Those are a lot of comics, Spoony.

Wow, what a treat! This got posted the instant I showed up at your would-be doorstep. Time to watch!

Oh man, I totally agree with your Hellblazer sentiment.

I was in a comic shop during a roadtrip to Atlanta, and I couldn’t remember which Hellblazer trade came after the one I was reading, so I ended up going with the first trade of Transmetropolitan (Agreeing with you, it’s amazing), Lucifer, and one of the Walking Dead series trades.

I really dig these spur of the moment videos you do where you just turn on the camera and shoot the shit with the viewer. Very articulate and well-voiced opinions. Good stuff.

Oh man, I totally agree with your Hellblazer sentiment.

I was in a comic shop during a roadtrip to Atlanta, and I couldn’t remember which Hellblazer trade came after the one I was reading, so I ended up going with the first trade of Transmetropolitan (Agreeing with you, it’s amazing), Lucifer, and one of the Walking Dead series trades.

I really dig these spur of the moment videos you do where you just turn on the camera and shoot the shit with the viewer. Very articulate and well-voiced opinions. Good stuff.

Hell yeah! Hellblazer!!! Such a great great comic book series. Spoony, I don’t ask you for anything, but please please please!!!! do some reviews of Hellblazer arcs. PLEASE!!! You needs to bring knowledge of this epic comic series to you viewing audience! >.<

Love the old Conan comics too.

Sgt. Rock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Rock

The single greatest non-superhero comic DC ever made.

Other than that, Unknown Soldier, Weird War Tales, and The Other Side are really good if you want more War-related comics.

can’t beleve i don’t see anything deadpool..deadpool & cable

I am likewise a big Hellblazer fan, and man do I hear you about the lack of numbering. On the topic of authors you dislike, I’m wondering if you’re like me and have a profound distaste for Brian Azzerello. 100 Bullets was a decent series, but every time that guy touches another series he just doesn’t do anything good with it; I thought his Batman stuff was just awful and the few Hellblazer stories of his I read failed to change my opinion.

Thanks for alerting me to the existence of Gravel, I’ve just recently gotten into Ellis (really enjoying Planetary right now) and I will have to check that out.

Anything by Don Rosa like “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck” Really Disney Comics are fucking awesome

great video!!! do you have any deadpools. if not check it out

great video!!! do you have any deadpools. if not check it out

Sgt. Rock was AWESOME! Probably the one comic I really got into.

man, I feel the same way about Grant Morrison. Final Crisis… that thing started like it was going somewhere, like it was building up but then it felt like they had to cut out a few issues from the main event so it just ended in the most disheveled way.

It just felt so messy and that’s also why I hated Batman R.I.P. In fact, while R.I.P. was going on, I was just reading Detective Comics as Paul Dini was doing an infinitely better arc with Hush as the main villain, a character that really was not that well liked. Paul did such a good job evolving Hush, creating this really gripping story. It was simple but it worked, you didn’t have to read like every tie in with 3D glasses under the sun to get what was going on.

Very interesting. :D I’ve got a good example of a “comic with a historical perspective.” Have you ever heard of the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman? It’s rather short, only 2 books long. It’s about Art’s father, Vladek, and his survival as a Jew in Nazi Germany during WWII. The story alternates between Vladek’s past and the present, which focuses on Art and his relationship with his father. I found both volumes at an art exhibition last year promoting “visual media” (ie comics, graphic novels, games, etc.), but I think you could find it at your local bookstore or comic shop rather easily.

I enjoyed this vlog: I’ve been curious as to just what sort of comics are out there, aside from the very famous ones. :P I’m kind of a comic noob, I guess. Mainly, I’ll read random ones, like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc. Thanks for posting!

You might like the Ballad of Sleeping Beauty I don’t know if it was ever finished but it was a fairytale meets western comic and really nicely done. Though I admit I never got to read the end.

Grant Morrison for me he is either right on the ball or really off, I don’t think he write establish team comics well, I mean I like Doom Patrol and he well… good god. I can’t say. However I really and currently enjoying his Batman stuff. So definitely not loosing me over that.

Actually I have been really sick recently and I just load you up and listen to you rant which oddly makes me feel better, so thank you.

I’m confused here, you have a Buffy board game? Firstly, I’m going to say that it’s pretty cool, but surprising.

In your Serenity review you did a while ago, you said that you considered yourself to be the biggest Buffy-hater in the world, and now we find that you own a board game based on the series?

What is going on here Mr Spoony? Did you see the light?

Re: Historical comics: Check out some of DC’s western titles from the ’70s onward, especially Jonah Hex. A lot of the classic Hex comics are collected in two Showcase Presents trades.

Re: Historical comics: Check out some of DC’s western titles from the ’70s onward, especially Jonah Hex. A lot of the classic Hex comics are collected in two Showcase Presents trades.

You will love Starman! Probably one of the better, less known, comics that DC put out in the 90s. It blew my mind how good it was.

Oh, and check out some early Vertigo horror/suspense titles, especially Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing” and Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman”, if you haven’t already.

Yes, I definitely noticed a criminal lack of Sandman on your shelf. For shame.

as for historical stories, the recent Jonah Hex comics by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray aren’t really superhero kind of comics and are pretty much your western comics, which I think are pretty good and really don’t focus on anything supernatural or sci-fi or anything and there’s Punisher: Born, a Punisher story with Frank Castle in the Vietnam War, but not really a superhero story and more about Frank Castle in Vietnam War, although I think you have that one in your Garth Ennis Punisher collection

as for Grant Morrison, I kinda agree, some of his recent has been a clusterfuck especially Final Crisis but some of his early was excellent I think, I liked We3

hopefully you have other stuff like Astro City, other Brian K. Vaughn comics like Pride of Baghdad and Ex Machina, Ed Brubaker’s stuff like Captain America and Criminal, Fables, the Justice Leage International, Geoff Johns’s stuff like Booster Gold and The Flash, Robert Kirkman stuff like Invincible and Walking Dead, or obviously Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, also I see you have Kingdom Come, I would like to hear your opinions on that, which I enjoyed personally

as for Deadpool, as somebody mentioned, yeah, he was a Rob Liefeld character but the character has developed on his own thanks to Joe Kelly that others followed now

I’m surprised you didn’t point out Empowered. I’m curious whether you think it was better than it first appeared or whether it fell flat attempting to be more than a T&A comic.

Concerning Starman, DC Comics is releasing it as a 6-volume Omnibus now. It collects all of the issues, even ones that weren’t in the original trades. I’d look into it if you don’t already have the full collection. (At least one of the old trades of Starman is near-impossible to find; trust me, I tried.)

If you haven’t read it yet, V for Vendetta is pretty good. So is BONE, but it’s a bit more humorous and should not be taken so seriously.

Oh, man. I wish there had been comics in Finland too. I mean, hell yeah there was these stores that would sell, but it was kinda messed up. It’s hard to explain.

I would love to read comics, but all we have is endless waves of manga. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mangas cool.

But still, comics rule.

If you’re interested in other comics that aren’t superhero-oriented, but worth a look, I’ve got a few recommendations. You might have already read these, but why not:

Kid Beowulf – I ended up getting this at Comicon, so I don’t know how hard it would be to find in a regular shop.
Pride of Baghdad – One-shot comic about a group of lions who escape from a zoo during a bombing of the city. Done in “realistic” style, talking animals aside.
We3 – Three animals engineered into killer cyborgs, who escape from their masters and try to find a way to survive and find a home.
Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun – Jesus as a gunslinging bad-ass. Has some needless toilet humor which I found off-putting, but otherwise the comic is kinda funny. Again, I got this at Comicon, so it probably won’t be too easy to find.
The Walking Dead – If you already mentioned this, sorry. But its one of the best zombie comics ever made.
30 Days of Night – Vampires invading a town in Alaska, which is so far north that during winter, it has a full month of total darkness. It’s spawn numerous sequals I haven’t read, but the original is pretty good.
Strikeforce: Morituri – It does have some superhero elements, but its largely a war story. Its about a group of teenagers/young adults who are given super powers in order to battle an alien menace. However, acquiring this power kills them within a year. Due to this, the cast changes a lot, but it has good characterization and some surprising and quick character development. However, this is an obscure, hard to find series from the 80s, so I doubt you’d find this anywhere other than amazon, eBay, or endless comic bins.

So you prefer to write scripts over dealing with a lot of individual issues, tell us more?

Awesome you have the Mouseguard trade paperback I love that comic.

Nice collection. There’s nothing wrong with collecting TPB’s. I only buy TPB’s, (though, I live in Sweden and the TPB’s are easier to get a hold of and way less expensive to import than the single issues)

Northlanders: Return of Sven is a really good viking comic. It’s a revenge story in the same vein as the movie Hrafninn flýgur.

I can’t believe you showed us Spider-man loves Mary Jane and didn’t talk about it. We must know why you own that girly drama comic! Also, as for Spider-man writers sucking recently, I think Bendis is a really good Spider-man writer. I remember reading the Ultimate Spider-man comics and thinking how Spidy was so much more like himself in those than in the main comic.

Hey Spoony if you enjoy Ellis and are curious about historical comics a one shot called CRECY is very good if you haven’t read it. About an English long bowman in the 11th century in a war against the franks.

Came to post about Sgt. Rock. Saw I’ve been beaten to the punch a couple times already, but I would just like to reiterate that Sgt. Rock is indeed very good. I only followed comics for like a two year period, but I read a lot of Rock in that period and it was probably the best of the bunch. Loveless was another pretty cool historical comic, took place in the antebellum south, but it was canceled after issue 14 or something so it may not be worth the time.

Spoony, if you like more serious and realistic comics I think you should check out some manga. In particular Vinland Saga (about vikings, it’s badass) and Monster (modern crime thriller).

The Starman trades are as follows:
Sins of the Father; Night and Day; A Wicked Inclination; Times Past; Infernal Devices; To Reach the Stars; A Starry Knight; Stars My Destination; Grand Guignol; Sons of the Father

You and Linkara should do an At4W Spider-Man special, because it isn’t possible to beat that horse enough. Every time you think it can’t get any worse, the writers find a way.

Sounds like you’ve got quite the comic collection, Spoony. Sometimes I think I’m really missing something by just being a casual fan of video-game comics. Fortunately for me, though, there’s a comic and card shop that’s a decent walk from my apartment that I’ve been meaning to check out the entire time I’ve lived here. In the meantime, though, it might be fun to have a look at the last couple Sonic X comics I’ve got, if I can just remember where I stashed them…

Hm…the ISBN I wrote may be for the Australian printing. DC lists “ISBN 9781401207205″ for the US copies.

For a historical comic I really recommend you Tsukasa Hojo Works. I know it’s a manga but it’s not written with panty shots, big eyed girls and super human powers. It deals allot with the hardships of the World War 2 and it’s effects on some people and it’s full of bitter sweet stories. I don’t know if you can find them at a store but I really recommend them if you like historical graphics novels without supernatural elements.

I am just getting in to comics (batman basically) but I want to give the hellblazer series a shot… Problem is I have no idea which ones are any good… any suggestions?

If you want realistic comics, you could always turn to what I (was forced to) read growing up: Boy’s Life. The Boy Scout official magazine had all sorts of awesome, real-life comics about famous boy scouts, and boy scouts saving the day, and… one really short but really cool story about Hercules. It was cool at the time, and probably the coolest thing the magazine ever did.

Boy’s Life was shit.

Oh yeah! Ask your library about Inter-Library Loan. You can borrow books from any library in the world. So if your library doesn’t have comics X Y or Z, they can order it from somewhere else. Working at a library can teach you all sorts of tricks.

I shall definitely check a few of those out. I know basically nothing when it comes to comic books, though of course, I must now be the nerd and ask you whether you have ever read any Sandman, of Neil Gaiman.

Ben: This is very true! I expanded how many comics I read thanks to the new library loans of trades! At $40 a trade (usually) this is a godsend! Especially with long tales such as Promethea, Sandman or Transmetropolitan.

Although I don’t think they’ve realised they need to keep an eye on what’s rated what. They have MAX comics there, and it’s been adapted into part of the same area holding Asterix and Tintin. O.o

SPOONY: I’d recommend Invincible and just for fun, Tales From The Clerks if you liked the Kevin Smith View Askewniverse movies. The comics DO fill the blanks between movies, and it’s all canon!

Batman’s No Man’s Land saga is awesome as hell. Gotham City devastated by an earthquake and all hell breaks loose. Buildings destroyed, batcave exposed, Arkham broken open, the works!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man's_Land_(comics)

Re: Phonogram

It’s funny. I know virtually nothing about Britpop, but I enjoyed it in spite of all the musical references. I liked the characters and the plot and, as I said, I didn’t find the references nearly as intrusive as you did.

Re: Black Gas

It’s strange, but I actually had to stop reading it because I grew attached to the characters and I couldn’t stand seeing horrible stuff happen to them.

Re; Avatar Press

I live in a Chicago suburb. Since Avatar Press is based in Illinois, most Chicago area stores usually Avatar trades. They come in almost literally hot off the presses. You can actually smell the coloring when they get to the stores.

As far as comic book recommendation go – have you ever read Garth Ennis’ Enemy Ace mini. It’s fairly good, though it has a few week points.

Actually, I would really love to see your thoughts on Spider-Man. Because, though I am a fan, I really only know of the most recent rape of Spider-Man(Involving the Devil). I would love to hear about how he has been raped over the last decade or so.

Nice collection there! Grant Morrison is alright, though does write weird stuff that I can’t really follow well. Liked 52 with him, though didn’t really like his take on New X-Men, either. Ah well. And the only Warren Ellis related thing I recall seeing was the recent animated GI Joe Resolute, which was pretty well done and I love it. And I hear he’s gonna do an animation adaptation of Castlevania 3, so more good stuff abound, methinks!

I guess I might be in the same field as you when it comes to casual comic reading, though still know a good fair share on some comics, especially related to DC and Marvel. And I get ya what ya mean about Spider-Man, since I can’t really follow his comics these days as well, and have been following him for as long as I remember. My comic collection tends to be the Collection Editions of Marvel Comics sold here in the UK (In that they print 2-3 comics of a character, like say 3 different comic stories of Spider-Man, usually reprints of the latest stories from 2 years ago, and sometimes tossing in a classic story), with some DC Comic tradebacks lately, most of them Batman, and most of them recommended by a comic buff friend of mine and Linkara, of course! And then there’s the Hellboy, Sam & Max, that one Doug TenNapel comic, and many Japanese comics from the 80′s and 90′s. Oh, and the Beano (UK Kid’s comic)

Sweet collection man! Might give Queen and country a try. Some historical I recommend: EC comic archive: Two-fisted tales, Blazing combat, Waltz with Bashir, and Shooting war.

I would totally support you if you decided to make a Blackgas movie. And I would watch it 38 times. In a row.

(ellipses)

not really.

But I would support ya though!

There actually are pretty good comic book stores in Finland, you just have to know where they are or ask someone. The deal with them is that if they don’t have something, you can usually order through them.

Or just get stuff from Amazon or creator owned sites.

Anyhoo.. I digress:
You wanted recommendations for more period bound comics?
Commando comics (British series of war stories) has been going on since 1961. The artists vary and so do the writers but the generation of my dad loved this stuff.
Corto Maltese comics in general have a period setting… I never really got into them, but most people wax lyrical about the art work and the writing.
Classics Illustrated. All historical all the time. Merits as functioning stand alone comic books debatable. But I loved them as a kid. :)
Peter Madsen’s Valhalla series (if you can find an english translation). A danish graphic novel series about the norse gods. It’s very cartoony, but fun.
Beyond those there are a heap of one offs (published in various european countries at least, since I can’t know about the US small prints) that illustrate from one perspective or another some incident or a period of time in history. Your best bet would probably be to google said event and “comics” to see if they’ve made it to drawn form since there’s.. you know.. a lot of those.

Then there’s of course Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa about surviving the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Buddha – the ridiculously long series by Osamu Tezuka or the shorter and newer series by Deepak Chopra. Really your choice which one to go for if you’re interrested in learning about the life of Buddha. :D

Other works with historical relevance are Maus, Persepolis, Fax From Sarajevo and Palestine though that’s all in the very recent past and you probably already know all of them. Apocalypse Meow is in the bit more distant, but not having read that I can’t say if it’s in any way accurate about anything else besides the sides in war with each other.

I agree Spoony, as a fellow Spider-Man fan, I totally agree how much they have shit on him in the past few years. First being his unmasking. The whole idea of Spidey was based on the fact that he was conflicted about Spider-Man since he just wanted to stop being Spidey and just be Peter Parker. By the writers making him reveal his identity, it made it so that Peter could never have a normal life ever again, he’d be Spider-Man till the day he dies.

The second hatred about Spider-Man was how they made him a member of Tony Starks pro-registration group during the Marvel Civil War since up until the Iron Man movie it made Stark one of the most hated heroes turned turncoats during that time, and having Spidey made to look like a pussy not fighting for what he truely believed in just so that they could turn Captain America into a martyr at the end of the Marvel Civil War was just horrid!

The final problem with Spidey was how they totally ruined the Mary Jane/Spider-Man marriage by not doing a flat out divorce storyline since they thought it would look like a rehash of the Mr. Fantastic/Invisible Woman divorce storyline that was also going on around that time. Instead, they go ahead and do “Mary Jane and Peter forget they were even married” just so that the writers can fiddle in putting back in the Black Cat/Spider-Man romance, which nobody cared about at that point.

And don’t get me started on the “Let’s give Spider-Man the organic webbing from the movie!” deal….

I almost got to work with Arvid Nelson,writer of Rex Mundi.
Really awesome guy and a fellow metalhead.m/

I almost got to work with Arvid Nelson,writer of Rex Mundi.
Really awesome guy and a fellow metalhead.\m/

I have to admit I’m not much of a comic book fan, though I do tend to read up on various superheroes when I’m bored. In fact the only comics I physically own are all Japanese hentai.

Check out “Bottomless Belly Button” by Dash Shaw. Amazing from beginning to end.

Ah a Warren Ellis fan? Ever by chance read Lazarus Churchyard? Possibly my favorite Ellis work

That’s a pretty good shelf. I have to admit mine isn’t half as well stocked, but it is growing… Slowly
If you really was suggestions for War comics try looking up Charlie’s War. It’s about a British soldier in the trenches of the first world war and is the best ever written . Both from a historical and literal perspective. One gap I noticed in your collection (surprising because of the hellblazer collection) was Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing.
After all it introduced Constantine and was Moore’s first big impact on the US comic industry. It’s why they gave him the leeway to make Watchmen and have sadly been over shadowed. I won’t say it’s perfect but it is one of the best Comics series I’ve ever read.

If your interested in comics from a historical perspective then i would recommend Barefoot Gen, but only if you cool with it being a japanese comic, it a comic about when nuclear bomb hit hiroshima, some of it does have a few fictional bits and some silly cliches but the rest of it is brutal experiences of the nuclear bomb. Creator even mentions the aftereffects of the radiation did to his mother. An intense but fantastic read.

I am more of a casual reader when it comes to america comics, the main superhero i used to follow was batman. However, if your interested in non-superheroes then i really would recommend working your way into some manga comics since there is ton of non-superhero comics.

I really gotta recommend GANTZ if you like warren ellis.

If your looking for a good Pirate comic. Dynamic is putting out a Black Beard series. Dynamic puts out alot of good books with excellent artwork. Project Superpowers, Lone Ranger, etc.

Nice to see another Ellis fanboy like myself. I noticed you had a Mouse Guard book, too. In regards to historically-related stuff, Garth Ennis did Crecy, which is quite decent, taking a hybrid view of an average medieval bowman, spliced in with modern day knowledge in such a way that it works wonderfully. It’s also very informative. I never knew what use a Miscericord had, before reading Crecy. As for more Warren Ellis, I noticed you didn’t mention Doktor Sleepless, which is worth a read, though it’s even more ‘out there’ than Transmet. Which is saying something.

I admit though, I don’t mind The Boys, but another series that Garth did was the Punisher MAX stuff, which is worth checking out as well.

I don’t know if you have it or not, but you were talking comics that weren’t about superheroes like Enemy Ace so I was curious: Do you have the Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex? Because it’s very good, especially for a showcase, and it has what you’re looking for.

Also out of curiosity, do you still hate Superman?

Surprised there was no mention of Planetary. I’d say it’s Ellis’s best work, even eclipsing Transmetropolitan.

Please look into the camera next time, it’s distracting to see you look slightly to the left (your right – probably where your Camera-Display is) all the time ;)

There come actually a lot of really good non-superhero comics from France and Belgium, problem is they are often only partially or not at all translated into English.

As far as I know the Blueberry series by Moebius and Charlier is available in English. It’s a western series that begins shortly after the Civil War.

Then there is Yoko Tsuno by Leloup. Its about a japanese electrical engineer and the adventures include SF, mystery and time travel. I really like the drawing style which includes some of the most realistic backgrounds I’ve ever seen.

A good pirate story with at least some historical background would be “The red corsair” again by Charlier. I put the title in quotation marks because I just translated the German title (Der rote Korsar) as this is one of those series that has not yet been translated into English.

If you’re interested in war stories then there is a British comic book series called Commando, it can be hit or miss but they recently released large compilation volumes called things like ‘The Dirty Dozen’ and ‘All Guns Blazing’ which you can find on Amazon.

I’ve enjoyed reading Spider-man since Brand New Day, don’t get me wrong the mephisto idea fucking sucks balls, but after that I’ve enjoyed the stories they’ve told. Nice to have Harry back, I never liked MJ much, and I’m glad Pete is back to being a photographer cause I thought that high school teacher crap was bullshit. I too think the unmasking was stupid, so thank god they retconned that, if the way they did it was dumb. But thats what comic books are right, every now and then they do something fucking retarded, and you just move forward and make the best of it. I think they are on the right track by telling the right kind of stories at least.

Someone above me already mentioned it but I would also suggest you read Barefoot Gen.
They also made an anime movie about it. It is pretty graphic, but then again dropping an atom bomb on innocent civilians in the first place is a horrifying thing to do.

Thanks for the look at your comic collection, I’ve been squinting at the screen trying to see what was on that shelf. Just wanted to assure you you’re not alone in your hatred of Grant Morrison. Mine is a particularly bitter hatred since I’m a huge fan of Batman and he’s had almost sole reign over the character for the last two years. I feel like I can’t even pick up an issue.

My TPB collection is mainly DC. God, Final Crisis wasn’t worth the money I spent, luckily it was on offer and I was trying to complete my DC CRISIS Collection.

Thanks for giving us this look at your comics.
I recomend you The walking dead and Charlies war as non superhero comics.
And a japanese comic called Gen the boy from Hiroshima, its not very mangauesqe.

I highly recommend Maus, a historical graphic novel about the holocaust. Sounds horrid, but it’s very tastefully done and heartfelt. The author retells his own grandfather’s horrific story through a cartoon medium.

About phonogram, which i haven’t read myself, i would like to comment:

If it references to britpop it doesn’t reference to bowie and queen etc., because that’s not britpop. Britpop was a musical movement in the 90′s started by Suede and followed by bands as Blur and Pulp and eventually ended with Oasis. These bands played music heavily influenced by british music (Bowie, the Beatles, Roxy Music, The Kinks etc.). I googled phonogram and a line on the website said: Everyone is A clever clone, a line referencing to Blur’s song Popscene, The song that kickstarted Blur’s career and change in style and the start of the big britpop years.

Thanks a bunch for the comic tour! I’m mostly a DC/Vertigo man myself, so one comic I’d recommend anyone is GREEK STREET (written by Peter Milligan). I think about two issues are out right now and I’m probably going to wait for the tpb/hardcover since I live in Sweden and import on American comics (loose new issues, not tpb) is pretty much non-existant. The comic takes place in London and has Greek legends and mythology in a modern setting. Since legends are usually archetypal stories whose essence and morale can be affixed to any given historical time it’s difficult to fuck it up, but some narrative skill is required to make the modern interpretation of a legend/story interesting for the new audience that ain’t into brawly naked Greeks fighting cyclops. So you get instead a street smart, sharp hero fighting a drug lord with pirate eye patch or something. GREEK STREET did just that, made the modern interpretation interesting but at the same time only half-believable, as myths and legends tend to be. Just read the first issue that has the Oedipus legend and you’ll know what I mean.

Calvin & Hobbes
for me the greatest comic

Great vid, I keep meaning to get transmetropolitan, read first few issues and its awesome, as for grant marrison i can understand not liking him but i do sorta like the new batman and robin comic but thats all didn’t like his batman before that too much, As for spiderman I find Ultimate Spiderman to be a good read even though most Ultimate Marvel got kinda shoddy spiderman remained pritty damn good. Oh and i would suggest Ed Brubakers run of Captain America out of any mainstream comics he has managed a damn good job.

I just read Manga to be honest

If you’re looking for a riveting graphic novel with a historical focus, Spoony, then be sure to check out ‘The Red Star,’ by Christian Gossett.
This series is essentially a techno-fantasy reiteration of the rise and fall of Soviet Russia, with elite spellcasters, sky furnaces and dueling gods clashing amid the communist power struggles that defined this era.
The visuals, which consist of hand-drawn frames colored and textured via computer rendering, are ravishing and suitably gritty, illustrating the oppression and bleak dogma of its alternate-history USSR. The opening issues are told primarily through flashbacks shared over a long train ride, detailing the parallel roles of Marcus and Maya Antares on the battlefield, as they take part in the futile assault on Ali’stan and its demonic guardian.
By the way, a PS2 video game (with cancelled iterations on the Xbox) of the series had been released in April 2007. A third-person action game with beat-em-up elements, this game has received moderately positive reviews from critics and on MobyGames.
Perhaps, if you were to find this comic and video game, you could perform an expose on the strengths and connections of both? The graphic novel provides such a rich, fanciful and imaginative take on Soviet history, and it would be interesting to see whether this angle of dramatizing history has been channelled effectively into the game.
I own no comics, personally, but I do have a soft spot for ‘The Phantom’, of which my father has amassed most of the issues. But I should say that Gossett’s ‘The Red Star’ would be one graphic novel I do certainly wish to own.
Check it out, Spoony. I guarantee you will enjoy this.

Would love a rant about Spiderman.

Hey Spoony,

RE: historical comics, you should check out Chester Brown’s ‘Louis Riel: a comic strip biography’.

Thanks for the look at your comic book shelf Spoony. One of the things I am often fascinated with when it comes to my favourite reviewers is trying to figure out what stuff is in the background.

My favourite Ellis book is “Come in alone” (link at the bottom of the comment. It’s non-fiction, a little dated (2000), but it is a collection of 52 essays on Comics by the man himself – a really, really neat look at the industry from the inside and he does indeed sound a LOT like you in your reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/Come-Alone-Warren-Ellis/dp/0970936001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252933258&sr=8-1

I’d bump a spidey rant too, but maybe you should give some backstory (I mainly watched the cartoonseries that aired here in Belgium). That way bashing won’t be redundant but even more justified :)

As for non-superhero comics, I’d recommend Thorgal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorgal) from Jean Van Hamme and Greg Rosinksi. It mostly combines fantasy and norse mythology with some vague sci-fi in the mix. I read most of ‘em but the last issues were somewhat lacking originality.

Anyway, keep up the good work Spoonay!

p.s.: ask Ed glaser for a spidey sketch! xD

Ive never liked Spider-man really. Great Video Spoony.

Ugh! I hate these shakey POV shots!

Ugh! I hate these shakey POV shots!

Good morning, Spoony.

Once again, thanks for recommending Ellis’ “Black Summer” back in the day. I’d have never known about it otherwise.

Well, the only obscure, or semi-obscure, comic in my library I could recommend to you is Guy Davis’ “The Marquis”. It’s a black/white (mostly) comic set in Renaissance-era, fictional France, with a mentally unstable superhero who fights demons in a rather gruesome story. Guy Davis seems to draw all his men with the same face, but otherwise it’s a good, rated R comic.

If you want a historical war comic you should check out commando comics although Im not sure how graphic they are.
As for your comic collection its an interesting one, I dont really have many lesser known comics since I only started collecting a year or two ago.

I think the least known comics in my collection are the Blacksad series which is a noir detective series with anthropomorphic characters the best part being arctic nation which is a really weird take on racism, the other being Air Doll a french comic which I cannot reccomend enough to people, its a very strange spiritual not-exactly-satire space drama about a artificial girl who is pretty much a sex toy and gets caught up in religious stuff, since I know that you read Transmetropolitan theres a good chance you will like this because its coming from a similar place but with a much more sensitive and feminine touch although that could easily drive you away as well and the art is some of the best Ive seen, although its short I rank it among kingdom come and watchmen as a fantastic read.
The rest of my lesser knowns are mostly the “adult entertainement” variety mostly patric fillions stuff.

Most of the mainstream stuff I have is space based like guardians of the galaxy, the infinity series, annihilation, green lantern, space ghost (have a large collection of it but still havent read it) Im steadily working my way backwards through time and Ive started getting into magic/myth based stuff like hercules, thor (I have the whole of the 3rd volume) strange, shadowpact, spectre, I tend to stay away from the very mainstream stuff like batman, spiderman, superman etc and go for something different like final crisis aftermath: dance which is a really good satire on superhero ego’s.

Thanks for sharing your comics with us and thanks for reading this.

I saw PvP on there. are you a fan?

Ohh how i pray that you like Batman: The Killing Joke!

“I do have a lot of individual issues.”
Yes, we know, but we still love you! ;)

hahaaa… most honest AND funny quote from ol’ Spoony in this video:

“..I DO have a lot of individual issues..”

mwahahaaaaaaaa

I noticed the Punisher Max series If you liked it you should also check out Welcome Back Frank.

Anyone else think that Spoony looks a lot like Aaron Rodgers?

Spoony! Transmet! They’re re-releasing it in combined trades! (Two at a time. One and two combined are out, as are three and four. I don’t know any further)

I like Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, but that’s about it. It needs no continuity for the characters, so as weird as it is, it WORKS. He’s not destroying actual characters.

oh, hey, Empowered

cool

I think you may enjoy Les Passagers du vent by François Bourgeon. I’m not sure what it’s called in english (probably Passengers of the wind), but I’m pretty sure it’s been translated. It takes place during the time period when Britain was heavily into the slave trade. I found it to be quite gripping.

blah blah…
old friend…
help Spoony…
but he’s not listening…
or wrote his old friends off… =P

I think i saw some mouse guard over there xD what an awsome book, amazingly well drawn

by any chance own any swamp thing my favourite moore comic and it has some constantine in it that’s why i asked

great video as usual, till next

I could never, ever hate Spider-man, but I can sure punch Joe Quesada in the soul for ruining my childhood hero.

Have you read/own Y the Last Man Spoony? If not I would highly recommend it.

It was written by Brain K. Vaughan (same guy that did Runaways) and is amazing from start to finish.

If you want to get into history-related comics, I recommend checking out european stuff because that’s kind of a focus of quite a few authors, especially in the belgian scene of late 80s until late 90s.
A problem might be that a lot of them aren’t translated to english, so you’d have to dig quite a bit. Also, I hear they’re hard to get in the states in general. Your first stop should be trade shows and shit. Maybe try to import things as well.
Unfortunately, the general internet isn’t really invested into european comics to the extent I am (me being German and all). So you might want to actually talk to people who know a thing or two about the topic instead of digging through Google search results.

It would be quite a shame if you lost fans just because you don’t like a particular writer. I mean I watched you pretty much rape my childhood with that Final Fantasy VIII review, and I still think you’re a great entertainer :D! Anyways keep up the interesting stuff Spoony.

Hah, that’s hillarious. I’m going to have to hunt down Phonogram now because I’m heavely into the music that it talks about. The fact that the first volume’s cover has to do with Black Grape’s first release (a band formed by Happy Mondays singer Sean Ryder) seals it.

Queen and Bowie are not in the same genre at all! I

I love when the reason someone else hates something I love it.

Hah, that’s hillarious. I’m going to have to hunt down Phonogram now because I’m heavely into the music that it talks about. The fact that the first volume’s cover has to do with Black Grape’s first release (a band formed by Happy Mondays singer Sean Ryder) seals it.

Queen and Bowie are not in the same genre at all! I

I love when the reason someone else hates something I love it.

Oh spoony, your videos make my 6 hours of chemo go by so much faster. Thank you.

Gotta say, I’ve never been that into Marvel Comics, I find them to be too ‘kiddie’ for some reason, I’m not sure why. I prefer the grittiness of Comics such as THE WALKING DEAD (of which I have a signed sketch by Charlie Adlard of a Zombified Rick :D) and the current BLACKEST NIGHT in DC continuity. Not to say i hate Marvel, I really enjoy their adaption of Stephen King’s THE STAND and the DARK TOWER stories that they publish, it’s just their line of superheroes that don’t appeal to me.

You have the Buffy boardgame. That game is so much fun!

I see that your not into super hero comics there is another comic done by Vertigo comics called Fables by Bill Willingham.
It’s another take on fractured-fairy-tales. The child hood characters are in danger and have to flee their own lands into the real world to live and survive. They must disguise themselves to fit in with the modern world of the “mundies”
Some of the characters in the series are Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, Beauty and Beast, Boy Blue, Pinnochio and so on and so forth.
It has a lot of history on how these story book characters came to the mundy world, what they do with their lives, and do what they have to do in order to stay out of the grasp of the “Adversary”.
I enjoy this series quite a lot. For me it’s a completely different take on how the child hood storybook characters you grew up with are really affected in real life.
I myself don’t like picking up the individual comics but I prefer the collections or volumes so I have atleast 15 comics in one book.
I will say that after reading each book it leaves you hanging on wanting more of what will come in the next book.
If you do check out this series and enjoy it there are also two other spinoffs from this series.
Jack of Fables and comming in October Peter and Max.
I’m slowly trying to acquire a comic book collection but haven’t really found anything that I enjoy so far, thus why I collect manga.
Walking Dead, I hear is a very good series to read.
Well good luck on your search. Hope you find something you like.

Ya ever thought about reading some comics from the Games Workshop Tabletops Warhammer and Warhammer 40k?

They’re made by Boom Studios, and the most of them are pretty good. They capture the gritty, grimdark feeling of the Tabletops and most of them have just a kickass art style (except Defenders of Ultramar).

I used to think Grant Morrison was a genius…until Final Crisis, then he just crossed the line from genius to batshit insane.

I’m probably around the same level of comic-fandom as you are, mostly I buy comics when their entire run has been put out in a nice book (plus it’s usually cheaper than buying each individual issue).

Hmm, shall have to devote some time to checking out some of the Ellis works that aren’t Transmet now that I’ve finally finished reading 100 Bullets, methinks!

if there’s an unsung aspect of comics, it’s gotta be the Disney stories. I think everyone that’s read The Life and Times of Scrooge Macdog mini-series will agree that that is one of the best things that’s happened to comics over the years. The 90′s might have sucked for the superhero comics but for the disney books the 90′s were the golden years man. Don Rosa was the MAN, sadly he’s withdrawn now.

oh and on the subject of historic comics, you should check out Tintin.

Hey Spoony, a good trade hardback to do with the First or Second World War is perhaps; Charley’s War

I kinda want to hear you rant about spider man now

Not a comic fan, but enjoyed looking at your shelf anyway Spoony. They have the 1st issue of Phonogram online, and my brain went into extreme pain from reading it. It would be like writing a comic with nothing but references to say, Elvis, or Michael Jackson, or punk songs. Plus there are ellipses galore, the characters and storyline are confusing or stupid in turn, and I really don’t get it. Maybe only a select group of people are supposed to “get it.” If that’s so, then you’re not going to have much of a fanbase, are you? If you don’t want much of a fanbase, except for a select group of snobs that are on your level, then good luck with that. Makes me wonder what Linkara would say. For those who are wanting to see what Phonogram is like, here’s a link:

http://www.imagecomics.com/iconline.php?title=phonogram_001&page=cover&resize=now

But beware, it’s probably not for everyone. Maybe not even you. Sorry for the rant, but this issue caused me real suffering… Take care everyone.

Not a comic fan, but enjoyed looking at your shelf anyway Spoony. They have the 1st issue of Phonogram online, and my brain went into extreme pain from reading it. It would be like writing a comic with nothing but references to say, Elvis, or Michael Jackson, or punk songs. Plus there are ellipses galore, the characters and storyline are confusing or stupid in turn, and I really don’t get it. Maybe only a select group of people are supposed to “get it.” If that’s so, then you’re not going to have much of a fanbase, are you? If you don’t want much of a fanbase, except for a select group of snobs that are on your level, then good luck with that. Makes me wonder what Linkara would say. For those who are wanting to see what Phonogram is like, here’s a link:

http://www.imagecomics.com/iconline.php?title=phonogram_001&page=cover&resize=now

But beware, it’s probably not for everyone. Maybe not even you. Sorry for the rant, but this issue caused me real suffering… Take care everyone.

I’ll add my vote to the pile. Rant about Bland new day! When I read that I exploded in nerd-rage. Please vent to the internet for us. I’ve also read Spider-Man since I was a kid and I thought the Other and Civil War finally changed what needed to be changed in Spider-Man. But a retcon?
Do it. And do it without mercy.

wow, i didn’t even think they released phoogram in america. all of the bands in there were HUGE in britain in the 90s, i dont think any of them really crossed over to the states. i loved it, but you should never ever read it if you haven’t heard much britpop

speaking of preacher (yeah that comic was so messed up it was AWESOME!) I have heard romours that there was a movie made or in the making about that graphic novel

Hey spoony, if you’re into comics based on war, you should check Charley’s War, it’s a comic from 79, lasted until 85, it’s based on the 1st World War and I think you’d love because, not only does it show the very dark side of war at the same time it has very good humor. they have been reprinting since 2004 so I don’t think it should be too hard to find.

A small thing I could tell you is that although it portraits the war with realism, no sci-fi or fantasy here, there’s some things that are a little off, like in the beggining there’s this German sniper that has chest armor and an helm, kind of like the Helgast from Killzone although much more primitive.

It’s a very entertaining story and i think everyone should check it out.

I mostly grew up with Dutch and Belgian comics, which tend to be based more in history or realistic present times instead of superhero-settings. Don’t know if you’ve read any/much European comics by any chance?

My no.1 recommendation for non-supernatural/superhero comics would be Tintin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin. The first three issues were a bit comical/insensitive and needn’t be read except for laughs. The good stories ( and recurring characters ) start coming in at issue four.

The Castafiore Emerald: An exciting detective story without any actual action or villains, funnily enough

Spoony!

Sweet collection; I hope you make another one for all the others that you have. I might go check out some Warren Ellis in the meantime.

Any way, you should give the Flight comic anthology a read. Granted, some of its stories maybe aimed at a younger audience, but the artwork and stories by all of the artists that contributed are simply stunning and definitely a worthwhile experience!

Spoony, you have got to do a Spider-man rant video. I’d probably just agree with everything you’d have to say (JMS’ Spider-man, particularly the first few years, was the only good Spider-man run since… the 80′s? Then they undid it…), but I’d still love to see your take anyways.

Also Grant Morrison does kind of suck, but I haven’t read Final Crisis and by the sound of it, I shouldn’t.

Regarding historical comics: I really would recommend Charley’s War (it is spelled with a ‘y’, to confuse you). It is probably the best comic series to come out of Britian, although the later episodes aren’t nearly so good as the WW1 ones.

If you want to stretch your deffintion of historicity check out Lord Horror, Hard Core Horror, Meng and Ecker, and Reverbstorm by David Britton, published by Savoy. I’d try to explain them, but really I can’t, suffice to say they were enough to get Britton sent to jail.

Yeah, I used to buy comics issue by issue, but with the advent of all these damn crossovers, there came a point where it felt like I was missing too much if I didn’t buy every single title in the line. I’m with Spoony now. Buy trades, that way you won’t (theoretically) miss anything important.

Anyway, I know Spoony isn’t into the superhero comics, but he is missing out if he hasn’t read Joe Kelly’s original Deadpool run. I think they’re starting to issue that in trade form as Classic Deadpool.

As others have said, get Sandman. Now.

i dunno spoony,i dont get alot of the references you make in your reviews and you still make me laugh!

Hell Spoony, you could rant about the price of tp and my toes would curl in glee ;)
Speaking of Supers in a ‘contemporary’ setting, does anyone here care for the old-school WILD CARD Paperback Series (particularly early in the line)?….or is it just me and my lousy tastes? :)

Yeah- Warren Ellis, baby.

I do trades too instead of issues.

You should probably just do your own rant on Spider-man.
I, myself, am not a very avid reader of comics and do not really know how much they fucked Spider-man.
All I really know about is Brand New Day and that is because of Linkara, so I would like to hear somebody bitch about Spider-man and how much they ruined him.

Warren Ellis-Crecy.. It’s a cheap (runs from 6-10 dollar) comic that is absolutely amazing and gives you a great history on the Battle of Crecy. I recommend it.

Spoony, I have the exact same Punisher shirt from when the Travolta one came out. I haven’t worn it in years, and forgot about it completely, and now I may bust it out for tomorrow.

Ironic that you love Spider-Man, I see you as part of a triumvirate of you, the nerd and the critic. I see the Nerd being Superman, the Critic is Batman and you’re Spider-Man.

You don’t like Grant Morrison.

I don’t like Warren Ellis or Garth Ennis.

I guess that makes us even.

A good graphic novel I usually recommend is Epileptic, a bit obscure and odd, but a great read. It’s an autobiography about an epileptic child (Shocker!). Beware of the translation, it’s from a French author and the translation kinda ruins some of the impact of the story, still worth the read though.

A page showing the rave reviews from critics.

http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/bdavid/epileptic

Seems like a decent collection. But for another – new media – comic, two words: Broken Saints!

You’re a braver person than me, Spoony. You display your Empowered and Bitches lo– Ahem, Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane trades out in the open.

“speaking of preacher (yeah that comic was so messed up it was AWESOME!) I have heard romours that there was a movie made or in the making about that graphic novel”

Yep was gona be a film a long ways back, they even did a make up test with Arseface and it was really cool looking.Then those 2 wanker kids shot up their school and the powers that be said oh no u cant make a movie with all this violence based on a comic and they shit canned it. last i heard HBO had an interest in making a mini series out of it with the guy that directed Ghost Rider (shudders). Looked promising since Garth Ennis was allso on board.

heres a link to the make up test for Arse Face

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f314/dirtdaddypimpslap/Arseface.jpg

You skipped Empowered…

Ah, I see you haven’t got SSoC 6 yet. This is when it starts to get into “bad, but entertainingly bad” territory, where Conan speaks like Lord Flasheart from Blackadder and the monsters look like Doctor Who guest stars. Beware, Bruce Jones is coming!

For historical comics, would historical horror/fantasy count? The Sword of Solomon Kane (didn’t see if you had it or not) would be a natural fit. Being set in the late 16th century it has just about everything you could imagine from the period: a puritan avenger laying waste to all enemies of righteousness, pirates and naval battles, bandits and swashbucklers in France, African jungle adventures, gothic horror in the Black Forest, the Spanish Inquisition, witchery and wizardry in Elizabethan England.

I liked the Amazing Spider-man books
Don’t know why people hated it

most I know about Spider-man is from the 90′s Tv show and that was pretty informative to me.

ah, The Phantom Stranger, it’s nice to see there’s another fan

Long time watcher, first time comment.
Dunno how you feel about Manga or Anime… But if you’re looking for something pirate related, I would suggest “Black Lagoon” by Rei Hiroe. I’m not really an anime or manga fan… But this really drew my attention. Modern pirates fronted as a trading company in an “unknown South-East Asian country”. (i.e. Thailand)
The characters are nice and varied (although some of them are a little bit extreme) and there’s a slight dark tone to the whole series…

Spoony doesn’t strike me as much of the sort of guy who’d be really into Sandman, but then again he did say that he had a whole other shelf that he hadn’t filled yet.

Thanks for the tour. Quite nice.

lol empowered

I noticed you don’t have any manga. If you prefer comics that aren’t about superheroes you really should consider trying some of the better manga series such as Monster, Nausicaa, Berserk, and Blade of the immortal. These tend to be reasonably popular among people who aren’t particularly into Japanese comics, so it shouldn’t be at all difficult to enjoy them from the perspective of a fan of American comics.
I would also strongly recommend Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Firefighter! Daigo of fire company M, and 20th Century Boys.

The anime adaptation of Monster is also something I would recommend. It has by far the best plot i’ve seen in TV animation, and i’ve seen A LOT of animation, both Western and Japanese.

At first you brought me to the point of “wanting to marry you” by saying that you love Warren Ellis and hate garth Ennis’ current stuuf (although I have kinda a soft spot for “the boys). But you crossed a line by saying that you hate Grant Morrison! Beware, SpoonyOne! Revenge will be mine! (and Grant Morrison’s, for that matter!)

But seriously, I always thought that, if there’s one comicbook writer you like, besides Warren Ellis, it’s Grant Morrison. I am… kinda… shocked. Everything stops making any sense for me right now. Jesus Christ…

At first you brought me to the point of “wanting to marry you” by saying that you love Warren Ellis and hate garth Ennis’ current stuuf (although I have kinda a soft spot for “the boys). But you crossed a line by saying that you hate Grant Morrison! Beware, SpoonyOne! Revenge will be mine! (and Grant Morrison’s, for that matter!)

But seriously, I always thought that, if there’s one comicbook writer you like, besides Warren Ellis, it’s Grant Morrison. I am… kinda… shocked. Everything stops making any sense for me right now. Jesus Christ…

I see you like big lips and cheesecake!

I see you like big lips and cheesecake!

If you wanna read a historical comic, that’s actually grounded in realism and nothing fantastical, then I cannot recommend Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond enough. Yes it is a manga, but that doesn’t matter. It is completely nothing short of awesome. I was never a fan of comics (traditional or otherwise), but this was the first I ever read, and it’s definitely one of the best books I have ever read, period.

The comic is basically a graphical retelling of the life of the fencer Miyamoto Musashi. And it is amazing. The artwork is beautiful (and pretty much devoid of a lot of the common characteristics and make up Asian comics), storytelling and pacing is excellent. Every volume I have read has been a page-turner. The fighting is intense, but not overblown or unrealistic.

The people that translated it, Viz, have recently been compressing the older volumes into Omnibus editions, so you can buy several volumes’ worth of the comic for less than what you would have paid for each volume when it first came out. I cannot recommend this comic enough, to anybody, comic book fan or not.

If you like history and adventure, I recommend the Mysterious Cities of Gold, an animated show that was created by a collaboration of French and Japanese cartoonists in the early 80s. The story takes place in 1532 during the Spanish conquest of the South America. The protagonists are three children from different cultures accompanied by a Spanish navigator who is looking for El Dorado. This cartoon is an almost forgotten classic once played on Nickelodeon before it produced its own cartoons. Rare for a 80s cartoon every episode is part of a continuing story arc. Highly recommended, check it out on Hulu here is the link:

http://www.hulu.com/the-mysterious-cities-of-gold

One of my animation teachers was the brother of Warren Ellis, I didn’t really know he was such a big comic guy until I heard people mention him on the internet.

I’d love to have a collection like yours, unfortunately I have to get everything from the library because I don’t have the money to buy most of the books I want, but I’m trying to read as many as the more classic tpbs as I can. I have quite a large collection of children’s comics and annuals but I stopped adding to that quite a while ago

i so wanna see a spiderman rant vid. how they screwed the movies, making him emo + web glands… to the comics where the writers screwed him. however the games for the later consoles like spider-man: web of shadows was alright (he atleast cracked jokes while crime fighting in the game, which is more than i can say about the movies)

Just wanted to say that I think the best comics out there are the Crow by James O’Barr, Kabuki by David Mack, Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore, Concrete by Paul Chadwick, the Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and Cerebus by Dave Sim. Sim himself may be a weirdo, and he lost me when he did a whole thing about Oscar Wilde and religion, but Cerebus was overall a good read.

One of my favorite series would be The ‘Nam. Yes a Vietnam war comic. See if you can find some, somewhere.

I’ve been curious about that shelf since I saw the enemy Ace title.

I prefer TPB myself

Saw you have mouse guard They just put the Winter comics into a hardcover volume. It’s really good.
My cousin got me the first winter vilume signed by the author. HIs mom handed it to my mom in the rain unprotected and it got water damaged.

I prefer TPB myself

Saw you have mouse guard They just put the Winter comics into a hardcover volume. It’s really good.
My cousin got me the first winter vilume signed by the author. HIs mom handed it to my mom in the rain unprotected and it got water damaged.

Can you review Kung Pow? xD
I love that movie =P

Oh and maybe the Final Destination 4…I hate that movie, is so stupid –’

Congrats for the video, but I have to admit I’m not a Comic fan, I was more into to Comics when I was younger and draw a lot

Regards from Portugal =D

Oh and one more thing =P

Why dont you try to make some top10 videos, that would make we know a little better your taste in various things…And its a thing I find very entertainment to see in videos, top 10′s and shit like that =P

Oh Spoony if you want a cool comic series I really like Astro City especially confessions and tarnished angel.

Justice is a good JLA title. You don’t need much too enjoy it. And it is painted by Alex Ross

Awesome shelf, as a comic fan, I am impressed. Read Starman, it’s brilliant.

So, i actually have a funny little note on the Hitman collections.
I went to the san diego con maybe…5 years ago i think, and a friend dragged me to a panel that was basicly a bunch of Dc editors and there marketing guy answering questions about collections they were going to do.
DIRECTLY After stating “Anything we have started to collect we will finish to collect” And i mean directly after, a friend asked “When will you finish collecting Hitman?”
The answer from the guy who made the previous statement
“We have no plans to finish collecting Hitman.”

They did mention they wanted to do a Super Pets collection though.
Yay?

A fairly decent pirate comic was Crossgen’s “El Cazador”. It only ran for six issues in 2003, though, so it’s quite hard to find. The few issues that did exist were pretty good but its hard to tell if the series would have gone in a good direction or not.

Shadowdancer has good taste in comics :P

Other non superhero books that are great are:
Maus, Signal to Noise, Bendis’ crime novels Goldfish and Jinx etc, The Compleat Moonshadow (sic), BONE, bone, bone and bone.

Also, I am hugely into “Powers”. I thought that series was one of the best, and sadly I’m not up to date on whether it’s still going on or not. The trades all just vanished off shelves and the stores near me will only occasionally have one or two of them in stock.

And one last one: “Blade of the Immortal”. I’ve not kept up on it recently, either, but that is by far one of the best action books I’ve read in my life. It’s manga, but it’s drawn in a really bad-ass, more realistic style. Samura is a fucking art god. Not only a fun read, but some of the best god damn comic art I’ve seen in my life, period.

@The Epic:

I’m not really a huge Spiderman fan or superhero fan at all. I can agree with the whole emo thing. Spiderman should not have had an emo phase. But the web glands make sense to me from a cinematic point of view. They gave him more spider-like abilities. In the comic he basically just has the sense and more physical strength, agility, etc. While web shooters work in a comic – especially in the time it was made – i think it would have just added more scenes explaining how and why he made more crap and killed the pace of the flick.

They ended up doing some pretty cool shit with the glands as well that they couldn’t have done if he was using shooters. So I think the glands are fine for a film series.

Don’t like Grant Morrison?

Fuck! I’m outta here!

“58
Sam September 14, 2009 at 12:47 am
…I really gotta recommend GANTZ if you like warren ellis.”
No. I cannot let this go unchallenged.
GANTZ as a series is not worth getting into. It has so much potential to be so very good, but the atrocious character writing and the flat out refusal to allow the plot to develop ruin it. Watching a loathsome, vile (main)character gradually become a person worthy of existence but instantly revert to the way he was, feeling your suspension of disbelief shatter as the writer ham-handedly makes a clichéd point about teamwork, watching each and every interesting character either die or refuse to evolve at all; it almost seems to sabotage itself. GANTZ will suck you in with an awesome and interesting premise and laugh at your pain as everything good about it periodically implodes around you.

At least, that’s how I felt about it.

Marvel put out a gripping Magneto historical comic where it shows his life as a young boy as the nazis take over. It shows the horrors he witnessed in the camps. His powers are never really used as he is youmg and has no real control of his abillity.

Completely agree with you on Garth Ennis. I really liked Preacher, ever though I felt the main storyline was never fleshed out as good as it could have been. Mostly it was about the characters, which is fine. Preacher has some of the best characterization I’ve seen.

But now his stuff just seems to be weird for the sake of being weird. I like the idea behind The Boys, but again, all the weird crap just seems to get in the way. I guess he has something else now about Jesus and a rabbit, or something.

LOL Empowered #2! Rawk! Ha! It’s not even opened!

Hey Spoony have you ever read Warren Ellis’s Novel Crooked Little Vein ? really good book

I love Conan too—I’m also a fan of the original short stories…good stuff. Thanks for the comics vlog–please do more! I agree with others, bring on the Spiderman rant!! :)

If you ever actually decide to do another Atop the Fourth Wall with Linkara, you’ll have to tackle the whole One More Day debacle.

As “a fan” made mention of, the manga Monster is really good. I would also like to add my recommendations for you to read it. It also has a very good anime adaptation.

Please, don’t do the whole OMD thing. At this point I’m personally tired of hearing it and there are worse things out there to bitch about cough*Ultimatium&Ultimates3*cough

And just to sate my curiosity what other than Final Crisis and Batman *Which is usually the two things people hate* have you read? And anyone that would stop being a fan of yours because you don’t like a certain writer wasn’t much of a fan in the first place.

And Transmetro is a great comic.

Do you like Dark Knight Returns?

I didn’t like Phonograph either.

Hey Spoony, You ever catch Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys? A buddy of mine gave me his TPB of volume 1. It’s one of those crazy ass comics situated in the sort of Watchmen-meets-50s ‘clean’ heroes-meets-modern tenacity.

EMPOOOOWEEEEERD!!!!

awsome.

It was nice to hear your opinion on these comics… But i have to ask something off topic…

When you move the camera you usually say: Hang on!… That’s not a bad thing of course but it makes me feel like when i gone to a family member’s funeral who i never knew and so i didn’t know how to feel. When you move the camera, should i get dizzy? Should it tickle? How should it feel?

Just wondering tho :) Its just odd a bit :)

But to write something with more sense: When it comes tho super hero comics I’m not that much of an expert (Here in Hungary the translations aren’t that epic) but a while back i started a little interest in reading them. And i found Spider-Man a lot more interesting than Superman. This was a bit weird because even tho i didn’t read comics back in elementary school my school mates did and they all were going on and on about how awesome Superman is and they even made comparisons to why is he ‘cooler’ than other comic heroes including Spider-Man. Now don’t get me wrong as i read into Superman a bit i found it very good yet somehow i still come to like Spider-man a bit more. As i was thinking of this i realized that there was basically two things that really caught me in the Crawling Crime fighter: Firstly the way how negatively some people can relate to both him and his alter ego, which feels a lot more realistic. Sure Superman has his bad times too but at least in the issues i read by now he didn’t have to put up with discrimination. And secondly and here is my point: The origin.
Unlike superman who’s origin of power was that “he’s an alien!” (Seriously… You can say “That necklace is magic so its wearer is invulnerable to fire!” But you can’t say: “That necklace is alien so its wearer is invulnerable to fire!” if you get what i mean.), Spidey actually has an explained origin to his powers. His abilities feel more… deserved.

So what i wanted to ask is when you come about to a super hero comic: Do you want get an actual explanation of the super powers, or do you care more about what the hero actually does with those powers?

P.S.: Continueing on the above logic of magic and alien: What if we humanity actually believes that there’s no diffrence between magic and alien? They are both ‘fairy tales’ in most’s eyes… What if the aliens of District 9 were actually imprisoned because LotR: Two Towers came out the week before? Maybe the South Africans just didn’t want the aliens to go all Saruman on them.

I actually once believed that my calling in my life was to write and draw comics.

I just read comics with humor. For anything else (sci-fi, fantasy etc) I turn to books. Donald Duck (Don Rosa and Carl Barks), Lucky Luke, Asterix, Fuzzy, Eon and Pondus (Pondus being quite hard to find outside Europe (made by Frode Øverli), and Eon being hard to find outside Scandinavia (made by Lars Lauvik)).

YES, HELLBLAZER! You are the _man_…well, I already knew that but it had to be reiterated. By the way, the random chunk of issues that aren’t in trades, last I heard from a con a couple years back, DC has no plans to release them at all. Because they are douchebags. I ended up bittorrenting them.

And yes, Warren Ellis is a god amongst men. Although I really would have thought you to be a Morrison fan. But I can understand why you’d dislike him, his head does tend to disappear up his ass a lot. However, I do like Doom Patrol, for it’s sheer insanity. I think he does better when he does original stuff (Invisibles) or gets to reimagine discarded characters.

I think I saw either Torso, Jinx or Goldfish (I couldn’t tell) so you’ve probably read Powers. You should check out Alias, Jessica Jones is the shit. I also recommend The Authority, and if you like non-superhero things, Y The Last Man and Ex Machina from Brian K. Vaughn – the latter a mix of politics and sci-fi that’s pretty interesting.

This makes me wonder if you like any Alan Moore, hmm.

And please please pleaaase do a rant on One More Day, DC’s big middle finger to Straczynski. Please. It would be so cathartic…not only for you, for us!

Maybe you’ve already heard this, but in the fine print on the inside of the cover or the title page you can usually see which issues a paperback collection contains. No need to resort to Wikipedia!

Well, if you are looking for more historical comics, I’d go for Franco-Belgian comics. Stuff like Tintin, Asterix & Lucky Luke. They all tend towards being more “historical” rather than superhero. Much more lighthearted then American comics, but you should really give it a try Spoony.

What do you mean by historical type comics?

You do make quite a lot of referances that go over my head Spoony but I think your stuff is good anyway. If for no other reason than the core of your content is good, or at least of interest to me.

I have to say, I was thinking of getting Blackgass a little while ago, but now that I’ve looked up the story I’m glad I didn’t. It has a pretty shitty ending in my opinion.

Aaaaww, I’d like to see you do more videos with Linkara. Why do you need to know about heroes? If something is stupid it’s stupid. Also, how has Spiderman been ruend?

See you Spoony, have a good one.

Spoony, you probably already read this, but if you don’t, you might like it. – http://www.freakangels.com/?p=23 – Warren Ellis/Paul Duffield webcomic.

Meh, I dont like comics that much I totally prefer Manga.

Woooo! Spoony rocks, funny video and very insightful

I hope you don’t mind but I referenced you as a inspiration to me on my new channel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YpEkgKo5B8&feature=player_profilepage

hahahha,,,

that Phonogram rant must’ve been brewing inside you, or repeated so many times it’s like a ritual to get it out again

You’re deeper than the average, but not too deep (e.g. linkara) that it would be distancing. I consider myself a fairly casual, constitutionally lazy observer of the details (just a gamer, tv/movie lover) with a collector’s bent, but I rarely miss any of your references.

When I used to watch MST3K with my dad when I was like 12 I always knew they were referring to a common past that only they were privy to. Watching you is for me what it must have been like for my dad to watch the MST guys.

“Not many Pirate comics”

>_>

<_<

*PSSSSSSSSSSST

One Piece

*Runs before being mauled by racist close minded xenophobes who hate anime and manga

One Piece?! Surely anything that was released by a company called 4Kids can’t be anything good?
*prepares to be pelted by rotten fruit*

Dude, you and phonograph (never read it) sounds exactly like me and Watchmen. i cant stand watchmen for some reason. maybe its because nothing seems to happen for most of the book. I dont know. and Warren Ellis sounds like my type of guy. what, of all his stuff would you recommend. i remember on the short lived, Most Awesome Thing that you did, there was that comic called Black Summer or whatever. that sounded good.

My opinion on Final Crisis is mixed, I liked the introduction of Mandrakk but he was a waste of potential. If you have the TPB Superman Beyond hypes him up to be the biggest threat to the DC Multiverse since the Anti-Monitor but he jobs in Superman Beyond and in Final Crisis without accomplishing much of anything. A few years down the road I hope he gets a comeback he deserves more. BTW do you like cosmic events in superhero comics? Just curious

As for Spiderman he is a microcosm with everything wrong with the industry today. Deaths turn out to be hoaxes (usually by Norman Osborn) a majority of the time, and the last real interesting storyline they had to me was the death of Harry Osborn.

“Maus” is a really good historical comic if no one has mentioned that yet. Depressing as hell if memory serves though. Its the story of some Jews in a concentration camp during WWII as told with Mice and rats and toehr fuzzy rodents.

Really great, the arts a bit odd and soemtimes haed to keep track off but I really enjoyed it.

need to check out the orginals to transformers and gijoe

funny i like the transformer show better but the comics sucks
i didn’t really gijoe and the comics is pretty good

The only comic series I have been really into so far is Garth Ennis Crossed, I mean it’s perverse and weird but that’s Ennis. I love the story telling and the fact that he puts an end of the world scenario into a real life perspective.

I loved Planetary, and I recommend you check it out.

And here I thought that I was the only one who could never get into Morrison’s writing. Anyway, I have a comic suggestion The Essential Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber. It may take place in the Marvel universe but it is one of the most unique comics that I have ever read.

a pirates comic ?…heeee..what about one piece ?

Fortunately, anime/manga appears to be dying down in the United States. Most of the “fans” don’t purchase any of it. That’s why they block the aisles at your local Borders and Barnes & Noble all day, reading the books for free. They’ll go online and just watch free fansubs instead of buying DVD’s.

Tack on the fact that the publishing companies have just been dumping mounds and mounds of series, only which a small percentage is worth reading or watching, and then have the gall to charge you 30 bucks or more for only a handful of episodes of a cheap cartoon or 15 dollars for a black-and-white book no bigger than your hand. They got greedy! The two series that sell well at all in the US are Naruto and Bleach, and both of those suck anyway (it’s just Dragonball Z again but with Children or Swords).

Only mangas worth owning (for men): Akira, Berserk, Death Note, Oldboy, and Battle Royale.

Personally I’ve been a huge fan of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. Been meaning to check out the spin off series also. Definitely a good read.

What about Sgt. Rock comics and The Unknown Soldier from WW2?

Jason Aaron’s “The Other Side” is a great war related graphic novel. It is about an American soldier and a Vietnamese soldier both leaving home to fight in the war. It shows how both cultures treat war and how both people react to being in war. It is a great read and is some very haunting and disturbing story telling. Don’t think gross out, but mostly disturbing in how war is horrible.

Not pirates but some great viking stories are Northlanders and Viking (yeah, Viking). Both are very good reads and are still being released in single issues. Northlanders has been going on for a while now, but Viking is on issue 3. Viking is also very interesting just because it is not only great writing and artwork, but the format of the book is more like a Golden age comic, basically just an oversized issue compared to current day comics. Plus, it is creator owned and is written by a pair of fairly new writer and artist.

