Comic Book Resources

What, no love for arsenic lullaby?

I’m sorry, but no Major Bummer means the first list is invalid. And as funny as Hitman is, a series where quite literally everyone dies probably shouldn’t be on the list.

Good call, Alan! That was a tough ommission.

Not good call, Greg!

Major Bummer? Seriously? I mean, I had it when I was making this a top FORTY, but Top 25? No way.

How can a lit of serious superheroes be missing Scott Summers/Cyclops? A character dry that even the other heroes comment on it.

No Agent X ? No Young Justice ? No Warren’s Gen13 ? Oh, come on…

a serious character list and the spectre is not in the top 5????

wtf

seriously………

fate and batman might have him on the fact that they are not encouraged by “god” to be less than humorous, but his high placement makes my head hurt.

23 for 25 most serious superheroes isn’t bad.

And I can see the Atom if you’ve never read his Silver Age Incarnation which was chock-full of bizzare sight gags.

One issue had the Atom dressing up as a leprachaun. But that side of the character was erased post 1970. So I see where you’re comin’ from.

But Big Barda?

Ummmm…. What the HELL were you possibly thinking? That’s gotta be a joke to see if we’re paying attention, right?

I can’t think of any version of the character that didn’t have strong comedic elements, except for Jeph Loeb’s.

Ahhh. Ambush Bug as “funniest” character, though.

I guess you’re redeemed.

Comic. Not character.

And the funniest list is really good. I am impressed. There’s not a Big Barda equivalent in the lot.

I’da stuck Cerebus, Sugar and Spike, and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in the top five, and My Monkeys Name is Jennifer, Meow Baby! and Scurvy Dogs woulda made the big 25.

Also Leave It To Binky.

Screw you all. Leave it to Binky was HILLARIOUS! You suck.

Oh yeah. Scurvy Dogs. That’d be top five.

Good showing for Giffen.

From now on, everytime one of you people starts one of these lists you should just call it “The 20 Or So Funniest Comics Where All The Humor Comes From Either ‘Caped Guys Being Silly’ Or ‘Hey I’m Aware That I’m In A Comic Book! Nutty!’ Of All Time, And Also A Few Other Misc Silver Age Humor Books That I Think Make Me Seem Like A Connoisseur” and save me the trouble of reading it.

BAM!

Wow, 50 links to click and then click back. That’s easy to read…

Ambush Bug is the funniest no doubt. But no Black Bolt in the serious column? And any guy that calls his car a Batmobile can’t be that serious.

The ambush bug miniseries is without a doubt the funniest, most surreal, most completely whacked out damn thing I’ve ever read. The last past reveal in the first issue is amazingly disconcerting when you start reading the second issue and don’t see it referenced anywhere until….

…..ah, but that’d be telling. lol and roffle.

Best page in the series? Its gotta be that COMPLETELY FREAKY panel with the giant Cheeks floating in the sky. I think I did about five double takes when I saw that.

I’m currently waiting on the Son of Ambush Bug miniseries to turn up on my doorstep. Hopefully its as good as the first one.

JLE/I/A - take notes, Meltzer. Take notes. I think someone needs to order him the entire run from Ebay and mail it to him. Also, stupid Didio etc etc.

Batman as number 1 - it was slightly puzzling to see him hailed as most serious character when the first image you see is Adam West going BIFF BOOM BAM

No Agent X ? No Young Justice ? No Warren’s Gen13 ? Oh, come on…

Decently funny.

Horribly unfunny.

And was Warren’s Gen13 really all that funny? I liked it, but was it really that funny?

A big indicator was whether the characters ever made jokes, and Scott makes plenty of them.

a serious character list and the spectre is not in the top 5????

I was convinced to put him ON the list. Originally, I had him off. He has way too good of a morbid sense of humor to be THAT serious.

I mean, the guy sits around and thinks or ironic ways to kill people - that’s not serious at all!

But Big Barda?

Ummmm…. What the HELL were you possibly thinking? That’s gotta be a joke to see if we’re paying attention, right?

She’s been used for comic effect, yes, but as a straight woman.

I agree with Ion. Maybe I’m lazy, but when I realized this was essentially a list of 50 links, I thought, “What the f*ck?!” So I haven’t read it.

Oh yeah. Scurvy Dogs. That’d be top five.

The ten issue rule kept them off the list.

If I didn’t have a issue amount limit, the list would be practically impossible, as there are just too many great short funny mini-series and one-shots.

