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His most recent thing for 2000 AD was Pandora Perfect (although he only wrote it and didn't draw the strip). His personal work includes Abigail & The Snowman, which my kid got out of the library and we both adored. Long OOP, mind. He's also created hundreds of semi-autobiographical dailies, which you can read on his website. There are currently three properly chunky HC collections on his web store. (They are superb. His packaging... less so. Although mine arrived OK.)

My recollection – I bought the book a decade ago – is it's much like The Muppet Show, in the main. So it doesn't really matter in which order you read. FWIW, someone on eBay is selling five trades for 25 quid right now.

Thanks so much for all of the above but the ebay link especially, after reading some of the comics on his website I bought those five trades and can't wait to read them.

I think had that been the case for me, I'd have enjoyed it more. I remember I largely did the first time around – although it was perhaps also boosted by running alongside a Captain America arc I abhorred (the Hydra thing). I'm into the Unworthy arc now, and it's very readable. But it's not "buy it in HC and put it on the shelf worthy" for me. (I one day had the option of buying just the God Butcher deluxe or the entire Aaron Thor run, for equivalent per-page prices, both of which were reasonable. I'm glad now I went for just the one book. Not sure I would have wanted to keep the others long term.)

I remember hearing about the Captain America / Hydra thing and thinking yeesh, that is something I really don't like the sound of, and the only friend  who has read it did not enjoy it at all. I've been thinking a lot about why I enjoyed Thor so much, as there were parts I thought were repetitive, especially the aspects about Thor being unworthy, but my lack of knowledge of all of the supporting characters got me past that, and when I think back to it, it is the Jane story I love the most.

And I think I feel the way about DC as you do with Marvel, there's a lot of comics from the late eighties / early nineties that I still love (Animal Man, Sandman, about 30 issues of Giffen/DeMatteis JLI / JLE runs, a big chunk of Hellblazer, Shade The Changing Man, Doom Patrol) but post 2000s discounting Vertigo I haven't found too much to get excited about. There are some, I thought Jeff Lemire's Animal Man run was superb, as was Brubaker's Gotham Central, and Morrison's Batman had high (and a couple of low) points, but with a lot of the characters I had that "Eh, I kind of feel like I've seen it all before" feeling. Though I guess I should back that up with the caveat that there's a lot out there that I haven't read.

I have the first HC of that. I need to get back into it. Not sure I've ever been in quite the right mood. (Also, annoyingly, Marvel did its usual thing and cancelled the collections in that format. There was – maybe is – an omni, but it's about the size of garden shed, so no thanks on that.)

I think it's a very funny, incredibly sweet natured comic, but I do occasionally wonder if my love for it comes from reading it at a time in the pandemic where everything felt rather bleak and no one quite knew how it would all play out, and so it was exactly what I needed at that point in time.

Mm. The films feel like going through the motions. The best of the recent ones for me was The Marvels, but mostly because Iman Vellani is such a joy as Ms. Marvel. And that just made me sad that she only got one TV series. I think apart from the Spidey films, I've not really annoyed one in a big way since Ragnarok, back in 2017.

The TV shows, though, I've mostly really liked. There are exceptions (Falcon/Winter Solider did not click with me at all), but I enjoyed She-Hulk's subversion, WandaVision's strange set-up, Hawkeye borrowing from my favourite run of the comics (bro), etc. But even there, we're now several series behind, and I'm honestly not sure if I care enough to watch Secret Invasion, Loki 2, What If 2 and Echo, not least given that no-one at Disney now seems invested in the Eries, and certainly not to the degree they will be ongoing and built upon.

There was so much scope in Ms. Marvel, but the TV show was ultimately just a way to introduce the character and shove her into a movie. This feels a lot like what happened in the comics, where she started as a really interesting character in her own book, before becoming subsumed into teams and ending up being just another superhero.

