Non-web Comics

[D.Z.]

Also worth noting is that it's over 10 years strong and every issue has been written by author Brian Michael Bendis. So if anyone out there is weary of American comics due to the swapping of writers, you've got no excuse to pass this one up.

Bendis is my hero. :D I will feel my life is complete if I achieve a quarter of his writing ability. Very few other comic authors have such a flair for hilarious dialogue, relatable characters, and epic storylines.

[Rob]

Oh noes! I have angered the Tara!  :o

LOL. I understand what you are saying. And I'm sure to an extent it's true. But I get books from the local library in this little town all the time. Usually I have to get them sent in from another library on the exchange program because this one is so small.

I was just at the biggest comic store in the area last week. I really didn't see anything that was't mainstream and the owner and I actually had a long talk about cyclical storylines and how a lot of stuff just keeps repeating.

To put it another way, the options you are describing just aren't there for me. I get my best exposure at Cons and usually I'm there for the webcomics. But if I see something cool I try and pick it up.

But the biggest issue is as you stated exposure. If I don't know it exists I can't really seek it out. And if there is a bunch of stuff that I don't know about I can't peruse through it and try and find the original stuff I might like.

But I believe you. There is probably some great stuff out there in print I'm dismissing with my attitude and for that I'm sorry. It's an economy of motion thing for me. Webcomics are just there. I can get them with a click. Even if I don't know about them there are search engines and listing sites to tell me about them. It's just really easy.

Whereas finding something in print that I don't know about is pretty much the opposite of that.

[TTallan]

Oh noes! I have angered the Tara!  :o

:D

My local library is teeny-weeny too, so I have to place an order and wait for all my graphic novels as well. But just to prove my point (and also because I worked in a bookstore for 10 years and I can't help recommending books to people), here are some titles I think you might like, Rob, if you haven't already read them:

The Big Book of Barry Ween, Boy Genius by Judd Winick
Astro City by Kurt Busiek and others (chances are pretty good you've already read this series, but just in case)
and the Zot! collection I mentioned in an earlier post.

All those should be get-able through interlibrary loan.

Hm... of course, all those were from the previous century, so I don't know if this is helping my case or not... ;)

[HarringtonAW]

Between my brother and I we must have around 1000 comic books. We started collecting Iron Man when we were kids and eventually we've collected comics from all over the world.

We've collected tons of superhero comics, but not very many lately as most of the titles that we kept up with are practically unrecognizable from what they used to be.

Manga-wise, some of my favorites are Man-Machine Interface (Ghost in the Shell 2) by Masamune Shirow, Sgt. Frog by Mine Yoshizaki and anything by Tsukuba Kotobuki or Shunya Yamashita. I'm also a fan of Kenichi Sanada's art and composition but not of his writing so much.

I've also gotten some great European comics like Les Armes du Metabarons which has some fantastic art by Travis Charest, and I really liked Massimo Frezotto's Keepers of Mazer and Songes: Coraline by Terry Dodson.

-S

[Gibson]

So I'm pretty much done with print comics. For me, webcomics tend to be a lot more interesting and original.

Argh!

I'd say the guilty party isn't so much superheroes but serials in general, and even more specifically with editorial teams at the larger companies whose work is continuity-based rather than story-based, and where the business of comics drives the art rather than the art necessitating the business. This sounds like juvenile malcontent speak, I know, but if you think about the stories you're talking about, they all take place in never-ending titles (or a crossover of many such titles) which are directed by an editor rather than an author. I'm in full agreement with Rob that this kind of thing kills a love of the story, it killed mine too and I stopped reading superhero books altogether.

Webcomics aren't any more original across the board than print comics, though, it's just that print comics have one giant, top-heavy genre that dwarfs and overshadows the others and webcomics don't. Webcomics are more than full of their cliched genres, themes and premises...Sonic comics, boy-love manga, strips about college-guys who play video games, alien-among-humans stories...and print comics have fantastically original and diverse titles, like




and a book everyone who enjoys comics should read at least once,


And there are a ton of other really creative, talented people working in print...Kyle Baker, Darwyn Cooke, Chris Ware, Chester Brown, Dan Clowes, James Kochalka...and that's only people whose work I like. Personally, I don't read many webcomics with any faithfulness or regularity. Most of my comics come in printed form, mostly because it's so much easier for me to find comics that appeal to what I like by looking at a cover and flipping through a few pages, plus there's usually a Snotty Douchebag section for me to look in most stores.

[TakaComics]

I like more subtle, dramatic stories:

Angel by Erika Sakurazawa
With The Light by Keiko Tobe
Shirahime-Syo by CLAMP
Densha Otoko (Train_Man) Illustrated by Hidenori Hara, Written by Hitori Nakano (Anonymous)

...and similar books. I actually don't pick up many comics, mainly because not many interest me, or I don't want to jump into continuity and have no clue what's going on. THANKS, Marvel/DC. I started in comics late, and so many of my favorites are short series or one shots, hence why my website is short stories and one shots.

[LegendWoodsman]

I have the first 20 or so of the Nightwing solo series done by Dixon, McDaniel and Story including the Wizard 1/2. This was the series that made me go "WOW, comic art can be amazing." The art alone made the book worth reading but the story of a bunch of bodies washing up in Gotham harbor and Dick branching out to his own city (Bludhaven... Bloodhaven... I forget) to solve the mystery was loads of fun.

I've been reading comics since I was 10 years old but I stopped picking the up when I was 14... but Joe Madureira's run on Astonishing X-Men (Age of Apocalypse) got me back in and Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel's Nightwing got me reading DC. I loved the curvilinear perspective that Scott drew and his website has some great tutorials on it (click on drawing comics in the left frame).

Now, I have a fair sized library of comic book trades, collected manga digests, and comic strip collections. I'm a big fan of One Piece and Darwyn Cooke.