Im making my own comic… look at the link… YOU TOO SPOONY… its not a superhero one so it will be very interesting… Its about assassins and lust and good stuff…

You too spoony?!?!?! Why does everyone hate garth ennis’s recent works? more specifically, why does everyone hate the boys? Am i the only that finds funny and innovative storywise (not a big comic guy so maybe there’s already a comic like this but i still find this series to be hilarious and entertaining)

No Y: THE LAST MAN? Or do you have any in a box somewhere?

The only manga I can see you liking, Spoony, is Berserk, since you like Conan. Similar sort of thing, extremely epic tale.

hey. just saw your video saying about war time or pirate comics? i doubt im the first to suggest it, but MAUS by Speigelman… i love it! its one of my prized possessions…

about the nazi’s and Jews… using mice and cats.

I don’t know if anybody has mentioned it before, but if you look for an alternative on superhero comics I’d like to point out DDP’s HACK/SLASH. It’s a comic about that one girl that always survives a slasher flick striking back and hunting down slashers. It got plenty of gore and yeah, it features some T&A, but maybe you should pick up the first Trade Paperback, called First Cut, just to check it out.

Hey this is my first time commenting but ive been a fan for quite some time. You said you wanted to hear about comics that aren’t about superheros? Well i just got done reading Maus. Its a true story about the holocaust in world war two, through the eyes of the narrators father. This comic is done much differently than most in that there aren’t humans drawn, but animals. The Jews are mice and the Nazis are cats, along with other various nationalities with different animals. This is one of the best stories i have ever read and it is one of the most compelling I have seen. I believe you would be interested in this comic. The authors name is: Art Spiegelman. Trust me this is a great read.

You seem to have a strong opinions on Spiderman. I’ve always been a causal Spiderman fan in the past but you’ve sparked my interest. Sounds like the J. Michael Straczynski run was pretty good. I’m going to check it out.

Seems like a Spiderman video would be a natural for you. Any plans? Talk about why you like spiderman. What makes him special from other superheroes? Who were the best writers and artists? Which are your favorites? Best stories? What has been most disappointing? Maybe a multi-parter?

I’d be cool to hear your thoughts.

It’d be cool that is

I see empowered there, Do yo like Adam Warren style?
nice collection, you put mine totally in shame.
Also, Do you have read Geoff Johns last run whit green lantern? I’m assuming it because of the blackest night thing whit linkara

I recently was on a very small comic/cartoon/art convention becuase a friend of mine was doing art comissions there and a smaller stand selling one comic book catched my eyes. The comic was called “Dreamkeepers” and I decided to pick up the first issue since it looked really quite fascinating. And indeed, it was. The next day, I came back and bought the second issue. It’s pretty much done by only two people and one comic takes ages to come out but… Wow! The story is absolutely fantastic, fascinating and thrilling. It’s not a superhero stroy but reather an adventure, a bit like a cartoon movie, but a lot darker at times. Ontop of that, the artwork is vibrant and sometimes even really out-world-ish. At least I felt that way. If you want, I can donate the two issues so you can check it out.

Noah, or anyone else on here, maybe you can help me you are better versed in the comic world than i, i have and LOVE a small few page “preview” insert of a black and white comic called “December” i cant find it now to give you the writer but its about an undead man that is powered by a car battery? id like to know if it ever was published as a series OR if the writer did anythign else ive tryed Wiki to no aveal pelase if anyone knows anything email me at Natethanastyninja@hotmail.com
thank you in advance,
Nathan
P.S. Build the other shelf ALREADY haha
PPS sorry for the spellign and grammer, blame the beer , lol

so, what did you think of empowered?

Also, check out scott pilgrim, it’s loser canadian indie-rocker love story, with a lot of “magic realism” (I don’t like the term for that genre, but it’s the only thing that seems to fit) and video game logic to the setting.

I would love to hear you ramble more about other comics, maybe with linkara, because he’s a pretty cool guy too.

Right then. Grant Morrison wrote The Invisibles–the character Spider Jerusalem is sort of a homage to The Invisibles’ character King Mob.

I do like Warren Ellis more, however. The constant use of metafiction for the sake of metafiction pisses me off.

Amen to the Spider-Man related remarks…..although I would have to disagree about Stracynzci ( or however you spell it) I though the OTHER storyline sucked, and i think he was ruining Spidey too… as was Quesada….GOD I hate that guy. although, i did like him having organic webbing. im a huge spidey fan (have been since one year old, am now 16 and its not likely to change) but if there was one thing the spider-man series always had that i thought was weird/annoying, it was a lack of organic webbing. I guess it was because when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko first created the character, the idea of someone who could do that was to weird. I’m pretty sure that if the character was invented now, he would have it. Why go to the trouble of making a guy get all the powers of a spider, when the one thing he doesnt inherit is a spiders signature, its webbing. always thought that was odd. Im afraid i cant relate to most of what youre saying, not because i disagree, but because I have always been more a fan of superhero type comics, and tend to stay away from shorter lived graphic novels and things. that being said, I am quite interested in the watchmen so…..yey watchmen :)

great….review? of your comics haha…..VIDEO, thats the word i was looking for….yea great video

yea….no one gets spidey right these days…..Marvel has screwed them all up. They need:
1)to kill any character that was around before the 80s and LEAVE THEM DEAD
2)a massive reboot
3)superhero retirement
or
4)combining some of (1) and (3) ….(but i think (2) would be best)

crap…now im ranting on your vid…sorry…keep doing what you do

–Spider

what’s up with the turkish movie poster in the background? =P

…when i was reading Transmetropolitan I couldnt help but think
that Warren Ellis was trying to give us a comic
series about Hunter S. Thompson except his name just happened to be
Spider Jerusalem instead of H.S.T.

go ahead read any…any Thompson book and tell me I’m wrong

I read Transmetropolitan and really loved that “Fuck you all, I’m a journalist”-attitude of Spider Jerusalem. Nextwave was just as awesome, having a much thinner story, but way more fighting scenes with robots and gorillas and dinosaurs.
I liked the Watchmen-Comics, too and I heard the pirate story will be in the ultra-version of the DVD (which will be some hours longer). I’m really looking forward to that.

In some ways you are pretty lucky in the U.S of A. Here in Sweden, we basicly got Donald Duck, Dillbert, Monty and Nemi…. >:|

I love Transmetropolitan. I think everyone has a little bit of Spider Jerusalem in them.

I would recommend Vietnam Journal if you are looking for a somewhat historical war comic. I believe that its publisher, Apple Comics, had several war stories series like Blazing Combat and even a Desert Storm Journal that came out in the ’90s.

Also, Chester Brown’s work is really quite interesting if you are looking for historical comics; his Louis Riel biography was epic.

Love the site, keep up the good work.

I’v been reading Alien Omnibus and it’s good but they keep changing artists. In the first part of volume 2 the art looks like it’s from the 1970′s!

For historical-based comics, definitely check out the old DC war comics, like Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank, The Unknown Soldier, etc. I would also suggest getting the collections of War comics done by EC in the fifties, like Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. They are considered some of the best comics in history. In that same vein, Fantagraphics has released the complete collection of stories from Warren Publishing’s Frontline Combat.

For horror comics, go with EC Comics, like Tales From the Crypt, etc. A lot of great stories. Same for science fiction comics. Dark House is releasing the complete Creepy and Eerie Magazine out in hardback. Great work. Good stories and phenomenal artwork. Along the horror line, I’ve heard Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula is phenomenal.

Either than that, try going with Howard the Duck by Marvel, the seventies version written by Steve Gerber. It is one of the most unique comics ever written, and beautifully drawn by Gene Colan. Funny, heartfelt, and, in my opinion, one of the best comic book series of all.

For historical-based comics, definitely check out the old DC war comics, like Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank, The Unknown Soldier, etc. I would also suggest getting the collections of War comics done by EC in the fifties, like Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. They are considered some of the best comics in history. In that same vein, Fantagraphics has released the complete collection of stories from Warren Publishing’s Frontline Combat.

For horror comics, go with EC Comics, like Tales From the Crypt, etc. A lot of great stories. Same for science fiction comics. Dark House is releasing the complete Creepy and Eerie Magazine out in hardback. Great work. Good stories and phenomenal artwork. Along the horror line, I’ve heard Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula is phenomenal.

Either than that, try going with Howard the Duck by Marvel, the seventies version written by Steve Gerber. It is one of the most unique comics ever written, and beautifully drawn by Gene Colan. Funny, heartfelt, and, in my opinion, one of the best comic book series of all.

Fortunately, anime/manga appears to be dying down in the United States. Most of the “fans” don’t purchase any of it. That’s why they block the aisles at your local Borders and Barnes & Noble all day, reading the books for free. They’ll go online and just watch free fansubs instead of buying DVD’s.

Tack on the fact that the publishing companies have just been dumping mounds and mounds of series, only which a small percentage is worth reading or watching, and then have the gall to charge you 30 bucks or more for only a handful of episodes of a cheap cartoon or 15 dollars for a black-and-white book no bigger than your hand. They got greedy! The two series that sell well at all in the US are Naruto and Bleach, and both of those suck anyway (it’s just Dragonball Z again but with Children or Swords).”

You DO realize that manga is outselling American comics like ten to one right? Spidey is lucky if he gets 70,000 sales a month, Naturo easily outstrips that…and anyother American Comic by an insane margin….at best. There is a reason Manga is at every cafe, Barnes and Noble, book store, while Comics AREN’T.

While I agree with most manga sucks…most of everything sucks. That and your choices for good manga blows.

“Monster, Berserk, Neon Genesis (yes I said, grow up. I’m sorry Anno makes fun of your ass in his anime and it hurts your nerd feelings, but its a great anime. Because of the whinny loser wetsuit boy too), 21st Century Boys, Fist of the North Star, Ghost in the Shell, Gurren Lagaan, Zeta Gundam, some parts of Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure and Black Lagoon and One Piece…because unlike you I realize that grim dark does not equate good.

If I hear one more person tell me Death Note rocks, I’ll track them down and kick them square in the balls…or well let’s tone down to crouch just in-case its a girl. Its high-school level philosophical rantings and morals mixed with 4 grade cat and mouse games, do not equate a good series.

I’m not even an anime fan though, and I’m getting sick oft he E-Hate for anime. Get over it, Spoony…there are just as many jackasses who dress like Spock that dress like Cat Girls; and TWICE as many racist 13 year olds on X-Box live as their as there is yaio on Deviant Art.

