Comic books

[toledobass]

Anyone here into comics?  I read comics as an early teen but it's been 2 decades since.  I've been reading some stuff here and there and with a great shop in town I think I'll continue to explore a little bit.  I'm nearly finished with the Watchmen and have been reading Local by Bryan Wood and Ryan Kelly here and there. Queen and Country and DMZ sound interesting and are on my list.  Not way into the superhero stuff but wouldn't mind reading some of it from time to time.

Anyone have any rec's or favorites or whatever about comics?

Peace,
Allan

[Drasko]

I liked comics when I was younger and still have few favorite series somewhere on bookshelves. Those were predominantly european comics doubtful if you ever heard of any, but here are some:

Hugo Pratt - big fan of Corto Maltese, still have most of collection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corto_Maltese

Enki Bilal - relatively recent, fascinating visually
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki_Bilal

Lots of Italian stuff from Bonelli Editions (Sergio Bonelli Editore), favorites were:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_No
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagor

Also Italian, from Magnus & Bunker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ford_(comics)
I still have first editions of first ten or so episodes

And impossible to miss - The Franco-Belgian school, Franquin's Idees Noires are so wickedly dark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idées_noires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iznogoud
still have complete Asterix (Goscinny & Uderzo, not the latest from Uderzo alone)

and Jean Giraud aka Moebius when he wasn't to cryptic for my taste (like in The Airtight Garage)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(comics)

[jwinter]

I've collected comics for about 30 years, mostly DC and Marvel superhero type stuff.  I've cut way back on new comics of late -- not much time for it with 2 small kids in the house -- but when I get the chance I still have a blast going through my collection, about 25 long boxes and tons of reprint TPBs, mostly 60's - 80's.  Loved the Watchmen, though it's been probably 10 years since I read it.

I can certainly give you some pointers on superhero comics if you ever want to go in that direction...

[toledobass]

The thing I'm a little worried about with the superhero stuff is just wondering if I can find some good stories without having to read a ton of backstory in order to understand what is going on.  So any trades you might suggest with that in mind would be awesome. 


Thanks,
Allan

[Bogey]

The thing I'm a little worried about with the superhero stuff is just wondering if I can find some good stories without having to read a ton of backstory in order to understand what is going on.  So any trades you might suggest with that in mind would be awesome. 


Thanks,
Allan

I use to collect as well, but sold my collection (not as big as jwinters....only about a dozen long boxes, but I did have some sweet Batman Joker cover golden age books) some years back to furnish our basement, and buy a computer, and a new stereo....you get the picture.

But in answer to your question, sure.  Start with the Frank Miller Daredevil runs.  Though he only did the art early on I would still start where he did (#158 I believe, is that right JW?), a person at a comic shop can get you started with some reprints so you do not have to pay a ton. 

Looks like these are the reprints Allan:

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/soapbox/109126889738256.htm

Next, Frank Miller's first Dark Knight works....awesome stuff again.

After that, I agree with jwinter, try the Watchmen before seeing the movie.  Should be easy to find a reprint right now.

[Bogey]

PS With the Miller daredevils, I believe I found the later stuff better when Mazzucchelli took over the art work.  But start from the start. 

[vandermolen]

As a child I read Beano and Topper, rejecting the more intellectual 'Look and Learn'. As an adult I have continued to read Tintin but I'm not sure that it counts as a comic.

[Dr. Dread]

Yeah, I read mainly superhero stuff way back when. Conan and Tarzan as well.

[Diletante]

I have read all of Mafalda (Argentinian comic) three times, I think. I have this book called "Todo Mafalda" (All Mafalda).

I also like Calvin & Hobbes. I have the whole collection in my computer, but I haven't read it all yet.

[Maciek]

Of the ones mentioned here, I love Bilal and Moebius. I suspect a large part of my enjoyment today is due to the fact of remembering so clearly the thrill of first discovering these in the late 1980s. Somehow, the "newer" comic books I read nowadays (when I do that sort of thing, which is very rarely) are invariably extremely boring or pretentious or both.

Oh, and like many other Poles, I'm also a fan of Grzegorz Rosinski.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Comics were my first love (they're called strips in Dutch) - Asterix, Tintin, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, the Dutch comic Sjors en Sjimmie and many many others, later Krazy Kat and Little Nemo. I even appeared on Dutch tv when I was 11 (in March or April 1973), taking part in the Stripkwis, with my special subject Sjors en Sjimmie. I won... I went to Brussels with all the other winners to visit Hergé's studios...

[Kullervo]

Has anyone who has read the Tintin comics in French tell me how advanced the language is? I plan on studying French again (well, not that I got much out of it in High School  ) and would like to try reading something relatively simple before working my way up to more complicated texts.

[Dundonnell]

I go as far back as "The Eagle"

The highlight of that fantastic comic were the stories of Dan Dare and the Mekon(1950-59)-

http://www.dandare.org/

[Kullervo]

Has anyone who has read the Tintin comics in French tell me how advanced the language is? I plan on studying French again (well, not that I got much out of it in High School  ) and would like to try reading something relatively simple before working my way up to more complicated texts.

No one?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

No one?

No, I read them in Dutch. But they won't be too difficult, I think...

[vandermolen]

Has anyone who has read the Tintin comics in French tell me how advanced the language is? I plan on studying French again (well, not that I got much out of it in High School  ) and would like to try reading something relatively simple before working my way up to more complicated texts.

I read them in English as I failed my French O level exam three times:

Examiner (in French): "What is the weather like?"

Me (in French) "Ten past three"

Examiner (in English) "Next candidate please"

But I don't think that Tintin in French is that difficult and you can always get a Tintin English-French, French-English dictionary to help you:

[Maciek]

I have read all of Mafalda (Argentinian comic) three times, I think. I have this book called "Todo Mafalda" (All Mafalda).

Sorry, missed your post somehow. I love Mafalda, though I haven't read any in a long, long time.

[Cato]

GREATEST COMIC (= FUNNY) BOOKS:





Uncle Scrooge McDuck whose stories with Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey, and Louis immensely fleshed out the personalities beyond the cliches which the animated cartoons fell into.  The 1980's Duck Tales TV series depended heavily on the Carl Barks stories from the 1940's to the 1960's.

Created by Carl Barks, the stories were continued for another 20 years from the 1980's until recently by Don Rosa.

Excerpt from A Christmas for Shacktown by Carl Barks




Excerpt from Don Rosa's 12-part epic Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck:





A French fan named Beru has placed all 659 Carl Barks stories and all of Don Rosa's stories (85 so far: he is retired due to poor eyesight) on a website:

http://disneycomics.free.fr/index.php

[Diletante]

Sorry, missed your post somehow. I love Mafalda, though I haven't read any in a long, long time.

Cool, which version have you read?

I've read the original Argentinian. I saw some strips on the internet of Mafalda "adapted" to peninsular Spanish (i.e. Spanish as spoken in Spain), which I found totally idiotic, because half of the spirit of the strips is in the Argentinian slang.

[Maciek]

Oh, I never read them in the original. Never even realized they were Argentinian. They were very funny all the same, though I'm sure something must have been lost. I remember at least one that didn't have any text at all.