on the CGC boards, someone asked people to list their 25 most important comics... this is what I came up with...
|
Seems to be a relatively popular choice, but I'll join the bandwagon. Beautiful cover, fantastic story, and the first appearance of one of the coolest and most original characters maybe ever. What's not to love?
Plus, this cover is so badass, I got ajaxfarrell to make me a clock with this as the background. It just showed up today, and it's awesome. :)
|
|
|
|
The first ongoing from Fantagraphics. I wasn't around when this stuff started coming out. Although I'm only a recent fan, I still think it's fantastic, and even these early stories hold up really well. Whoever owned this before me must have really liked the rabbit too, cuz you can barely see where they had tried writing "Usagi Yojimbo" on another piece of paper that was laying on this book. Grade? What grade?
|
|
|
|
Seems to be a pretty popular choice too... I was the right age for the cartoons and the video
games, but I never got into the toys, and I didn't start reading comics until far too late.
A few years ago, someone on the CBR boards got me into the current TMNT series, and I became
rather rabid about picking up the original series as well. I'm about halfway there, and I got
this (PLOD CGC 9.0 w/ slight amateur color touch) from a board member (via ebay). Plus purple's
my favorite color, so the label doesn't bother me in the slightest.
|
|
|
|
One of the first two comics I can remember buying on my own. Went on a ski trip with my family
and, in the gas station on the way there, I picked this up. My infatuation with Daredevil began
here and hasn't stopped since. Really need to replace my #1 and #131 to re-complete my set.
This is the thing that started it. Have since upgraded, but I still have the original sitting
on my coffee table along with...
|
|
|
I dont' think I planned to buy my first two comics featuring Daredevil. Most likely I was actually
buying for the Punisher b/c I wanted to appear edgy and cool. But this actually just made me
become further enamoured with Matt Murdock. I also really like the juxtiposition between the two
covers. (And I really really want a CGC 9.8 of this... if anyone ever does a pre-scan and has
some candidates...
(hm... turns out I don't have this scanned... will fix that tonight.
|
|
|
|
My sister, my friend's sister, my girlfriend, and my girlfriend's sister all competed in ice-skating
competitions. This first "away" game to which I travelled occurred in Gatlinburg, TN, and I rode there
with all of the above mentioned people except my sister. While everyone else practiced, my friend (Gabe
Cade now of Survivor fame) and I walked around downtown and eventually wandered into a comic book store.
I was still really new to this whole comic book thing, and we were both young. We saw this series sitting
on the shelves and decided that, given its "Special Edition" status, we should have them. So I bought #2,
and he bought...
|
|
|
The #1. Since Gabe was actually the one who led me into comics, it fell to him to be able to
purchase the #1 while I got the #2. I have no idea how many times we ended up reading this series
between the two of us, but it was... well... definitely more than once. At some point during
Social Studies class (most of our comic reading occurred in school), he decided that he should be
selling that book. Of course, I was the obvious choice, and I couldn't possibly let anyone else
get it. He managed to convince me that I should pay more than the cover price we initially paid
since "they would be worth more as a set." I think I gave him $5 for it or something, but I've
never looked back. :) I never was able to cultivate a love for The Avengers, and I've since lost my
excitement for big space epics, but this story is still one of my all-time favorites.
Needless to say, I was bummed when I found out these were reprints. *sigh*
|
|
|
|
Speaking of big space epics... I fell into this one head-over-heels. I loved everything about it
from the word "Go," and I did everything I could to get every crossover, free bookmark, poster,
whatever... Unfortunately, we lived more than an hour away from the nearest comic store, and I was
not yet 16. So I just had to hope that I would end up near a comic store once a month to follow
this series. And I got #1... got #2... got #3... then... I was pretty sure #4 should be out by
now. But time kept moving, and I never saw it on the stands. Then, one day, there it was. The
new issue of The Infinity Gauntlet! But, wait. It's number 5! Somehow I missed issue 4. And,
damn, that is one kickass cover too! Devestation. It would be years before I finally located a
copy. Shortly after realizing I missed out, I also found out that the Quasar cross-overs where
Direct Market only, so my chances of finding those at the gas station were, well... zero. Although
I still followed the series, the fire was reduced to a cinder.
|
|
|
|
Yet another blast from the past... I remember sitting around the newest issue of CBG (or whatever
that thing was called that was THE magazine to get before Wizard existed) and gawking at the
"next wave of hot comics" or something like that. Judge Dredd was sitting there on the cover with
that gorgeous Brian Bolland art. Even reproduced at a tiny scale, I thought it looked awesome.
Plus there were all of these rumors of a movie coming out, and the price was sure to shoot through
the roof! It was a holy grail. One day this guy that we kind of knew but who wasn't really known
to us as a collector shows up with a beat copy in his bookbag. I happily handed him the $10 for
the thing. Read it, loved it, but never really ended up following it as anything not published by
the big two was near impossible to get. Several years ago, I pulled down a full run off ebay.
