Forum - View topicComics for Manga fans
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ReifuTD
Posts: 171 |
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I figured I'd see where this goes, I like superheros and love learning about them. But I never really felt like getting into the superhero books them selves. Not that I don't buy comics and there are of course manga I like. But I've noticed comics I then to like either have a story telling style and attracts those people who are that kind of nitch.
Example Archie's Sonic and Mega Man would appeal to those who tends to attract videos and anime. And this site had brought up things these comic are doing like crossovers and stuff. Actually what got wanting to do this topic last time I was at the comic book store I picked up the first two issues of Gotham Academy and this series seems to fallow the Anime/Manga style of story telling and not just in the art style but in setting up many elements and mysteries allowing the story to move at a slow pace but keeps it's energy through characters emotions and actions. To explain, Gotham Academy takes place main in DCU but doesn't focuses on young superheros. But instead a group of original characters who get rapped up in the mysteries of the school and history of Gotham City with occult and paranormal elements, giving the series an horror yet up bet feel. The main character is a girl with silver hair called Olive Silverlocks and her friend Maps who I assume is named Maps because she is completely obsessed with the DC comic's version of Dungeons & Dragons. Now Olive is a very mysterious girl with a fear of Batman and sees flashes of him everywhere. She appears to have to amnesia about her summer vacation. On top of that something seemed to happen to her mother, the way she talks about her mother, her mother seems to be crazy or gone crazy. On top of that spoiler[judging from the ending of issue 2, It appears that Olive might be a metahuman. ] So feel free to make any other suggestions, |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1525 |
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Oh man! Got a huge list of great comics anyone should read. So sorry if descriptions are a little bare!
Comics Alliances Best of Lists are a great and broad reaching place to start: Best of 2013 Best of 2012 Best of 2011 Really anything by Grant Morrison. Whether he's writing about superheroes or not, the guy's a pretty great, if EXTREMELY weird. Chew-About an FDA agent able to experience memories and psychic sensations from whatever he eats. Equal parts gunny and gross. Fables-Exiled fairy tale characters try to live in New York. Warning: The first TPB is ROUGH but it gets better. Locke & Key-A family dealing with the loss of their father move into an old mansion full of magic keys and an ancient evil. Lucifer-Sequel to Sandman. The devil leaves his job of ruling hell and tries to seek personal freedom. Rat Queens-Four foulmouthed female adventurers bust lots of heads and look fantastic doing it. Sandman-The living embodiment of dreams deals with returning to the world after decades of imprisonment, and plenty of issues from dealing with his equally anthropomorphic family, rubbing elbows with gods, and getting suckered into auctioning off the key to Hell. Transformers (IDW)-Probably the best interpretation of the franchise you can ask for. Y: The Last Man-A young escape artist searches for his girlfriend after a plague wipes out every other male in the world (besides his pet monkey). More to follow later maybe because this is being written at 1 AM. If this gets deleted (because it's pretty borderline off topic) feel free to PM me! |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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I kinda feel like I'm beating a dead horse, since I always bring this up, but ElfQuest. It's been running 36 years strong, and is still going. It's been independently published, as well as being republished by Marvel, DC, and most recently Dark Horse, who is also publishing the newest ongoing series. The series spans a timeline of thousands of years (though mostly takes place in two smaller time periods, with the same groups of characters), and has a rich history.
The series focuses on a number of themes. Life and death. The need to find a "home." The need to explore. Racism. Love and family. Good and evil. Stagnation and growth. Finding ones past. Looking to the future. Growing outside of ones familiarity. And all of that is just in the first 20 issues. Almost everything is available in comic format, in either individual issues or anthology issues. There's a few stories that were published in book-format only, or within another publication. Marvel reprinted the original 20-issue, magazine-format series in traditional (and color, it was originally B&W) format. A variety of companies have released compilation graphic novels. DC reprinted the entire main series (up to that point) and one spin-off in manga-sized graphic novel format, as well as 4 hardcover Archive books (not sure how far it went). Dark Horse has released the entire original series in a huge, paperback omnibus (the thing is really heavy), as well as going to be publishing high-quality archive books. And everything published before 2013 is available on ElfQuest.com for free viewing. Oh, also, the creators also freely cite Tezuka and the movie Alakazam the Great as heavy influence on their storytelling and artwork. (note: The "All New Elfquest" is listed first on the online comics, but is actually some of the newest stuff. Everything else is chronological, starting with "The Original Quest") |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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For me personally, I'm still not too much into American comics, but I have a few I enjoyed a lot.
