Comic Book Resources

50 Other Things I Love About Comics

• by Brad Curran
• in General

Because the hate thing wound up outnumbering the love, and that’s not right. Well, that and it didn’t sit well with some of the bloggers I said I didn’t like, and I feel bad about that. Who knew that people don’t like being told that you make them hate comics? Took me by surprise. Really, I barely hate anything. So let us wash the bitter taste out of our mouths with some happy thoughts!

Also, all that and I’m on a daily content kick. This stuff really is addictive.

Five Old School Marvel Comics Runs Everybody Else Probably Does (And Should) Like

1. Amazing Spider-Man by Lee, Ditko, Romita, and friends
2. Howard the Duckby Gerber, Colan, Brunner, and friends
3. Fantastic Four by Lee, Kirby, Sinnot, and friends
4. Dr. Strange by Lee, Ditko, Severin, Everett, and friends
5. Uncanny X-Men by Wein, Claremont, Cockrum, Byrne, and friends

Five Artists I Love While Hardly Having Read Any Interior Work Of Theirs
6. James Jean
7. Steve Rude
8. Dave Stevens
9. Alex Toth
10. Jamie Hewlett

Five Morrison New X-Men Characters I Really Liked Or At Least Thought Were Cool
11. Xorn (Even if he turned out to be lame old Magneto, whom I am not showing any respect to)
12. Beak
13. The dumb Redneck whose name I think was Redneck but can’t remember, and the comics are packed away somewhere or another.
14. Kid Omega
15. The Stepford Cuckoos

5 Writer/Artists I’ll Read Anything From Without Reservation
16. Jack Kirby
17. Jaime Hernandez
18. Dan Clowes
19. Mike Mignola
20. Darwyn Cooke

5 More Who Are Almost There
21. Brian Lee O’Malley- Solely because I haven’t read Lost at Sea yet.
22. Gilbert Hernandez-Haven’t read enough of him to know if I like his work as much as Jaime, but I want to find out)
23. Brandon Graham
24. Dean Haspiel
25. Paul Pope (Even if I was pretty underwhelmed by Batman: Year 100)

Massive Hardcover Comics Collections That Are Great Stories And Also Blunt Weapons If Need Be. A Real Double Threat.
26. Locas by Jaime Hernandez- Sure, the fact that the characters change and grow is great, but the hook was the way Jaime draws women. Everything past that is gravy. I’m an awful person, aren’t I? Seriously, though, wonderful chunk of comics here.
27. Absolute New Frontier- The slipcase alone is one of the best things I own.
28. Absolute Watchmen- I have yet to re-read it in this format, but just flipping through it is breathtaking.
29. In the Shadow of No Towers- An indispensable artifact chronicling life in the wake of 9-11 from the prespective of someone who was on the scene. Worth owning solely for that, any complaints about page count or content aside (if you are a Republican and easily offended, you will probably have some). Well, and a funny gag about shoes dropping, and some neat reprints of classic newspaper strips to boot.
30a&b. Marvel and DC Encyclopedias- Just because it’s nice to know there are things even I didn’t know about these Universes.

The Obligatory “I Am Tired Of Coming Up With Lists Of Five And Just Want To Throw Random Crap At The Wall” Portion Of The Proceedings
31. Captain America- Love the character, love the costume design, love the shield.
32. Taiyo Matsumoto’s Black and White/Tekkon Kinkreet
33. Death Note (The two mangas I enjoy back to back!)
34. The fact that just about every comic in the history ever is getting at least a softcover collection
35. On a related note, all of Jack Kirby’s work will eventually be in hardcover form. I mean, once Devil Dinosaur get an omnibus, you know business is about to pick up.
36. The old Warren Spirit Magazines- The most affordable way to read Eisner’s first masterpiece of the form. I mean, really, you get more bang for your time and buck in one of these than in basically any year’s worth of comics published by pretty much anyone.
37. Mr. Miracle- Created by Jack Kirby, based on Jim Steranko; no part of that is not awesome, all right.
38. My dog eared copy of The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told from 1989- Now that’s what you call a gateway comic. Even when I wasn’t reading comics regularly, I re-read this thing every year. If I ever sell this thing, its condition may not be great, but the sentimental value will be through the roof.
39. The Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Comic- Only in comics could this happen! Well, and in the Simpsons video game last year, but this was first.
40. The Thing’s Incognito Outfit
41. JLA/JSA Team Ups
42. Chris Sims- Dude did give us Lego Batman with Sharkchuks. That, and he’s pretty much me, so all this fawning over him is really self flattery.
43. Reed Richards’ “I Am Working So Hard On A Gadget To Defeat Some Jerk With That I Have Not Shaved” Stubble. You know when he’s sporting that, things are serious.
44. John Romita’s women artwomen… art encapsulates it better, I guess.
45. Pre-Superhero/Marvel Lee, Kirby, and Ditko monster comics
46. Kitty Pryde (I read Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men at the right age, okay?)
47. Spider-Man
48. Spider-Man derivatives (Which is why I was this close to creating a H.E.A.T.-esque group to return Robbie Baldwin to his proper state)
49. Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation- I mean, I really love Dr. Strange in general, but the cloak is just dope.
50. “Comics are words and pictures, and you can do anything with words and pictures”- Even if I like the superguys to an absurd extent, that’s still a damned important thing to remember, that that’s the limit of what you can do in comics. That, and quoting Pekar should cover my ass for being such a fanboy, right?

I could actually do more, but part of the whole “list of 50″ thing is to show restraint. That doesn’t mean I won’t do another one of these (especially when I broaden my comics horizons a wee bit), but I’m going to wait awhile (and try my hardest not to do another “_ Things I Hate” List) before being that self indulgent again. So, see you Wednesday, folks.