OT: What is or was your favorite comic book?
We've been through favorite songs, television shows, and probably others I'm missing, but what were or are your favorite comic books? What era were they from. Also, what were some of your favorite ads from the back, and how did it turn out if you ordered something from one of those ads?
My favorites, and this is from the 1960s were Archie and Richie Rich, none of which do I think would be worth much even if I had kept them. My brother was into army related ones, so I read a lot of those as well. If those had any context at all, they were always WWII related. I did once order what I thought was a book of 1001 magic tricks for one dollar. What it ended up being was a catalogue that you could order (and pay for) different magic related items. Was I ever disappointed. It was a good lesson on caveat emptor which I suppose is better learned young and without a large outlay involved.
So what comic books have you read? What ads do you remember? Did you every buy anything from the ads?
Huge comic nerd here. My first comics were the Amazing Spider-man McFarlane era. I then moved on to Spawn and then I slowly got out of comics before high school.
I recently got back into them (3 years ago) and have been reading a bunch of titles.
Batman is great right now with Snyder and Capullo. My personal favs that are still on-going now are East of West, Lazarus, Stray Bullets and Airboy.
Some slightly older stories I miss are Gotham Central and Avengers Arena.
Dont remember any ads. Also, dont buy comics and think they will be worth something. They won't.
The ads might very well have disappeared from comic books. I know in the 1960s most of the comic books I read had them. At that time, there was a presumption that comics were read by kids, so the ads were oriented towards them, and most items were under $5.00.
Ads now are mostly just for other books by the same publisher or tv shows based on comic properties. The back of the books are usually letters sections now. Not many (if any) mail in ads or anything like that. Of course I dont really read "kids books" where those types of ads would be anymore.
with the curent direction of Batman, i will keep it spoiler free, I'm sure you know what i am referring to
Yes. I am a pretty free spirit when it comes to story lines for characters. I just recently purchased a trade Batman: Greatest Stories Ever Told and there are a few in there where Batman is in space, etc. I am willing to see where the pro writers take a story and if it stinks in the end so be it. I will almost always allow for some whacky direction with these super old characters. That's just me though. I can understand how some people dont like it right now. I think Snyder will bring it home though. He has a really good sense of this iteration of Batman IMO.
is usually gold. Aaron's Southern Bastards is great, Secret Wars is also WAY better than i thought it would be. Rick Remender is also great, his X Force run was amazing.
Agree on Southern Bastards. I was absolutely in love with Aaron and Ribics run on Thor. So so so great. Secret Wars is shaping up to be pretty epic as well. I will have to check out Remender on X-Force. I also want to dive into Waids run on Daredevil pretty soon, when I save up some loot for crazy things like comics : )
art is fantastic
East of West is fantastic, also really like the Wicked and The Divine.
I got the first maybe 5 issues of Wicked and Devine and for whatever reason it just wasn't my thing. The story didn't hook me. No idea why. The art is beautiful and apparently it is a lot like Phonogram (so pick that up if you like W&D), but I never got into that either.
were awesome as a kid. I just really liked how he drew those characters. My brother liked spawn, but I couldn't get into them.
I had some Flash, 90s X-men, and Captain America comics.
I always had individual comics and never the series though, so I rarely followed the whole story line. I think most of my comic book hero knowledge comes from the cartoon series. Like the 90s X-men show and spiderman series as well as the batman animated series. There were some avengers and spderman and friends shows in the 80s that I watched as well.
So much action.
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I read and collected alot of them back in the comic book boom and crash of the early 90's. The Maximum Carnage crossover in the Spiderman comics was my favoirte storyline back then.
Gives you an idea of how old I am!
The comics are equal parts amazingly violent, funny, heartfelt and cool. Not many people are talking about it, yet, but the show is going to be a knockout on AMC.
Absolutely agree.
Preacher was a game-changer for me in regards to comics/graphic novels. It completely altered the way i view(ed) the category. Such a fulfilling read with great character development, well-placed satire, humor (as your mentioned) and of course Dillon's great artwork. I haven't read anything else by Ennis but i saw that he and Dillon have delved into a few issues of Punisher so perhaps ill check that out in the future.
I'm now reading Scalped which is definitely noir style and reminds me of the Sopranos but on an indian reservation. I'd highly recommend.
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I was a comic book nerd in my junior high days in the mid 80s. I loved Amazing Spider Man and had most issues from the late 70s right up to #300, which is in fact the last comic book I bought.
My son is almost 10 and now getting interested in them and reading through my old collection. He's decided the Silver Surfer is his favorite.
As for ads: I remembed ording the X-Ray specs and the "smoking fingers". I was very disappointed. I never got Sea Monkeys, signed up to deliver GRIT magazine, or sent away for the Charles Atlas 7-day program to keep bullies from kicking sand in my face.
I remember all of those ads, except the smoking fingers. For those too young, here's an example of an ad for the x-ray vision glasses:
They always hinted you'd be able to see naked ladies, which I'm sure they knew was their primary selling point to 10-14 year old boys. Here's a sea monkeys ad:
I ordered Sea Monkeys once from the back of a Hulk comic. Tiny little shrimp-like creatures that definitely did not look like the ad. I was very disappointed.
