recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire

Wooden lies!

I can see how you could get this idea if you've only read a few of them, but really the entire series is one grand, and very satisfying, story arc. Probably about 60% of the issues contribute to it. It's good election year reading, too. There need to be more political comics!

Well, yeah. It's just me, I know. I don't go to comics to see people being sensitive. Combine that with a lot of the genuinely whiny crap that has been selling at the comic store lately, and I guess I'm just not able to appreciate "Blankets" for what it is. It might be Stevie Ray Vaughn, but white-boy blues gets on my nerves in general, you know?

With the exception of Chris Ware, who is the exception the proves the rule. Besides, he's less whiny than just flat out fucking depressing.

okay, these are actually trade paperbacks, but oh well.

my picks (mostly seconded from above) would be, Watchmen, Sin City, Dark Knight Returns (but not the second one), Top10 (all 12 issues are collected in 2 volumes), Batman Year One, Arkham Asylum, Elektra Assassin, Plastic Forks (probably impossible to find now) and any of the Concrete collected issues.

new Dave Gibbons hardback, The Originals, out this month btw, looks great but is about Mods. http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13693

No offense, but that's nonsense. Hellblazer's had a dozen writers over 200 issues, some of whom (Paul Jenkins, I'm looking at you) only served to tie up loose ends from three or four writers ignoring and rewriting each others work. And there's at least one (self-contained) Sandman collection where it's clear that Neil Gaiman doesn't really have a grand concpetion of where he's going.

actually, yes, Hellblazer wasn't a good example as it does seem to have self-contained 4 or 5 issue storylines. but, given that there are 200 issues available now, which one do you pick? i'd much rather buy something that contained all 12 issues of something that was planned as 12 issues, that had a beginning, a middle and an end, than something that was just a snippet of a much bigger thing. that was my point, stated badly 8)

My other recommendation is for him to ask what his hipster ex-roommate reads, then avoid that, but then I hate emocomics.

i would recomend "lone wolf and cub" as well but thats a lot of paper to buy. so better stick with "the legend of kamui" by sanpei shirato which is drawn in similar style but is moer concise and dramatic. and has girls.

plenty of good titles listed.

Grendel, Black White & Red is another

In 7th grade I thought that 4-volume original Elfquest stuff was the shit! Made me have funny feelings about...things.

for non-indie stuff, Sandman seconded, I devoured the whole series in a three month jag, probably read it too quickly. There are lulls in it but on the whole it's staggering. I'm not big on Gaiman when he gets too twee or clever but he's in check most of the time in the series. The early Hellblazer stories are pretty good but it lost focus and became uninteresting to me quickly. I hate, hate, hate Preacher. The Invisibles was pretty good but I never got the desire to finish it after a point. You can't go wrong with Watchmen (most Moore stuff is pretty good, even the recent things; Top 10 was cool, Tomorrow Stories was fun; Promethea was great up to the point where it didn't seem like a story was ever really going to happen, it seems like it was just an extended character sketch), and From Hell is brilliant. the Moore Swamp Thing stories are collected now and are really good too.

omg youre right! i thouhgt this was all the kamui there was.

(yay magick comix)

Still, some arcs or mini-series are clearly meant to be of a piece, and just happen to be released in issues first (like the first Kabuki collection?). There's also the phenomenon of "writing for the trade", the same as filming for the dvd I guess.

Quite a few! Be patient with me.

Ha! Thanks!

A few things I've finished recently that I would recommend:

Alt-Life by Joseph Falzon and Thomas Cadene (Europe Comics - Sci-Fi)
http://www.europecomics.com/alt-lifespecial/

Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels (Lion Forge - Sci-Fi)
http://www.ezracdaniels.com/#/upgradesoul/

Clockwork Apple by Osamu Tezuka (Platinum Manga - Manga)
NB: this is decidedly minor by Tezuka standards but worth the read
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/clockwork-apple/

Pulp by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image - Crime Noir)
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5343-1644-7

The Kill Lock by Livio Ramondelli (IDW - Sci-Fi)
https://www.idwpublishing.com/product-category/the-kill-lock/

Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York by Samuel Delany and Mia Wolff (Fantagraphics - Romance)
https://threeimaginarygirls.com/bread-wine-fantagraphics-reissues-timeless-romantic-masterpiece/

Starving Anonymous by Yuu Kurasishi and Kazu Inabe (Kodansha - Horror)
NB: This is a seven book manga series and pretty deeply disturbing stuff. Great fun!
https://kodanshacomics.com/series/starving-anonymous/
https://mangakakalot.com/read-om4bi158504913701

Thanks forksclovetofu!

yah, thx!

Anyone read Matthew Dooley's Flake?

Or Jean-Marc Rochette's Altitude?

Grr. Ordered the above two books only to find they already had them.

Anything new?

Not in response to any particular requests on this thread, but has anyone else been checking out the TKO Studios stuff? I've read a few of them and some are better than others but they all look really cool on the bookshelf. The two that stand out the most to me are Goodnight Paradise (a noir story set among the unhoused community in Venice Beach) and Redfork (supernatural horror set in a West Virginia town ravaged by opioid epidemic and problems with the local coal mine).

https://tkopresents.com/products/goodnight-paradise

https://tkopresents.com/collections/titles/products/redfork

I missed the entirely to Wave II and own, but have not yet read, Wave III's werewolf noir Lonesome Days and Savage Nights.

The Fearsome Doctor Fang from Wave I was not a hit with me at all. SARA, by Garth Ennis, is pretty well-acclaimed from what I understand, and I thought it was okay but a little bland.

I have the Planetary Omnibus coming my way for Xmas, which I am expecting to enjoy.

Some recent GN purchases -

Seth - Wimbledon Green
Tom Gauld - Mooncop
Inio Asano - Nijigahara Holograph
Warren Ellis - Injection

All good, especially Wimbledon Green and Injection

I also bought the first few volumes of Bill Willingham's 'Fables' for my nephew's secret Santa and it looks pretty interesting.

Oh, one more, Jodorowsky and Moebius' 'The Incal' perhaps not a 14-year-old read, well maybe a trippy but edifying 14-year-old read, I'd have definitely been into it at that age, I think. The artwork alone is amazing.

Fables is a good pick for teens who would vibe on it, because there are so. many. volumes

For some out-there stuff that's still PG rated, I liked V1 of Prism Stalker. Setting and story is A+ but the art is B-/C+ -- sloane leong is not great at drawing action poses.

I think Trondheim’s INFINITY 8 is among the best comics of the year. All 24 issues available in English.

8 volumes? A shame they're all in hardcover but it looks interesting. Has that changing art crew like Dungeon.

Doesn't seem PG rated with the nudity, same goes for Dungeon, looks deceptively child friendly and my copy of Dungeon Monsters: Heartbreaker says "perfect for kids" on the back cover and has two rape scenes; obviously whoever wrote that read different volumes.

oh yeah they (and dungeon) aren't for kids. didn't note that was your line. i thought crowded by image was okay and might be teen appropriate?
https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/crowded-vol-1-tp

Assuming this thread is still serving DJH's 14 year old.

i'm serving gear from 16 years ago

x-post. Thanks Robert. This thread has been so useful for buying presents for a close friends kids ... but doesn't have to be *all about me*.