Top 10 Favorite Comic Books

Let's talk comics! What are your top 10 favorite comics of all time? Let's use the term "comics" loosely to mean a specific run, series, graphic novel or any other way you want to define it. I'll kick things off with my picks...

1. Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis
2. Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon
3. Jeff Smith's Bone
4.The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
5. Daredevil by Bendis
6. Captain America by Ed Brubaker
7. The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
8. Kingdom Come by Mark Waid
9. Watchmen by Alan Moore
10. Batman Year One by Frank Miller

Mostly pretty classic picks, but those are the ones I am always coming back to.

im going to struggle to make a top ten, and it will probably offend western comic fans as superheros don't do much for me.

1. Akira - Otomo
2. The Incal - Jodo, Moebius
3. City of Stone/City of Smoke - Lutes
4. Blame - Nihei
5. Nausicaa - Miyazaki
6. Arzach - Moebius
7. Judge Dredd - Wagner - Esquerra
8. Asterix - Goscinny, Uderzo
9. Ronin - Miller
10. Lupin - Monkey Punch

I'm decades behind in my comic book reading, so here's an irrelevant top 10:

Swamp Thing - Alan Moore
Animal Man - Grant Morrison
Doom Patrol - Grant Morrison
Cerberus - Dave Sim (before he went insane; up to and including Church and State?)
American Flagg - Howard Chaykin
Nexus - Mike Baron
Batman stuff - Frank Miller
(almost anything) - Kyle Baker (e.g., Why I Hate Saturn)
Bone - Jeff Smith
Grimjack - John Ostrander

Watchmen/Sandman are up there as well. Badger was fun, but probably hasn't aged well - and when it eventually got serious it was a chore to read.

I like more of the independant stuff.

1. The Metabaron - Alejandro Jodorowsky
2. Dark Horse Aliens
3. The Red Star - Image
4. The Demon
5. Requiem - Vampire Knight
6. The Incal - Alejandro Jodorowsky
7. Supergod - Warren Ellis
8. Ocean - Warren Ellis
9. Ministry Of Space - Warren Ellis
10. Valerian: The New Future Trilogy - Pierre Christin

OK, I am a big fan of Ellis

This is one of those like "name your favorite record"...

1) Watchmen- well duh
2) Grant Morrison Batman run
3) Walt Simonson Thor run
4) Daredevil (either Miller, Bendis or Waid- you choose)
5) Incal/Metabarons- Jodorowsky
6) Judge Dredd (up through the 1980s)
7) Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge stuff
8) Dark Knight Returns
9) Ed Brubaker Captain America run
10) Black Hole- Charles Burns

OVERTIME

11) Morrison's Animal Man
12) Original Eastman/Laird TMNT
13) Kirby's New Gods
14) Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory
15) From Hell
16) Bone
17) Morrison's All-Star Superman
18) Akira
19) Batman- Long Halloween
20) Secret Wars (total guilty pleasure from childhood)

5. Requiem - Vampire Knight

GOD I FUCKING LOVE THIS BOOK. Absolutely NUTS. I need to get a hardcopy of this one.

I feel like I should also give a special mention to Godzilla: Half Century War one of the best comics of the past couple of years, actually), Battling Boy and Prophet (the NEW one, not the Liefeld one.

I'm not huge into the superhero books.

Y: The Last Man - Vaughan
V for Vendetta - Moore
Watchmen - Moore
The Other Side - Jason Aaron
Building Stories - Chris Ware
Acme Novelty Library (including Jimmy Corrigan) - Chris Ware
Maus - Spiegelman
Asterios Polyp - Mazzucchelli
Marvels - Busiek
The Killing Joke - Moore

I cannot choose an order to this shit so don't even try. I'm using letters y'all.

A/ Cerebus
B/ Watchmen
C/ Dark Knight Returns
D/ Astro City (the whole series I suppose but I could pick four singles that stand head and shoulders above the rest)...
E/ Swamp Thing
F/ Sin City (for the art alone, the stories kind of blow)
G/ The Invisible's/Animal Man/Filth/Doom Patrol (I kind of see them as all part of the same whole)
H/ Plastic Man (Jack Cole run)
I/ Glamourpuss (Dave Sim's newer strange and sometimes bigoted comic)
J/ Planetary
L/ Building Stories
M/ Batman (Neal Adams run)
N/ Flash Gordon (Alex Raymond run)
P/ Lots more Moore... From Hell, League, Lost Girls, A Small Killing ....

This could change depending on what I've had for breakfast and I'm afraid I'll use the whole alphabet if I keep going.

Things that make me sad... being unable to include something with Seth Fishers amazing artwork in this list, not being able to include Sandman because reading Swamp Thing made it seem much less interesting, not being confident that choosing comic strips would be ok because Calvin and Hobbes, Krazy Kat, Pogo and maybe a couple of others are certainly up there for me.

Michael Barnes wrote: 7) Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge stuff

I always hear great things about this but can't imagine why. I don't want to miss out if it really is that good. Can you make a case for me?

I've mostly read graphic novels and contained series. Here are 10 favourites in no particular order beyond whichever came to mind first. Manga would be a completely separate list for me.

1) All-Star Superman
2) Watchmen
3) Maus
4) Sandman
5) Astonishing X-Men
6) Batman: The Long Halloween
7) Kingdom Come
8) Irredeemable
9) The Ultimates (the first two volumes)
10) Calvin and Hobbes

Another few: V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, Y the Last Man, Batman: Year One/Killing Joke/Arkham Asylum/Dark Knight Returns/Hush, Persepolis, Fables, Invincible, Walking Dead, Transmetropolitan, certain arcs of Constantine

Damn this is a hard question. Worse than favorite record, it's more like "name your favorite part of the female body". Thinking back at the old stuff it's hard to tell what was truly great and what was just there at the right time. Nonetheless (INPO):

Grimjack- the first two years
Judge Dread- through the 80's
Swamp Thing - Alan Moore
Daredevil- Frank Miller
Thor- Walt Simonson
Watchmen
Dark Knight Returns
Miracle Man- Alan Moore
X-Men- Claremont/Byrne

I can't seem to put down a number ten because then I've fully committed. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

choosetimright37 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: 7) Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge stuff

I always hear great things about this but can't imagine why. I don't want to miss out if it really is that good. Can you make a case for me?

He invented modern comics is probably a good reason. His stories are well-written, well-drawn, and incredibly creative. My kids have four of the collected works and have read them again and again. He's amazing.

This is impossible.

1. The Dark Knight Returns
2. Any Daredvil stuff by Frank Miller, BMB, or Mark Waid

That's pretty much all I have. And I love comics. I just can't pick definite favorites.

Tim Champlin wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: 7) Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge stuff

I always hear great things about this but can't imagine why. I don't want to miss out if it really is that good. Can you make a case for me?

Ah...you're going through that "why would I want to read Donald Duck comic books?" stage. Everybody does it. I did it too. Even though I read some of this stuff when I was little.

Carl Barks' work is GENIUS and it should be batted around conversations that include Eisner, Kirby and the other progenitors of the comics form. It's so much more than just some throw-off Disney license. Barks took Uncle Scrooge and his nephews and built an entire world around them (Duckburg) complete with many other great characters. But more than that, he wrote some really awesome, fun and funny adventures for them to go on that go around the world, through history and into some pretty interesting places. If you've seen Duck Tales, you have some idea of what these books are like because they are directly inspired by them.

And it helps too that Uncle Scrooge is an amazing character, one of the best in all of comics. And that his art is awesome. And that the writing is absolutely charming, warm and appealing to all ages.

Check out the Fantagraphics reprints, they're very good and they also highlight some of the best examples. My favorite of all time is still The Old Castle's Secret- I read it when I was like five and it made a huge impression on me. Lost in the Andes is another that gets listed as a "best'. The Life and Times of Uncle Scrooge is more recent, but it may very well be his best work.

I don't have 10.

1. Watchmen
2. Akira
3. The Crow
4. Batman - Knightfall saga

Joke response.... anything by Rob Leifeld

edit- I've been reading an old Judge Dredd tpb, and while the stories are fun, I really don't like how they always wrap up in one page and in the dumbest ways. It's like every story was over-written and they had to just slap on some dumb ending for space purposes.