Bone comes to mind first, definitely one of the best all ages comics out there. It read a lot like a manga to me, where it took a lot of time to tell the scene in pictures, rather than tell me it in words (which is part of the reason I tend to find super hero comics so.... static, especially the older ones), and the pacing just reminded me a lot of an anime too. I do wish more US comics understood that even in a black and white comics, the color "grey" can be used, it does make it so much easier on the eyes. His other work, RASL, I found harder to follow, but I think all the pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo rather didn't help, but it had the same style of art used for storytelling. But Bone is definitely magical. Saga is one I'm currently enjoying quite a bit too. The fourth trade paper back comes out next month, definitely picking it up. The pacing is a bit more like American comics than manga, but I got used to it and the story is interesting and good. I checked out Y: The Last Man by the same author, I've also enjoyed what I've read of that one too. Habibi was another one I really enjoyed. An internet friend recommended it to me because he reads both manga and US comics, and I think he picked a good one. It's a sort of human epic with a scope that reminded me of manga for the most part, I really enjoyed that one (though I didn't enjoy Blankets so much, but I think the subject lost me there as they felt similar otherwise). I also enjoy the Courtney Crumrin books as well (still has the problem of "grey exists, yo!" going on). I'm not one for gothic stuff, but I find the plot interesting (or the characters, more accurately) and it doesn't feel as static as I expect from US comics. It's also not as angsty as "outcast weirdo goth girl" tends to go, so that's a huge plus. I'm also big on comics related to cartoons that I like, so I get Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and other stuff like that. They definitely feel way less dynamic compared to the show (especially for Avatar), but the story is there. Adventure Time does some cool things with the fact that it's a comic, not a cartoon. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2655 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I second Courtney Crumrin as a good read for manga fans, as is his Polly and the Pirates, which has a great sense of adventure. (Now if only he'd finish it...)
Mark Crilley's Miki Falls is a great series that has a very shoujo feel both in art and story, but it manages not to feel derivative, even when by rights it should, being written by an American and set in Japan. It's really beautiful and only has four volumes. His current series Brody's Ghost isn't quite as good, but it has the same manga feel without feeling like it's cashing in. Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet is a great adventure story. It's in full color, but its storytelling techniques are very reminiscent of manga and Kibuishi's got a way with steampunk and animal characters that's just wonderful. I think there are seven volumes out now. |
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Animeking1108
Posts: 1244 |
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Usagi Yojimbo: It's set in Ancient Japan, but with anthropomorphic animals. If you like samurai stories, it's a good read.
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ReifuTD
Posts: 171 |
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I always loved it when he showed up in Ninja Turtles, I'm a little shocked he never got a spinoff. Heck, I keep waiting for them to do some kind of TMNT OVA in the same style as Afro Samurai because the original TMNT comics were pretty violent. I mean yeah they were supposed to be parodies, but the things there are mocking were the silliness and over the top violence of 80s comics. Judge Dredd was the same kind of comic, I read this classic Judge Dredd comic were this crazy maniac takes over the Judges and appoints a gold fish and his second in commanded later Dredd assassinates the fish. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7358 |
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I want more of this thread it would seem. I took Dessa's suggestion and went ahead and bought Dark Horse's first Elf Quest omnibus (it was half off of $25, so that's pretty ridiculously cheap). I've read about 200 pages so far (I'm coming down with a cold, I can tell, it's rather sapping my energy) but I really like it so far. It looks like the next one comes out in February, so I've got about 6 weeks to read my first omnibus, which I should easily accomplish.
But now, I'm trying to decipher just how much Elf Quest is actually available and what order it's in, etc. I'm going to assume that Dark Horse will be publishing it in order (chronologically produced order, not necessarily chronological in-story order). I'm guessing, based on what I've read on wikipedia so far, it might not take too many omnibuses to catch up. It took 6 years for 20 issues because American comics are different. It looks like the second omnibus (I looked on Dark Horse's website) will go up through 1990, so we're about halfway there with that. Though it looks like, after that second omnibus, it's going to be a royal mess to sort out as it has several series that all ran at the same damn time, then a bunch of stories running in each issue and gawd. I hope Dark Horse sorts it out logically for me or something. |
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Dessa
Posts: 4438 |
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Here's how the story works (baring side stories and mini-series):
The Original Quest (collected as Omnibus 1) Siege at Blue Mountain (collected in Omnibus 2) Kings of the Broken Wheel (also in Omnibus 2) [note: at this point, I have no clue what DH is releasing] Dreamtime (DT was a run that started out in the anthology books, but takes place chronologically right after KotBW) Hidden Years (starts out as side stories taking place during KotBW, then continues after it) New Blood (starts out as "what if" stories, then eventually continues on. Can be read independently from Hidden Years, as it follows a different group of characters) Shards (Shards splits off from HY after HY 16 (I think), and follows a different group of characters) After that, there was an anthology book (3-4 chapters a month, from a pool of 5-6 different stories). Most of these take place after the end of Shards. The official website I think might have a timeline, but I don't have time to look right now. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7358 |
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Blargh, gotta admit, I like how manga tends to be a lot more straightforward. Few tend to get insane amounts of spinoffs (Attack on Titan for example), some get straight up sequels or prequels, but it's usually not a hard to follow publication mess with 20 different alternate continuities that are all canon. I'd say on the manga side, Higurashi might be one of the harder ones to understand with all those different arcs, but at least Yen did their best to make it easy to collect (by putting "series #" on the spines too, and it also didn't take 30+ years to come out). Although, between the anime and manga, Astro Boy has at least 4 different origin stories, similar but different, and they may all be canon too. And certain Tezuka characters, like Rock, will undergo character change and development over multiple series.
