Top 10 Favorite Comic Books

So many choices...

Seven Soldiers (Morrison and several artists) - The best run by one of the best writers in comics. Grant Morrison takes seven obscure DC characters, reintroduces them in a set of seven minis (bookended by two framing issues), and links all seven together in both an epic tale and a fun subset of DC continuity.

Freakangels (Ellis/Duffield)- Though I am tempted to name Planetary as my favorite Warren Ellis comic, it relies heavily on recycled ideas. I enjoyed Freakangels more because the interaction between the characters was more interesting and the setting was more novel. And you can read it all for free, starting right here: www.freakangels.com/?p=23 )

Top Ten (Moore/Ha) - Alan Moore is a big fan of Homicide and The Wire, and Top Ten is his ode to the American cop show concept, though with a major superhuman twist. The cops of Tenth Precinct all have superhuman powers, just like everybody else in their city. Moore has great fun deconstructing a variety of superhero tropes while also telling some good cop stories. The graffiti alone is almost worth the cover price.

Grimjack (Ostrander/Truman/Sutton/Henry) - The entire run. The artwork wasn't always great after Truman left, but I love that Ostrander never stayed in a comfortable status quo. John Gaunt went through some serious changes over the course of the series, and eventually even incarnations.

Dreadstar (Starlin/David/Medina) - Same deal as Grimjack. I loved it best when Starlin was handling both writing and penciling, but the ending run by Peter David and Angel Medina is very nearly as good.

Master of Kung Fu (Moench/Gulacy/Day) - After a few issues by Englehart and Starlin, Moench took over the writing and did some outstanding work. While the Gulacy artwork is excellent, the final years featured equally great artwork by the late Gene Day.

JLA/Avengers (Busiek/Perez) - I enjoy superhero team books, and this four-issue mini-series was the pinnacle of superhero team books, combining the premier super-teams of both DC and Marvel, in one big epic adventure. Written by super-fan Kurt Busiek, and drawn by a fan-favorite artist of both teams in their classic incarnations.

X-Men - (Claremont, Byrne, Cockrum) An uncanny run, rescuing an okay comic from reprint limbo. They took the best ideas from the short run by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams and even some earlier issues and spun it into an entertaining string of adventures that reached a bold crescendo with one of the first big deaths in comics.

X-Men (Whedon/Cassaday) After Byrne left X-Men, Claremont relentlessly ran the title into the ground for another dozen years before finally getting yanked. He had great synergy with Byrne, but ran roughshod over all subsequent artists, nearly burying their art in heavy exposition and narrative. So I avoided all things X for a long time, until Grant Morrison revitalized the book. Then Whedon came along and successfully built upon Morrison's renovations, only with better characterization.

JSA (Johns and various artists) - I won't defend Geoff Johns in a general way. He often takes classic silver age characters and re-visits them with ultraviolence and awkward situations, tending to turn otherwise fun characters into overly serious drama queens. But his JSA run was great. He was both respectful of the elder heroes of the DCU and able to introduce some very worthy legacy heroes. Big ideas, big endings, and decent characterization of heroes in one of the larger teams found in comics.

Shellhead wrote: Master of Kung Fu (Moench/Gulacy/Day)

Criminally underrated.

1. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Stop after he second graphic novel- do not go on to Black Dossier)
2. Locke & Key
3. Grendel Tales - There is great graphic novel inspired by the Balkan Wars. REally great strung together story. Otherwise not a huge Grendel fan
4. Criminal- Love Brubaker
5. Box Office Poison- Was in the Chicago Public Library. Picked it up on a whim really got drawn into lives of characters
6. Watchmen
7. Sin City (stop after Marv)
8. Kingdom Come
9. Nowhere Men -wish this were still and active title
10. Irredeemable (initial concept good, got a little unwieldly at end but loved the premise How do you stop superman if he turned bad?

In no particular order

- Love and Rockets (I tend to like the Palomar stuff over the Locas, but both are great)
- Usagi Yojimbo
- Dean Motter's Mister X/Terminal City/Electropolis
- Morrison's Doom Patrol, Invisibles, Flex Mentallo, All Star Superman, WE3, and Seaguy
- Paul Grist's Jack Staff
- Pretty much anything by Jason
- Anything by Kevin Huizenga
- Dungeon series by Trondheim/Sfar
- Hellboy/BPRD, though I haven't liked the last few years of stories
- Planetes, one of the few manga series I've really enjoyed

I know different strokes but man, Kingdom Come on a top 10 list? That's just got me baffled.

Batman- Moench/ Jones
Dark Knight- Miller
Watchman- Moore
Top 10- Moore
Powers- Bendis
Maxx- inconsistent series, but enjoyable
Spawn- McFarlane
Conan- BW Smith- Marvel, Busiek/ Nord- Dark Horse
Nick Fury/ Shield- esp Steranko
The Hammer- cool 70's vibe Lovecraftian horror- Kelley Jones
Starman- Robinson
Star Wars- Dark Horse semi recent that took place between New Hope and Empire
Ultimates- Millar

Looking at the list, I see lots of older stuff, esp late 90's/ early 2000's. I guess I need to get out more.

Off the top of my head and in no particular order (of course I'm posting from work!) thinking in of books/series on the shelf I would most want to keep. I'm probably forgetting a ton of stuff.

New Frontier - Darwyn Cooke
Dungeon - Trondheim/Sfarr
Fantastic Four - Kirby/Lee stuff of course
Planetary - Ellis/Cassaday
Manhattan Projects - Hickman - I may be rating this too high, but I just read the first 10 issues and loved it!
Jack Staff- Paul Grist
BPRD - Mignola/Davis -I love Guy Davis' artwork and enjoy this series more than the main Hellboy stuff
Secret History - Pecau
Incognito - Brubaker/Phillips -over Criminal, Sleeper, and Fatale
This space reserved for something I will obviously have forgotten

Outside the top 10:
Akira - this was the toughest to leave out
The Incal - would probably be higher if I had read it when it came out/earlier rather than more recently(?)
Nausicaa
Simonson Thor
Scalped
Dark Knight
All Star Superman
Gotham Central
Wasteland
Okko
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Edit: Was surprised at Dungeon and Jack Staff getting the nod from some other posters Legomancer. FATties Legomancer's got taste!

Okay, you guys have definitely convinced me to check out Uncle Scrooge.

This has been a great thread. Comics are probably my favorite thing to talk about. I'm excited to check out a bunch of different stuff that has been mentioned but bummed because my limited funds will never allow me to read everything I want.

Michael Barnes wrote: . The Life and Times of Uncle Scrooge is more recent, but it may very well be his best work.

It couldn't possibly be Barks' best work, 'cause it ain't his. Life and Times (90s) is by Don Rosa, but it's pretty much an homage to Barks' work and incorporates virtually every titbit of throwaway references to Scrooge's past and youth found throughout Barks' oeuvre.

On a related note, Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish mainman), skirting the fine line between genius and madman, went ahead and composed an entire soundtrack album for this book. Don Rosa painted an original cover. I've only heard a few tracks but it wasn't half bad.

Legomancer wrote:
- Dungeon series by Trondheim/Sfar

Reading those right now, they're pretty good. Started as a spoof on fantasy in general, ends up something different. Too bad they ran out of steam down the line to continue with the main series, but they did release the final books in recent years.