I've still got mixed feelings about the tv shows, I loved Wandavision bar the ending, thought the first Loki series was enjoyable, and liked the majority of the Ms. Marvel series, but in sone ways wish they'd had the budget so that she had the same powers in the show as she does in the comic. It was an inspired piece of casting though and Iman Vellani knocked it out of the park, and I really wish The Marvels had been a success so that we'd have either got another Ms Marvel tv series or a solo film, but now it seems sadly unlikely to happen. But the rest I haven't seen, and I can't say I've really got the urge to rectify that, right now at least.

Wonderful book. I hope everyone here owns a copy.

Absolutely!

The Muppets omni is a wonderful thing. I love Roger Langridge's stuff.

I'd not heard of him before but really want to check his work out, I noticed on Ebay that "Muppet Mash" and "Four Seasons" are the cheapest trades, would it matter if I didn't read the series in order?

As for the other Thor, I did like her a lot (and her story). It's a lot of the other bits that kind of bored me – all of the war bits. But I might have just had too much of it after trudging through literally hundreds of Marvel comics since the autumn. Sometimes that stuff is a bit like a repeating background on a cartoon. "Oh look: Mysterio back! Again! Yawn."

I absolutely get what you mean, and Thor may well have benefitted from being one of the first Marvel comics I'd read in a very long time. When I got in to US comics in the late eighties / early nineties I was much more of a DC / Vertigo kid (and yeah, I wince when I type that, it seems so silly now), there was the odd Marvel title like She-Hulk or Groo that I bought but not very many at all.

For long, dull reasons there was a gap between 1996 - 2007 where I wasn't reading any comics, and when I did get back in to them I had so much to catch up on that again I rarely dipped in to Marvel. But since a relationship ended in 2019 and I started collecting trade paperbacks again it's the first time I've really got in their comics, starting with Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (which I love beyond words) but then Thor, and so a lot of it was new to me, I had no history with the characters, and how many times they'd confronted various villains.

I'm definitely suffering from Marvel burn-out when it comes to the films (though I have just started X-Men 97 and find it fun) but it's yet to happen on the comics side. But then I'm deliberately trying to avoid reading anything by any one company or writer in any particular time period, so this year I've gone from Doctor Strange by Jason Aaron to Monsters by Barry Windsor-Smith, Batman Inc by Grant Morrison to It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood, Judge Dredd Case Files 15 to Cinema Purgatorio by Alan Moore, and the first House Of X / Powers Of X collection to Charley's War by Pat Mills, etc, etc. (And I know she credit the artists who make all of those books so stunning, and next time shall try and avoid being so lazy!)

[Doctor Strange]

I've only read the first volume of Kill Or Be Killed so haven't read the above post, but now even more than before I hope I stumble upon the rest of it as you rate it so highly.

Colin: I've been reading through hundreds of Panini Marvel reprints that cover the 2000s, and figuring out which I want to keep. Turns out, the answer is 'none of them', including the mostly strong Mighty World of Marvel. However, I have used them (and 'temporary' ownership of the first 60 volumes of the original Hachette Marvel collection) to govern some deluxe/omni purchases, most of which are relatively standalone own nature. I really enjoyed:

Doctor Strange (Aaron/Bachalo): quite grim and a divisive run, but one that for me really worked with the gorgeous art and mystical flavour.

Hawkeye (Fraction/Aja): just really smart comics, trying different things and mostly succeeding. I couldn't give two hoots about the character normally, but this just worked. The come down for the following volume was palpable.

Ms. Marvel (G. Willow Wilson): a smart take on the young superhero theme, despite part-way through getting caught in the end of the universe BS Marvel pulled around the time. I'm not keen on what they've done with the character more recently, but those early volumes were great.

Rocket Raccoon (Young): I mean, it's Skottie Young, even if he's just writing. I picked this up as two little HCs. Fun.

She-Hulk (Slott): A solid modern run that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that has interesting enough ideas and stories to keep the momentum going.

Silver Surfer (Slott/Allread): Basically an excuse to do Marvel Doctor Who. The omni recently got a reissue and so should still be in print. Personally, I'm no major fan of that format, but I had to have this one complete and in print. It's a lovely run.

