• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Come on... snap out of it!

Started by Kevin Boyd,

42 posts in this topic

Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

Posted
Posted

Okay, so you don't like what's happening with your latest Marvel Comics and you are despairing ever loving another comic book again... the lustre is gone and you can't stand the directions that Joey Da Q and the boys at Marvel are taking your favorite super-heroes.

 

You want to quit and hide in the back issue bins for a while and look for old issues of the Defenders and X-Factor....

 

Now I'm hear to tell you... there's something else... the afterlife... naw.... no one's going Crazy here... I'm talking about a whole world of comic books out there that aren't published by Marvel Comics. There's a whole catalogue of stuff that comes out every month from Diamond... and it's pretty much Marvel-free since Marvel puts their solicits in a separate mag.

 

A lot of them are actually good, and many of them are by the same people you used to like on the Marvel Comics you grew up on.

 

Can anyone help me here? What are your favorite non-Marvel books being published? I'll add mine later tonight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ares

Ares

Posted
Posted
Okay, so you don't like what's happening with your latest Marvel Comics and you are despairing ever loving another comic book again... the lustre is gone and you can't stand the directions that Joey Da Q and the boys at Marvel are taking your favorite super-heroes.

 

You want to quit and hide in the back issue bins for a while and look for old issues of the Defenders and X-Factor....

 

Now I'm hear to tell you... there's something else... the afterlife... naw.... no one's going Crazy here... I'm talking about a whole world of comic books out there that aren't published by Marvel Comics. There's a whole catalogue of stuff that comes out every month from Diamond... and it's pretty much Marvel-free since Marvel puts their solicits in a separate mag.

 

A lot of them are actually good, and many of them are by the same people you used to like on the Marvel Comics you grew up on.

 

Can anyone help me here? What are your favorite non-Marvel books being published? I'll add mine later tonight.

 

 

Dreamwaves Transfomers War Within Series

Teen Titans

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
helionaut

helionaut

Posted
Posted

Non-Marvels that I strongly recommend:

Hard Time

Sleeper Season 2

Ex Machina (a strong new Brian Vaughn book)

Planetary (I haven't read a consistently better comic since who knows when)

Identity Crisis, WE3, and New Frontier (all DC limited series)

Walking Dead

Brit (the third one-shot just came out)

Invincible

Sojourn (canned in the CrossGen mess, got to resurface somewhere eventually)

Love & Rockets & related books

Capes (a fun 3-issue Kirkman series in the same world as Brit, which is also the same world as Invincible)

and the usual stuff like Conan, Y, and Fables.

 

On the independent shelves, there are lots of books that come out on an irregular basis, or from creators who just do one-shot/graphic novel stuff (any collection missing "Hey, Wait" by Jason is not complete). There are the emo books like Artbabe, Optic Nerve, Strangers In Paradise, Colonia, etc. Flip through them and buy a couple that look at least half-way interesting, because they're the same price as Marvel and DC, or a bottle of beer in a bar. Dead@17 is a hit, though I can't say it's one of my favorites. And I just got issue #3 of The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty, which is interesting in a way. Not having read the first two, I heard about it only because #1 was distributed exclusively on Free Comic Book Day (I didn't get one).

 

There are also the trades and collections that rarely get mentioned. Spiegelman just put out a new book but I haven't picked it up yet, kinda pricey. Louis Riel, Blankets, Box Office Poison (chosen by Wizard as best TPB of all-time and I have to say they might have that one right), Summer Blonde, Grickle (the first strip is absolutely hysterical), etc., are all superior stuff, and all in collected or self-contained volumes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
october

october

Posted
Posted

The Goon - Dark Horse (best horror since Hellboy)

 

Conan - Dark Horse

 

The Red Star - Archangel Studios (amazing art, interesting premise...too bad it only comes out once every 2-3 months)

 

Thieves and Kings - I-Box (nice swords and sorcery stuff)

 

Usagi Yojimbo - Dark Horse (always solid, a real legend)

 

other than that there is not much out there. I was reading a lot more titles a year or two ago...not sure what happened but there seems to be a definite drought of good stuff. confused-smiley-013.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rob_react

rob_react

Posted
Posted

Current books based on the Sept. Shipping lists:

 

DC THE NEW FRONTIER, SWAMP THING, Y THE LAST MAN, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, WANTED, IDENTITY CRISIS, CONAN, EX MACHINA, PLASTIC MAN, SLEEPER SEASON TWO, WE3

 

plus

 

PLANETARY, which, shipping schedules aside, is my favorite "current" book by a comfortable margin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stark This-migration

Stark This-migration

Posted
Posted

Just about anything by Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek.

 

Conan is great stuff

Secret Identity was an excellent mini

Identity Crisis

Teen Titans

Outsiders

Superman/Batman

"War Games" (bat books)

Bloodstream (mini from image)

 

There are others mainly DC.....and this is from a long time marvel guy. Now the only thing I read marvel are the Ult titles, MK 4, MK Spider-Man, and my old standbys Iron Man and Wolverine (wolverine by the way has sucked for many moons now but I am still a fan. I hope this Millar run will revive the book). confused-smiley-013.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rob_react

rob_react

Posted
Posted

I'm about to turn my computer off, so you'll have to excuse me for using DC's copy for the first trade:

 

"Collecting the stories that first introduced the world to Planetary, this graphic novel features the adventures of Elijah Snow, a hundred year old man, Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful and bored woman, and The Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines. Infatuated with tracking down evidence of super-human activity, these mystery archaeologists of the late 20th Century uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories, such as a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a ghostly spirit of vengeance, and a lost island of dying monsters. "

 

 

I'll pop back in tomorrow and add more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DKB

DKB

Posted
Posted

Nightmares and Fairy Tales is good fun. Goth, yes, but still, creepily fun when its well illustrated.

 

Losers.

 

Queen & Country

 

Every last Oni OGN

 

Stray Bullets

 

Persepolis, 1 and 2, ya might learn something =p

 

Super Hero Happy Hour

 

NYC Mech

 

Sword of Dracula

 

Street Angel

 

Go find the "My Monkey's Name Is Jennifer" trade, hilarious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
awe4one

awe4one

Posted
Posted

Once a Marvel zombie, always a Marvel zombie I guess...

 

Sure there are other publishers out there but if you're a long time Marvel reader or any publisher really, there's usually a reason. You don't care as much for the other company's product or characters. If so, and I'm talking primarily DC here, you'd already be reading their comics. If one day you decide Marvel current output sucks and you stop buying them, I doubt you would embrace DC with the same zeal as before.

 

Oh...and I think the recent Astro City series is fantastic. But then again, I expect as much...

 

Jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Once a Marvel zombie, always a Marvel zombie I guess...

 

Sure there are other publishers out there but if you're a long time Marvel reader or any publisher really, there's usually a reason. You don't care as much for the other company's product or characters. If so, and I'm talking primarily DC here, you'd already be reading their comics. If one day you decide Marvel current output sucks and you stop buying them, I doubt you would embrace DC with the same zeal as before.

 

Oh...and I think the recent Astro City series is fantastic. But then again, I expect as much...

 

Jim

 

Guess it depends on why you buy your comics. If it's only because you like the characters at one company and are unwilling to sample another company's product then sure, why bother if your favorite Marvel characters start going downhill?

 

Generally that kind of narrow minded brand loyalty thinking went out the window in 1985-6 (when DC adopted a Marvel style continuity and hired Marvel's "big guns" to revamp their characters. DC and Marvel also began unintentionally swapping talent back and forth on a more frequent basis, not to mention the defection of popular Marvel characters to independant companies to launch their own creator-owned books. What was uniquely Marvel - aside from the characters - was no longer at Marvel.), and ithat kind of thinking was dead by 1996 when Marvel had successfully driven away all zombies with a five year onslaught of new titles and crappy concepts/gimmicks (as did the Marvel-inspired image). I suppose their could be such a thing as a "New Marvel" Zombie...

