Comics!

[AloeVega]

Anyone else here into comic books?

I like a really wide variety of comics, and have for a pretty long time. In terms of superheroes, I know a lot about DC and not very much about Marvel, and a few of my favorite characters are Superman, Animal Man, and Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner is my favorite Green Lantern, and Green Lantern is definitely my favorite superhero right now).

More recently, I've been getting into Disney's Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comics, originally created by Carl Barks. These comics are made by companies which license the rights to these characters from Disney, and not Disney itself, which means they tend to have a little bit more "bite" to them than actual Disney cartoons a lot of the time, with stuff like social satire being present pretty often. Interestingly, these comics were super popular in the world as a whole, but their popularity fizzled out in America pretty soon after Carl Barks first created them. This means a lot of the newer Duck comics are from European artists and writers, even though the one who created them was an American (Carl Barks). The biggest exception is Don Rosa, an American artist/writer who is often regarded as the best person other than Barks himself to write Duck comics.

I really like these Duck comics because they very effectively capture a feeling of adventure. A pretty common story formula for the Donald Duck stories is that Donald ends up having to go on a hunt for some sort of treasure, often due to some sort of bureaucratic failure (there's the social satire :omg:k:smile:. In these stories, they'll often go through 3 or 4 different settings all around the world, and they always feel very distinct. There's a lot of comedy in these stories as well, but the emphasis of the stories usually feels like it's more about the adventure than the comedy. I don't like Scrooge McDuck comics as much as Donald Duck comics, but his comics are also pretty great, most of them having Scrooge either trying to defend his riches against a perceived threat (real or otherwise) or trying a new scheme to make more money.

What's also nice about the Duck comics is that they're pretty loose on continuity, and there's no specific reading order. It's a nice breath of fresh air from superhero comics, where each story is building on 70+ years of continuity. In the Duck comics, there's just a consistent setup, and each story is a standalone thing, which can pick up elements from earlier stories or not, depending on what the writer feels like doing! This means you can just read any story you find interesting in any order.

Disney comics fans have also created a really helpful index with information about the different comics stories called Inducks, which I consider one of the coolest sites on the internet.

Anyway, this turned into a long post about Duck comics, which wasn't quite what I intended, but that's alright haha. If anyone else likes to read comics, please reply and talk about what you've been reading lately!

[Guest]

I read a lot of comics as a kid. Mostly the Sonic the Hedgehog series ran by Archie Comics, but I also have a few scattered Spider-Man issues, a couple of Ren & Stimpy comics, and one old TMNT comic where they were in space and there was a giant cow head that was also a flying saucer? I was mostly into the TMNT movies and cartoon series, so I decided the comics were too weird for me after that.

I have tried to get back into comics a few times as an adult. I picked up the first volume of Ultimate X-Men because I liked the idea of a series starting fresh from the beginning so you didn't have decades of backstory to catch up on, but eventually the Ultimate universe reached the same problem. Ongoing series are just too hard for me to keep up with, so now I mostly just pick up the odd graphic novel or mini-series here and there.

The last couple that I read were the "Thrillkiller"/"Thrillkiller '62" Batgirl miniseries and "We Hate Tank Girl."

[AloeVega]

The Archie Sonic comics are great! Ken Penders' stories are of questionable quality, but at least they're interesting, and Ian Flynn's stuff is great. And yeah, the TMNT comics are a lot...weirder, than the TV show. I haven't really gotten into TMNT, but that's actually why, from what I have seen, I like the comics more :omg:k:.

I definitely sympathize with having trouble keeping up with ongoing series - especially with changing writers, it's hard to even tell if you should keep reading a series, or if it's gonna turn to crap with a new writer *coughcoughBendisonSupermancough*.

I haven't read those Batgirl series, did you like them? Tank Girl is an absolute classic too.

[Guest]

And yeah, the TMNT comics are a lot...weirder, than the TV show. I haven't really gotten into TMNT, but that's actually why, from what I have seen, I like the comics more :omg:k:.

I definitely appreciate weird more now than I did as a kid. I think it just wasn't what I was expecting based on the movies and show.

it's hard to even tell if you should keep reading a series, or if it's gonna turn to crap with a new writer *coughcoughBendisonSupermancough*.

This is what happened with the New 52 Batwoman series. It started out great, but then the entire creative team left in protest of DC's handling of Kate Kane's marriage and they had to wrap up the story without them. The artwork suddenly went from amazing to looking like it was sketched on a napkin and the writing was horribly rushed.

I haven't read those Batgirl series, did you like them?

Thrillkiller is really interesting. It's an elseworld story set during the '60s. It has a female Joker-analog who is a gangster named Bianca Steeplechase and Barbara Gordon is the wealthy heiress who becomes a vigilante while Bruce Wayne is a GCPD detective. The artwork is also amazing. Every panel is a full painting.

[ggnonicon]

I love comics  
Im much more familiar with like, manga/japanese comics than I am with whatever other types there are? But I've dabbled a bit.