Thor: The God Butcher (Aaron/Ribic): So I remember reading the Aaron run when I first subscribed to the Panini Marvel Legends series and liking it a lot. On re-reading it, I ended up buying just The God Butcher (deluxe, which also includes Godbomb) rather than the entire run, because that was the most impactful. What followed didn't quite do it for me, despite the uptick when the new Thor arrives.

Vision (King): A genuine surprise when I originally read this, and one I had to own. A great exploration that goes deep into what it means to belong, and the difficulties within a 'realistic' world of superpowers. Alas, I did not get on with DC equivalent Mister Miracle.

(On Marvel, I also of course have Langridge's Muppets, which is as close to The Muppet Show as it's possible to get in comic form. And I've also enjoyed but haven't yet fully read the Gwenpool omni.)

I only read the Strange run earlier this year but really enjoyed it, I've heard complaints that Aaron didn't really capture Strange's personality but as I only know him from the movies it didn't bother me, and I liked how weird and grotesque it got in places. I'd agree with pretty much everything else you say there except that the Jane Foster part of Thor was my favourite, but I really enjoyed all of those series. Well, except for Rocket Raccoon as I didn't know he'd had a solo series, but I'll be adding it to my wishlist now.

(On Marvel, I also of course have Langridge's Muppets, which is as close to The Muppet Show as it's possible to get in comic form. And I've also enjoyed but haven't yet fully read the Gwenpool omni.)

I finished the first Gwenpool omnibus this week and thought it was a great deal of fun, but I noticed the fourth trade paperback is out of print and stupidly expensive, which frustrates as I don't really like reading comics digitally. And I was unaware of the Muppets series, but as a big fan I'll definitely check that out now too.

I keep my toe in modern Marvel waters, largely due to Daredevil but I check out others. Its strange that while a lot are clearly top notch they often don't speak to what I want from superheroes. I have this terrible feeling that mainstream comics are defined by the 80s for me. Which seems to be quite a limiting way to view them. That said the odd thing does sing out and a number of the titles you mention are things I think I'll check out one day. Especially that Hawkeye run which I hear such good things about.

Out of all of them I'd recommend Unbeatable Squirrel Girl the most, I read it during the pandemic and credit it for helping me stay sane(ish) as it has such a wholesome, warm, funny and considerate central sentiment, where Squirrel Girl only ever resorts to violence if she has absolutely no other choice.

And Hawkeye is great, but it's also pretty short, and though I'm normally a fan when Jeff Lemire took over it wasn't as good.

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

I've not read much seventies or eighties Marvel as I was an annoying DC kid as a teenager (though I did always have a soft spot for Byrne's She-Hulk run and Groo), and I definitely plan to check out some of the recommended comics from this era, and Power Pack will be on that list. But I have recently read a good few series from Marvel from the 2010s and I think some of it is superb, I absolutely loved Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Jason Aaron's Thor run when Jane Foster is the central character, plus am very fond of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye and Fantastic Faux series, Charles Soule's She Hulk issues and am making my way through the and enjoying first Spider-Gwen omnibus currently, so I definitely wouldn't write the company off completely.

Batgirl Vol. 1: Beyond Burnside by Hope Larson, Rafael Albuquerque - This is from the 2017 Rebirth timeline, though I don't really keep up with DC anymore so don't know if this was any different before. It's also a little weak, Barbara's either a teenager or in her early twenties, comments that she used to be in a wheelchair but isn't any more, and then she's buggering about in Japan and there's way too much telling and not enough showing with a lot of the dialogue explaining things over and over again. It's a shame as I like the set up and the art's decent enough, but the poor script really lets it down. 2.5/5

The Authority: Revolution Book 1 and 2 by Ed Brubaker and Dustin Nguyen - I've read various Authority series in the past including the Ellis run, but this somehow passed me by. The first volume's not bad either as Brubaker explores what it'd be like if the team took control of The White House, but the second reads like Brubaker is Mark Millar's number one fan and jesus it's embarrassing. Obviously Brubaker's responsible for some classic series (Gotham Central being my favourite of his though I've only read the first Criminal trade) but the dialogue is full of sexual threats (including one involving skull ****ing that is deeply unpleasant) and I found myself wincing petty much constantly throughout the final three issues. 1.5/5

I also meant to mention that the Oxfam bookshop near Angel tube station has a sod load of comics for £1 a go at the moment, including quite a lot of Hellblazer, Garth Ennis's Punisher, and various Batman titles. On the downside they also have a section where the comics are between £3 and £4 and they're fairly well known titles and could be bought for less, while in the window they have Sandman 75 for £23, which is just madness. But, er, I don't want to put anyone off going, and the £1 section is a fairly decent size, I wouldn't say it's worth a trip to London on its own, but if you happen to be nearby I'd recommend popping in.

Have to admit to not having heard of Mark Russell before (or if I did my terrible memory quickly forgot him) but I was big fan of Steve Pugh's art on Animal Man, and your write up in general makes it sound like it'll be right up my street, so I plan to get it sooner rather than later.

That's awesome, I love stories like that, and it sounds like an amazing store. Sometimes when I think about the possibility of retiring (which is a long way away as I'm currently 49 and not flush with money) I really like the idea of working a couple of days a week part time at a comic shop. I doubt any would have me (whenever I go in to FP, Gosh or Mega City One the staff have been really friendly, but also about half my age) but hey, it's fun to think about on occasion.

...Bats being more of a detective than the modern ultra-violent version often is, Damian and Dick's relationship, the concept for Batman Inc) but was put off by some of the gorier aspects (Professor Pyg torturing people being the main part)...

Agree with all that. Omnibus 2 started with Batman and Robin, Frank Quitely on art, and it was such an improvement on the (visually and story-wise) dull RIP story from the previous omni. The rest of #2 had its moments but didn't quite live up to the liveliness of those first chapters. I'm not sure about getting omni 3 which has the Batman inc. stuff. I've not read it before. Recommended?

I really liked Batman Inc a lot, the main problem I had with it is that Morrison leaves after about (iirc) 18 issues, and Chris Burnham takes over writing the last three issues and it didn't work for me, and then the series was cancelled. The omnibus is pretty expensive too, I got lucky with ebay auctions and paid about £20 and I was very happy with that, but I'm not sure I would have been if I'd paid double.

A not uncommon view! I was reading it at the time. Not his best work, although I thought Death Aid was pretty good.

Likewise and I enjoyed that one as well, and some of Ennis's stories are much stronger than I remembered them to be (Muzak Killer springs immediately to mind as a good example), but there's a couple of one offs that made me wince, like the Edward Scissorhands parody and the mutant who looked like a teddy bear.

Not read #1 but Restricted Files #2 is great, defo worth picking up as well.

I definitely plan on getting #2, though I'm hoping I might get lucky on Ebay as it's around £40 on Amazon, and I'd like to get #3 as well but that's out of print and going for silly money sadly.

I'm not familiar with Horrid Henry. Mini-IP does have some pre-refresh Dennis books that are fairly horrible though. I much prefer the current take on him and Walter, where Dennis is streetwise and Walter is a fun-killing wannabe authoritarian, rather than Dennis kicking the shit out of anyone who is perceived to be 'girly' and effeminate. The dynamic now feels much smarter and has radically reduced 'othering'. (The comic as a whole has also benefited from getting over its 'girls – URGH' framing.)

Perhaps I'm looking at it through rose tinted glasses, and I don't remember Dennis being that violent towards Walter, but I really fricking hate Horrid Henry, I had to read it to my godchildren and I feel he might be the fictional character I despise the most!*

*Well, when it comes to mainstream kids fare, anyway.

Frustratingly DC Thompson have had all of their comics removed from a popular blog so I was unable to check to see if I was wrong or not, but I did manage to track down the 1980 annual and I do see your point. It's not quite as brutal as I was worried it might be, but Gnasher bites one of Walter's friends and Dennis soaks them in lemonade, and there's some other moments like that which make it a bit more unpleasant than I'd remembered.