 

But I was talking in general... yes that includes DC, but I didn't mean exclusively DC - that's a 1970's/80's Zombie reaction to automatically think DC as the only other real source of comic material.

 

However, DC does manage to publish a lot more than their regular superhero line.. like Astro City.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Okay...

 

New books (looking over the December Previews and books that are published irregularly):

 

Dark Horse:

B.P.R.D.

Conan

The Goon

Hellboy

Michael Chabon's Adventures of the Escapist

The Moth

 

DC (I'm going to avoid their regular line in this list of picks):

Astro City

Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer

Ex Machina

Fables

I Am Legion

100 Bullets

Planetary

Swamp Thing

We3

Y the Last Man

Alan Moore's ABC line (Tom Strong, et al.)

 

image:

Flaming Carrot

Invincible

Jack Staff

Liberty Meadows

Small Gods

Walking Dead

Wanted

 

Marvel "icon"

Kabuki

Powers

 

other

Army of Darkness

Bart Simpson

Biff! Bam! Pow! (Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer)

Captain Gravity

Cosmic Guard

Dawn

Doc Frankenstein

Hate Annual

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Queen & Country

Simpsons Comics

Strangers in Paradise

 

There's good stuff coming from IDW if you like horror, I couldn't find anything in particular, but the stuff written by Steve Niles is supposed to be pretty good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted
Generally that kind of narrow minded brand loyalty thinking went out the window in 1985-6 (when DC adopted a Marvel style continuity and hired Marvel's "big guns" to revamp their characters. DC and Marvel also began unintentionally swapping talent back and forth on a more frequent basis, not to mention the defection of popular Marvel characters to independant companies to launch their own creator-owned books. What was uniquely Marvel - aside from the characters - was no longer at Marvel.),

 

Kevin, I certainly agree the post-Crisis DC Universe circa 1985 was a conscious attempt to woo the Marvel readers, with Byrne's Superman re-boot and Miller's Dark Knight the most obvious examples. But swapping talent between Marvel and DC was a well-established trend even back in the 1970s.

 

- Neal Adams did Deadman, Brave & Bold, Green Lantern and Batman and Avengers & X-Men more or less simultaneously

- Denny O'Neil started at Charlton, did a brief Marvel stint (Dr. Strange), then spear-headed the DC Bronze Age until about 1977, when he moved to Marvel as an editor.

- Gerry Conway went back and forth between Marvel and DC too often to count in the 1970s.

- Steve Englehart left Marvel in 1977 or so and did a year's worth of DC stories for JLA, Detective, Mr. Miracle before briefly "retiring"

- Roy Thomas left Marvel around 1981 to exclusively write for DC for the next few years.

- Marv Wolfman (and George Perez) doing the New Teen Titans launch in 1980.

 

...not to mention the most famous defection of Jack Kirby to DC in the 1970-1975 period.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rob_react

rob_react

Posted
Posted

Michael Chabon's Adventures of the Escapist

Astro City

I Am Legion

 

There's good stuff coming from IDW if you like horror, I couldn't find anything in particular, but the stuff written by Steve Niles is supposed to be pretty good.

 

I missed mentioning those first three.

 

All of the Humanoids stuff that I've read (White Lama, Metabarons, Technopriests) has been really good.

 

IDW is never on the ship lists (if that's where you culled your stuff from) confused-smiley-013.gif

 

From them, I've really enjoyed all three minis from the 30 Days of Night franchise, the Aleister Arcane mini, Remains (although I hear the last issue is a disappointment), and Singularity 7 (gettin' ready for the nanobot, gray goo apocalypse.) From what I've seen Metal Gear Solid will be good as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing