City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Comic books - how do you get started?

Agent White

By Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-05-22 10:33 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ThrowDown_Kid View Post
And like many others have said, don't limit yourself to just the Big Two companies or super heroes. Comics are so much more than just spandex, though I love that area most.
Japanese Manga covers almost every genre available out there as well. There are a few translation sites that offer quite a few titles for free to read. The respectable sites will list but won't allow you to read anything that's been licensed in your area.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hit Streak View Post
One thing I've never been able to get into growing up has been comic books. Not because I don't think superheroes are awesome. More because I fell in love with baseball and have always collected baseball cards.

But, being surrounded by this awesome community and the culture here at Paragon, I can't help but be curious enough to start reading. So, I come to you, City of Heroes community. Tell me what the best way to get into them would be. Where do I start?

I'm sure there's some subculture stuff out there that can bring heated conversations, so please don't let it fall to that.
My personal favorite comic book, and the only one I subscribe: Gold Digger, used to put out "Gold Bricks" that were collections of 50 or so issues in one book, though having talked to AP recently (to get my subscription set up for moving to Japan) I'd heard the Gold Bricks got too expensive and now they releasing collections that contain four issues total.

In addition to that AP, Marvel and DC put out collections that are complete versions of specific storylines. For example, you should be able to find the Death and Rebirth of Superman as a single volume. Likewise for the Time Warp miniseries between Gold Digger and Ninja High School.

Personally, until manga, I wasn't that into comic either, I bought them, yeah, but not really collected. I got most of my fantasy reading from Greek and Norse myth, King Arthur stories, Dragonlance novels, TSR novels, Tolkien and stuff like that.

Thrythlind's Deviant Art Page
"Notice at the end, there: Arcanaville did the math and KICKED IT INTO EXISTENCE." - Ironik on the power of Arcanaville's math

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lycanus View Post
My personal favorite comic book, and the only one I subscribe: Gold Digger, used to put out "Gold Bricks" that were collections of 50 or so issues in one book, though having talked to AP recently (to get my subscription set up for moving to Japan) I'd heard the Gold Bricks got too expensive and now they releasing collections that contain four issues total.

In addition to that AP, Marvel and DC put out collections that are complete versions of specific storylines. For example, you should be able to find the Death and Rebirth of Superman as a single volume. Likewise for the Time Warp miniseries between Gold Digger and Ninja High School.

Personally, until manga, I wasn't that into comic either, I bought them, yeah, but not really collected. I got most of my fantasy reading from Greek and Norse myth, King Arthur stories, Dragonlance novels, TSR novels, Tolkien and stuff like that.
In reference to GD collections, AP also offers a PDF/JPG collection of all the actual GD issues and a number of the tie-in issues (NHS Time Warp issues, ect...) in their GD-Rom series. Ver. 3.0, IIRC covers up through Color Vol. #125. And as to the Gold Bricks, it's more a very limited, pre-order, print run. Fred has mentioned about it on his DA page in his blog section.

Thank you for the time...

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

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Most first time readers are fascinated by great artwork first and story second.. (this is just the natural progression, until you are accustomed) Most times I have been able to get people into reading comics with the following book. (Its almost fool proof due to the Art first, Story second mentality that got most of us into comics in the first place)

I would recommend "Kingdom Come" as it has great visual artwork by Alex Ross and a good story by Mark Waid. It has a movie like plot and will suck you in pretty easily with characters you recognize and can get to grow from.



Basic premise of the story
It is set in the year 2020 where Superman and his generation of heroes from the Justice League days have been succeeded by a new generation of heroes whose ideals are more nihilistic, caring less about the people they're supposed to protect and more about their own egos, and are found even clashing with each other as much as they do with the villains. It is when a major disaster happens when Superman decides to rein in the new generation of heroes in the hopes that they would reform and adopt his generation's ideals of what being a superhero is about.

Its a very good read for a first time reader as the pages of the story bounce off the page and are almost life like it will definatly keep your interest. The story is pretty easy to follow along as well.

Here is another pic of the comic.



Here is some pages from the book




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If you're already familiar with the characters, I find that the novelisation of Kingdom Come is slightly more interesting than the graphic novel.

Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound