Anyone else read comics?

[Isaiah]

I know this group is generally concerned with sci-fi and fantasy novels. I'm a huge fan of both myself, but I also enjoy many comic series as well. Some of my favorites include Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. Watchmen, by Alan Moore. Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan. The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Locke and Key, by Joe Hill, among many others. I just wondered if anyone else is a fan of comics and what their favorite series may be.
P.S. I'm not one of those people who makes a distinction between comics and graphic novels. They are the same thing as far as I'm concerned.
P.P.S. Happy New Year!

[Graeme]

I can recommend Elektra:Assassin, I believe you can get the graphic novel still. Comics are the reason I bought a colour e-reader.

[Jason]

I love comics.

If you read comics and like big, world building sci-fi (think Dune) you owe it to yourself to read Finder by Carla Speed McNeil. Terrific stuff. Start with The Finder Library: Volume 1. It's big and dense and will take you a while.

[Dave]

Yeah I'm a life long fan of comics.

Currently reading through Fables, The Walking Dead, Invincible, X-Factor.

I still get my Spiderman comics on a monthly basis at 35 :)

[Tamahome]

Go straight to volume 2 of Locke & Key, Volume 2: Head Games. You'll thank me later. Thwip!

[Elie]

Fan of DC comics. Haven't gotten to read the new 52 yet, but I've got a great backlog to read on Comixology.

Other great series is Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise. Jeff Smith's Bone. Dave Sim's Cerebus.

All great series. Strangers in Paradise brought me to tears.

[Isaiah]

Really? You didn't like volume 1? I thought it was fantastic.

[Kevin]

Love 'em! My favorites include The Goon, Chew, and Locke and Key. From this list you may be able to discern that I have a somewhat morbid sense of humor.

[Anthony]

Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job
Violent Messiahs: Lamenting Pain

Fell: Feral City by Warren Ellis

[Sean]

I like comics. I like science fiction. But for some strange reason, I tend not to like science fiction comics.

Now Japanese girl's romance comics, those are aces.

[terpkristin]

Oddly, I never got into comics or graphic novels or manga, despite my love of anime and fantasy and sci-fi genres.

Oddly, I've had my four year old nephew in town all week. He loves comics, and I even found my eyes glossing over parts of comic books I was reading with him. Somehow, they never clicked for me.

[Rikki]

I love comics. I've been reading since I was 8/9 and I get a great deal of joy from it. When I read a good book I love that book, when I read a good comic I love the whole medium.

The comic thing that made me happiest this year was Marvel putting out the Ruse mini earlier last year (almost said this year). I had loved most of the Crossgen books but Ruse was my favorite. I mean "Victorian Detectives" can't help but be awesome.

I also love superheroes. So many people poo-poo them but I find that it's one of the few places where I can find people who try to do the right thing and it's not considered silly or naive.

[Kate]

I like comics but I'm super picky. The only thing I'm following at the moment is The Unwritten, which about the power of stories and a secret cabal who control what sort of fiction gets released to the pubic for some shadowy reason. It's by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, who also did Lucifer, a Sandman spin off that I loved.

[Will]

I started reading graphic novels in 2010 and single issues in 2011. It's the first time I've read regularly since the mid 90s. I'll enjoying The Walking Dead, some of the New DC 52 and the X-Men titles.

[Quasar]

Yeah. Been a comic reader almost as long as I've been a novel reader.

[Dave]

Rikki wrote: "I love comics. I've been reading since I was 8/9 and I get a great deal of joy from it. When I read a good book I love that book, when I read a good comic I love the whole medium.

The comic th..."

Oh someone else who liked Crossgen - we seem to be very few and far between these days!! My favorites were Ruse and Sojourn. Been really enjoying the new mini's.

Sad fact I had a letter printed in (I think) Crossgen Chronicles 2 (its the one with the Meridian story).

[Jason]

Isaiah wrote: "Really? You didn't like volume 1? I thought it was fantastic."

Assuming you're talking about Locke & Key, I didn't like volume 1. Haven't tried volume 2 yet.

[Tamahome]

Vol 2 has the head key. Very cool. I thought the time shifting at the beginning of vol 1 was confusing. It was almost a tv series but didn't work out.

[Isaiah]

Kate wrote: "I like comics but I'm super picky. The only thing I'm following at the moment is The Unwritten, which about the power of stories and a secret cabal who control what sort of fiction gets released to..."

Love Mike Carey myself. Lucifer an the Unwritten are awesome. You should check out his Felix Castor novels if you havent done so already. They are about an exorcist working in London after ghosts, zombies and demons make themselves known in our world. Totally kick-ass urban fantasy.

[Cap'n Jack]

I really like the Thor trades from Straczynski. Also love Gainman's Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes. And if you haven't read Planetary, you're missing out man. :)

[Kate]

Isaiah wrote: "You should check out his Felix Castor novels if you havent done so already. They are about an exorcist working in London after ghosts, zombies and demons make themselves known in our world."

I love the Felix Castor books!

[Isaiah]

Shannon wrote: "I read manga... Those count right?"

