What is your all-time favorite comic? It can be a graphic novel, a complete collected series, or even a single issue, but you have to pick one entity and one entity only. Titles like Watchmen and Sandman are the choices that go without saying for most of us, so it might be wise to avoid them and pick something a little more personal.
A quick exercise to help you narrow it down is this: who are your favorite comic authors? Which one of them do you like most? Which of his works do you feel is his best?
Though Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s current run on All Star Superman might end up usurping it once it’s complete, I would say that my all-time favorite comic is The Big City, by Will Eisner. I haven’t seen a better use of the unique characteristics of the comics medium as a means of self-expression, and the artwork is too beautiful. It’s all (very) short stories that depict people living in the city and interacting one another. The beauty is in the minimalism and simplicity; Eisner can tell the whole story about a man and woman arguing just by showing their feet through a sewer grating.
Batman: A Gotham tale two parter from 1992 in Detective Comics
The art wasn’t done by then detective regulars Jim Aparo and co. but the plot was so brilliantly contrived to make you think batman was going to commit murder when in fact it was a masterful entrapment for a villain that’s both mysterious and ultimately pathetic in the end.
That’s too tough for me. If I’m banning Alan Moore comics for the purpose of this thread, I’d have to think really hard.
I mean, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Top 10, and From Hell are always high in my mind. Those are my favorites, especially Watchmen and V. Those two in particular have been my two absolute favorites and I could never choose one over the other.
But even disqualifying Moore’s comics doesn’t make things much easier for me. There are tons of comics I like and a lot of comics that I love more than my own friends and family. In fact, you might even say that my favorite and most-loved comics ARE my friends and family. Which means that I love those comics more than I love those comics. It’s a paradox that serves to illustrate the intensity and depth of thought I carry within my soul, and explains why I don’t have a girlfriend.
But if I could only pick one… I guess right now, at this particular moment, I will go with Peter Milligan’s Shade, The Changing Man. Maybe after a good night’s rest I will think of something else, but right now I’m gonna roll with Shade.
Shade’s got everything I need: characters that are well-developed, memorable, and make you care; the series had overarching plots but each issue had its own themes and ideas, even different issues within the same storyarcs; Milligan used Shade to tell a huge variety of stories in a variety of genres in a variety of tones; he threw us a lot of wild, crazy, and straight up bizarre ideas that would make Morrison blush, but somehow the series was always grounded because of the characters; there was a heart and passion in that book that was (to use a goody word) PALPABLE to anyone whose sensibilities were just quirky enough to be enraptured by Shade and Milligan. (No homo.) Oh yeah, and the artwork was generally excellent no matter who was drawing it.
I’m not saying I understood or grasped every single thing and idea that Shade ever touched upon, but reading that comic certainly makes me feel. And I think that’s what good comics (and good art in general) is all about - just making you feel something that isn’t necessarily what you feel in your everyday life.
Ignoring the classics (Watchmen, Dk, Preacher, Sandman ect.) I’d have to say Black Hole. The story just sucked me in, and by the 12th Chapter I actually cared about the characters.
Superman: Red Son. The comic is one of the best portrayals of Superman… ever. The storytelling and characterization are superb, and the comic is chock full of imagery.
Strangers in Paradise is a very close second. My catch-phrase for it is “it’s better than any manga.”
Astro City: Tarnished Angel for me, most compelling film noir meets comic super heroes mix I have ever read. Very powerful and complex, and I always go back to it to lift my spirits.
I’m gonna say something that may end up being EXTREMELY unpopular here, but I’ll say it anyways.
My favorite comic of all time is Peter Parker: Spider-Man “Revelations, Part 4”.
Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor of me being so young when it was released, maybe it’s because it helped establish my completely heterosexual man-love for JRJR, but I think more than either of those two reasons, this book has a special place in my heart for not only ending the God-awful Clone Saga, but ending it with as much dignity and grace as humanly possible for the piece of shit. Is Norman being behind the whole thing a retarded Deus-ex-machina? Absolutely. But it was the perfect excuse to not only bring back one of Spider-man’s greatest enemies of all time, but to re-establish why he is so important and why he is, more than anyone else in the Marvel U, the Anti-Peter Parker. The character study for Norman in this book is brilliant, and the scene where Peter unmasks himself and Norman still gives me goosebumps. Ben Reilly is given as good a death as humanly possible, and leaves NO question on Peter’s legitimacy.
Strangers in Paradise is complicated and full of ‘what’s happening right now?!’ moments, and yet it all comes together so beautifully. The characters are deep, emotional, multi-sided, and real. I’m not one for reading serious literature like that so often, but I LOVE Strangers in Paradise.
The Asterix series are also my favorites, because their humor is a combination of slap-stickery, with delicious wordplay in the while. And besides, who DOESN’T like Gaulish warriors from 50 B.C. who could very well be more powerful than certain anime punks??
I’m gonna branch away from some of the obvious favorites and say Lone Wolf and Cub.
I remember seeing it in a book store when I was a kid (like, 10) and it looked like disney drawings to me, so I opened it and I was just blown away by the depth of it, to the point where it was really hard to follow but I couldn’t stop turning the pages. It really impacted my taste in media.
It was just so perfect, and now I own the entire series and can’t get enough of it. It definitely has a lasting effect on me.
That actually got me into more mature comics and books as an adolescent, and I was already pretty mature for my age to begin with.
come on goodm0urning! yer breaking my balls! well, even though Im not quite as well read in comics as most of you Ill decide in an upcoming edit. upcoming edit
…I dont know, probably the Killing Joke or Gotham Central.
I have a VERY beat up issue of Silver Surfer #3, I found it at an antique store and it was only $5, I took it home and read it but it seemed like there was a gap in the middle. turns out it was missing about 15 pages but I still enjoyed it. I think thats one of my favorite single issues, Mephisto was too cool.
I was 14 when it came out and I wasnt really into comics, I would pick up an issue of Captain America here and there and that was about it, but the cover to IG #1, caught my eye, so I had picked it up and just the art and storyline, really drew me in, I could hardly wait for the next issue to come out and I still havent had that same feeling since in any comic book :wonder: Even to this day I will read the TPB with joy of just how amazing a comic could be for me.
Single issue wise (Taking a page from Scum Gale here) would have to be my first comic ever, I found an issue of Marvel Team-Up at a local antique shop and bought it for like ten bucks.
Don’t remember the issue number, but it was the one where Man-Thing and Spidey team up to take on D’Spayre. The issue was amazing to me, since Spidey got fucked up royally and was all crying and shit. Man-Thing was like “Bitch I’ll show you how it’s done!” and him and D’Spayre get it on, then Spidey man’s up and they end up winning barely.
Since then I’ve been a big Man-Thing fan (No homo) and wondered why they let a character like D’Spayre drop off so suddenly, he had mad potential to be cool.
