Help me out, esteemed peers! I need comics!

[Megan_Gale]

(Maybe this shouldn't be a new thread, but in the interests of specificty...)

Setting aside ALL guilty pleasures, what's a great comic book to read? No Bleach, One Piece, etc etc etc. Japanese, American, European, WHATEVER! If it's obtainable internationally it counts! Something that's enjoyable, but doesn't make you feel like you're getting the mental nutrition of a bag of potato chips while you're reading it?

JUST comics. Not movies or anime.

I 'm motivated to ask this because I took a good five year hiatus from regularly visiting my comic book shop, and I notice it seems that most of my old favorites either dropped off quality-wise or dropped off literally. I wanna get back into it. I miss it.
To better illustrate my position I'll give you a couple books I recently picked up trying to fill the void:

SKY DOLL: (Italy? Published US by Marvel/Soleil)
Beautiful hyperdetailed full-color art, neato Disney/anime style character designs, the story is sci-fi fantasy with OVERTLY CONFRONTATIONAL things to say about religion, government, and sexuality. Well told and sophisticated story.
Problem? THREE ISSUES published stateside.... now going into special edition reprints, with no new story arc. I hate you Marvel.


DEATH NOTE: (Japan, obviously)
Neat art, kinda typical but stylish and well drafted. Only on volume three but the plot is like supernature-fortified Agatha Christie stuff and about as mentally challenging. Lotsa heavy-handed death penalty commentary, but (three volumes in) it doesn't seem to have anything impressive to say about it. Gonna keep reading, but I really want something better.


SCOTT PILGRIM: (US/Canada)
Cute indie comics/superdeformed art with tons of self-aware video game storytelling devices used. Actually, it's a love story with an NES-style action game framework superimposed on top of it. (A neat idea I wish I thought of first.) Thoroughly well executed, likeable and recognizably human characters but not a very ambitious tale.


SEAGUY: (US, from DC VERTIGO)
A miniseries from Grant Morrison, who used to write amazing things twenty years ago, but at a certain point I think he ran out of things to say.
The art looks like 1950's style advertising art, drawn in a friendly-looking style, but the plot is mind assaultingly surreal and dark as hell, loaded up with commercial imagery and schizophrenically paranoid conspiracy stuff. It's almost incoherent, but kinda like a Bunuel movie in that way. Decent!


There's gotta be stuff I'm missing though. HASN'T THERE?
You people who read Battle Angel here come from all over the globe and apparently appreciate all the Nitzche and fringe science and the well-orchestrated story elements and character development.
What other current comics can a person pick up that don't suck, don't make you feel dumber for having read them, and don't only work only in a really niche, fanboy kind of way? (I can find stuff like THAT on my own )

[moooV]

This is a lot offtopic, but still I'll post it.

I don't read comics/manga/bélles-léttres/fiction, whatever. Forestalling future questions, I'll answer in advance - I've came across GUNNM absolutely accidentally.

I like books, which give some food for thought, or just those which will help you in the future.


What about general-purpose books I've read myself and can recommend:

1) Arthur Schopenhauer - classical German philosophy, I find it related to GUNNM a lot (I think, Kishiro has read it), Nova's theory is a direct premise to him anyway. His books are a lot boring, but worthy to read.

2) Friedrich Nietzsche - classical German philosophy, he writes cool - I like his style, but I really hate most of his ideas. Must read anyway.

3) Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - classical German philosophy as well. He is hard to understand, but easy to read.

4) Immanuel Kant - classical German philosophy also. He is easy to understand, but extremely hard to read. He can write several pages and then negate them - you have to keep several preceding pages in mind every time you flip a new one.

5) Johann Fichte - classical German philosophy, a very smoked guy also. Something middle between Hegel and Kant, read only after reading them.

------------------------------------------- Phylosophy is over

6) Sigmund Freud - DO NOT READ! I've read it only by forcing myself to. Why? To have a point and opinion in discussions about him. He's a completely insane and perverted author, a filthy book.

7) Carl Jung - I can't say that I've enjoyed it. Read it if you like.

--------------------------------------------- Smoked things are OVER!

8 ) Eric Drexler - "Engines of creation". A good book about future of the nanotechnology, written by the father of it. Must read!

9) Raymond Kurzweil - futurology books. A brilliant author and futurologist. He takes undisputable facts, uses unquestionable logic on them, and gets disputatious conclusions and predictions! MUST READ! After reading these books (8 and 9) I've ran into GUNNM.


I think, that's already enough. Also, I'd mention that I really like O'Reilly books, but they're occupational and professional, so don't take them in account.

[Cailon]

Ok, nice!
Int, you are crazy, how can you read and understand so many philosophers? Even though I'm german and should somewhat know them, I haven't read one book of those...

As for books, I like it when you have an ordinary world when suddenly the craziness breaks through. But - unlike in a bad horror movie - this craziness isn't sooo absurd on the other hand, and so people try to cope with it one way or another (of course they fail most of the time^^)
So long story short, I totally like Franz Kafka, Heinrich von Kleist, Edgar Allen Poe, some H.P. Lovecraft, ...

I also love ancient mythology cause when you dive into it, it is so full of life and wisdom. Or at least that's what all the poets had formed it to. So: some tragedies by the big three: Aeschylus, Sopholces, Euripides with background info (thats important or you won't get it).

Comic wise - us, french, ... - I'm most clueless. Due to the movie I discovered Watchmen though, it was great, although the artwork wasn't my cup of tea entirely.

Manga wise: forgive me, too much is flowing into my mind. I'll just post some links
Blame!, Dorohedoro, Vinland Saga, JoJo's Bizarre Adventures + Steel Ball Run, 2001 Nights, Planetes, Nausicaä, Vagabond, Otoyomegatari, Akira, 20th/21st Century Boy

Sorry.
I know, putting in links only without any opinion leaves a high risk that one won't take a look at anything at all. But those are all great and I'm to tired (my bed is caling me) to write "a must read, its great" all the time hehe

[Sergio Nova]

Comics:
I certainly recommend:

1. Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and Monster. If you have already read them, you know what I mean; if you have not, do it urgently!!
2. Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira;
3. Rei Hiroe's Black Lagoon;
4. Frank Miller's Sin City (the entire collection, 7 or 8 volumes);
5. Frank Miller's Ronin;
6. Alan moore's V for Vendetta;
7. Alan Moore's Watchmen;
8. Hiroki Endo's Eden - An Endless World.

As to Death Note, I daresay it is a piece of trash travestied as a cerebral brain, but a more observant reader would not be so naïve.


Books:
Desiderius Erasmus' The Praise of Folly (simply great!)
Humberto Eco's The Name of The Rose
Homer's Iliad;
Erich Fromm's The Heart of Man (quoted at least three times in BAA;
Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (No, politicians have NOT changed!);
Plato's The Republic (simply essential).

By the way: do not waste your time with Dan Brown. It is fashion or anything, but NOT good literature.

(Int29Ah's library is too sophisticated to me. I still have a lot to learn)

[Sergio Nova]

Due to the movie I discovered Watchmen though, it was great, although the artwork wasn't my cup of tea entirely.

What? Didn't you like Dave Gibbons' work? How dare you say that?

[Megan_Gale]

Thanks guys! I was thinking about dragging a line about a reading list for relevant philosophy tracts here at some point. Not comics but I'm still saving this to the hard drive

I read Akira and Nausicaa and will thoroughly agree with you on 'em. Just bought vol 1 of 20th Century Boy, ironically; there was a Borders Express I stumbled upon having a going out of business sale. 50% off everything. I did a fair amount of gambling with my comics buying dollar!
I always heard positive things about JoJo but I guess I just always subconsciously lumped it in with Fist of the North Star and similiar, why, I don't know. I'm gonna see what I can track down for purchase.

Read all the Alan Moore you listed, Sergio, and for the record V for Vendetta is one of my faves. Reminds me in many ways of Battle Angel, thematically, and also in terms of a lot of storytelling twists and turns. (I was so irked when they weaselled in a romance for the film, by the way. Characters linked by idealistic conviction and characters linked by a romantic bond are totally different, and the paranoid part of me thinks Hollywood diminished that on purpose.)
Dave Gibbons' art IS a little nasty, but I always figured that was a deliberate choice. I mean the story of Watchmen is a nasty one, the characters by and large are not good people who do morally questionable things, and I think the film glossed over that. (And no I'm not talking about Rorschach.) For my money Marshall Law makes the same points about superheroes and fascism in a much more assertive way, with a good amount of black humor thrown in.

As to Death Note, I daresay it is a piece of trash travestied as a cerebral brain, but a more observant reader would not be so naïve.

Wait!! Wait! I think that they're trying to tell us murder is wrong, or something! That's DEEP stuff man... A highly controversial statement!!

Y'know what my favorite part is? There's a panel where the two principal characters are facing off at tennis (...) in front of a crowd of people, and these two girls are watching them and arguing about who's more attractive. The girl with long hair is swooning over the one with the normal hair and the serious expression, and the girl with short hair and glasses is swooning over the one with the crazy hair and eyeliner, and reading it? All I could think was,
"Demographic Study of Death Note Female Readers"

[Cailon]

I always heard positive things about JoJo but I guess I just always subconsciously lumped it in with Fist of the North Star and similiar, why, I don't know. I'm gonna see what I can track down for purchase.

Actually JoJo consists of 7 parts and the art changes in an astonishing variety. As seen on this picture, only part 1 is FotNS-ish and esp. part 7 is incredibly gorgeous and in a way very unlike most manga styles (which is very refreshing imo). Anyway, Viz is only slowly publishing some volumes of part 3 currently, the rest is online only.

Just bought vol 1 of 20th Century Boy, ironically

In case you're not hooked in from the very beginning: give the manga a chance for like 3 or 4 volumes. I think everyone can promise you that it will be a most fingernail consuming read, Urazawa really is a master of suspense.

What? Didn't you like Dave Gibbons' work? How dare you say that?

Actually I meant the colors. First, I grew into painted stories with manga, so black and white is the standard for me. But second, and much more important, I felt that the colors he used where a bit odd. Like orange streets, lilac coats and such choices. Was that no problem for you at all?

Read all the Alan Moore you listed, Sergio, and for the record V for Vendetta is one of my faves.

I hope you don't lynch me for I have only seen the V for Vendetta movie and I didn't like it so much cause all the time the actors did shine through too much (Portman especially, be it bald or not). So you say the comic is by far better? Then I have to read it I think.

[Sergio Nova]

Dave Gibbons' art IS a little nasty, but I always figured that was a deliberate choice.

Actually, Gibbons built mockups before drawing the story. Thus, even the shadows in this masteripece were previously tested by lights projected on the moldels. I had never heard about such a detailed work before.

Wait!! Wait! I think that they're trying to tell us murder is wrong, or something! That's DEEP stuff man... A highly controversial statement!!

That is the purest cliché already shown everywhere. Excuse me, but I cannot see that as creativity. It is only déjà vu.

My problem with Death Note is simple: the cerebral fights (I had said something completely nonsense. Cerebral brain? What the hell is that? ) between L and Light do NOT make sense, would NEVER find correspondence in real world, and the solutions are meaningless. They do make the story seem intellectual, but only if the reader is absent-minded.

[Sergio Nova]

I hope you don't lynch me for I have only seen the V for Vendetta movie and I didn't like it so much cause all the time the actors did shine through too much (Portman especially, be it bald or not). So you say the comic is by far better? Then I have to read it I think.

In short: before watching such a crime against art, I was against capital punishment. Now I do believe that the Wachowski brothers should be pelt with stones in public space.

[Cailon]

Done. I'm very impressed, it was a great read.
If you ever catch the Brothers, give my a call and I'll be there and I'll have my own personal stone with me.
Seriously, did they really thought they improved the story? It was a, maybe not 180° but at least 100° turn. Evey was stupid, V was oh so eloquent and ass-cool in every situation, the whole order of bombings where different. The final message wasn't there and... I could go on, you all know that. So it was really a crime against a very good story, no wonder Moore didn't want to be associated with this crap.

