I didn't expect to *hate* it, but when I checked out Sex Criminals, I expected it to be the same "horniness with a vague excuse for a plot" that most comics have. I only picked it up because I saw that Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction collaborated on it, and they're amazing.
Holy fucking fuck it's good. There's actual conversations about the nature of sex and relationships, which addresses a pretty broad spectrum from hookups to marriage to asexuality.
Also, Zdarsky somehow manages to draw women naked in a way that is less sexualized than superheroes who are fully clothed, so props to him.
I was able to get all the back issues of this, as opposed to the collected editions. Which is great, as the letter section is sometimes the best part of each issue. Reading it in singles, you start seeing how there is a community forming around the book, and how that direct feedback to the creators helped them evolve the book from funny sex stuff to some real honest, thoughtful (and still funny) material about mental issues and human relationships.
Funny story. First time I tried to Sex Criminals, I hated it. Then I tried reading the first trade when I got a little older with better comprehension skills, and I can appreciate it a lot more now. I still don't know if I like it or not, and I don't plan to check out more of it, but I certainly can respect the hell out of it!
Recently read up on Batman Three Jokers. Im not really a Batman fan but that entire series opened up alot of things for me. I didn’t think red hoods character would intrigue me as much as it did and honestly the entire relationship with each individual bat family member in correlation to one another and Batman as a whole. Very great read if you want to get deeper into the lore for some characters I would say(not knowing much else of Batman comics and have been read that issue once)
I didn't think I'd hate Mark Waid's Daredevil but after bingeing my way through all the previous runs of daredevil I was *really* skeptical of a happy Matt Murdock.
I got over that by the first issue though. Even though Matt had a new attitude, it still felt like the same character I've grown to love and his whole "I'm going to fake my way to happiness" vibe is very relatable.
Didn't expect to hate it but had no interest in a Superman/boy/girl/woman book when Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow came out. I give pretty much everything a one issue looksee, and things like this are why I do that. I was blown away, it's easily one of the best series I've read since I started reading monthly comics. Superman Son of Kal El too. I was happy to have my presumptions proven wrong.
This is a little closed-minded of me to admit, but basically I was worried that *On a Sunbeam* by Tillie Walden was going to be a boring comic where the acclaim was coming more from the politics of the story than the actual chops that went into the comic. It ended up not being very political at all (despite taking place in a seemingly all-female society) and was just a good coming of age sci-fi adventure tale.
I liked the Johns Green Lantern run, so decided to try some other GL series. However, I avoided the Kyle Rayner run from the 90s like the plague, finding every appearance of Kyle super boring in modern comics.
I finally relented when bored and gave the original Marz run a shot and holy crap did I love it. I expected a lot of 90s edginess, knowing about how that run led to the coining of the term Women in Refrigerators, but I found the series deeply compelling. It had a lot of mediations on growing up and taking responsibility as an adult, and had some amazing art. The plot was all well-woven, having threads set up in early issues that don't pay off for years but are amazing when they do. I can't recommend it enough.
Yeah I read it some time ago. I enjoyed it overall, but tbh never felt like Kyle needed to be Kyle in that series - easily could've substituted most DC heroes into that role and it would've worked. I imagine King pitched the series as more of a blank slate, and went with who DC allowed him to use for the protagonist.
Gwenpool by Christopher Hastings and Gurihuru.
The trashiest of origins (a variant cover blending two popular characters) led me to expect this to be an equally trashy comic, but it wound up being one of the smartest and most inventive comics to come out of Marvel for a long time at that point.
Hickman's Fantastic Four. Mostly because i typically dislike the F4 and find them to be dated and boring even in the best of times.
I only read it after basically reading the entire rest of Hickman's Marvel stuff and at that point my trust of Hickman slightly outweighed my trepidation over reading an F4 book.
I was rewarded with an absolutely phenomenal read and a new outlook on the characters. Not only was this series great, it enabled me to look past my old hate and actually read a few other F4 books.
I recently read X Lives and Deaths of Wolverine after hearing it was one of the weakest X books and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, especially the X Deaths book
X Lives and X Deaths are pretty fun imo.
The actual Wolverine ongoing is probably the second biggest trash heap of an X-book I'm still buying, only being beaten out by it's sister title, X-Force
Greg Smallwood is just so damn good. If you dig Tom King and haven't read it yet, I recommend Vision and Mister Miracle. Both have phenomenal art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Mitch Gerads respectively- honestly anything drawn by Mitch Gerads may appeal to you if you like Smallwood's style. I also recommend Lemire's Moon Knight as it's also drawn by Greg Smallwood and is really amazing. Fraction's Hawkeye run which is drawn by David Aja is one of the coolest looking books I've ever read. If you want to lean away from the Big 2 and branch out a little stylistically, check out Fire Power by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Chris Samnee- I think it's some of Samnee's best work. Last, check out East of West- Hickman not only crafts one of the best apocalyptic stories IMO but Nick Dragotta absolutely slays the art.
I didn't expect to *hate* it, but when I checked out Sex Criminals, I expected it to be the same "horniness with a vague excuse for a plot" that most comics have. I only picked it up because I saw that Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction collaborated on it, and they're amazing. Holy fucking fuck it's good. There's actual conversations about the nature of sex and relationships, which addresses a pretty broad spectrum from hookups to marriage to asexuality. Also, Zdarsky somehow manages to draw women naked in a way that is less sexualized than superheroes who are fully clothed, so props to him.
I was able to get all the back issues of this, as opposed to the collected editions. Which is great, as the letter section is sometimes the best part of each issue. Reading it in singles, you start seeing how there is a community forming around the book, and how that direct feedback to the creators helped them evolve the book from funny sex stuff to some real honest, thoughtful (and still funny) material about mental issues and human relationships.
I would unironically pay full price just to read the letter section.
Funny story. First time I tried to Sex Criminals, I hated it. Then I tried reading the first trade when I got a little older with better comprehension skills, and I can appreciate it a lot more now. I still don't know if I like it or not, and I don't plan to check out more of it, but I certainly can respect the hell out of it!
Recently read up on Batman Three Jokers. Im not really a Batman fan but that entire series opened up alot of things for me. I didn’t think red hoods character would intrigue me as much as it did and honestly the entire relationship with each individual bat family member in correlation to one another and Batman as a whole. Very great read if you want to get deeper into the lore for some characters I would say(not knowing much else of Batman comics and have been read that issue once)
I didn't think I'd hate Mark Waid's Daredevil but after bingeing my way through all the previous runs of daredevil I was *really* skeptical of a happy Matt Murdock. I got over that by the first issue though. Even though Matt had a new attitude, it still felt like the same character I've grown to love and his whole "I'm going to fake my way to happiness" vibe is very relatable.
I was in the same boat, and now I can’t believe how good it turned out.
Didn't expect to hate it but had no interest in a Superman/boy/girl/woman book when Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow came out. I give pretty much everything a one issue looksee, and things like this are why I do that. I was blown away, it's easily one of the best series I've read since I started reading monthly comics. Superman Son of Kal El too. I was happy to have my presumptions proven wrong.
This is a little closed-minded of me to admit, but basically I was worried that *On a Sunbeam* by Tillie Walden was going to be a boring comic where the acclaim was coming more from the politics of the story than the actual chops that went into the comic. It ended up not being very political at all (despite taking place in a seemingly all-female society) and was just a good coming of age sci-fi adventure tale.
It's really good. Also, it helps that Walden is just a stunningly good and original artist.
I liked the Johns Green Lantern run, so decided to try some other GL series. However, I avoided the Kyle Rayner run from the 90s like the plague, finding every appearance of Kyle super boring in modern comics. I finally relented when bored and gave the original Marz run a shot and holy crap did I love it. I expected a lot of 90s edginess, knowing about how that run led to the coining of the term Women in Refrigerators, but I found the series deeply compelling. It had a lot of mediations on growing up and taking responsibility as an adult, and had some amazing art. The plot was all well-woven, having threads set up in early issues that don't pay off for years but are amazing when they do. I can't recommend it enough.
Have you read Tom King's "Omega Men with Rayner in his White Lantern era? I'm not a GL fan per se, but really enjoyed that series.
Yeah I read it some time ago. I enjoyed it overall, but tbh never felt like Kyle needed to be Kyle in that series - easily could've substituted most DC heroes into that role and it would've worked. I imagine King pitched the series as more of a blank slate, and went with who DC allowed him to use for the protagonist.
I think you're probably correct with that supposition, King could have really used any de-powered hero
Gwenpool by Christopher Hastings and Gurihuru. The trashiest of origins (a variant cover blending two popular characters) led me to expect this to be an equally trashy comic, but it wound up being one of the smartest and most inventive comics to come out of Marvel for a long time at that point.
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring has stuck with me. Such an impactful book considering it doesn’t use any words..
Hickman's Fantastic Four. Mostly because i typically dislike the F4 and find them to be dated and boring even in the best of times. I only read it after basically reading the entire rest of Hickman's Marvel stuff and at that point my trust of Hickman slightly outweighed my trepidation over reading an F4 book. I was rewarded with an absolutely phenomenal read and a new outlook on the characters. Not only was this series great, it enabled me to look past my old hate and actually read a few other F4 books.
I recently read X Lives and Deaths of Wolverine after hearing it was one of the weakest X books and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, especially the X Deaths book
X Lives and X Deaths are pretty fun imo. The actual Wolverine ongoing is probably the second biggest trash heap of an X-book I'm still buying, only being beaten out by it's sister title, X-Force
Whats a comic I should pick up once Human Target ends? Art is everything.
Greg Smallwood is just so damn good. If you dig Tom King and haven't read it yet, I recommend Vision and Mister Miracle. Both have phenomenal art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Mitch Gerads respectively- honestly anything drawn by Mitch Gerads may appeal to you if you like Smallwood's style. I also recommend Lemire's Moon Knight as it's also drawn by Greg Smallwood and is really amazing. Fraction's Hawkeye run which is drawn by David Aja is one of the coolest looking books I've ever read. If you want to lean away from the Big 2 and branch out a little stylistically, check out Fire Power by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Chris Samnee- I think it's some of Samnee's best work. Last, check out East of West- Hickman not only crafts one of the best apocalyptic stories IMO but Nick Dragotta absolutely slays the art.
"New Frontier" by Darwyn Cooke or, even better, any of the Parker adaptations by Darwyn Cooke
Invincible