Happy National Comic Book Day!

[thatcrazycajun]

It's such an embarrassment for a lifelong comics geek like me to admit, but I totally spaced on today being National Comic Book Day (not to be confused with Free Comic Book Day, which happens in May) until cadhla reminded me by way of her post on the subject. And isn't it wonderful that even after the 1990s implosion of several comic-book publishers due to the bursting of the speculators' bubble, there are today so many houses putting out such great books? Makes it damn hard for a fella to save any money these days, I tell ya.

So what comics do I recommend? Well, The Seanan's list is certainly a good starting place, and I heartily second her recommendations of the Foglios' Girl Genius and Vaughan & Guerra's sadly-now-ended Y: The Last Man. (To those who've read the latter, can't you just see this becoming a CW or Sci Fi TV series? I'd cast Vincent Kartheiser [Angel's Connor, now on AMC's Mad Men] as Yorick and Gina Torres [Firefly's Zoe and so much else] as Agent 355.) Beyond that, my all-time faves list includes:

• Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. (I liked it decades before the upcoming movie made it cool. So there. Nyahh.) A landmark in comics, period. Paragraph.
• Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Another watershed work that puts a dystopian-future spin on the most iconic characters in all of comic books, from Superman to Captain Marvel. And Ross' all-painted artwork makes it worth the money all by itself.
• Any X-Men or related title ever written and/or edited by Chris Claremont. The man was quite simply the best thing to happen to Professor Charles Xavier and his students, and all their assorted supporting cast, since Lee and Kirby first created them.
• Man of Steel, by John Byrne. The 1985 post-Crisis On Infinite Earths reboot of the original superhero, with Byrne's faboo artwork and the masterstroke of making Lex Luthor the one kind of villain Supes couldn't simply punch out: a corporate robber baron. Did more for the Superman mythos in four issues than most of DC's previous writers and editors had done in half a century.
• Camelot 3000, by Mike Barr and Brian Bolland. Pound for British pound, the best handling—and updating—of the Arthurian legend I've seen in comics, before or since. The twist given to poor, luckless Sir Tristan's reincarnation made it worth slogging through a 12-issue maxi-series (and waiting endless months for the long-delayed finale) all by itself.
• Batman: The Killing Joke, by Moore and Bolland. The Joker gets serious about challenging the society that condemns him and sets out to prove that no one's more than one bad day away from being as crazy as him...not even a straight-arrow like Gotham PD Commissioner Jim Gordon. And he makes a permanent, radical change in the mythos by crippling Jim's daughter Barbara, in one of the most memorable scenes ever drawn for comics.
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller. The art could be better for my money, but the story absolutely could not. Another comics landmark; too bad Frank screwed up the sequel so badly.
• The Rocketeer, by the late Dave Stevens. Read it and you'll see why Hollywood was so eager to make a movie of it...and find out how much you missed if you only saw the film.
• American Flagg!, by Howard Chaykin. The fantastic Chaykin drawing style! The pungent social satire!  The hilarious future history! The manly fisticuffs! The scads of lingerie-clad cheesecake! What's not to love? (And if you like this, check out Chaykin's other world, Time², if you can find a copy of the two graphic novels that featured it.)
• Anything currently being written and/or produced by Joss Whedon. His Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 is being put out by Dark Horse, and his Angel: After the Fall by IDW. (An eerie echo of the two-network presentation of the original shows, that.)

Got any must-reads you want to add? Feel free.

Comments

[poltr1]

Many great suggestions. From my all-time must-reads list:

MythAdventures! as drawn by Phil Foglio. Phil drew the adaptation for the first volume of Robert Asprin's "Myth" series.

Zot! by Scott McCloud. Some may say the story and art are simplistic, but it has a lot of heart.

The original ElfQuest by Wendy & Richard Pini. Excellent story and artwork. I even took a college-level class on all the Native American myths ad folktales incorporated into the story.

Megaton Man by Don Simpson. Great pastiche of the superhero genre. And hilariously funny!

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

That's a good list to start with -- off the top of my head, I'd add:

Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?, Moore's "finale" story for the Silver Age Superman.

Superman & Batman: Generations, Byrne's Elseworld limited series in which he discards the usual convention of finagling things so that the characters stay the same age as time goes by.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

Looking across the shelf next to the computer desk where I keep my graphic novels:

Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio. A Victorian-seeming world ruled by Mad Science... with decidedly mixed results. Funny, scary and thrilling, balanced perfectly.

Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai. Samurai tales done so well you forget at times that the characters are funny animals. Meticulously researched, with special care toward the lives and customs of ordinary folk, not just the lordly.

Bone by Jeff Smith. Imagine Walt Kelly's The Lord of the Rings and you've got something of the flavor. A trio on the run from the land of the silly blobby cartoon people suddenly find themselves in a more realistically drawn land of dragons, magic, lost royalty and Dark Threats to Humanity. Not to mention stupid, stupid rat creatures...

Last but by no means least: The Sandman by Neil Gaiman et al. "They are whispered of in the inner mysteries: the Seven, who are not prayed to, who are not gods, who were never men." Ancient legend and the present-day world mix in a cauldron of dreams, and what emerges is a mythology both timeless and modern: how the Prince of Stories finally got his own tale, and at what price...

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

To me this commemorative day keeps scanning to "National Brotherhood Week". Surely that's a filk waiting to be written.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

I ADORED Camelot 3000. I think it was what got me into comics in the first place, alongside of the old original ...merf. I've forgotten it's name. And the name of the hero is the name of the comic, so I guess I'm out of luck for now...

But rose petals. I still want some...