I've still yet to read them all... or to see the entire movie... but I do love looking at those
Bolland covers!
|
|
|
|
Actually kind of life-changing... I don't remember what prompted the sale, but the owner of
Super Giant Comics (R.I.P.) decided that he should try to sell me the complete run of Sandman
(1-50 at the time +50 Platinum) that he had just purchased. I didn't have enough to afford the
whole thing, but he let me buy half and put the other half up until I could come back and buy that
too. Which is exactly what I did. I had no idea that comics could be anything like this. It
completely changed my views on comics as a potential artform and a medium of ideas. Somehow or
another it also helped me make connections with people with whom I otherwise might not have had
them. Very strange. I still have all of the original issues that I passed around in high school
to the people I liked. So very cool at the time. I loved going to the store every month to pick
up the new issue of this. Of course the story was winding down by the time I got on board, but
The Kindly Ones and The Wake are still tops in my book. But, naturally, this is the one that
started it all.
|
|
|
|
Kind of moving away from those formative years, but this is the comic that really made me start
collecting again. I wrote far more about this than I should have
back in 2004, but it definitely helped remove some of the corporate feel from comics that, for
some unknown reason, I had decided was required. Maybe it's not the most indy of indy and it
might not be the coolest book in town to a lot of people. But, to someone for whom the creation of
Image was such a huge deal, it was comforting to see this old friend still on the stands. And I
really think that white cover is completely badass. If the cover had been any less cool, I might
not have picked it up. And I wouldn't have started liking SD so much again. And I wouldn't have
gotten some great convention sketches from Erik at HeroesCon and... :)
|
|
|
|
Definitely a grail for a long time... another one of those books that I never thought I could
afford. My first and, for many years, only encounter with Grendel was Dark Horse's Warchild.
Those covers were ridiculously cool, and I definitely wanted to become a big Grendel fan. With
all the Tales... and reprints and lack of Matt Wagner combined with the cost of the original books,
I kind of gave up on it for a while. Once I got back into comics and realized that my purchasing
power was slightly greater than it was when I was in high school (thanks, Visa!), this was one of
my earliest purchases. This came from Kochcom on ebay and is, if I understand it, part of a
warehouse find. Totally fine by me... I was stoked to get it, and soon followed it with...
|
|
|
|
Another former grail... and one that, even after the purchase, seems well-worth it. Wagner's
early stories were so raw and seemed so vibrant dispite their dark nature. How could I not love
this stuff? The last thing that crossed my mind when reading these stories was that he was trying
to appease some suit upstairs. Or really even looking for perfection. Or any kind of competition
with anyone else at all. There was just this awesome story that this guy wanted to tell. He
thought that may he could do it, so he did. Put it all out there, and the result was this raw,
imaginative, and emotional story
|
|
|
So, obviously, I'm still missing the #2, so....
Picked up the #3 at a little show in Charlotte just before the hardcover collection came out.
Not sure what else to say about this that I didn't say about the last two. Except that I really
really want to find my missing link!
|
|
|
|
Well before Sandman, and well before I'd ever even heard of Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore or anyone
from England except the Beatles, I picked up a handful of the later Moore and Gaiman issues of
Miracleman out of a box on the floor of a coin store in Gastonia. They were a buck each, and I
had no idea what I was getting, but the Buckingham cover art was sweeeet. I just had bits and
pieces of a story that I knew was going to be amazing, but I ran into the "It's impossible to find
indy books where I live" problem again and soon let it go as yet another thing that sucked about
my shitty hometown. Once I started looking again, the prices on these things were certainly quite
a bit more than $1. And #15? My God, that cover was amazing and the idea of what happened inside
drove me crazy for a long time. Fueled, of course, by the prices it was commanding relative to the
amount I had to spend on lunch every day. Years later, I secured a copy and have completed the set.
I suppose this is still the stand-out issue. London sure got fucked up... stupid England.
|
|
|
|
I didn't start getting into Bronze age stuff until 4 or 5 years ago, but I really liked the idea
of ToD the more I started reading about the era. This book was my first foray into Bronze and
started me on a tangent that included Marvel Spotlight, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Werewolf, etc, etc...
I remember buying some of the I... Vampire stories from a flea market many many years ago...
recalled liking them, and I thought that ToD would be fun return to that. It certainly was and
I ended up collecting the first half of the series but have since faltered. I managed to get those
sigs at various Heroes Conventions (Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, and Roy Thomas so far), and I hope to
actually finish it up with the main creators some day. My infatuation with this title sent me to
the Wolfman / Colan panel at HeroesCon one year which, luckily, let me into an encounter with The
Dean himself. I was a terrible guide, but I got to spend a few minutes with him as I attempted to
help him find his way back to his artist's table on the main convention floor after the panel. I
wish I'd have been more clear-headed instead of being a fast-talking fast-walking geekoid. Alas...
|
|
|
|
I jumped on the Valiant bandwagon just before Unity began. My first issues were Magnus 13 and 14.
