Completely Self-absorbed Top 100 Comic Runs You Need to Read

[IndigoPrime]

Lazarus is yet another Image series that is deeply frustrating solely because of how slow it's progressing. I really liked reading it. I blazed though the HCs (which, if folks are interested, are now all in general availability again, presumably only for a short while). I went back and re-read them, picking up additional nuance. But I'm so ready for it to be done, rather than left hanging for years and years. And that's a pity, because the scope here is epic, and we should really be on the fifth or sixth HC collection, building towards a conclusion, rather than hearing there might be one more chunky volume to end the run. Sigh.

I've tried a few times to get back into Marvel comics since but I've always found them not to my taste.

Outside of toy tie-ins (Zoids; Transformers), I read little Marvel as a kid – mostly Spider-Man. Some years back, I discovered the Panini reprints were all being rebooted and bought a bunch of them. They were breezy and interesting, and I subscribed to most of them. Gradually, I let the subs lapse, primarily because three things became clear. First, the treadmill, with themes and ideas coming up again and again. Secondly, the tendency of Marvel to think it's very exciting when big characters ostensibly on the same side end up punching each other. Thirdly, the lack of any consequence whatsoever in the entire universe, because when someone wants to ret-con anything, they invariably do.

Around the same time, I also bought for a song a TON of back issues of these lines, which are now taking up way too much space in the garage that's earmarked for 1) future Progs and 2) mini-G Beano archive, and so I'm wading through them. They're mostly early-to-mid-2000s strips, with a smattering of classic runs.

Spidey was interesting. I enjoyed chunks of the stories that I recalled reading in Spider-Man and Zoids, but once he and MJ get married, the creative team changes and it becomes unreadable. Spider-Man 2099, brief snatches of which excited me as a kid, was intolerable today. And the modern run was really engaging until the soft reboot of Brand New Day, whereupon it became throwaway and quippy.

With the other strips, I mostly found myself gravitating to very specific runs, which I subsequently bought in HC. Matt Fraction's Hawkeye is fantastic comics. Slott's Silver Doctor Surfer Who run. Ms. Marvel. Aaron/Bachalo Doctor Strange. Tom King's Vision. These for me are equals to many of my favourites elsewhere, from 2000 AD or Image. Most of Marvel, I realised in the end, is the superhero equivalent of a soap opera. And that's fine. I'll happily read through all my Panini collections and then offload them on eBay. But I imagine once I'm finished with them, I'm not going to be reading a great deal of Marvel ever again.

[Blue Cactus]

Good series, Lazarus. I didn't realise they were ending it earlier than planned although I'm ok with that if they end it well. I've got the three big hardback collections and feel like I've been waiting ages for the next one.

Enjoying your write-ups Col! Quite tempted to try Orbital next year.

[karlos]

Cheers, Col!

And put me down as a fellow Nocenti DD fan!

[Le Fink]

Thanks Colin, Lazarus looks good. And Xmas is coming up...

[Colin YNWA]

Not on the list - Saga

As part of creating the list of my Top 100 I thought almost as much about the series that didn't make the list as about those that did. Part of the understanding of why I like the comics I do so much is getting under the bonnet of why I'm not as big a fan of some series / runs that commonly appear on such listings, or are widely regarded as classics and I want to unpick that in a series of posts that will slip into the more positive posts to get closer to that.

The first such entry is a bit of a soft one, it's arguably not as glaring an omission as some will be, yet it does start to unpeel some interesting bias that I need to acknowledge. So why doesn't Saga make the list?



Saga is an ongoing series from Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples, published by Image. It's a space opera following the adventures of a pair of star crossed lovers of two different alien races who are on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. It's Romeo and Juliet if they'd survived their families conflict and gone on to have a child while escaping a cast of cool space bounty hunters and that war.

The series is currently just over its halfway mark, according to the creators and clocks in at 60 plus issues to date I believe. It started in 2013 and became the poster child for the post Walking Dead creator owned series boom from Image comics. That kind of irks me. Lazarus, which started during that boom as well, is much better and more interesting and gets half the praise and acclaim of this series for some reason and that's why I'm noting Saga here.

 It quickly found a very healthy audience and great critical and fan acclaim. In its first run, the series took an extended hiatus between 2018 having reached its halfway mark, returning in 2022 to much fanfare, it swept up awards. Winning Eisners and Harvey Awards a plenty. This series is a success on just about every level.

To add to that on paper Saga has all the elements of a series that should be on this list. I like Brian K Vaughan, a number of his creator owned works will be appearing on my list. The art from Fiona Staples is simply stella, it's amazing and her alien and world building designs are quite exemplify. And indeed I was happily picking this up in trades for much of the first run... but then...

... After the 7th Trade for whatever reason I managed to miss the 8th coming out and it drifted from my mind. When I realised I'd missed a couple of trades I just felt no compulsion to catch up and I no longer picked up anything. I've dropped off the series entirely and to be honest have no real desire to get back on board and after flicking through the trades I had I simply shrugged my shoulders, realised I wasn't going to read them again and off to the 'For Sale' pile they went.

The reason? Well I just didn't trust it, I didn't feel it was honest, it felt so manufactured, like the perfect popband.

Let me try to explain.

I remember Marc Riley (the radio DJ) explaining why he didn't like Bruce Springsteen - look this will be relevant okay, trust me... he said that he just didn't find his music authentic. All Bruce's blue collar heroics didn't ring true to him. It felt artificial, too considered and planned. Almost cynical. And I think that's how I felt about Saga (I will note for all my indie kid credentials I do love Bruce Springsteen!).

I didn't trust the characters, they read too cool, too much like so many NuDoctor Who assistants, all sass and quick one-liners, all sharp dialogue and cutting wit. They didn't ring true to me. Alana and Marko - the lead star crossed lovers - really started to grate on me and rather than be pulled into their arduous journey, their many fold trails I was being pushed further and further away from caring to the point where reading the comics became an exercise it appreciating the ideas, loving the art, liking the theme that the comic was really attempting to examine, what it's like to be a parent. Ultimately though not caring less about many of the characters. It read to me as an exercise in comic creators making a set of notes on how to make comic characters cool yet relatable and injecting those into their cast. I'm sure it wasn't but that was my unshakable take.

I know this isn't the experience of the vast majority of folks who read the series and this comic does seem to have done that most important of things and reached an audience outside regular comic buyers and that's fantastic. Just for me, nope didn't buy into things at all. As with most things that will get a write up on this subset of posts, it's not Saga, it really isn't, it's me.

There's another factor as well and one I'm a little more worried about.

I did enjoy the first few trades I really did. This was good comics, never great, but good comics. The fact that it was getting hailed by all corners of the comics-sphere, had heaps of praise piled on heaps of praise, was so many folks favourite also... well irked me. It rubbed me up the wrong way. I think this exposes a bias I have. When something is exalted, held on high, paraded as the comic to beat all comics and I don't get behind that it can actually make me via the other way. Even though I like these comics fine I was put off by the fact I didn't like them anywhere near as much as others. I questioned what it was I was missing. What didn't I get that others clearly did and that may have affected my judgement.

Is it as simple as having your expectations raised to a point that when they aren't matched, so I feel let down? Or is it more subconscious and I'm made to feel insecure about the fact that I'm not seeing the things that others do? I think there might be better examples of this as we look at more comics not on my list, or even the placing of some on it. Do I push against that praise as either I don't feel in with the 'in crowd', or as smart as folks who do get the layers in things. I worry this is what it really might be. I mean it could of course be that I bring different needs to the comics I read that everyone else - we all do on some level - and so they aren't meeting the needs I have where they are with others, a key understanding we need to get to so we can start to understand the impact we the reader have on the comics we read and what we get form them. I'm bringing different things to the table and so get different things out.

Likely I think it's a bit of all of that and I find that fascinating. Something that I think comes out particularly strongly in 2000ad fandom. The fact that 2000ad is an anthology that's lasted almost 50 years means it offers so much diversity in its stories and the reading needs it can satisfy for its readers. 2000ad fans have such varied opinions about the comic itself and their reading beyond 2000ad which is part of why I love the Galaxy's Greatest's fandom so much. We find kinship in the very things that exposes our differences. And Saga just didn't meet the needs I brought to it, but is a very good comics that meets the needs of so many folks absolutely perfectly. And good for it, just not for me.