Or at least a semester's worth of credits. A friend of mine at UM had an awesome collection and I spent an entire term (or two) reading every X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four comic published to date. It was also about the time McFarlane started Image and released Spawn, so that was definitely my favorite. I really enjoyed the Marvel/DC/Image wars and some good stuff came out of the carnage (no pun intended), Remember The Secret Wars? I still can't decide if that epic crossover effort was great or not so much.
I could never figure out what the heck was happening in Secret Wars.
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I have always loved Daredevil. I'm not sure why he is my favorite, but I usually love the gritty noir of Daredevil books.
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Especially when Frank Miler was writing them... absolutely the best. Elektra, Bullseye. Really disappointing that the movie was done so poorly, but those are absolutely great characters.
But overall, just about anything Frank Miller writes is awesome... The Dark Knight was great.
And I also loved The Punisher growing up.
New series by Mark Waid is a fave. Less gratuitous "darkness," more fun.
Archie, with Richie Rich a distant second.
Grew up with Marvel in the 70's and 80's and love those books, but I also really like the old pre-Marvel Atlas horror books from Kirby and others....Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales, old Journey Into Mystery.....I also really like the old EC comics,
My 2nd english/writing class in college was centered around comic books/graphic novels. We studied how the size and length of the panels represent time. It was one of my favorite classes and opened me up to how deep comic books/graphic novels really are.
We started with Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics, then we read classics like Maus and Ghost World.
But for more recent stuff, Southern Bastards takes the cake. It's really good. It's based on the idea of a man who left a town in Alabama, and came back when his dad died to clean out the old home. But there's this crime syndicate of sorts that has taken hold, and it's headed by the high school football coach. Kind of a gnarly take on how people treat high school football in the south mixed with a Walking Tall kind of vibe. You can pick up the first two trades on Amazon for under ten bucks for both. I suggest checking them out.
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I did the same for Avengers, X-Men, and Iron Man. The second X-Men lineup was pretty awesome and I got into the Avengers a lot as well. But then medical school started and I mostly put it all on hold aside from a few TBP on breaks.
But I have been wanting to get the actual comic books for a long time now and I jumped on the chance with this new Secret Wars. The only question is going to be what to start with once this is over. Besides ASM of course.
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I'm through trade #14 and it is good. I like it better than the show. I'm about a season behind on the show right now.
Secret wars series 1 and 2. Look it up and find it wherever you can.
Started collecting comic books when I was 10 - most notably Uncanny X-Men (Chris Claremont run - Byrne, Paul Smith favorite artists), Alpha Flight, Amazing Spider Man, Incredible Hulk, Elektra: Assassin 12 issue series, Daredevil, Watchmen. Was extremely partial to Marvel and a few indies.
Memorables? Miami Mice, Fish Police, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when they were black and white pencils and magazine size iirc, Contest of Champions, What If Jean Grey Lived?, Death of Jean Grey story Arc, Mutant Massacre story arc. Absolutely fantastic stuff back then.
Later the owner of Big Planet Comics in Vienna persuaded me to check out Grant Morrison's JLA relaunch. That led to checking out different Batman comics (most notably Frank Knight's Dark Knight, DK:R, and DK: SB). Kingdom Come was an incredible read (Mark Waid iirc?) coupled with Alex Ross' beautiful artwork.
As an aside, resisted checking out Daredevil on NetFlix as I was still scarred from Ben Affleck's Daredevil. Was skeptical of a television show's ability to capture both the character AND the superhero. Hooo boy, was I wrong.
And oops - how could I forget about Secret Wars (especially #4 with Hulk holding up a 50 billion ton mountain and #8 with Spidey's new black suit (symbiote)?
Graphic novels instead of comics. My favorite graphic novel would have to be "Batman: The Long Halloween". The accompanying stories of "Batman: Year One" and "Batman" Dark Victory" are also solid, but nothing beats that Two-Face origin story.
Coming in at a close second is a recent graphic novel called "ApocalyptiGirl: An Aria for the End Times" by Andrew MacLean. It's a great read with awesome artwork. I like to describe it as a mix between Samurai Jack and Adventure Time. Highly recommended.
I agree, The Long Halloween is an all-around excellent story, and probably my favorite. Year One and The Killing Joke are also right up there as far as essential Batman stories go, and Scott Snyder has been tearing it up in his current run.
While I'm on DC characters, I'd never really found Green Lantern to be that compelling. But I've gotta say, I'm really glad that I checked out the reboot by Geoff Johns and his War of Light arc (through Blackest Night). Those books have been really fun to read, and have certainly changed my mind.
As for Image books, I've got to recommend East of West. John Hickman's really got something great going with this apocalyptic sci-fi western. Also, Ed Brubaker's Cold War espionage story, Velvet, is yet another new title to keep an eye out for.
As the owner of a pretty decent collection, if I had to name just one series or graphic novel, I'd probably go with...
Born Again by Frank Miller.
It's the perfect Daredevil story and although I'm not a huge fan of the way it ends, the beginning and middle is so damn good that it's impossible not to love it.
Other candidates:
The Killing Joke
Ed Brubaker's Captain American run (#1-#25)
Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run
Chris Claremont's X-Men run
Invincible by Robert Kirkman
Geoff John's Green Lantern run
Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughn