Recommendations for modern day hieroglyphs

[Sepia]

Modern day hieroglyphs being comics and especially graphical novels, the comic books weird aunt. By the way, it was Alan Moore who compared hieroglyphs with comics.

I read alot of english/american comics. Due to the fact that I live in a shitty country, I read no weeklies or monthlies but there's half a montana shelf in my room here filled with trade paperbacks. There are a few writers that you'll hear namedropped here and other sites which share our view of the world or our love for disinformation amongst other things. Those you'll hopefully see referenced are:

Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Paul Pope and Brian Azzarello.

The way I see it? Some of these chaps have written some of the more important books the last twentysomething years.

So, let's begin with Grant Morrison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Morrison

Mr. Morrison has no formal education and has been on the fringe for most of his life. Was straightedge for about the 30 first years of his life, worked crap jobs while playing in a punk band and studying magic, culture, counter-culture etc. A fucking impressive brain. The stuff he's produced ranges from mainstream superhero to Animal Man(a 3rd rate superhero becomes aware of the fact that he's trapped in paper and ink)/The Invisibles(Seven volumes, following a cell of people with a discordianish bent)/The Filth(which reads a bit like david lynch) along with much other incredibly great work.

I advice reading:

Arkham Asylum, his collaboration with Dave McKean of Sandman etc fame. The collected edition features the original manuscript, which is almost as interesting as the story itself.

The Invisibles: Time travel, popmagic, magick, sex, drugs, shaman transvestites, a budding buddha from the most unlikely of places, cthulhu, mind control, oppenheimer, what ufos REALLY are, magic, sex, drugs, voodoo, weird cults and everything you'd want from that intelligent action flick. This is how the matrix should have been done. Punchline: What if every conspiracy theory was true?

We3: Not that discordian in itself, but very beautiful and quite political. Sci-fi in the best definitions of the word. If you haven't changed emotional stance while reading it, you're a rock.

Doom Patrol: Absurdist backwater superheroes revived into an even more absurdist atmostphere. Deals with much of the same the Invisibles does but on a completely different scale. Difficult to explain, but the ideas and concepts in these books seem much more raw.

The Filth: This is like watching any David Lynch movie. Basically. A tour de force through storytelling. Very weird and dense. Reminds me of Gravity's Rainbow or V. by Thomas Pynchon.

I'll add more later.

[Cramulus]

Psst: and if you're interested...

The Invisibles can be found here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=12508.0

The Filth can be found here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=12478.0


However, this Nun suggests you should buy them, if you can

[Richter]

 
For repost.
Local comics shop is failing to allow me to badger them into stocking it. 
This MAY lead me not to be at work tomorrow.

[Sepia]

Alan Moore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore

Alan Moore is fucking mad. He's also extremely funny, something you'll see if you find some interviews with him or his musical sideproject. A selfproclaimed magician who either creates utter shit or works of pure genius. Lots of the things he's done for Avatar Press are part of the utter shit, the one that truly springs to mind which isn't shit is the stories set in a Lovecraftian universe.

When he began his journey towards magic, he made notes which he then used to create the five voulumed Promethea, part of his Americas Best Comics line. The rest of the ABC line was pure entertainment whereas Promethea is a fucking dense journey through the head of this old geezer.

You ought to pick up:

From Hell: The story of Jack the Ripper as perceived by Alan Moore and based upon numerous books written about the killer. A royal conspiracy, freemasons and magic. A dark journey through London of that age and unlike the movie, the book reads as something authentic because it's so filthy and shitty and you can see it vividly before your eyes. The TPB also comes with Moores notes, which is rougly 1/5 of the book itself.

Promethea: If you've ever wondered about magic, kaballah, general occultism and use of symbols in literature, this is what to pick up. Moore called it his Magic for dummies the the load of information and the sheer scope of the project makes it very very good. Very beautiful.

V for Vendetta: This is gritty and stylish and cool as hell, the exact opposite of the crappy movie. Anarchism, blowing things up, transfiguration, obscure references about literature and loads of action and vaudeville.

Watchmen: Viewing superheroes as ordinary humans, with all their pathetic and grandiose madness. The term normal is liberally applied. The world ends and a new one begins. Born from the same political climate as V for Vendetta although on a larger scale.

And probably much much more but this bastard has been highly productive.

[Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ]

lol we learned about these ppl in history of illustration. awesomeness.

[Sepia]

Warren Ellis

Won't be arsed to post wiki links as you monkeys are more than capable of that. Ellis doesn't fit in too well the the other .ukers, he wasn't one of the hailed three brits that redefined american comics, which was Morrison, Gaiman and Moore. Ellis is most known for his ten-volumed "Transmetropolitan", an ok read when compared to others. This is what I usually read when taking the morning coffee or wanting something that isn't conan in brainlessness but isn't very taxing on the mind either. Transmetro is entertainment with a couple of cool/interesting references. I'd recommend you to read transmetro. Not sure if I'd recommend buying it though..

He's done alot of oneshots and he's down a lot of shit since he finished transmetro sometime late 90s or early 00s. The annoying thing with Ellis is that he has the same schtick over and over, everything feels like it's something that was a subplot in transmetro or god knows what. Desolation Jones might be the most interesting thing he's done in the five past years.

He does have a strong following on the net however, governing warrenellis.com and lots of different forums for comics/future stuff. He's up and about with all the latest gadget fashions and weird sex fetishes though, in my opinion he's too far into it and some of the stuff he writes is 2d scenarios where the military are going to use kinetic harpoons or whatever.

Read transmetro, check out desolation jones.

[Sepia]

Neil Gaiman:

Personally, I don't like him. I respect the work he did on Sandman but every other comic he's  vomited out have been bleak copies of moorcock or kirby. Sandman however, was perhaps the biggest reason for giving birth to the comic subgenre, which now has been the whole genre; graphical novels. The writing is spectacular on something as big as Sandman is and many of the characters he created or recreated were filled with breaths of fresh fresh air.

Sandman is filled to the brim with weird information told in a fantastic way. Basically, it's an ambitious project that was exectued almost flawlessly in my opinion.

Barring the other comics and spinoffs, the dude has also written some books without pictures. I know there are alot of lovers of Gaiman here so I won't say much as it's better if they recommend. The only two books I read of Gaiman that I'd even consider buying was Coraline and Good Omens. Anansi Boys and American gods were ok reads but to be honest, I'd rather have reread black swan or something as it was clearly not my cup of tea.

Read Sandman and actually, pick up Dustcovers too, Dace McKeans cover illustrations. Some of it is wicked cool, some of it is wickedly dated.

I might be forgetting something here, haven't been thinking about this for some time and I never really read Sandman many times.

[Bu🤠ns]

i really need to finnish the invisibles.

i LOVE LOVE LOVE "the filth" .  from what i've read it deals with the kabballah or maybe it was just the qlippoth aspects (wikipedia).  i'd like to re-read it under that impression at some point.  but in terms of other metaphors it's chock full of wonderful filthy goodness.  plus chris westons illustration is sooooo damn sweet.  detailed and clean. i'd say he's right up there with the likes of jim lee.

[Sepia]

THREAD NECROMANCY!


Seeing as Cram bumped the invisibles thread, I'll now tell you of one of my favourite author/inker teams: Azzarello & Risso. They have separately done lots of work which I find decent but mediocre and they've also begun doing other stuff for DC than what they've gotten famous for:

100 Bullets

11 tpbs so far and 2 more soon to come. This is the only comic I've read and reread during the course of about five years and still leaves me in a complete awe and as a gibbering fanboy because this stuff is fucking great.

"Crafted by writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso, 100 BULLETS is arguably the finest collaborative comic book this medium has produced in decades, weaving such themes as fatherhood, baseball and organized crime into a series of poignant tales as dark in their humor as they are gut-wrenching in their pathos.   They are the stories of haunted, marginalized people who slip through life on sheer inertia, until their destinies are irrevocably changed by a man known only as Agent Graves. A cross between the archangel Gabriel and an old-fashioned G-man, the ghostlike Graves comes into their lives with a powerful handgun and 100 untraceable bullets. His offer? Opportunity.   The opportunity to exact vengeance - or the opportunity to make amends.   It is the dichotomy between these two choices which makes 100 BULLETS so engaging. While the untraceable bullets offer immunity from the law, the characters find that they cannot shield themselves from the moral consequences of their actions."

- Jim Lee, 2001
from his introduction to 100 Bullets Volume 3: Hang Up On The Hang Low





The whole of 100 Bullets revolve around Agent Graves:



Little is known about his personal life except that he likes to drink vodka on the rocks in the morning and straight in the evening.

Agent Graves is a peculiar agent, as he is introduced as one who gives wronged people an attache in which there are 100 bullets of untraceable ammunition, a gun and evidence that can't be argued with over who wronged.

It begins quite chandleresque but gains something more in the process. We learn the story of Roanoke and where the term CROATOA comes from and what it means.

We learn of the Minutemen, "Seven stone cold killers sent into the night to enforce their law." A law which reads, Don't let anyone, including us, ever fuck with us.

Wait, too fast? Ok, there are two main factions, the Trust and the Minutemen.

The Trust:



Headed for the moment by Augustus Medici, the Trust are 13 families that came from the old world to take a stake in the new world and they've been in the shadows since. The Trust employs the Minutemen as their police, crushing anyone to come in their path any way they feel like. They are the original conspiracy, untouchable and with absolute power.

The Minutemen:



Seven reservoir dogs set to police the world of the Trust. There are always seven of them, if one falls away, there are numerous others to pick it up, except the Minutemen and the Trust had a falling out. Black and white has gone grey.


There is much more to be said about 100 Bullets, but there's little point in me doing it. Pick it up on the internet or in your comics shop and read it back to back. This is highclass noir of the best quality and some of the best craftmanship currently in the world of drawn novels.

[Dr. Pataphoros, SpD]

I've said it in another thread, but I recommend "Y: The Last Man" to anyone who is interested in graphic storytelling.  It's a really great piece of work by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.

I'm a fan of a lot of Gaiman's work, but some of his comic efforts have fallen a bit flat since Sandman, I'll give you that.  Good Omens = best collaberation ever.

Also, Warren Ellis has a new series out this year called FreakAngels which seems interesting.  Can't say I much care for the artist (Paul Duffield--never heard of him, I believe this is his "big debut"), but it's not bad.  Maybe I'm just hard on him because I notice so many things I would have done differently as an artist, but that's another matter.

[Cherry]

Noob.
Smack me down if you want to - but I know what I'm writing about in this thread at least.

Unhappily I lost my invisibles collection when I got divorced. 
Gutted is a more accurate descrption. 
One of the few comics I held onto (and my ex owned a comic shop, so it was tricky proving ownership) was How To Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison.
Loved it then and do now.

Kept my graphic novels of the Sandman - except I lost then in a move from Leicster to London.  As well as some Strangers in Paradise originals.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

I picked up a graphic novel called Paradigm a few years ago. It was totally excellent. Unfortunately, it looks as though the series might have been discontinued, since I've been checking back for years and still haven't found a second volume.

For those who aren't aware of it, it seems to be a dark-comedic deadpan treatment of more or less the same topics covered in The Invisibles, The Illuminatus Trilogy, &c., and updated to a sort of late-90s setting. Some characters to watch in there are Window (who seems to be channeling Eris much of the time, and the rest of the time seems just totally nuts), the midget (reminds me of Markov Cheney but with madjahaquique powers), and some kind of gun-wielding hobo who is obsessed with the X Files. It also spawned one of my favourite memebombs/arc words: Fight for the sitcom.

I will have to look into whether or not this is still going, and whether or not I can manage to find a torrent for it.

[Cain]

Warren Ellis' new comic, Doktor Sleepless, is a VERY Discordian piece of work.  Directly references Illuminatus! at one point, plus you have Lovecraftian Horrors and a morally ambiguous trickster protagonist who may be seeking to the save the world, or hasten its destruction, depending on how you read him.  Not to mention a few nods to certain internet memes here and there that you may or may not recognize.  There have only been 11 issues so far, but its pretty good.