[TargaryenX]

Shin Angyo Onshi is a great read. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for, but it's got philosophy, action, and great art, similar to BAA.

[Sergio Nova]

Shin Angyo Onshi is a great read. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for, but it's got philosophy, action, and great art, similar to BAA.

I have never heard about it.
Have you got a link or something?

[TargaryenX]

http://www.onemanga.com/Shin_Angyo_Onshi/
http://et-caetera.net/?page_id=57 (better quality, but you have to download it)

It's technically a manhwa, being written by Korean authors and published in Japan. The first half might seem like a pretty formulaic seinen with above-average art, but be careful not to judge it too soon...

[crazyankan]

start reading "my" blog, http://www.mydailymanga.com
Updates on good seinen manga every day.

[Sergio Nova]

Seriously, did they really thought they improved the story?

I apologize for delay, but my time was restrict.

The problem with the Wachowski Brothers is this simple:
They were nothing before Matrix, a project that they stole from someone else. Otherwise, how to explain that the "writers" of a script full of philosophical, literary and mithological references were completely unable to go ahead when a continuation became necessary?

Matrix Reloaded had been the greatest piece of trash I had ever seen up to that moment. Persephone married to Merovingian? What does that mean? When The Architect appeared, I naïvely thought that finally something would make sense, imagining that it was a reference to Masonry (God as The Architect of the universe). Bah! The movie ended.

But I soon had the opportunity of finding something worse: Matrix Revolutions. If the second movie is trash, the third one is shit, simply. Commenting it would be just a waste of time.

I promptly feared that such a pair of asinine "creators" would destroy Moore's work. Well, the result is known. As they do not have intellect to understand the story, they had no condition of adapting it, making something completely different - and senseless.

[Cailon]

The problem with the Wachowski Brothers is this simple:
They were nothing before Matrix, a project that they stole from someone else. Otherwise, how to explain that the "writers" of a script full of philosophical, literary and mithological references were completely unable to go ahead when a continuation became necessary?

Good point here. Or maybe they even had a ghost writer because if they'd taken it from somewhere, they would've tried to "improve" it, like they did with "V".

Speaking of The Architect, I love the sequence in "Scary Movie 3" when the main character is with the Architect in the lighthouse. I mean, those movies are only mildly funny but at this point they really managed to unmask the whole pseudo-philosophy thing

[Sergio Nova]

Just correcting the confusion I made (I have to be more attentive):

Matrix Reloaded is the trash;
Matrix Revolutions is the shit.

Anyway, they make no sense at all, so the order does not matter.

[daundu]

New to the site and just thought I'd contribute.

Good comics:

Neil Gaiman's Sandman

Frank Miller's Daredevil

Azarello's Joker

Batman: Hush

Sin City (if you can stand the art; a lot of people can't)

Good books (from every genre I think you might like)

The Midnighters, Peeps, both by Scott Westerfeld

The Malazan Book of the Fallen (begin with Gardens of the Moon) by Steven Erikson. This is a VERY VERY heavy read, both in terms of density of writing, and subject. Seriously. If you can stomach it, it's better than anything I've ever read. If not, well, I can understand that well enough.

Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, Last Command, Sector of the Past, Vision of the Future, The Icarus Hunt, all by Timothy Zahn, the ORIGINAL Star Wars SF author. First and best.

36 Views of Mt. Fuji, by....I forget. But it's one of the first in depth western attempts to understand Japanese culture and depict it before it was so heavily westernized, but was still fairly modern.


And WHY are you advising things like Immanuel Kant to someone asking for casual reading? If you want someone to get into philosophy, start them off with an easy but deep read, like Quedam (aka, The Stranger). Which, if you haven't, READ IT. Birth of Existentialism.

[D-Scape]

80% of everything I've read the last five years have been manga. Some of my favorites are:

Berserk - It's basically one of the most massive fantasy epics in any form of entertainment. People love to tell you about how it's a hell of a lot more extreme than Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (gore, massacres, torture, orgies, rape, psychological traumas etc.), something that definitely should be taken into consideration if you want to read it, but people should also know that the manga has made a great balance between the gross and the subtle. There's sublime character interaction and growth, it's occasionally hysterically funny, the plot touches upon historical and philosophical thematics and it's emotionally and visually stunning.

Battle Royale - This used to be my favorite series once. It’s not any longer, but I still enjoy it immensely. It’s certainly the pulpiest and most extreme version of the story, but that’s part of its charm in my eyes. The artwork can be difficult getting used to if you've read too much shôunen manga, and the frequent use of sex and ultraviolence tend to polarize audiences.

The World is Mine - This is a somewhat more obscure one that deserve a huge audience. Two sociopathic serial killers are slaughtering their way across Japan while, at the same time, a giant bear-like monster are marching towards Tokyo in a path of destruction. Is there a connection between the two? This is definitely not a manga everyone’s going to like. Some are turned off by the choice of psychotic protagonists, enigmatic storyline, intensive narrative and gruesome violence. It's nonetheless among the most creative and interesting series out there.

Bokurano - Mohiro Kitoh might be more famous for Narutaru (or Shadow Star as it’s was called when it was released by Dark Horse ), but Bokurano is superior. One could see this as a grotesque parody of the giant mecha genre. It’s fascinating how it all starts out childish and cute before it gradually turns into a disturbing nightmare. I still found it to be a very touching series.

Vinland Saga - Almost like Berserk without magic and monsters. It might be the best Viking-related story I have encountered in any media-form (not so tough competition here though).

Negima! - It's not the most seinen-politically correct series to like, but I've come to enjoy this one over the years. Like the rest of the works by Ken Akamatsu it contains buckets of juvenile fanservice and an insanely stupid harem subplot. And yet, if you look past that it's a quite good and epic fantasy manga. I was surprised how well Akamatsu suceeded with action and adventure like this after I'd been left disappointed with how dull and boring his last series, Love Hina, became. It manages to be exciting in spite of overusing shonen-stereotypes and ripping off several other series, and Akamatsu's artwork and goofy humor makes it easier to accept the frequent stupidity. I also tend to enjoy mangas with massive character galleries for some reason. Maybe because it has got to be atleast some interesting characters in a gallery of 50+.

Highschool of the Dead - One of the most entertaining spins on the modern zombie tale I've ever seen, Shaun of the Dead included. It gives the zombie-genre what it's always been missing; gratious fanservice! The manga-ka used to specialize in hentai doujinshi so it was to be expected. Great gory fun. An anime has also been green-lit.

I'll try to think of more...

[TheNefariousImp]

If you're looking for a good brain-food comic, try reading The Invisibles by Grant Morrison. I will give you some warning though: this comic will mess with your mind like nothing else. I've read Pynchon, Sade, and Bouroughs, and their writings don't even touch the sheer bat-shit insanity that is The Invisibles. It's like Salvador Dali and Philip K. Dick had an ungodly lovechild that melted into your brain and laid eggs in your cerebro-spinal fluid.

Also, Preacher, by Garth Ellis is one of my all time favorite comics. It's about a Preacher who ends up more powerful than God, then goes out to find him to make him owe up to the problems in the world. Well, that's the easiest way to explain it without giving away any plot. Oh, but there is vampires....and cannibals...and voodoo...and sexual detectives. And if you like that, check out the still-running The Boys, also by Ellis. It's the funniest, grossest, and most critical take on the superhero genre of comics I've ever read. If you hate superhero comics, you'll get sick satisfaction from it, and if you love super hero comics, you can appreciate the parodies of the major heroes from DC and Marvel that are lampooned.


Also, I second the suggestion of The Sandman, it's a beautiful comic and probably one of Gaiman's best works.

[Sergio Nova]

I've read Pynchon, Sade, and Bouroughs, and their writings don't even touch the sheer bat-shit insanity that is The Invisibles. It's like Salvador Dali and Philip K. Dick had an ungodly lovechild that melted into your brain and laid eggs in your cerebro-spinal fluid.

You scared me. Now I have no option but reading it.