I'll just see what Dark Horse is doing I guess, go with them. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10031 Location: Virginia |
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@classicalzawa
I may be able to help you on Elf Quest. Let me look into deep storage before you spend too much. |
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Dessa
Posts: 4438 |
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Okay, now that I'm not running late for work...
The cast of ElfQuest ends up huge, since it's an entire world. The story also covers over 21,000 years, so there's a lot there. This is what the MAIN story consists of (in suggested reading order): The Original Quest (ElfQuest [vol. 1] issues #1-20, collected in DH Omnibus 1) Siege at Blue Mountain (Siege at Blue Mountain #1-8, will be in DH Omnibus 2) Kings of the Broken Wheel (Kings of the Broken Wheel #1-9, will be in DH Omnibus 2) Note: Kings of the Broken Wheel has a 10,000 year time skip. Some events occurring during the time skip are detailed in early New Blood and Hidden Years issues, but are not required reading. Hidden Years [part 1] (Hidden Years #4, #9.5-15) At this point, due to the events of Hidden Years #15, the story splits, with two groups going in different directions with different goals. Group 1: Hidden Years [part 2] (Hidden Years #16-29) Group 2: Shards (Shards #1-15) The stories (as well as the side story happening in New Blood #13-35) come together in Shards #16. Past Shards #16, there is no real "main" story, since the cast is so large, and in so many different places. If anything were to be considered "main", I would say the Wild Hunt storyline, which follows [roughly] the same group as Hidden Years, continuing their goal. The current running story, Final Quest, again ties everything together into a single story, and is released bi-monthly (#7 comes out in January). The Official Site has restructured everything into a [rough] "recommended reading" that's pretty similar to what I have above (they include some one-shots that I skipped). |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10031 Location: Virginia |
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@classicalzawa
Everything I have is from DC comics. Elf Quest: Wolf Rider Two volumes Elf Quest: The Grand Quest 14 volumes. Note, the above are manga sized. I also have four comic books of Elf Quest The Discovery. There may be a matching trade paperback but I have to look tomorrow. I think I may have read the first volume of Wolf Rider. At any rate they are yours if you want them. Free shipping this time. I don't know how this matches what Dessa has listed, I assume she can clarify it. |
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Dessa
Posts: 4438 |
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I know that the Grand Quest covers the Original Quest, Siege at Blue Mountain, and Kings of the Broken Wheel, I'm not sure if it goes further.
Wolfrider is a side story detailing the life of Bearclaw, Cutter's father (Cutter being the nominal main character, for those interested). I think it only went for 2 volumes. I'm not sure if there's a TPB for The Discovery (IIRC, The Discovery takes place sometime after Shards #16, and helps set up Final Quest). Lemme go see what my library says in in these, since they have them. [pause] Okay, libraries were a bust, but Wikipedia came to my rescue. The Grand Quest vol. 1-6 cover the Original Quest, the same as DH Omnibus 1. GQ 7-9 are Siege at Blue Mountain, 10-12 are Kings of the Broken Wheel. GQ 13 has stories from the anthology comic series (officially "ElfQuest II") (Wikipedia lists specific issues, I'm not sure which they are, but I'm assuming it's probably the Dreamtime storyarc), and GQ 14 has two more collected stories that I believe are from ElfQuest II). GQ 2 also includes a short story from the 20th anniversary book (gorgeous book, btw), and GQ 11 includes a story from Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated #1 (not sure if I've read that story, actually). Wolfrider is only 2 volumes, and the second volume also includes a few short stories and a couple issues of Blood of Ten Chiefs (a backstory series) that take place in that same time period. And yes, DC did put out a TPB for The Discovery. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10031 Location: Virginia |
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Yeah, I found the Discovery trade paperback in my box of misc. Vertigo titles. Also found something called The Searcher and the Sword, though without matching comics.
Back to the original question. I also endorse The Sandman series and its spin offs Lucifer and The Books of Magic. There are a couple of additional spin offs I can recommend if you get beyond those. I also recommend Tellos from Image Comics. A quest story with a boy a tiger and a fox. Another recommendation is Poison Elves by Drew Hayes. The hero is foul mouthed and amoral but the series is funny. Unfortunately the author died in the middle of an arc but the series up to that point is worth your time. |
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