Also, thanks to Faust, who suggest I should read it ages ago, but I only got around to doing over Xmas.

[Faust]

Warren Ellis' new comic, Doktor Sleepless, is a VERY Discordian piece of work.  Directly references Illuminatus! at one point, plus you have Lovecraftian Horrors and a morally ambiguous trickster protagonist who may be seeking to the save the world, or hasten its destruction, depending on how you read him.  Not to mention a few nods to certain internet memes here and there that you may or may not recognize.  There have only been 11 issues so far, but its pretty good.

Also, thanks to Faust, who suggest I should read it ages ago, but I only got around to doing over Xmas.

Doktorsleepless is still only on issue 13 or 14 but I would still recommend it to everyone, even if it doesn't go anywhere.
I found this thread when I went looking for a comic related thread, upon finding it I was a little amused and dismayed that I have read everything suggested here.
I cant recommend 100 bullets enough to anyone even if it loses momentum towards the end it is a fantastic story.

Though I am necromancing this thread, I will probably make a thread for what I want (ongoing comic discussion on various once off and small series).
While I am here I will suggest a couple of titles:

First is House of Mystery (love stories for dead people) by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges.
The premise is that various characters unwittingly find a door to the house of mystery and to pay for their drinks and their stay they recount a story, so each issue has the main narrative and an embedded once off story.
What attracted me to the series is that it has a very nostalgic, dreamlike atmosphere and the fantastical stories have the same kind of charm as say the Sandman or Alan Moores run on Swamp Thing. In a comparison to the two it has slightly better dialog then Gaimen (his weakness really, his dialog always seems awkward), and less meandering then Moore.

The main stories art is simplistic but Luca Rossi is great at evoking certain feelings with very basic drawings. The once off story within a story art is different from issue to issue, sometimes its great, sometimes its only so-so but it always fits the tone of the story.

One of the little narratives in it reminded me of The black Iron prison because of the use of the same kind of imagery

Life is full of traps. Some we stumble into unwittingly. Others we set for ourselves without realizing it. Or worse, with full knowledge of what we're walking into. And still others we were born into, and we may never even realize them for what they are. There is one prison, however, in which we are all inmates.
We are, all of us, trapped within our own skins. I'll never truly know how you see the world, will I?
Never know what you really think, how colors look to your eyes, how food tastes in your mouth.
Its a subtle prison, and one we only reinforce by building walls around ourselves. And you can suck it up and try to live with it or you can spend your whole life looking for a way out only to find yourself right back where you started. Which do you choose?
And is there a third option?

Okay so life is full of traps. Maybe every Man is an island. Blah blah blah. So what? Life is also full of things to touch and feel and taste.
The problem is... just because you see something doesn't mean you've got the slightest fucking clue what you're looking at.
So what you do is you turn away from what you don't understand and you do your best to get cozy where you are.
And guess what?
You just landed in the next big trap.
Hey, its not a perfect world, not by any stretch of the imagination.
But at least we're all in it together, right?

In short HoM is escapism and romanticism, the latter rarely being seen in comics these days, or much else in the instant gratification society.

The second title I would suggest reading is All Star Superman By Grant Morrison. Its two volumes (12 issues or something).
Its a once off story about superman getting the world ready for a world without him. The warm and gentle character of superman is played up in this a lot. The story uses some unique and Bizarre science fiction elements but it wouldn't be a Grant Morrison story if it wasn't weird. I wont go into the plot any more because it is a short story and its better read without spoilers.
The art through the entire story is vibrant and kind of strange. Frank Quietly's art is soft and smooth which I like because most superman stories are very gritty and militaristic, (gnashing teeth and big muscles and the like).

The first two pages really made me smile, everyone knows the story of superman at this stage so they sum it up in a really elegant and expedient manner:

[Cain]

Yeah, Doktor Sleepless seems to be going out on a very disorganized schedule.  Which is a shame.