Good TPBs I've read recently

[helionaut]

For the past few years I've had a good time building up my bookshelf with trades and hardbacks. Most are just bound editions of books I picked up singly, but some are from series I originally either ignored, missed, or held off on to get the trades. Recently I've read, and immensely enjoyed the Top 10 series from Alan Moore, and Sleeper by Ed Brubaker. I got the first issue of all the ABC titles, but only LOEG really stuck. I thought Top 10 was interesting at the time, but I let it go. I never noticed Sleeper, but my LCS has a growing Brubaker section, so I bought the first ish and was impressed enough to go back for the trades.

 

Now a couple years later, I bought the first trade on the recommendation of the shop owner and I couldn't wait to get back to the comic shop to get the second (it's only a 12-ish series). I must say Gene Ha's art impresses and the story is way more than the first issue indicates. It's a real encyclopedia of comic references, and reading each issue took about 45 minutes because I kept trying to spot all the characters and graffiti and stuff going on in the backgrounds. The second volume has consecutive issues with 2 of the greatest splash pages I've seen in some time. One shows Ha's draftsmanship skills with a huge, minutely detailed cityscape seen from above on a weird angle, dominated by a gothic catherdral/Cyrillic/Chinese-type building. The next is one of the funniest parodies of Marvel, DC, Disney, and Jack Kirby. The series contains several multi-threaded stories, as one expects from Moore, with lots of humor, pathos, and rich character development, also as one expects. Plus, while there are dozens of superpowered characters in the book, there are many unique ideas and interesting twists on old ones with good character/costume design and names. I must say this series really impressed me more than I thought it would and is, if not on a par quite with Watchmen, good company on the V for Vendetta level.

 

Sleeper is a kind of similar series in that there are loads of people walking around with superpowers, and they are organized into good guys and bad guys. However, it is really a criminal/spy series with a very nice edgy and paranoid tone, and the artist (can't recall right now) is very competent in conveying this mood. Everything is dark, even the sunlit scenes (in a good way). It has another "secret society ruling the world from behind the scenes" kind of story, which has been overdone in the past few years, and here it's handled in a way that's not perfectly plausible, but I'll let it go. The main story is the central character's fight for survival and the characters he has on his side, and against him, are the real meat. Sleeper Season 2 is currently going with 2 or 3 issues out, but I will wait for the trades to get it all at once. This is an Image book. Does anyone know how fast Image produces trades after the issues come out? Seems pretty quick, 3-4 months.

[rob_react]

Sleeper is a Wildstorm book. Wildstorm is no longer part of Image, it's part of DC.

 

Sleeper is also one of the ten best books on the shelves.

 

Sean Phillips is the artist.

 

One thing I would add about Sleeper is that while it does read better in trades, it still reads REALLY well issue by issue. Brubaker packs a lot into each issue and most of the time presents a self contained "chunk" of story in each so it's a very satisfying monthly read.

 

Now if it would only sell another 20,000 copies a month and I could stop worrying about it getting canceled out from under me.

 

As a footnote, for a greater appreciation of TAO, check out Alan Moore's Wildcats run (the TC art doesn't hurt either )