I'm not familiar with Horrid Henry. Mini-IP does have some pre-refresh Dennis books that are fairly horrible though. I much prefer the current take on him and Walter, where Dennis is streetwise and Walter is a fun-killing wannabe authoritarian, rather than Dennis kicking the shit out of anyone who is perceived to be 'girly' and effeminate. The dynamic now feels much smarter and has radically reduced 'othering'. (The comic as a whole has also benefited from getting over its 'girls – URGH' framing.)

Perhaps I'm looking at it through rose tinted glasses, and I don't remember Dennis being that violent towards Walter, but I really fricking hate Horrid Henry, I had to read it to my godchildren and I feel he might be the fictional character I despise the most!*

*Well, when it comes to mainstream kids fare, anyway.

I read Morrison's Batman recently and really loved aspects of it (Bats being more of a detective than the modern ultra-violent version often is, Damian and Dick's relationship, the concept for Batman Inc) but was put off by some of the gorier aspects (Professor Pyg torturing people being the main part). I did not like Final Crisis at all though, I could see what Morrison was trying to do but found it far too much of a disjointed mess to be in any way satisfying.

I've just read Alan Moore's Nemo trilogy, two years after reading all of the rest of LOEG, and I loved it a lot. Which definitely wasn't always the case with LOEG, and thought it contained some really stunning double splash pages from Kevin O'Neill.

I'm also slowly working my way through the Dredd Case Files, I recently read Volume 16 (it has its moments but I didn't click with some of Ennis's comedy Dredd stories) so thought I'd check out the first Restricted Files and I'm really loving it, some of the stories are extremely silly but it's during a period where I find that quite charming, and I already have a feeling I'll really miss this era when I get round to reading the 17th Case File.

Half the time, old men just appear to be rallying against the increased inclusion (and the drop in bullying) in modern comics, and ignoring all the other changes that chime with the current generation. (I even see people arguing that modern cartoons aren't allowed to be rude and anarchic. And my response is: have you read Looshkin?)

That's a point of view that has alwayed annoys me as well, and though some of it is fairly dated now Horrid Henry is much more of a s**t than Dennis The Menace ever was!

it was just Alan Moore so thought I'd better read it

I do wonder how much of that there is in comics, either from people gravitating towards names because their work is considered important, or because of their star status – and then attempting to convince themselves it's all worthy, rather than just some of it? I've definitely done that myself with Alan Moore (whose work I now consider extremely variable, at least by my own personal tastes) and Grant Morrison (more often 'not great' than great for me – and I prefer the older work to the newer stuff). Universes too: for a time, I had to read anything in the Bellboy universe. But it lost focus and I absolutely HATED where BPRD went. So I've headed almost the other way and am even at the point where I'm wondering whether to sell off my HCs (knowing that I'd never be able to get them back).

Looking at my collection, there's almost nothing that stays the course for the entire run, or for an entire body of work. Ed Brubaker on Image does for me, but then I don't care about his Marvel stuff, which is... fine. Right now, the only name I can think of is Stan Sakai, who's not written anything I've disliked. Which makes me wonder if Usagi Yojimbo will be on this list, and where it will be placed now we know it's ranked.

That's made me start wondering if there's anyone whose work I really enjoyed all of, it's something which is very rare in most forms of media (though bar Inland Empire I love pretty much everything David Lynch has created, and thought Twin Peaks: The Return was an astonishing achievement, and my expectations were through the roof for it as I'd been obsessed by the original series when it aired when I was 16 / 17), but I can't think of anyone who either hasn't had the odd dud, at least if I only count those who have been working in the industry for ten years plus. Jeff Lemire comes close I guess but I didn't get on with Plutonia and his Hawkeye run wasn't anything that special, what I've read of Ed Brubaker has been great but I'm a relative newcomer and haven't seen much of his Marvel work, and though Brian Michael Bendis made me fall in love with Jennifer Jones in Alias I lost interest in the character with The Pulse (though I did at least like the 2016 run a lot again).