped when the rest of the news crew and the soldiers escorting them are killed in a firefight with "insurgents". Matty becomes the only journalist on the ground in the DMZ and he begins to report on the daily struggle of life for the everyday citizens of Manhattan.