A comic book comparable to Breaking Bad?

old hippy

Not an adaptation of the series but was just wondering could anyone out there recommend a comic with the scope and character detail (like we saw in BB)? You know, something that grabs you and never lets go, a charismatic anti-hero etc... cheers!

Scalped would be your best bet. To qoute myself, its an intelligent, well written, adult work that touches on some serious issues without ever feeling exploitative. It's very much an adult book and the language, violence and implied sex never feels there simply for the sake of it. It actually drives the plot and helps ground the story in reality. What's perhaps most impressiveabout the whole book is the manner in which it draws on real events. In the hands of a lesser writer it has all the potentialto bea juvenileand trashy book but thankfully the material is treated with respect and the writing is top notch.

It's one best read knowing as little as possible about as any synopsis of it generally gives away one of the early twists.

spektorfive

When saw Headline first book I thought of was Scalped. It a lot more out there but still great book about crime and effect on more regular people is Stray Bullets. It does tend to go off on flights of fantasy.

adazers

yeah scalped really is very similar to breaking bad, in terms of the gritty violence and the shakesperian way that it builds characters.

kupus

You want anti hero I give you the preacher, its about a preacher going around getting into various troubles. Its a bit dark and violent in places. but very funny and with great characters that you'll remember. Garth Ennis is author.

old hippy

kupus wrote: »

You want anti hero I give you the preacher, its about a preacher going around getting into various troubles. Its a bit dark and violent in places. but very funny and with great characters that you'll remember. Garth Ennis is author.

Yeah, I remember GE when he was writing mad stuff for Crisis magazine.

Thanks for replies so far, folks. Scalped has me interested...

Neil McCauleys Cooler Brother

Speaking of Garth Ennis, Billy Butcher, the character at the centre of "The Boys", breaks bad like Walt. His relationship with another character, Hughie, is very much like the Heisenberg-Jesse dynamic in "Breaking Bad" too. If anything, Ennis sticks to his guns a lot more than Gilligan, in terms of the lead character's total commitment to breaking bad.

richymcdermott

not a comic per-say but Deathnote has alot of similarities to breaking bad

Fysh

I'll +1 the recommendations for Scalped - it's a great series and thematically it has a lot of similarities with Breaking Bad.

Another one worth considering is Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips' Criminal series - admittedly it's a series of miniseries rather than one big storyline, but there are a lot of recurring characters and in terms of both themes and tone it's similar enough that I think you'd enjoy it, OP. (If you enjoy it, you should also check out Sleeper by the same creative team - it's about an organised crime gang of super-powered individuals, but quickly becomes something much more engrossing and rich, with great character development).

Zillah

Transmetropolitan!

Fysh

Zillah wrote: »

Transmetropolitan!

I'm not sure I'd agree with either this or Preacher, in that Breaking Bad is about a protagonist who is a proper anti-hero whereas Transmet and Preacher are thematically straight-up heroic quest stories.

They're both great and well worth reading, of course. The tone and humour is definitely a fit, at any rate.

I'm not sure about the availability of the Viz translations of Death Note, but my general experience of them is that if you can find them, they're normally very reasonably priced - so could be worth trying out at least the first volume if this premise summary from Wikipedia sounds interesting:
"It centers on Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the titular "Death Note". This notebook grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know. The plot follows Light's subsequent efforts to create a criminal-free utopia using the notebook, and the attempts of the detective L to stop him."

blatantrereg

Fysh wrote: »

I'm not sure I'd agree with either this or Preacher, in that Breaking Bad is about a protagonist who is a proper anti-hero whereas Transmet and Preacher are thematically straight-up heroic quest stories.

They're both great and well worth reading, of course. The tone and humour is definitely a fit, at any rate.

I'm not sure about the availability of the Viz translations of Death Note, but my general experience of them is that if you can find them, they're normally very reasonably priced - so could be worth trying out at least the first volume if this premise summary from Wikipedia sounds interesting:
"It centers on Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the titular "Death Note". This notebook grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know. The plot follows Light's subsequent efforts to create a criminal-free utopia using the notebook, and the attempts of the detective L to stop him."

Death Note is awesome. I read it from start to finish in one sitting. So for me it certainly qualifies as 'something that grabs you and never lets go'.

old hippy

Finished "Scalped" vol 2 yesterday. Excellent stuff. Surely ripe for a television adaptation?