Fortunately, anime/manga appears to be dying down in the United States. Most of the “fans” don’t purchase any of it. That’s why they block the aisles at your local Borders and Barnes & Noble all day, reading the books for free. They’ll go online and just watch free fansubs instead of buying DVD’s.

Tack on the fact that the publishing companies have just been dumping mounds and mounds of series, only which a small percentage is worth reading or watching, and then have the gall to charge you 30 bucks or more for only a handful of episodes of a cheap cartoon or 15 dollars for a black-and-white book no bigger than your hand. They got greedy! The two series that sell well at all in the US are Naruto and Bleach, and both of those suck anyway (it’s just Dragonball Z again but with Children or Swords).”

You DO realize that manga is outselling American comics like ten to one right? Spidey is lucky if he gets 70,000 sales a month, Naturo easily outstrips that…and anyother American Comic by an insane margin….at best. There is a reason Manga is at every cafe, Barnes and Noble, book store, while Comics AREN’T.

While I agree with most manga sucks…most of everything sucks. That and your choices for good manga blows.

“Monster, Berserk, Neon Genesis (yes I said, grow up. I’m sorry Anno makes fun of your ass in his anime and it hurts your nerd feelings, but its a great anime. Because of the whinny loser wetsuit boy too), 21st Century Boys, Fist of the North Star, Ghost in the Shell, Gurren Lagaan, Zeta Gundam, some parts of Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure and Black Lagoon and One Piece…because unlike you I realize that grim dark does not equate good.

If I hear one more person tell me Death Note rocks, I’ll track them down and kick them square in the balls…or well let’s tone down to crouch just in-case its a girl. Its high-school level philosophical rantings and morals mixed with 4 grade cat and mouse games, do not equate a good series.

I’m not even an anime fan though, and I’m getting sick oft he E-Hate for anime. Get over it, Spoony…there are just as many jackasses who dress like Spock that dress like Cat Girls; and TWICE as many racist 13 year olds on X-Box live as their as there is yaio on Deviant Art.

Alright, lots of stuff to say here, since I think comics are going to be my main area of specialty, and I actually want to make a comic sometime.

I'm more of a DC guy than I am a Marvel guy. So far I've gotten 52, which in my opinion is as good as Linkara says it is, flows pretty well, and didn't require a neophyte like me to learn too much about it. It did have its flaws, but I don't feel like getting into those. Let's just say it blows Countdown out of the water.

Anyway, the next DC story I got was Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. I know, I know, that's a Grant Morrison work, but I liked Arkham Asylum so much I picked it up, and it isn't that bad. Dave McKean's art helped seal the deal for me, though the choice to use such a stylized, artistic style is also a point of contention. The only other things I've read of Grant Morrison's are 52 (though he shared that project with three other writers, so it's not as weird) and The Filth, which… I guess it's alright for the mindfuck factor. I guess that's the main reason why I don't hate him as much as you do. I like good mindfucks. Oh yeah, and I did read Batman: R.I.P. and Final Crisis. The first one is extremely ballsy for one particular plot point regarding Batman. I won't spoil it for you. The second… was a huge fucking letdown. The only good part was Darkseid's monologue in issue five or six, I forget where, exactly.

Anyway, the third and current DC thing I'm getting into is Blackest Night. I'm actually kind of considering collecting all the tie-ins, though I probably won't jump onto most of these series. I think Booster Gold is my most likely choice, as something about that guy just really appeals to me. Anyway, this is really my first crossover, as I'm relatively new to the world of comics, and even after I joined up, I was only interested in Vertigo titles for a while, but can you blame me?

Anyway, if I had to pick one author I really like, it would be… Brian K. Vaughan. He did excellent work on Y: The Last Man (very awkward title to say out loud, by the way), and Ex Machina. Something that amazes me about his work is how even-handed it is, politically speaking. He isn't horribly biased or interested in just taking cheap shots at figures he doesn't like, but he gives different characters very different beliefs that are given more or less equal weight. You want me to recommend a comic without superheroes? Y: The Last Man is IT. And pick up Ex Machina, while you're at it. It is about superheroes, or rather _a_ superhero, but it's closer to Watchmen than DC or Marvel in tone. Hell, you know how good this guy is, you've read Runaways, which he created! Oh, and he wrote for Lost, which is a show I like despite knowing its faults full well.

Anyway, one last thing, it's pretty interesting how different your tastes are from Linkara's. I'm sure you noticed this already, or he's already told you, but he's a really idealistic sort of reader who HATES Garth Ennis as much as you hate Grant Morrison. And he's probably none too fond of Ellis, either. As for me, well, Transmetropolitan is one of the Vertigo series I'm currently collecting (besides Sandman and Ex Machina), and Preacher was probably the first Vertigo series I ever read (out of order, since I saw it in the public library). Hell, even my dad, who isn't really that into comics and nerdy stuff like that, and just lets me show him that stuff as a form of bonding, admits that it's one of his favorites. I'm not sure if it's still his favorite right now or if it's been replaced by Death Note (I know, I know, not the right kind of comics, but it's not _terrible_).

Geez, I've probably typed enough shit here to rival one of Spoony's videos. And for what? Oh well. Here goes, hope you enjoy reading it.

The moment you said that you hated Grant Morrison, I wanted to cry tears of happiness. I just got through writing a tangent about him over on the TGWTG forums about the latest Batman and Robin. I seriously don't get what he's doing. But, like a glutton for punishment, I continue reading the book so I can see just what it's trying to accomplish.

The Walking Dead by Kirkman Moore!

“100 Bullets” by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Eduardo Risso. Sorta conspiracy noir, very effective visuals, about an old man who approaches those the justice system has failed and hands them a briefcase containing a handgun, 100 untraceable rounds, and carte blanche to do what they like with it. Absolutely astounding, though it starts getting a little too impressed with itself toward the end of its 100-issue run.

I did not care too much for Runaways. I only read Bryan K. Vaughn's run of it, and I didn't like it much. Teenagers with problems. I couldn't relate. Maybe Whedon's was better?
Transmetropolitan. Is. Fucking. Genius.
Thanks for sharing, Spoony!

Wow no Swamp Thing? If you haven’t read Alan Moore’s entire run you should do so immediately, especially as a Hellblazer fan. They’re available in TPB as Saga of the Swamp Thing, Moore’s run goes from volume 1 to volume 6. And yeah, Grant Morrison sucks, he is the emperor’s new clothes of comics.

Wow no Swamp Thing? If you haven’t read Alan Moore’s entire run you should do so immediately, especially as a Hellblazer fan. They’re available in TPB as Saga of the Swamp Thing, Moore’s run goes from volume 1 to volume 6. And yeah, Grant Morrison sucks, he is the emperor’s new clothes of comics.

Aw, no mention of Empowered. It looked like it was still wrapped.

Well, I like Grant Morrison, so I disagree on that one, but like any person that is interested in comic books should, I’ll respect your opinion and look into your recommendations, thanks!

What a shame Atalante is only available in French or German. You would probably like it. It has a historical background (kinda, if you count ancient Greek mythology), awesome drawings…and boobs! It’s like some sort of Justic League in ancient Greece (and I’m not talking about that retarded Hollywod “Greek Mythology”)
As a refrence: http://img69.imageshack.us/i/plancheatalante31106600.jpg/

As for other comics with historical background…me buying all my comics in France, I can hardly think of any comic which is not French ;)
But well, I like your taste.

What a shame Atalante is only available in French or German. You would probably like it. It has a historical background (kinda, if you count ancient Greek mythology), awesome drawings…and boobs! It’s like some sort of Justic League in ancient Greece (and I’m not talking about that retarded Hollywod “Greek Mythology”)
As a refrence: http://img69.imageshack.us/i/plancheatalante31106600.jpg/

As for other comics with historical background…me buying all my comics in France, I can hardly think of any comic which is not French ;)
But well, I like your taste.

From Hell is a good historical graphic novel.

Have to agree with you about Runaways, sadly. I hung on a lot longer than you did but I’ve basically given up now due to how mediocre the series has gotten. I think the problem it has is that unlike most superhero comics the story was based around one very definite story arc- the main characters run away from their supervillain parents- and once that was over no one really knew what to do with the characters.

I wasn’t going to comment on this one, except as I listened to this video I felt I wanted to make two points:

1.) I completely, 100% agree with you that Grant Morrison is grating and unpleasant to read– at least, he certainly is NOW. I used to be quite the Morrison fan, due to his work on JLA and, yes, New X-Men (I know a lot of people hated that run, but I thought it was good… right up until the super-pretentious ending, that is). But while All-Star Superman was a fun bit of sci-fi whimsy, his regular work has gotten really absurd lately, and not in a good way. Final Crisis was an incomprehensible mess that took far too long to conclude (despite being only seven issues long), and his run on Batman has been, for me, one of the most wretched, egotistical takes on the character ever written, largely because Grant chose to ignore everything that worked for the character before and fashion his own little world for the Dark Knight– one that was so ludicrously over-the-top that it made it impossible to take any of it seriously. So, pretty much how you felt about what they’ve done with Spider-Man, I feel about what Grant Morrison has done with Batman.

And speaking of Spider-Man…

2.) Ironically, I actually have really enjoyed where Spider-Man’s gone since they “ruined” him. Sure, the transition from the older stories to the new paradigm was jarring, clumsy, and unnecessary (they could have just given the books the new creative teams they did WITHOUT undoing all the continuity of the past couple decades), but the new books under Dan Slott were actually… well, they were fun. They were everything that Spider-Man had been missing since, oh, somewhere in the middle of the ’80s or so, when they decided to make Peter’s life a grim-’n-gritty hell full of inconsequential characters like Cloak and Dagger and Silver Sable rather than just focusing on the character himself. And now that they’ve moved on from Brand New Day to Big Time, eliminating the rotating writers (who had varying degrees of talent) and just leaving Dan Slott as the primary author of the book, things have gotten even better, since the character is, once again, making some forward progress in his life.

Ignoring old continuity is a talent I’ve had for a while, being a DC fan (those guys change their backstories every couple of months, it feels like), so that’s how I’m able to get into the current Spidey status quo. Who knows? Maybe if you just ignore how they GOT there, you could go ahead and enjoy the new books, too.

Maybe you would like to look up Kája Saudek’s comics works?

You might already know about this series, but if you liked Blackgas you might also appreciate Garth Ennis’ run of Crossed. It has it’s issues, like the gratuitous gore and Ennis’ humor which can be hit and miss, but overall it’s a very solid zombie survivor story. Just don’t ready anything that wasn’t written by Ennis ’cause the rest is absolute shit.

I know marvel made some trades based on Homer’s Illiad and the Odyessey