As already mentioned:

Crumb, Clowes and Ware.

Plus Pekar and most of the Fantagraphic guys.

Crumb is my all time favorite and Clowes has hit new highs with The Deathray.

Have not read the superhero stuff in years, what's the best of that lot?

Hellboy, Sandman, V For Vendetta, Akira.

I've been out of the Marvel loop for a half a decade and recently upon talking with a few old timers, the current Marvel universe is in a state of civil war. Heroes on heroes.

cursedby11 wrote:I've been out of the Marvel loop for a half a decade and recently upon talking with a few old timers, the current Marvel universe is in a state of civil war. Heroes on heroes.

I think this was discussed somewhere else on the board, but yeah...anyway, it's civil war in the marvel universe. They're already breaking up the new avengers lineup, which is a shame because it's an excellent lineup. Everyone is either siding with Iron Man and Captain America over super hero registration. The xmen don't have much to say because they were already registered after the m-day thing. It's decent; Mark Millar is writing it. Spider-man, siding with Iron Man, revealed his identity to the world. The Daily Bugle is suing him. Captain America is leading those not willing to register; mostly weaker heroes. SHIELD is suddenly capable of capturing the heroes withsome new anti-superhuman unit. I'm predicting that they kill Captain America at the end of it. They're claiming that it's going to "change everything" in the marvel universe, but I'm doubting it will. In about a year everything will be back to normal, except that Spider-man will still be out to the public.

Out of curiosity, do you any of you shop at Brainstorm? I'd say it's easily the Hot Dougs of comic books in Chicago.

Naruto

It's a manga about a boy who dreams of becoming the head ninja of his village. There's a lot of stuff about influencing people, working hard, dilligence, and protecting your friends. Then there are the fights like Dragon Ball Z but they are somewhat influenced by Japanese ninja, and samurai and mythology. The main character has a 9 tail demon fox sealed inside of him and suffers a lot because of it.

Well, this is a Shounen manga for boys, but perhaps some of you may enjoy it. There are scenes and other things heavily influenced by psychology books and stuff. Say the characters are sleeping, the mangaka draws them in the positions that psychologists would say represent a certain personality, like a clever, shy girl sleeps on her side. Er, it's not contrived, it comes out like the characters are kind of human, even though they do all the magic super ultimate Japanese cartoon stuff. Hard to explain.

If you read a book about catching out liars or something, you might notice it says to look at the persons eyes and where they move, this mangaka seems to have studied things like this a hell of a lot, and they are often subtly placed in the manga. The earlier chapters have less of this, but as the series goes on there is more and more.

Mmm, if you do decide to try this, then please ignore the Viz translation and look for a fan made scanlation. There is an anime series too, but they seem to have ignored all the details such as psychology stuff and anything else that might appeal to older people.

placeholder wrote:I recommend the Lone Wolf and Cub and Lady Snowblood manga series.

I'm devouring the Lone Wolf and Cub series now. It is really very good; it looks stunning and the alien take on morality is a splash of ice water.

Krazy Kat and Ignatz is a series that I love. It is absolutely barking, centring round the love of a cat for a mouse who christens him regularly with a brick, all written in a demented Joycean language.

Alan Moore is the greatest living narrative artist to me. My favourite of his comics is From Hell, which is drawn by Eddie Campbell.

Campbell himself is an exceptionally dry, erudite and funny writer, and his Deadface stories are well worth hunting down. They posit a very knackered Bacchus (Greek god of booze) in the twentieth century, with a wide supporting cast of mythological figures, some invented by Campbell. The Eyeball Kid is a priceless lunatic.

The Code is Almighty wrote:

cursedby11 wrote:I've been out of the Marvel loop for a half a decade and recently upon talking with a few old timers, the current Marvel universe is in a state of civil war. Heroes on heroes.

I think this was discussed somewhere else on the board, but yeah...anyway, it's civil war in the marvel universe. They're already breaking up the new avengers lineup, which is a shame because it's an excellent lineup. Everyone is either siding with Iron Man and Captain America over super hero registration. The xmen don't have much to say because they were already registered after the m-day thing. It's decent; Mark Millar is writing it. Spider-man, siding with Iron Man, revealed his identity to the world. The Daily Bugle is suing him. Captain America is leading those not willing to register; mostly weaker heroes. SHIELD is suddenly capable of capturing the heroes withsome new anti-superhuman unit. I'm predicting that they kill Captain America at the end of it. They're claiming that it's going to "change everything" in the marvel universe, but I'm doubting it will. In about a year everything will be back to normal, except that Spider-man will still be out to the public.

Can i just take a moment to rant about how pissed i am that in the past couple years, just about everything essential to the iconic Spider-Man character (always being poor, keeping his identity secret to everyone, being the red-headed stepchild of the Marvel Universe and sort of not fitting in with the other heroes) has been completely wiped from the board thanks to his Avengers membership? Great, guys, way to completely destroy everything that brought me to the character when i was 7.

*seethe*

DrAwkward wrote:

The Code is Almighty wrote:

cursedby11 wrote:I've been out of the Marvel loop for a half a decade and recently upon talking with a few old timers, the current Marvel universe is in a state of civil war. Heroes on heroes.

I think this was discussed somewhere else on the board, but yeah...anyway, it's civil war in the marvel universe. They're already breaking up the new avengers lineup, which is a shame because it's an excellent lineup. Everyone is either siding with Iron Man and Captain America over super hero registration. The xmen don't have much to say because they were already registered after the m-day thing. It's decent; Mark Millar is writing it. Spider-man, siding with Iron Man, revealed his identity to the world. The Daily Bugle is suing him. Captain America is leading those not willing to register; mostly weaker heroes. SHIELD is suddenly capable of capturing the heroes withsome new anti-superhuman unit. I'm predicting that they kill Captain America at the end of it. They're claiming that it's going to "change everything" in the marvel universe, but I'm doubting it will. In about a year everything will be back to normal, except that Spider-man will still be out to the public.

Can i just take a moment to rant about how pissed i am that in the past couple years, just about everything essential to the iconic Spider-Man character (always being poor, keeping his identity secret to everyone, being the red-headed stepchild of the Marvel Universe and sort of not fitting in with the other heroes) has been completely wiped from the board thanks to his Avengers membership? Great, guys, way to completely destroy everything that brought me to the character when i was 7.

*seethe*

Lots of people makes this argument. Bendis' response is that Spider-man should grow with those that have adored him all these years so they can continue to relate to the character.

The Authority is really good, especially the Millar era stuff.

Having spent the better part of two weeks reading pretty much all of the Vertigo output of the last two years, I gotta say that The Exterminators is pretty amazing. It could be their next Preacher, if they keep nurturing it.

I also like Fell, written by Warren Ellis and illo'd by Ben Templesmith. Really moody, and slow-moving in a Michael Mann kind of way (which is to say, it's slow but the slowness is essential to plot development)