The State of Comic Books.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by chaos

BTW I read somewhere that the Punisher will be the next Captain America. lawl at the death of the american dream.

Yea, that's the rumor and it seems pretty likely. Doesn't matter to me, everyone knows the only real Punisher is Garth Ennis' MAX version that doesn't even take place in the Marvel universe (hence it not sucking ass). War Journal is only five issues in and it's easily the worst version of his story to date, so it's not like making him Cap for a while could make the 'official' universe Frank Castle any more lame than he already is.

[Deris]

So uh not to sound like a noob or anything but where can I D/L comics now a days? NGs?

[Canipso]

Originally Posted by Deris

So uh not to sound like a noob or anything but where can I D/L comics now a days? NGs?

I'm also interested in where I can find easy comic downloads, I wanted to check out some of the ones Vorph was talking about in the other thread.

[Arbitrary]

http://trackerb.zcultfm.com:6969/index.html is pretty good.

[Vorph]

DCP releases as they happen from usenet, and Oink, Z-Cult, and Demonoid for everything else.

PS-If you want to use Z-Cult, start with this page instead: Z-Cult FM Comic Community - Torrent Search Engine. They have 3 trackers that non-donating people can access, not just trackerB. I don't think anyone really uses trackerM (donators only) anyway.

And if you're looking for something specific, let me know and I can probably set up a torrent. I'm up to about 45GB of stuff, 90% of which is not Marvel or DC... so if you want non-mainstream I probably have it.

[Krauz]

i really dont have anything specific in mind, but i would like to know what is top tier shit. I'm talking cream of the mother fucking crop.

[Vorph]

I go mostly by writer these days. There's a handful that will pretty much never let you down (aside from when they waste their time writing mainstream Marvel/DC books). Some of these will probably be obvious things most everyone has read, but better to be sure. I'm also lazy, so you'll have to type the author names into Wikipedia yourself if you want details.

Neil Gaiman - Sandman, Death minis
Warren Ellis - Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, Fell, Desolation Jones, Planetary, The Authority v1, and well.. everything else really
Frank Miller - Sin City, 300, Batman minis
Alan Moore - Watchmen, V for Vendetta
J. Michael Straczynski - Rising Stars, Midnight Nation, Supreme Power
The Luna Brothers - Girls
Garth Ennis - Preacher, Punisher v5 (MAX), 303, The Boys
Brian Michael Bendis - Powers, Alias (avoid Pulse like the plague--removing the book from MAX sucked the life out of it)
Richard K. Morgan - Black Widow: Homecoming & The Things They Say About Her (two six-issue minis on Marvel Knights)
Grant Morrison - The Invisibles, The Filth, WE3, The Authority v3
Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets
Brian K. Vaughan - Y: The Last Man, Runaways v1 + v2, Ex Machina
Bill Willingham - Fables
Robert Venditti - The Surrogates (5 issue mini on Top Shelf Productions)

If I had to do some specific recommendations...

Check out Ellis' Global Frequency and Fell, because they're only a few issues each and give a great idea of what his writing is like. If you like that move on to Transmetropolitan (assuming you didn't read it already). To get a good idea if you'll like Grant Morrison, start with the three issue mini, WE3.

If you like the Heroes TV show and want to see what its major inspiration was, get Rising Stars. Prepare to be disappointed with how much better the show could've been though. Rising Stars is Heroes by way of The Watchmen rather than The X-Men.

Girls is one of the best series currently going (and about to end at issue #24). Great story, great art, and an interesting new take on 'horror' comics.

100 Bullets, Fables, and Y: The Last Man are all good if you want a long-running series that is still going today.

[Grimmlokk]

Invincible is great fun if you want a classic superhero type tale but done modern. Nothing earth shattering, but just well done and interesting hero stuff. Which you never see=P

The Red Star is very cool. No one ever suggests it so maybe the snobs all think it's shite or something. I dunno. The story and characters are really interesting, the setting is amazing, the art is great. Check it out.


edit: When are new issues of The Boys coming out from the new publisher?

[Vorph]

No date yet, they haven't even announced the graphic novel collection of issues 1-6 that's coming out first still.

Edit: June for both the TPB and issue #7.

[Blazemore]

These are the two sites I use, I donated to Zcult like 2 years ago 15 bucks and have unlimited access to all trackers since...

Z-Cult FM Comic Book Community

Besides that I use

Demonoid.com

This site was invite only and I just had to wait for a opportunity, I have no idea if that is the way they still roll. But Demonoid is becoming my primary source of gigatorrents(monsterous collections).

For single issues I use DC++ hubs.

If you did some research with the links I gave you above you can eventually get started in a few hours.

Edit: Woops, way beat by Vorph... And almost mirror his picks for favorites, Fables is by far my favorite, Y the Last man 2nd, and Ex Machina probably 3rd. Best of the best.

[Tabris]

FYI I have been reading Carey's Lucifer and it is excellent, although slow to pick up steam at first.

[Aborath]

Just thought I'd add to this thread since I've recently started reading comic books again.

I just started reading Fables yesturday. I'm up to issue 11, and am really enjoying it. I'll probably add that and Jack of Fables to my pull-box at the local shop.

If you like the super-hero stuff (as I do), the new JSA and JLA books are pretty solid thus far (up to issues 4 and 7, respectively). I never read the old series (save for the last few issues of JSA), so I couldn't tell you how they compare.

Manhunter is a book that I don't hear a lot of talk about, but it's well drawn and well written (for a super hero book).

On the Marvel side, the only title that I follow is The Astonishing X-Men. It's good stuff, and is mostly self-contained.

I appreciate all of the title suggestions that have been posted.

[chaos]

I am reading the Books of Magic series now, I'm up to about issure 60 of the 75 issue series and I'm really let down. The whole thing that made the story good was Tim's interaction with his family, especially Molly, while working out the magic and it seems like they completely abandoned that earlier in the series. Molly is completely written out and has been for a while, the focus of his character is entirely different with so many different things going on at once, and skipping events in between issues. Eh, could have been so much better.

Glad to hear that The Boys is coming back soon. I still need to read 52 but it's just so hard to get into, with so much going on in the issues it's hard to really follow any particular story.

[Khorum]

You don't get a lot of writer/artists in the west nowadays (japanese mangaka are almost exclusively still writer/artists), but one of the last great ones is Bryan Talbot, his best work is this awesome steampunk alternate-history series called The Adventures of Luther Arkwright published in the late 70's/early 80's. Dark Horse was reprinting the original series a couple years ago. Talbot emerged out of the late 60's British New Wave sci-fi literary scene and shouldered his way past his contemporaries in the US and Europe during 70's Heavy Metal heyday. Next to Manara and Moebius, Bryan Talbot deserves to be venerated as a comics legend.

Everyone from Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Michael Moorcock all the way to Neil Gaiman praise Talbot as one of the most important comic book authors in the English language.

[Aborath]

Originally Posted by Tabris

FYI I have been reading Carey's Lucifer and it is excellent, although slow to pick up steam at first.

Carey is also writing a new(er) series called Crossing Midnight (horror/fantasy). I recommend it if you like his stuff. Based in modern-day Japan, it deals with a sister, her twin brother, and the supernatural agents that manipulate them. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil anything. Makes me want to check out Lucifer.