From now on, everytime one of you people starts one of these lists you should just call it “The 20 Or So Funniest Comics Where All The Humor Comes From Either ‘Caped Guys Being Silly’ Or ‘Hey I’m Aware That I’m In A Comic Book! Nutty!’ Of All Time, And Also A Few Other Misc Silver Age Humor Books That I Think Make Me Seem Like A Connoisseur” and save me the trouble of reading it.

BAM!

Besides the Giffen Justice League stuff and PAD’s X-Factor, how does any of this list even remotely resemble what you are descr….oh wait, never mind, I was trying to apply logic to your point.

Sorry.

My bad.

Wow, 50 links to click and then click back. That’s easy to read…

If you click one, you can just go to the month archive on the sidebar. It’ll show you all of them in a row!

Batman as number 1 - it was slightly puzzling to see him hailed as most serious character when the first image you see is Adam West going BIFF BOOM BAM

That’s not in the comic books, though!

“Boy, look at all that smoke! There must be a giant koala attacking the city.”

Deadpool, Brian? Really?

On Big Barda

“She’s been used for comic effect, yes, but as a straight woman.”

“I’m not so bad! -A little ROUGH maybe! But once you Get to Know Me–I Can be a Real Pussycat!”

Barda from Mister Miracle # 4.

Not true in her original (Kirby) conception. Not even Completely true, (I think) in the JLA/I/2cd series. But you’d probably know better than I.

But certainly in Kirby’s conception of the character, which should remain the baseline for every other writer, she had a fairly sharp wit and a tempered but still basically happy-go-lucky attitude.

Some of this comes through in her dialouge. In the same issue she calls Oberon “Microbe” and “Little Rat” points out that “If Anything Irritates Big Barda… It’s a BAD ACTOR” as she clobbers an unfortunate, hypnotized thesbian, and ends the issue with a huge smile and “That Sounds Great! Lets Eat! I’m as Hungry as a bear!”

But mostly it’s her body language. She’s smiling most of the time, ‘cept when she’s on a job and carries herself with a combination of vigorous enthusiasm and regal detachment.

Even her decision to move to earth is done without any sort of breast beating angst. She decides she likes it better on earth, so she easily and without a second thought leaves Darkseid’s service. Think of all the droaning angst y’get anytime one of Xavier’s mutants leaves the school, or switch sides from Magneto, or what have you.

But the ONLY time she’s completely serious is when Scott’s in danger or she’s comanding the Female Furies.

In other words… Not serious.

Deadpool, Brian? Really?

You simply must read Deadpool #11!!!

If so, then it will all make itself clear.

And it’s not like Big Barda is HIGH on the list!!

Awww. The silent issue of Young Justice was pretty darn funny.

Heck, I think “horribly unfunny” is unfair all ’round. Young Justice is my favorite “Titans” book, an’ it’s funnier than Howard the Duck, at least belly laff wise.

Howard’s a better book overall, but I read it as much tragedy as comedy.

Nah, you’re right.

Horribly unfunny is too harsh. I apologize, Young Justice!

I think it was unfunny (I would prefer “very unfunny” but I will settle for just “unfunny”), but “horribly” was a bit much.

“And it’s not like Big Barda is HIGH on the list!!”

Misrepresentations of Kirby characters… Specifically Seventies Kirby characters and Kid Groups, are one of my tichy fanboy things. But I’m done now.

(On the upside, I would’ve gone on a lot longer if I could find any of the other 16 issues of Mister Miracle to quote from.)

Where’s Extreme Justice? That was pretty serious.

Seriously stupid, but still…

No Miracleman, no V for Vendetta, no Swamp Thing??Does Brain not like Alan Moore or something??

“Horribly unfunny” struck me as about right for Young Justice. I can’t help but note that every character involved with that book got angsted up but good after YJ got cancelled– I’m sure, no doubt, to distance them for PAD’s bizarre decision to go for a Saturday morning cartoon tone. Of course, I didn’t like the hyper-angsty approach to those characters any more than the hyper-wacky one. Le sigh…

No Miracleman, no V for Vendetta, no Swamp Thing??Does Brain not like Alan Moore or something??

Do you think those books were really that funny?

Or are you talking more the Most Serious bit. In that case, is V a superhero? Swamp Thing was funny!! And I guess Miracleman would fit.

I could see Tomorrow Stories making a list like this, though. Would probably be towards the bottom of my personal 25 faves.

Any list of funniest comics that does not include Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is highly suspect to me.