Of course I missed #12. grrr... This was yet another case of me getting screwed by my shit towne
and the lack of access to independent comics. I was able to catch bits and pieces of Unity, but I
never got the whole story, the back issues were WAY out of reach, and... it just wasn't happening.
Partially b/c Wizard told me to but also partially b/c I wanted to, I did see that the Unity
storyline and the Valiant Universe as a whole were something different and special going on. Unity
Red became another one of those, "Wow, if I ever could afford one of those..." types of
things. But Valiant exploded, I got older, prices went down, I found
ValiantComics.com, and suddenly I had my Pre-Unity set all the way through Unity Red. Rock on!
|
|
|
|
While I'm in the VU, I might as well stay for a bit. ValiantComics.com produced some awesome fan
projects back in the day that were created to mimic the Valiant Validated Signature Series books
that had been created by Valiant back in the day. While I was new, these were only legends to me,
but I was lucky enough to hang around long enough to actually get a few of these myself. I believe
my first one was actually the Ninjak #1... I have no good reason for not including it here except
that I don't have scans. Perhaps I shall do that later. But, for now, here's the issue of Rai #1
that was created for this fan project. It also included a fantastic sketch by Sean Chen (
Click Here) and a little certificate of authenticity. (
here). I liked these since they represented, in some way, being some small part of a community
PLUS I actually felt kind of good about buying them since the proceeds went to help find a cure for
Cystic Fibrosis...
|
|
|
This book was actually part of the project I mentioned above, but I figured I should include it
separately. Plus, I was having a really hard time coming up with 25... The back cover of this
is at least as important as the front cover, and it also included a
Sean Chen sketch a
certificate for the Magnus and a
certificate for the Rai flip book. A lot of time and effort went into creating these things,
and I feel pretty lucky to have them.
|
|
|
|
Last one of these, I promise. I'm including this one mostly b/c it's specially cool that
both Bob Layton and Jim Shooter signed these for the vc.com community. Also, of course,
came with a
certificate. Although I never really cared for this book and I don't think this went to CF,
this is still one of my favorite books to have.
|
|
|
|
Finally start moving into some stuff from this decade. I had heard a rumour that the events in
this issue had transpired, but I still wasn't really ready for it when it actually happened.
Fantastic double-sized issue, look at the emotion on that cover, and poor Splinter! That's all
I can say about that.
|
|
|
|
This one actually just barely made the list as my expectations for it were higher than they
should have been. Nevertheless, it turned out to be great fun. It's not that hard to please me
when you combine comics, weird history, and music. This does all of those things beautifully. The
art is incredibly off-beat and the story... God, the story is just freakin' weird. But I completely
dig it and think it's one of the coolest completely "new" things I've picked up in a long time.
|
|
|
|
Although this story didn't end quite the way I thought it would, this issue is still pretty big.
At the time, I wasn't even sure Peter Bagge was still making comics, so it was pretty shocking (
in a very good way) when I heard this was coming out. The story itself was good, but the backup
stories about the Founding Fathers were just priceless. I got Peter to sign this for me, and I
also managed to procure the original art pages for the entire backup story in this issue. (I'm
still jealous that DetroitMike owns the cover to Hate #1...)
|
|
|
|
I don't actually have the original issues to this series, and my copy of the TPB is completely
beat to hell. I've given away 2 copies previously, and now I have a torn up 4th print or something.
This is another one of those comics that really just changed the way I thought about comics in
general. It made me think that they could actually mean something again. Since I picked this up,
I've followed Brian Wood pretty much everywhere he goes. (and, dammit, will he EVER finish Local??)
I had just finished reading The Brothers Karamazov when I read this and Channel Zero hit me in
many of the same ways. Dostoevsky is, easily, one my all-time favorite authors ever; I can't think
of much higher praise. Although I'm enjoying DMZ and Northlanders is finding its stride... Demo
was amazing on a much different level, and the rest of his work has been enjoyable... nothing, for me,
has really compared to the work he did with Channel Zero.
|
|
|
|
I always liked the pseudo-horror stuff... House of Secrets type of things... but I'd never really
read the stuff that came before. The pre-code stuff. I managed to actually pick up a few EC's
prior to this one, but this issue quickly became a grail. I bought the hardcovers and, although
the stories often get repetitive and predictable, the idea of these things being published in the
context in which they were published just amazed me. When I found out that Al Feldstein would be
at this year's HeroesCon, I really wanted to locate a copy of this book. Although it grades lower
than the grade it was given when I bought it, I'm still super-happy to actually own this book, and
I can't wait to get it signed and, hopefully, give it the Signature Series treatment (my first ever!)
this summer. The colors are so bright on this, I can completely ignore the ncbc on the front cover.
Well... maybe not completely. :)
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment