So, after several weeks of not being able to read new comics, I finally had a little time this past weekend to take a couple of hours and make a dent in my comics pile. I was able to catch up on a few titles, and I figured I'd take the opportunity to talk a bit about the current State of My Comic Reading Habits.
Now I should mention that, while I do love super hero comics and I read many Marvel and DC titles, my favorite books are typically not the most mainstream in nature, even if they are published by the big companies. Books such as The Goon, House of Mystery, and Madame Xanadu are must-reads for me, and I put them ahead of reading most "major," current story lines.
Eric Powell's The Goon, of course, is my favorite book now and I'd bet that will always be the case. But, with The Goon on a minor hiatus as Powell preps new projects, it's a good time to take stock of what I'm actually enjoying, and what titles I might drop in the near future.
Might as well start with the Big Two. Marvel today publishes work by my favorite comics writer, Brian Bendis, and I am really digging their Dark Reign "non-event event" that's sweeping across the bulk of their books. On the other side of the street, I'm pretty jazzed about DC's upcoming Blackest Night event, captained by Geoff Johns.
So when it comes down to it, I'll likely still read the main Marvel books (New Avengers, Dark Avengers, Ms. Marvel) but I'll likely drop Mighty Avengers and some ancillary titles I was reading specifically for the tie-in, such as Secret Warriors. I'll enjoy Dark Reign by enjoying the stories I think are essential to getting the feeling for the event, but I won't buy the one-shots and the limited series that spin out of it.
And, with DC, I'll stick to the main Green Lantern Blackest Night series, and I probably won't venture too far out from there. I'll still check in with Batman, even if Bruce Wayne is still MIA, and I'll read Flash: Rebirth until that series wraps.
But, really, when it comes down to my need-to-read stories, I find that more and more I am leaning towards the Vertigo line of books. House of Mystery is in my current top five, and the new series The Unwritten is one of the more intriguing comics I've read in a while. As previously mentioned on this blog, I think that Madame Xanadu is a great book with stunning art.
And it's up for four Eisners, so someone else is reading it, too!
I'm reading and loving Warren Ellis' Ignition City series at Avatar, and Mark Waid's Irredeemable is straight up amazing. As is Boom's The Unwritten and Image's Dynamo 5.
I guess I just find it interesting that, while I really do think of myself as a Marvel/DC guy, when I take a close look at it, most of my books are from Dark Horse, or Image, or Avatar, or Boom! or Vertigo.
And I don't think it's something as simple as, "oh, my tastes are changing," because they're not. I guess maybe it's "event fatigue" and the fact that I just don't want to have to read twenty titles to understand one story.
And as I write this, I'm fearing there's not really going to be a point to today's post, and there's certainly not going to be a nice "Jerry's Final Thought" moment to put a bow on the discussion. More likely, it'll just end like The Sopran
No comments:
Post a Comment