The Graphic Novels / Comic Books thread

Hillskill

Its very easy to fall into that trap of starting mulitple series. Then (as you have come to realise) you end up shelling out loads more then you normally would. Surprised you are reading Y & DMZ alongside eachother. I started reading The Walking Dead & Y at the same time and it all became a bit too "post apocalyptic". I shelved Y in favour of the Walking Dead but now I am up to date I shall probably resume Y. DMZ is one I will save for later.

Theydon Bois

This is true - plus other than the main Civil War* comics, the rest are all a bit meh to be honest. Read the Ultimates instead.

I would do as Hillskill mentions, read Y or DMZ or Walking Dead with either Preacher or Ultimates if you want to read two at a time.

I have been dragging my Y and Walking Deads for the same reason - and interspacing them with the 2000AD reprints of RoboHunter and Rogue Trooper.



* Note I have not go through them all yet, but Wolverines story seems to be the only one worth reading.

Theydon Bois

For those that want a taster of Y The Last man, there is a free issue of number one available as an app or on the web.

Y: The Last Man: Summary - comiXology

Im2old4this

Yeah I think I'll see how I get on - I'm in a bit of a Apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic mood at the mo (also just read The Road and wached Bandslam lol) so it suits my mood. Also the topics certainly based on the first issue were different enough to keep me from mixing them up.
To be honest I also found Preacher to be a bit more 'blasphemous' (not the right word but I think you can understand what I mean) than I was maybe naively expecting and I need to decide if I want to carry on reading.

NewMan

Just read Blackest Night - a good, well written story with some excellent artwork. My only gripe (and it's only because I usually stick to either Batman or Superman when reading DC books), is that you get the feeling that you need to know the entire DC backstory before reading - I'd certainly at least recommend reading Final Crisis before this, or you might get a surprise or two (unless you already know what I'm talking about)... Considering that this story revolves around the super-powered dead coming back to life as part of the "Black Lantern Corps", it might be useful to know who these super-powered people are - I was constantly searching names in Wikipedia to find out who these people were. This isn't a knock on the readability of this book - if this were a Marvel story I'd have had no problems, I just happen to be more specific when reading DC stories, so don't really know a lot of the "peripheral" characters and their backstories.

Anyway, bring on Siege, I have a feeling that I might get more out of that as I know a lot more of the Marvel backstory and characters...

Theydon Bois

I have a teacher at work who is going to supply me all the Blackest night and Seige stuff - although he is one of those weird people that does not bag his comics.

I have been out of the loop so long that I am likely to suffer the same thing - Take Civil War for instance. I could not work out why the Sentinals (huge robots) are watching over the X-Men in the very first few pages, but apparently thats all described in House of M and the 198? Which is probably the series I will read next.

NewMan

Huh? Who in their right mind doesn't bag their books?! Bah, I've bought the Premier HCs anyway, so they'll look awesome on my big bookcase of GN's (when I actually have the space to buy it and put it up!).

Edit: I remember a friend of mine lent me Illuminati, a Winter Soldier story, and Captain America 25 without bags - they all got returned in bags!

Yeah, with Marvel there is definitely just as much backstory as there appears to be in the big DC events - I just happen to know all the backstory for Marvel stuff.

For Marvel, you need to read, in order: Avengers: Disassembled, House of M/Decimation, Civil War, (optional: X-Men: Messiah Complex), Secret Invasion, Dark Reign (spanned various titles, no single GN for that, though Dark Avengers is certainly a must) and then Siege. You can also optionally throw in The Illuminati and Planet Hulk (before Civil War) and World War Hulk, which I think comes after Civil War but before Secret Invasion. Obviously there's loads of titles in between which all add to the story, such as Avengers: The Initiative, which is a 5 GN series, worth reading, and loads of others...

Theydon Bois

Blimey! Thanks for the list.

I may be a while though, as I am reading 1960's versions of FF, Avengers, Hulk and Spiderman on my iPad.

kav

Hello gentlemen, my good friend PaulieBeef has long been at me to get into graphic novels and for some reason it's taken until now for the bug to bite me. I'm more interested in zombie/post-apocalyptic or any anti-hero based stuff than your traditional superhero kind of jive.

I know there are loads of recommendations already here, but I'd be grateful for any recommendations specifically based on the themes I mentioned.

I've already got the following on my Amazon wish-list: Punisher series, Walking Dead series, The Boys series, Crossed Vol 1.

NewMan

I'm reading the Walking Dead series, and it's pretty spectacular so far (3 books in). Also highly recommend Crossed - been reading it today. It's a bit.... graphic... but is a really good read if you've the stomach for it.

One I'm waiting for is Nemesis, which as I understand it is about the only super-powered person in the world being a complete bastard... All I know is that it's Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, and they rarely go wrong.

For anti-hero stuff, there's none better than Spawn, in my opinion.