I've read some of the Sandman comics, The Dreaming, read a chunk of The Incal, I used to really like Calvin and Hobbes, I read through all of Saga, uhhhhh what else... Oh I like Megg and Mogg! And most recently I was on like issue #8 of The Maxx.
I used to own some Tank Girl offshoots, but sold em a while back during a move

These duck comics sound funny and fun to read... I wonder if they exist on my library app

[Guest]

Oh I absolutely love the Duck comics! They were my childhood!
Did you have the Scrooge McDuck biography? I DEVOURED that as a kid.

[tarocchilla]

I LOVE COMICS!
Actually, my comicbooks collection is probably the only tidy part of my room :omg:k:

I am more into manga thanks to my weeb 12yo self, and since i am italian i also read a lot of italian comics...

My cousin was REALLY into micky mouse/duffy duck comics as a kid, and i have a collection of disney comics made by
the best authors i have to say scrooge and paperoga were my favs and still are ...

Right now i'm reading an italian comicbook called Cybersix that's insanely intentionally filthy ... and to think i had a few volumes of it in the bathroom when i was a kid! Unfortunatley it's very obscure and has no english translation but if i discover a way to scan comicbooks without ripping the seams it might exist in the future :omg:k:

[ggnonicon]

I LOVE COMICS!
Right now i'm reading an italian comicbook called Cybersix that's insanely intentionally filthy ... and to think i had a few volumes of it in the bathroom when i was a kid! Unfortunatley it's very obscure and has no english translation but if i discover a way to scan comicbooks without ripping the seams it might exist in the future :omg:k:

I havent tried looking, but is Cybersix findable online? I know spanish fluently so I imagine I could understand the gist of an italian translation

[tarocchilla]

I havent tried looking, but is Cybersix findable online? I know spanish fluently so I imagine I could understand the gist of an italian translation

I only found it on italian ebay and there were only a few collections, some publishers are still printing some volumes but all the collections are incomplete! And unfortunatley there is no place to read it online

[Guest]

I've read some of the Sandman comics, The Dreaming, read a chunk of The Incal, I used to really like Calvin and Hobbes, I read through all of Saga, uhhhhh what else... Oh I like Megg and Mogg! And most recently I was on like issue #8 of The Maxx.
I used to own some Tank Girl offshoots, but sold em a while back during a move

I totally forgot about Saga! I really liked it for a while. I read the first five volumes, but after that it felt like the series was dragging on. I was hoping it would have been something shorter, but the characters and world they created were really amazing.

I also should have mentioned the Mike Mignola comics I've read. I have a few collected editions of Hellboy, which are all great, as well as his Batman comics. Most people talk about Gotham by Gaslight, but I found the story so predictable that I actually cringed at the end. The one that really amazes me is The Doom That Came to Gotham. It's a Lovecraftian take on Batman, with the most disturbing version of Two-Face you'll ever see.

I also have Aliens: Salvation, but the story of that one is pretty lame; and The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects, which is really cool. There is also a pilot episode for a planned animated Screw-On Head series that you can watch on YouTube. Sad that it was never picked up.

[ggnonicon]

I totally forgot about Saga! I really liked it for a while. I read the first five volumes, but after that it felt like the series was dragging on. I was hoping it would have been something shorter, but the characters and world they created were really amazing.

I totally agree. I got pretty tired of reading it after a while but I did end up finishing it. I also hadn't expected it to be a long thing. I actually think recently I saw they were picking it up again, like, continuing it or something? And I was just like... Sheesh. But it is prolly one of the only american Comics I read all the way through.

[debleb]

I really like the Paper Girl comics. I've read the whole series at least 4 times!

[Swiftpaw]

I've been obsessed with Legion of Superheroes since I was a kid, and even though I've read the classic, 90s, and 2005 run, the only run I'd say I like is the 90s run which I'd really recommend. I also love X-Men but I haven't tried to read it yet because I'm not sure where to start. I'm kind of blanking right now on what else I've read but as a kid I read through a lot in my dad's collection

I've been meaning to check out the Duck comics for awhile now. My dad actually read those as a kid, but all of his copies he has are in Italian haha

[nsequeira119]

In terms of comics, there are 3 categories I read regularly- old newspaper strips from the 1920s and 30s, my favorite being Thimble Theatre by Elzie Segar, EC Comics from the late 40s and early 1950s, and anything from DC Comics between 1939 and 1955. All of these, I'd argue, have had a significant impact on my own work in the field of comics, and have helped show me how well comics can be utilized as a medium.

I've read the first 50 or so issues of Batman and the first 20 or so issues of Wonder Woman. With H.G. Peter's art in particular on Sensation Comics I find a sort of pleasing aesthetic classical sensibility, the likes of which isn't really present in Batman or Superman from that timeframe. Then again, all 3 titles are going for completely different moods.

I'm a controversial cartoonist in that I reject most well-regarded comics of the canon- Watchmen, Maus, A Contract With God, The Killing Joke, etc. I find virtually nothing appealing about them, when compared to the raw hedonistic fun an EC Comic drawn by Jack Davis or Wally Wood offers up. I believe that the Old Witch, Crypt Keeper, and Vault Keeper are some of the greatest characters comics have ever produced, and all too often never get the clout they deserve.

If you're looking to read some fantastic comics, any EC Comics will do the trick- Weird Science, Tales From The Crypt, Shock SuspenStories, etc. Not reading them would be doing yourself a disservice.