Obviously, humour is a highly subjective thing– I mean, I probably would have ranked Kurtzman’s Mad way over Ambush Bug (which I found funny but not that funny), and I probably would have placed Captain Carrot somewhere near the bottom of the list just for issue 3 alone (which nearly made me apoplectic reading it as a 12 year-old)– but not including Cole’s Plastic Man to my mind is a crime. The DC Archive editions out at present don’t even have adventures from Plas’ hey-dey and they’re all delightfully warped and funnier than any number of series on this list(including the Kyle Baker revival). I’d place any number of stuff at Cole’s peak in the top 5 easily. The omission is startling, in my view.

Blue Devil should be on the first list.

i’d like to say Daredevil should be on the second, but i guess he used to be kinda funny (or at least *tried* to be) at various points in the past.

I guess the Punisher is more crazy than serious…

I have no quibble with most of the books on the funny list, though I do think the order is a bit out of whack. But whatever.

But I agree with Graeme Burk, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is just about the funniest thing I’ve ever read. I would probably allow that to pass, except that Kyle Baker’s Plas series is on here, implying that Baker’s book is in fact funnier than Cole’s. And htat just ain’t the case (nothing against Kyle’s work).

And where’s Spider- Ham, dammit!?!?!?!?!

I tend to agree; missing the Cole Plastic Man is one of those things that makes the whole list suspect, in my mind. Then again, the real title should possibly be “the 25 comics I found funniest”. Absolute statements of taste tend to be targets and annoy people; saying what you like is fine.

I’ll forgive you for not listing Sugar & Spike; as that’s hideously hard to find at all, with mayby two exceptions; neither of which show the series at its best. It would get my vote for first place, though. (It would get my vote as all time greatest comic book, bar none, though. So I’m biased; and lucky enough to have read most of the issues.) The Cole Plastic Man is easy to find, though. So no excuse there.

“I’m currently waiting on the Son of Ambush Bug miniseries to turn up on my doorstep. Hopefully its as good as the first one.”

You’re in for a treat. The humour in SoAB is a bit more deadpan, but I think it’s the best book old Irwin’s ever been in.

Glaring omissions on the comedy list:
Freak Brothers
Bone
Viz (in its prime - but that probably never made it across the Atlantic)
Asterix
Tank Girl: The Odyssey
Why I Hate Saturn
Marshal Law

Cole’s Plastic Man may be (heck, certainly IS) better comics than the vast majority of the comics on this list, but I don’t think it was funnier than the ones listed here. Unless you want to give it “originality” points for being an influence to people. I don’t.

And Sugar and Spike was extremely well done comics. I don’t think they were funnier than Little Lulu or Sad Sack or Frankenstein Comics (the closest similarities to Sugar and Spike in style on the list).

Feel free to disagree with the list, though! Always a fun thing to do!

Daredevil should be on the list of most serious and the Spectre should be higher up on the list. Otherwise, good call.

I call shenannigans on the utter lack of Foglio on the funniest list. His Plastic Man was at least as good as Baker’s [and, on the subject of Baker, Cowboy Wally would have been a better pick], and you could make a very strong case for including his Myth Adventures adaptation, his Angel and Ape or Stanley and his Monster minis, Girl Genius, XXXenophile, and (especially) Buck Godot.

Tomorrow Stories belongs on the funniest list.

I love Plastic Man original style, but I didn’t think it was FUNNY, exactly, More “Hey, wow. Look at THAT! Awesome!”

Ditto, since it was mentioned, Kurtzman’s Mad. I’ve only read the first twelve issues, and while they’re lighter than most EC fare, they’re still as much horror comics as they are humor.

And the writing isn’t all that funny to me new. The way things are DRAWN is hillarious, but not the writing.

Bill F said
“Tomorrow Stories belongs on the funniest list.”

Hmm…. nah. Jack B Quick is funny. Greyshirt is great, but not that funny. The First American, Splash Brannigan and (to a slightly lesser degree) Cobweb are incredibly unfunny, and in their own way proof that Alan Moore is fallible after all

Dan

*looks*

Oh. Hey. Here’s some I didn’t read cause they were on the second page…

# 2. Ah. THERE’S JLA/JLI. Wondered where that was.

# 3. Pogo… Fair enough. I don’t think the Pogo comic books were all that funny, but I believe Kelly did a bunch of original stuff for the collections. So if you judge that and the original comics and exclude the pure strip work, # 3 is about fair.

# 4. Acme Novelty Library.

ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY!

….

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Was the last Acme freaking hillarious? I didn’t read it. This is really weird.

Not a Big Barda, though. I mean, defensible.

And Ware does have a kind of unfair reputation for being humorless, which really isn’t true. He does funny panel transitions as well as anyone.

And compared to people who do depressing comics I think he’s funnier than Clowes or Tomine or Bechdel or Thompson or CHESTER Brown and about equally as funny as JEFFRY Brown.

But it I was gonna make a graph, I’d call mebbe 15% of his ACME Novelty stuff REALLY funny, 30% kind of funny, and 60% not at all funny. Like Howard and Kurtzman’s Mad had strong non tragic and horrific streaks, respectively, but I’d rate ‘em both higher than Acme ’cause they’re funnier more often.

Also, I didn’t think that most of Ware’s Quimby the Mouse (which WAS pretty damn funny) got reprinted or in Acme. But I dunno.

And I don’t think you can be one of the five most depressing cartoonists of all time and be make one of the funniest comics. That’s so not fair.

I agree with most of the “most serious” list except:

Replace Big Barda with Orion. I’d replace Barry Allen (dry, bland, but not angst-ridden)& Jay Garrick (who has been shown to have a sense of humor) with Cyclops, or angst-machines Storm and the Vision.

OK, one more thing.

I haven’t read Sad Sack or Frankenstien. And Little Lulu IS, IMO, funnier than Sugar and Spike.

But if you have room for Justice League AND Justice League Europe I’d think there was room to cut one of the (by my count, but I’m a little tired) 47 superhero books on the list. (Although in all absolute honesty I haven’t read She-Hulk or Quantum and Woody or Deadpool or much Flaming Carrot or Nextwave or X-Factor beyond the first trade - Which was fucking terrible and you guys are all ragging on Young Justice. Which I think proved my point, but I’m pretty tired.)

Other stuff that would make My Top 25:

Hate. Some of it wasn’t that funny. Heck, Hate had the single most unexpected and shocking moment I’ve ever seen in a comic. But a bunch of it was and just LOOKING at Bagge’s drawing cracks me up.

13 Going On 18, but that’s never been reprinted and I had to dig around in university archives a couple different places to find copies I could read.

“…she calls Oberon “Microbe” and “Little Rat” points out that “If Anything Irritates Big Barda… It’s a BAD ACTOR” as she clobbers an unfortunate, hypnotized thesbian, and ends the issue with a huge smile and “That Sounds Great! Lets Eat! I’m as Hungry as a bear!”
—

That’s the Big Barda I fell in love with.

Every time I see of copy of Civil War: Frontline, I think of Combat Cheeks: Frontline Medic!

And I wonder which comic it was that made the cut-off 10 issues instead of twelve? How many issues did Herbie the Fat Fury have?

DanCJ said …
“Hmm…. nah. Jack B Quick is funny. Greyshirt is great, but not that funny. The First American, Splash Brannigan and (to a slightly lesser degree) Cobweb are incredibly unfunny, and in their own way proof that Alan Moore is fallible after all”

Actually, I agree with you (mostly). Jack B Quick was the funniest part of the book, but The First American was pretty funny as well (in a meta-commentary sort of way). Also Greyshirt at times was very ironic, so not straight out funny, but funny in a kind of dark humor twist sort of way (dare I say almost British sort of way).

And yeah, I hate Cobweb. Though the Lil’ Cobweb piece he did once did make me laugh a few times. Otherwise it wasn’t really meant to be that funny outside of the fact that Cobweb and her driver (was it Clarice?) were suppose to be lesbian lovers and Cobweb was incredably egotistical. Which really isn’t that funny at all in retrospect. It was just an excuse for the artist to do boardline soft core lesbian porn.

Still, the strength of the other pieces I think make Tomorrow Stories at least deserving of a spot (even if low) on this list. And yes, Alan Moore is of course fallible. It doesn’t mean he hasnt made some amazing comics though.

I really liked Cobweb.

It’s not funny, mind. Totally agree with you there

But the idea of creating these two characters as Superman/Batman/Tarzan style twentieth century archetypes and then showing them in their various incarnations in various media over the course of a century completely worked for me.

“And I wonder which comic it was that made the cut-off 10 issues instead of twelve? How many issues did Herbie the Fat Fury have?”

Twenty-some.

But it’s more funny “Hmmm” than funny “Ha ha,” if you know what I mean.

After I looked at the first couple items on the serious list, I thought it was going to be a jokey gallery of Alex Ross’s stiff superhero portraits. That would have been a good gag.