Saturday, October 13, 2007

10 Comics That You Should Be Reading

These two books are currently being published that I think deserve more attention and more people picking them up. Both are excellent and are just starting their runs and if you aren't reading them you are missing out.

Bad Planet - From Raw Studios being published by Image comics. Okay this book is just flat out pure fun. It is about a bunch of alien bugs that crashed on our planet and are destroying most of the world. The "hero" who comes to Earth to save us is a bad a** alien who has escaped from a prison ship. Just because you are on a prison ship doesn't make you wrong, because we don't know his entire back story. We have flying cars, voluptuous woman, invading aliens, the military fighting the aliens, wonderful art and outstanding cover artists. This reminds me of the old sci-fi movies from the fifties and the sixties when the only science in it was that the creature or danger was from outer space, otherwise it was more of a horror flick. I can not adequately describe how much fun this book is to read.

Black Summer - Avatar - By Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp. Warren Ellis' examination of what would happen if a super hero extrapolated his moral sense of right and wrong to its ultimate extreme. The book starts off with John Horus (one of the Seven Guns) killing the President of the United States and many of his staff members for crimes against the country. When you step back and think about it, this type of action is not as extreme as one might think. If as a super hero you are doing the right thing no matter what the cost, wouldn't you be willing to take out a corrupt government? Also a strong argument can be made to say that the US government has been and is corrupt on many levels. Once Horus kills the President we are now reading about the sh*t storm that is coming down on his former team mates as the government retaliates. On the surface it is a lot of fighting, but the ideas of what was done and why and how the other guns are reacting to it is an interesting idea of how far would a super hero take doing the right thing.

EIGHT MORE TITLES YOU SHOULD TRY

Crossing Midnight - Vertigo - Mike Carey's best work ever.
Scalped - Vertigo - Jason Aaron and R.M. Guerra are crafting one of the hardest hitting books on the market.
Deadlander - New series from Dark Horse by Kevin Ferrara as artist and writer - this guy is going to be a major talent.
Killer - Arachaia Studio Press - A french comic being translated into English. The first arc is over and the second arc is beginning soon. An examination of a contract killer told from his POV.
Killing Girl - Image - A mafia hit(wo)man is remembering her past and may have killed her sister.
Fear Agent - A hero of less then reputable morals, great fun. Now published by Dark Horse.
Wasteland - Great post apocalyptic novel.
Fall of Cthulhu - BOOM studios. One of the best ongoing horror books on the market.

Bottom line go out and try something a little different. Take a chance. Do you have a limited budget, then cut out an issue of a character that you have read over 100 stories of and expand your horizons.

2 comments:

  1. Scalped is my favorite comic right now. Good choice.

    Can't wait to read Jason Aaron's Wolverine story.

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  2. RE: Black Summer, Warren Ellis has hit a pretty rich seam recently, and Black Summer is a very strong idea. I find the pace of it a bit distracting though and wish he'd ease up and offer a broader perspective. Still, well worth anyone's time.

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