Graphic Novel Newbie

Johnnie_5

Hey Guys,

I am just getting into graphic novels now and have found them really interesting, and would love to get more of them.

However, with so many out there, I was wondering if you guys have any suggestions of some graphic novels that would help me easy into them.

At the moment, I am reading Batman: the Long Halloween, and have finished Green Arrow:Midas Touch & Nightwing: Brothers in Blood. A friend also lent me the Justice League: Origins (new 52), which I didnt find particulary good.

Any help or suugestions would be great, and hope to be able to contribute more on the forum when I get up to speed!!:)

Thanks

Johnnie

Thwip!

Do you generally prefer DC or would you be up for trying other companies' Graphic novels?

Fysh

What kind of stories do you like? Are you looking specifically for superhero stories? If so, do you have any favourite characters?

Have a look at the What comic are you reading? thread - there's a lot of info there about what people are reading and how they find it

Johnnie_5

JP Carlow- Basically the only ones that I have read are the dc comics but Im open to reading any publications and I would look at non- superhero novels too

Fysh- I have had a look at that thread and also online but I want to ease myself into stories and not just jump in halfway through if you know what I mean? I was thinking of looking at the Astonishing X men, the Joss Whedon storyline.

As I said I'm a complete newbie, so the advise is well appreciated, cheers guys

Thwip!

Johnnie_5 wrote: »

JP Carlow- Basically the only ones that I have read are the dc comics but Im open to reading any publications and I would look at non- superhero novels too

Fysh- I have had a look at that thread and also online but I want to ease myself into stories and not just jump in halfway through if you know what I mean? I was thinking of looking at the Astonishing X men, the Joss Whedon storyline.

As I said I'm a complete newbie, so the advise is well appreciated, cheers guys

Hmmm well The first run on The Ultimates (by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch) is fantastic.
Greek Street is a modern retelling of Greek Myths
Superior by Mark Millar isnt so much a Superhero comic, more so a beautiful story of a boy with MS
Powers by Brian Michael Bendis is enjoyable
Jeff Smith's Bone is a classic

I will return with more

Fuzz McG

Luckily for you, there's pretty much a comic for everyone out there, in every genre you can think of!

Superhero-type stuff ::

Batman: Year One (CLICK) and The Dark Knight Returns (CLICK) (Frank Miller) - two of the most popular Batman stories ever. Essentially they're the first and last story of The Batman!
If you liked The Long Halloween, the same creative team also did Batman: Dark Victory and Haunted Knight. They also did a series of Marvel origin books like Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue and Hulk: Gray!
Top Ten (Alan Moore and Gene Ha) - superhero detectives, set in a future city filled with superheroes! Two volumes of this and they had a short prequel book released after those too that comes in pretty cheap. (CLICK)
Runaways (Brian K. Vaughan & more) - a bunch of youngsters with powers discover their parents are secretly supervillains and set out to stop them. A later arc was written by Joss Whedon. (CLICK)
Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (Mike Mignola) - the first in a series of Hellboy trades, each get better and better. It's about Satan's son (or is he!?) coming to Earth as a baby and being adopted and raised by the US military to be an occult detective/troubleshooter. (CLICK)
BPRD Plague of Frogs (Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & more) - Hellboy's sister title, based around his team of occult hunters. They're collected in really big omnibus collections at the minute that collect three individual trades under one cover and at a great price. Those cover the whole Plague of Frogs arc (it's currently in its second arc, Hell On Earth) and this is the first (CLICK)
All-Star Superman (Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely) - the best Superman story of the last decade, if not ever. (CLICK)
Superman: Red Son - a "Whaf If?" story about Superman landing in Soviet Russia as a baby instead of the US. (CLICK)
Batman: The Court of Owls (Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo): a good jumping-on point for the modern-day Batman. (Out soon in paperback)

Everything else! ::

We3 (Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely) - a dog, a rabbit and a cat who are transformed into weapons of mass destruction by the military, escape from their prison and try to get home. (CLICK)
100 Bullets (Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso) - 13 trades in total. A man turns up to different individuals and gives them a case with a gun 100 bullets and details on the person or people who destroyed their lives. (CLICK)
Sandman (Neil Gaiman & various) - 10 (or 11?) trades in total. It's considered one of the greatest comics series ever. (CLICK)
Criminal (Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips) - a series of gritty noir comics that focus on individual characters but all in the same city. There are about six trades now, starting with Coward (CLICK). Or this Deluxe trade collecting the first three trades (CLICK)
Saga (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples) - a new comic that's just started. Not sure if you'd rather trades but it's worth a look!
The Walking Dead: one of the most popular comics out there today. A book about sirviving the zombie apocalypse. Collected in a variety of trades, either single trades (collecting five or six issues), bigger hardback trades (collecting 12 issues) and then there's this behomoth Compendium (collects 48 issues, or 8 trades!) (CLICK)
Chew (John Layman and Rob Guillory): About a detective who gets psychic impressions from... uh, meat. It's better (and funnier!) than it sounds! (CLICK)

Hope that's of some help to you!

Mance Rayder

Anything to do with 2000 AD

http://shop.2000adonline.com/categories/graphic_novels

A good alternative to the usual Marvel/Darkhorse/DC. Check out Slaine http://shop.2000adonline.com/categories/slaine and ABC Warriors http://shop.2000adonline.com/categories/abc_warriors.

Also +1 for Sandman, an excellent and engaging read.

mooliki

For non superhero ones, I'd recommend;

Adrian Tomine - great, true-to-life stories about relationships and modern living. Simple stories, but spot on with his characters and dialogue.
Shortcomings is a favourite.

Guy Delisle - Journalism reportage style, often in politically turbulent countries, really interesting stories, but with a great sense of humour. Check out Pyongyang, an illustrated diary of his trip to North Korea.

Marjane Satrapi's true story in Persepolis is a brilliant graphic novel, for similar reasons.

And purely for the artwork, look out for David Mack's Kabuki series.

DoctorEdgeWild

I second the 'anything to do with 2000ad' comment above.

Having recently started a readathon from prog 1 to prog 1700, I can safely say that the quality is incredible at the best of times and hugely enjoyable at it's worst.

Bad Company, Nikolai Dante, Dredd of any kind, Slaine, Finn, the list is almost endless.

Plus you can pick up a lot of stuff for dirt cheap or even free.

Away from 2000ad, perennial favourites like Spiderman, Silver Surfer etc. rarely disappoint and have endured the test of time and changing pop culture thanks to their quality.

Fysh

DoctorEdgeWild wrote: »

I second the 'anything to do with 2000ad' comment above.

Having recently started a readathon from prog 1 to prog 1700, I can safely say that the quality is incredible at the best of times and hugely enjoyable at it's worst.

Bad Company, Nikolai Dante, Dredd of any kind, Slaine, Finn, the list is almost endless.

Plus you can pick up a lot of stuff for dirt cheap or even free.

Away from 2000ad, perennial favourites like Spiderman, Silver Surfer etc. rarely disappoint and have endured the test of time and changing pop culture thanks to their quality.

I'm with you on the general quality of a lot of the 2000AD stuff (I have fond memories of various annuals I read years ago, which were mostly rock-solid in terms of quality) but I can't help think that saying "Spiderman/Silver Surfer/$SUPERHERO rarely disappoints" is dangerous advice for a new reader.

If you're a serious collector and have been reading for years or decades, that may be true. If you're new to the medium and just figuring out what you want, having someone hand you a handful of comics half-way through the Clone Saga or the Crossing isn't going to do you any favours, really.

Specific collections/storylines are a better way to get someone interested in a particular series, I think. It can be daunting to go to a bookshop and try to figure out which of the 30-odd Batman/Spiderman/Superman trades you'd most enjoy, and whether it's something you can understand without having read something else first

Fuzz McG's list above covers most of what I'd have suggested initially.

Fuzz McG

I based my list on what the original poster had already read and seemed interested in, to a certain extent. I'm not sure what age they are or what genres they're about so just wanted to give a sort of general overview. I mean, From Hell and Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde are two of my favourite comics ever but I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to a newbie. Or Watchmen, for that matter!

2000AD is probably my favourite comic and I'd highly recommend you start reading that. It comes out every week and is an anthology title with a variety of fantastic writers/artists. Judge Dredd is in every issue, but the other four stories interchange all the time and they've maintained an incredibly high quality over the years.

For picking up new 2000AD trades, I'd recommend;

Judge Dredd: America - a story about two citizens of Judge Dredd's Mega-City One who grow up and try to survive life in its fascist system. (CLICK)
Cradlegrave - a self-contained horror story about a young guy who returns to his council estate, where he finds all is not what it seems. (CLICK)
Nikolai Dante - one of the best series 2000AD has ever had. About 10 or 11 trades, it's due to finish up this year. (CLICK)
Strontium Dog: Agency Files - the first is a bit hit and miss artwise (reading them in order isn't massively important!) but the second of these bumper editions collecting all the SD comics in order is fantastic, old-skool adventure comics. It's about a pair of mutant bountyhunters in the future who hunt down their own kind! (CLICK)

There's a lot more too, like Bad Company, Rogue Trooper, Sláine, ABC Warriors, Shakara etc. but those listed above are maybe a bit more newbie-friendly. All of Judge Dredd's comics are collected in order too in omnibus-sized Case Files. Again, I wouldn't necessarily jump in with Vol. 1 as the stories are from 1977 and they haven't quite figured out what to do with the character yet. Vol. 5 is Block Mania/The Apocalypse War (CLICK) so maybe start there and see what you think!

DoctorEdgeWild

Fysh wrote: »

I'm with you on the general quality of a lot of the 2000AD stuff (I have fond memories of various annuals I read years ago, which were mostly rock-solid in terms of quality) but I can't help think that saying "Spiderman/Silver Surfer/$SUPERHERO rarely disappoints" is dangerous advice for a new reader.

If you're a serious collector and have been reading for years or decades, that may be true. If you're new to the medium and just figuring out what you want, having someone hand you a handful of comics half-way through the Clone Saga or the Crossing isn't going to do you any favours, really.

Specific collections/storylines are a better way to get someone interested in a particular series, I think. It can be daunting to go to a bookshop and try to figure out which of the 30-odd Batman/Spiderman/Superman trades you'd most enjoy, and whether it's something you can understand without having read something else first

Fuzz McG's list above covers most of what I'd have suggested initially.

Great point, well made. You're right, I forget that I had to wade through a good deal of rubbish before finding ways to differentiate between the quality and the dross.

With that said, a great introduction to the American superhero style characters are the 'Essential' series. OP - These are pretty much in every comic shop and cover origins, main character developments and give you a great round-up of what that character is all about. Definitely worth considering.

However, as the two posters above have said, 2000ad is just incredible and collections can be gotten for cheap and is written in such a way that you can 'hop on' to a series of stories without feeling too lost. :-)

cat_rant

I will recommend completely recommend reading some of The Authority Graphic Novels. Also I feel that everyone should read Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

I am a DC Fan girl * before the reboot that is* Your right to read 52 - it's a great story arch.