Sequential Art Comic Books Graphic Novels

All of those words are quite related.
Have you ever read graphic novels or comic books?
How did they come into your life?
Which ones have had an impact on you?
Do you still read them? If so or if not...why?

 

sadly, im not a comic book person, ive never read novels. just never got interested in them

 

That's okay they're not for everyone, though sometimes I wish there were enough stories to appeal to a wider audience, like manga has.

 

I started with Betty & Veronica comics when I was a little girl and also read Katy Keene, Archie, and Richie Rich (hated that one). I found one used copy of Mad magazine Digest from the 50's and I was hooked! The art, story telling, racy humor it was everything I wanted comics to be! Years after whenever I would have surgery my mom would pick up a few more used Mad Digests for me to read in the hospital. <3

When I was 14 I decided to go back to comics and went to our local comic shop and was floored by the variety! It was the early 90's and comics were in a boom time. Over the coming months I picked up Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, a BUNCH of Vertigo ( an imprint of DC Comics) books, Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, David Hahn's Private Beach, Love & Rockets <3 , Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic and Sandman! That year I discovered the art of Bill Sinkevitch, John Bolton, Adam Hughes, and Jon Muth among others. I fell for Rogan Gosh, Mercy, Black Orchid, Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison and art by Philip Bond. Over time was challenged by some rather disturbing content such as that in the Eaters and also fell in love with Death of the Endless. Have been a fan of comics and then graphic novels since and probably will be forever.

There are so many great stories out there and others yet to be told comics are a fascinating intersection of story and art to me.

 

First, how the hell did this thread get past me?

I was raised on Mad Magazine! The stuff from the 70's & 80's was good, but the stuff from the 50's is by far the funniest material I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Harvey Kurtzman is a huge influence on my own work here, and if anyone's never seen just how hilarious this stuff is, have a look at this:

Inside Jeff Overturf's Head: "Murder the Husband! Murder the Story!" - Jack Davis - Mad Mondays!
(A typical murder thriller gets entirely new dialogue)

The first time I read that, my stomach hurt from laughing so hard.

As far as other works go, I've read Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (and a smattering of other Batman novels) something called Torso (a dramatic telling of the Torso Killer that Elliot Ness hunted down in Cleveland; the entire book is in glorious black and white) and the most recent series I've been reading is the Amulet (Stonekeeper) books. Normally I wouldn't have looked at them, but my daughter is following them and I browsed through them out of curiosity. Not bad, but the series is already up to 7 books and it's a little on the sprawling side; it seems like there's a lot of introducing of characters who don't necessarily fit into the narrative.

 

I just remembered another graphic novel from my past- does anyone recall The Trigan Empire?

The Trigan Empire - Wikipedia

This was a graphic novel before graphic novels were graphic novels! The artwork was breathtaking and the world it took place in was intriguing: imagine the Roman empire with togas and massive stone columns, but also with jet fighters and ray-guns.

Of course, looking back on it there were some flaws- the continuity was HORRIBLE; objects/people/storylines would change drastically, sometimes from panel to panel! I noticed there was also some racism (the good guys are all white with one exception, with the main villains looking suspiciously Asian) and also a distinct lack of strong female characters. (I haven't read all of the stories, but only one woman consistently appeared in most of the stories as a supporting character and was portrayed as a competent physician. To her credit, I never recall her needing to be rescued, either.)

There's also a link to a blog stating that Hollywood is considering a possible movie:
Bear Alley: Trigan Empire: The Movie!

Not sure if that's going to work; (it's already been almost a decade since the news broke) but it might be interesting to see if they could pull it off with some re-working of the material.

 

Oh my gosh there are words in this thread here! Can't wait to read them when sentences form themselves into cohesive thoughts again! yay for you guys and comics! <3

 

Every time I think I'm done with this thread, I keep remembering something else to add to it!

Another graphic novel worth looking into is Richard Corben's "Den" series.

If you've read any of the "Heavy Metal" magazines from the 1970's, you'll recall Corben's contributions. Or, if you've seen the animated movie of the same name, you'll know Corben's storyline and characters if not his artwork.


(Yes, that's John Candy's voice narrating.)

These are samples of Corben's artwork:
Click Here

Vibrant colors, super-sexualized body parts and martial arts battles in a fantasy world. (Yes, the main characters walk around naked.)

I have the first two books, and Neverwhere (book 1) is incredible.

 

Just found another worthy entry for this thread:

WEAPON BROWN!


Has anyone ever wondered how Charles Schulz' "Peanuts" gang would look in a post-apocalyptic world?

Wonder no more- Artist Jason Yungbluth created a batshit-crazy take on Charlie Brown, turning him into a cyborg and battling to rescue the red-headed girl in his life from assorted characters from the comics.

If you grew up reading the strip, you'll understand practically all the references. There's an initial story featuring only the Peanuts gang, then another longer story; "Blockhead's War", where Weapon Brown encounters a vast assorted of comic strip characters from the Katzenjammer kids to The Boondocks, all involved in a giant battle for survival.

To put it bluntly, this is some fucked-up shit, and I loved every single page. If you can get your mechanical hand on a copy, I highly recommend it.

 

Not sure how I missed this thread myself.
I read a lot of graphic novels myself.

Big fan of Tank Girl, Astro City, Hellboy and the sequel BSRP, Invincible, Sandman, Y: The Last Man, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Doom Patrol, Judge Dredd, Saga, and Ms. Marvel.

 

Ive been reading them for decades. My username comes from Sandman.
Currently I'm reading Fantastic Four, Conan the Barbarian, the new Hellblazer series, and The Dreaming.

 

Been meaning to check out the new Hellblazer series.
How does it compare to the old one?
I have the entire set of the original and love it.

 

It's just starting up but I'm optimistic. Same old John not the sanitized for mainstream John in the DCU.
And it does continue from the previous series, kind of.

 

Yes I have read some...
Geoff Darrow's Hard Boiled comes to mind.
Richard Corben's Den series. RIP Corben, I love his art so much.
The Starstruck series with art by Kaluta, absolutely fantastic original first set of six books I think, but there has been some more since that I have not seen..
Several Dark Horse series of movie tie in comics including aliens theme, The Thing, Terminator and a few more.
I used to own a full set of Robert Crumb's Weirdo magazines but I lent them to a woman who.wanted.to see and learn of.femail comic.writers but she never gave them back and I have a huge chip on my shoulder about that.
I have a few sets of Glen Danzig's Verotik comic sets.
I have the first 2ish years of the Heavy Metal comic magazine.

I would like to have collections of Warren publication Creepy and Eerie, Vampirella and various EC horror comics but those are deep rabbit holes to go down...I just have a few from childhood

I wouldn't say I'm a big comic collector but I'm dyslexic so I do like the pictures and I love to learn art from other artists.

Sorry about all the periods it's so close to the space bar on my phone here.

 

Started as a kid because the cool kid in the neighborhood collected and us younger kids followed suit. Started with Epic’s run of Elfquest and Marvel Superhero comics.

Collected up through college mostly X-men related stuff. But it got too hard to keep up with so I stopped. I’ll check out $1 bins and pick up stuff or pick up interesting books sometimes.

When I found out our local library had TPB and graphic novels I checked out tons. Finally got to read Maus and some then some recent titles like like She Hulk books and Matt Fraction run on Hawkeye.