Indie/Alternative comics

[Darth Fluffakins]

i read the first graphic of walking dead,

i did'nt think it was anything special, kinda slow.

does it pick up later into the series?

Yeah, it deffinitely does. My friend picked up the first hardcover of it and we both dug it hardcore, I'm guessing there isn't enough content to really hook ya in the tpb. It of course helps if your into zombies. I would say give it another chance if you can borrow from someone or something like that.

[Jables]

Man, vertingo aIN'T INDIE nbr LL. nyrthing imagew that ain't pitarte of zomibie anint's indoe either. boys is indoe on;ly cUASW IT DONE art dynaMITE CIMNX WQHO'RE advertising cunta/

[Iambaytor]

Image counts so long as it's not Spawn or Youngbloods. I mean most people have never read Savage Dragon.

[The NZA]

Tick is amazing (original stuff anyway) and Savage Dragon, i read when the devil fought god.

 

ASC - every (i believe?) book Darth Fluff noted, im a fan of & we should have at thread for..not sure about mouse guard, but i think we do for that one too, should if we dont.

honestly, walking dead, transmet, so many books youve kinda quit on early, and i understand it sucks to toss $10 to a slow intro, but....and panch/skeet'll hate me for this, but i think that's why its good to read scans/downloaded books sometimes, to give it a 2nd chance. I honestly quit on 100 bullets at least 3 times cause the first trade didnt hook me, but i was all about it by the end of the 2nd (same can be said for Preacher, again). i really think youd benefit from trying this method out, or you know, visiting stateside and not seeing any sites so me, panch, newt & co can dump books on you till youre a fan of everything and broke like us.

[Osidius the Emphatic]

Part of me was always wanting to ty ot find the TMNT comics (pre cartoon show). Whatever happen to Black Summer? It got news coverage and everything but I never saw any store carry it (except Tate's).

[Iambaytor]

The pre-cartoon Ninja Turtle comics are gold. Series 2 involves Leonardo losing a hand and Donatello becoming a cyborg. Not to mention Shredder only appeared twice and died both times, blown up by his own bomb the first time, decapitated by Leonardo the second.

[The NZA]

yeah, original TMNT was pretty hardcore from the little id read.

Black Summer is like a sleeper hit, i hope it does better in trade cause yeah, panch coudlnt even find it at tate's last week. that's sad.

[alive she cried]

ASC - every (i believe?) book Darth Fluff noted, im a fan of & we should have at thread for..not sure about mouse guard, but i think we do for that one too, should if we dont.

honestly, walking dead, transmet, so many books youve kinda quit on early, and i understand it sucks to toss $10 to a slow intro, but....and panch/skeet'll hate me for this, but i think that's why its good to read scans/downloaded books sometimes, to give it a 2nd chance. I honestly quit on 100 bullets at least 3 times cause the first trade didnt hook me, but i was all about it by the end of the 2nd (same can be said for Preacher, again). i really think youd benefit from trying this method out, or you know, visiting stateside and not seeing any sites so me, panch, newt & co can dump books on you till youre a fan of everything and broke like us.

 

i have'nt quite given up on walking dead yet,

but transmet, what's the point of it? i just don't get it

is he just a reporter and that's it?

[Iambaytor]

He's a Gonzo journalist, Ellis pulled heavily from the life of Hunter S. Thompson but Thompson was and is a much better character than Spider Jerusalem. Just go to the book store and get Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

[alive she cried]

ahh, that's what he was going for.

[alive she cried]

I honestly quit ...but i was all about it by the end of the 2nd (same can be said for Preacher, again).

 

gone to texas is my favourite preacher book, it's some of the best writing i've seen in comics.

man o man

[Boogie]

You should read Judge Dredd. I always thought that all the US editions were shit, thats why no one would really care for this great character and has always been kinda like DD in the beginning. Well, I happen to pick a TPB from the Complete Case Files, and I couldnt put it down. Great writing and great artwork. The price is great for the amount of pages and fun that you get and you can read in chronological order all the adventures of one the finest brit comics. I have the 4 and 5, and in the next months Im gonna be buying the ones I dont have.

 

[Thelogan]

Ah, a thread after my own heart. By far my favorite comics are the indies. My suggestions:

 

Acme Novelty Library - Brilliant and tragic. Hilarious and painfully sad. I love it.

 

Cerebus - 30 years of (mostly) monthly publication, and the characters age in real time. It's amazing to watch Cerebus grow and change as Dave Sim grows and changes.

 

Eightball - Sometimes surreal to a David Lynch-ish degree. Mostly just very clever.

Love & Rockets - It's an aqcuired taste, but once you have it you can't get it out of your mouth.

 

Zot! - Wonderfully crafted.

 

Give Me Liberty - If you liked Sin City...well...this isn't really anything like Sin City, except that it's written by Frank Miller and it's a great read.

 

Miracleman - Alan Moore's utopian dream. This is what Superman would be like if he wasn't such a pussy boyscout. Prob'ly one of the most influential books I ever read.

 

I'll stop now. I could go on about this for a really long time.

[The NZA]

holy shit, you just named so many im sitting on.

Acme's a hard read for me, Cerebus moreso with the cockney and all. Love & Rockets ive got one trade, eightball is in the Clowes stack - been recommended to me for years. i got about a quarter into Miracle Man, even less so into Give Me Liberty at the end of a Miller binge, and Zot's the only one ive not seen at all. nice list though, from what ive gathered.

[crimsonfire]

i have'nt quite given up on walking dead yet,

but transmet, what's the point of it? i just don't get it

is he just a reporter and that's it?

 

Its hard for me to comprehend a statement like that. Why does a comic need to have an Uber destructive, alien, superpowered, giant, robotic, undead, angelic, demonic whatever-its-called as the main protagonist/antagonist/love interest for it to have a point?

 

All smartarsery aside: I was biased towards Transmet from the beginning for a few reasons. Not least of which was that I did Journalism in college (and dropped out in year two....but thats not important). I also dig on the whole cyberpunk aesthetic its got goin on but at its core transmet is just a really intriguing and unapologetic social commentary on very relevant social issues that we deal with today. Celebrity, political agenda and the pros and cons of mass media to name a few. Thats not to say its a bunch of soapbox bullshit.

 

Quite the contrary, it does have a very solid storyline although I have to say I am in love with the "just for a laugh" kinda stories that pop up once in a while. I'm currently on book 6 and its just getting better and better.

 

Ellis accomplishes this in a very unpreachy way and doesnt fall into the same old condescending shitface routine that other writers seem to do when they tackle any kind of social commentary.....that and he says fuck a lot Hur hur hur.

 

You should read Judge Dredd. I always thought that all the US editions were shit, thats why no one would really care for this great character and has always been kinda like DD in the beginning. Well, I happen to pick a TPB from the Complete Case Files, and I couldnt put it down. Great writing and great artwork. The price is great for the amount of pages and fun that you get and you can read in chronological order all the adventures of one the finest brit comics. I have the 4 and 5, and in the next months Im gonna be buying the ones I dont have.

 

 

Oh man you are my hero right now. I was all about 2000AD in my teens. I was very on-offish with it but I have 70+ issues in a box somewhere collected over a period of about 5 years. Judge Dredd was never my favourite but always a good story nonetheless.

 

2000 AD trades are bloody hard to come by these days. In Australia anyway. Last I heard DC had the publishing rights but didnt ship to Oz. I want my Slaine: Books of Invasion damn it!!!

 

Edit: Brit Comics need more love you elitist fucks!!!

Edited August 3, 2008 by crimsonfire

[Thelogan]

That looks incredibly entertaining and I just might have passed it up. Thanks for the info.

 

Now for some negativity.

 

Image counts so long as it's not Spawn or Youngbloods.

 

No.

[The NZA]

/disagree - Image was originally marvel lite/superhero central (Sam Keith's work aside), but there's a lotta indie books going on over there in various genres. I think Larsen structured the company more like a launchpad/indie label these days; you cant put Savage Dragon/Wetworks/Youngblood etc in the same area as say, Walking Dead, Bendis' Jinx & Torso, etc. what's not indie about such books?

[Thelogan]

Hurm. Now I need to think on my definition of "independent".

 

I guess it's the large publishing infrastructure and distribution of Image that gives me that knee-jerk "not indie" reaction.

 

I don't really consider Walking Dead indie, though it's clearly a labor of love.

 

But then I can poke holes in my own argument, Fantagraphics is a major company but they publish a lot of what I'd consider Indie.

 

I guess I don't really consider it a genre, but rather a method. I need to think more on this.

 

I may retract my statement.

[Thelogan]

Alright I've thought about this for a bit and I've come to the conclusion that it's just too nebulous a term. And in being vague, if anything that lends itself more to inclusion than exclusion.

My thing with Image is I still think of it as it's incarnation early/mid 90's, I understand there has been a lot of splitting/splintering/restructuring since then and that's a pretty naive view. I guess Walking Dead would totally be indie, Battle Pope sure as shit is and that's all I knew Kirkman for before that (I haven't read Invincible, I need to).

Harvey Pekar is the very definition of Indie imo, and Vertigo has put out some American Splendor. At this point I'm questioning whether to consider Steve Gerber's original Howard the Duck run indie. It has all the makings, can it be excluded because it's Marvel? That doesn't seem fair now.

 

So yeah, it was a totally hasty statement and I didn't give it the amount of thought it deserved.

 

/flipped

[Iambaytor]

See from the beginning of this thread I made the point that the lesser-know series of even comic juggernauts like Marvel and DC had some titles I would call Indie. (Death's Head, Jonah Hex, Demon, etc)

[The NZA]

Logan - yeah, that's the thing. Im not entirely comfortable with calling Marvel's Icon works like Powers and such as "indie" but they still fit the bill. its a weird umbrella.

 

'Tor - working on Scott Pilgrim, thanks for the heads-up. Still gotta find you a copy of Scurvy Dogs.

[Iambaytor]

Yeah it is stupid hard to find a torrent of that one.

[Thelogan]

I need someone to jerk off with and talk about Clowes.

Or Peter Bagge.

Chris Ware.

Los Bros. Hernandez

Jay Stephens.

Chester Brown.

Joe Matt.

Jim Woodring.

Marjane Satrapi.

Dave Sim.

Dave Cooper.

Adrian Tomine.

Jason Lutes.

Carol Lay.

Michael Kupperman.

Shit, there's to many to list.

All this superhero shit is making my testicles shrink. I mean, I'm a fan of the genre. I can dig it. But it's like saying you're really into movies and only watching late 70's blaxsploitation flicks. There's a lot of other stuff out there being made by talented people that's totally passing you by.

 

Don't take this as insulting, please. I love that anyone reads any comic books these days, so anyone that posts in the Fantastic Forum is cool in my book. That may be why it pains me so much. I swear, I'm gonna track you all down, lock you up in my basement and force feed you this shit until you either die or thank me. You may not like it all, but you WILL like SOMETHING that doesn't involve power fantasies. Because you are clearly fans of this genre of storytelling and you're grown-ups.

 

Sorry if this comes off as pretentious, I don't think I'm better than you and I aint tryin' to preach. Don't get all pissed off at me.

 

Listen to MLB here, go snag a copy of Eightball (preferably an earlier one) and TRY not to enjoy it. Personally, I've found that the un-initiated find Ghost World boring as shit. If you grab a trade, Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron or Ice Haven would be my recommendations.

 

 

 

[The NZA]

only watching late 70's blaxsploitation flicks. There's a lot of other stuff out there

 

WAT.

 

past vertigo, i run with Jeff Smith (he should do more stuff now that Bone's done), few others...i cant get into Lapham, i tried. Cerebus confused me, and that's Sim's boy. Ware, i need to read more Acme Novelty Library, its hard on the eyes (not a shot on the art, im talking font size, oddly).

 

the two ive been meaning to try out are Paul Pope and i really wanna get into David Mack's Kabuki.

 

can we talk Wood? I loves me some wood.

[Thelogan]

WAT.

 

Cerebus confused me, and that's Sim's boy.

 

can we talk Wood? I loves me some wood.

 

That's the problem with Cerebus, you have to start at the beginning, and at the beginning it's just a poorly conceived Conan parody drawn like a bad impersonation of Barry Windsor Smith. You have to wade thru that to get to the gold, and if you don't , nothing makes sense. It eventually becomes something completely unique; 30 years of a man's life, growing and changing and evolving. Both writer and character. Right there on paper. It's a fucking inspiration too, because you get to watch Sim learn how to draw until he's on par with anyone else in the industry. Jaka's Story remains one of the most emotionally powerful books I've ever read, but it only works in the proper context.

 

Are you talking WALLY Wood?!? Fuck yeah we can talk about that. I may even go so far as to say that Wood was the precursor to nearly every person I mentioned (and that list should in no means be considered complete; I was just glancing at a stack on un-shelved/boxed books next to me).

 

Jeff Smith is so awesome. I used to judge potential girlfriends by whether or not they found this funny.