I would count manga, though I dont read much. Berserk is the only one I read currently. Any recommendations?

[Michael]

I love all the comics. Chew has been a recent and favorite find for me, along with The Boys and Irredeemable. Of course The Walking Dead is great too. Lately I have been addressing American Vampire. I like the superhero-dystopia stuff a lot, but I also enjoy regular superhero books too. Comics are one of the few mediums where I am limited in what I consume by money, rather than time.

[Jason]

Cap'n Jack wrote: "I really like the Thor trades from Straczynski. Also love Gainman's Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes. And if you haven't read Planetary, you're missing out man. :)"

If you like Thor, pick up the Thor by Simonson Omnibus (assuming you can lift it...it's kind of a beast). Some of the best comics ever published.

Shannon wrote: "I read manga... Those count right?"

Absolutely! I don't read too much manga, but I've read a decent amount that I really like. I liked Planetes a lot (very low-key, cerebral sci-fi) as well as more action-y stuff like Akira. I've also enjoyed some crazy stuff like Iron Wok Jan! (think Iron Chef as manga) and I've just read the first volume of One Piece, which is great (and very, very silly).

I'm always up for Manga recommendations, because there's SO much out there, and it's hard to find decent stuff.

[Tamahome]

I count manga backwards.

[Paul]

I'm an occasional comic reader these days. When I was younger I read the great British comics of the 80s - 2000AD (and the Judge Dredd Megazine), Crisis, Zenith - so early exposure to Alan Moore with The Ballad of Halo Jones and his superb Future Shocks stories, as well as a lot of others who went on to greatness like Garth Ennis. Somehow I only dipped into mainstream American comics, and have only really been reading them for a few years, although I've a decent collection of graphic novels and my housemate is an addict, especially of Warren Ellis' stuff, so I tend to read his :D

[aldenoneil]

Tamahome wrote: "I count manga backwards."

I read manga backwards. Hebrew, too.

[Sean]

Jason wrote: "I'm always up for Manga recommendations, because there's SO much out there, and it's hard to find decent stuff. "

Give Gunslinger Girl a try. It's sorta Dollhouse meets The Six Million Dollar Man, but played straight in a way that makes you realize how creepy the premise is. It helps that the main characters are 10 year old girls who were crippled until the government turned them into cyborg assassins.

Kashimashi is good too -- it's about a teenage boy who dies when a UFO crashes on him. The good news is, the aliens are able to resurrect him. The bad news is, due to their misunderstanding human biology, they turn him into a girl.

And fans of The Walking Dead should check out Highschool of the Dead, which presents a side of the zombipocalypse seldom seen: what happens to kids in school when horses of flesh-chomping undead show up on campus?

On the non sci-fi side of things, Kimi ni Todoke is just awesome. It's the story of a teenage girl who happens to look just like the creepy demon chick from The Ring. Naturally there are all sorts of rumors about her -- if you sit next to her in class, you'll be cursed, and if you look into her eyes you'll get sick -- and no one wants to hang out with her. Actually, most people run away screaming if she tries to talk with them. But despite all that, she's really a sweet girl who believes people ignore her because she's not nice enough.

[Malachi]

Love comics! Reading Akira right now and it is absolutely gorgeous-also way deeper than the movie. Some of my favorites that I haven't seen here yet worth checking out:
Morning Glories--A group of students end up at a bizarre (think Lost) High School where the faculty seems to have sinister plans for each of them.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep--nice visual adaptation of the book.

Preacher--A down and out priest inherits a Divine power and goes hunting for God to give him a kick in the ass while being hunted by creatures that want to take or destroy his new gift.

Northlanders--Viking epic with many different story arcs.

100 Bullets--A member from a secret group gives key people a chance at revenge without recourse with 100 bullets in order to facilitate much grander plans for power and influence.

[Bob]

I was a huge comic reader, now I really just read graphic novels. Preacher was good, HBO had talked about making it into a mini-series

[Bree]

My subscriptions are Locke & Key (LOVE), John Constantine: Hellblazer, House of Mystery, and DMZ. There's a lot of other comics I've checked out, but these are the ones I freak out over waiting for the latest issue. ;)

[Bob]

I recommend Fables, The Walking Dead, and Invincible as well

[Andy]

I know V said lately that comics arent her thing, but I highly recommend "The Surrogates" by Robert Venditti. It's a self-contained contained graphic novel and totally fist in the "Laser" category.

Pay no attention to the movie based on the book... They butchered it. :P

[Bree]

Oh, hey, for other Locke & Key fans -- have you noticed the mini comics on the last page of all the comics from the most recent story arc? I thought they were amazing and looked up the artist, Kate Leth. She keeps a tumblr @ http://kateordie.tumblr.com/ and posts really cool stuff all the time. Also, I wrote her some fan mail and got a really nice email in response almost immediately. So please, go check her out!

[Chet]

I am still a big comic reader and my top two are DMZ by Brian Wood (about the 2nd American Civil war in the near future) and The Boys.