Mind I do still call Indie, our cat, 'Lying Cat' whenever she claims to have not been fed when I bloody well know she has!

[broodblik]

If you have not read Saga you are missing out. One of the best series I have read. I will have to make a plan when the newly released episodes are collected since I have them digitally and are boycotting ComiXology currently

[Colin YNWA]

If you have not read Saga you are missing out. One of the best series I have read. I will have to make a plan when the newly released episodes are collected since I have them digitally and are boycotting ComiXology currently

Yeah as I said this defo seems to be the prevailing view so regardless of the fact that it bounced off me a little, as I said I thought the chunks I read were good, just not great, I'm very much in the minority and its clear that Saga is worth checking out if it sounds up your street.

[Hawkmumbler]

I dropped off Saga I believe around 2016, it was just going in a direction that didn't endear itself to me and the shift in focal characters wasn't helping.

But thats just to my personal tastes, i'm sure it's maintained a pretty loyal readership even through the now oft-bemoaned Image hiatus'. I may, someday, return to it for a full reread.

[IndigoPrime]

Saga's an interesting one. There are moments in it that make me furiously angry. But then that's kind of the point. Bad things happen. And in this universe, it appears there's plenty of permanence. That's unusual for comics – even the better ones.

I'm mostly frustrated by the delays, though. I have the first three HCs and it all feels relevant rather than meandering (which is what some claim during the last third). I get that there are reasons for said delays, but after a years-long hiatus, that issues are still dripping out irregularly makes me wonder if Saga will be a comics Game of Thrones. I hope not.

[Colin YNWA]

But thats just to my personal tastes, i'm sure it's maintained a pretty loyal readership even through the now oft-bemoaned Image hiatus'. I may, someday, return to it for a full reread.

I imagine I'll be the same. The fact that I've read all of Walking Dead (spoilers!) and am so lukewarm to it, but did it as it always seemed to be available for bobbins via Humble Bundle gives me hope that some future YNWA will get to read all Saga when its done as its markedly better than Walking Dead.

I'm mostly frustrated by the delays, though. I have the first three HCs and it all feels relevant rather than meandering (which is what some claim during the last third). I get that there are reasons for said delays, but after a years-long hiatus, that issues are still dripping out irregularly makes me wonder if Saga will be a comics Game of Thrones. I hope not.

Still the Image models biggest problem (well that and apparently how the treat their back office staff?) its so hard to trust that you will get the story you are tease with. Always good reason for that, my desire and investment in a story pales when compared to the work that has to go into producing them. Either way it becomes a negative feedback cycle. Its more and more of a risk to get on board with a title promised as ongoing, so less folks will, so less of those titles are able to see it through.

Mark Russell (many others) get around that with the series of minis model. Never quite as satisfying but if its the model that allows story to come out then so be it.

[Colin YNWA]

And put me down as a fellow Nocenti DD fan!

Cool Beans... though I hope you can be patient for me to get to discussing it... hint hint!

[IndigoPrime]

I never quite understood the love for TWD. I bought it on Humble but never managed to trudge through the entire thing. To me, it had no realism. It read like EastEnders half the time, or – worse – a juvenile take on interpersonal relationships that reminded me more of a school than adults interacting in in apocalypse. The big bad's were cartoons. A major character's major injury early on was a terrible decision.

I admit I skipped to the end. And that last issue was... fine? But I'm not sure I can be arsed to go back and read everything in between.

[Hawkmumbler]

I never quite understood the love for TWD. I bought it on Humble but never managed to trudge through the entire thing. To me, it had no realism. It read like EastEnders half the time, or – worse – a juvenile take on interpersonal relationships that reminded me more of a school than adults interacting in in apocalypse. The big bad's were cartoons. A major character's major injury early on was a terrible decision.

This is a general issue I have with Kirkman. I was a fairly loyal reader of Invincible right up until the end, but something nagged me on my reread leading up to the final run of issues
The series that had spoke to me as an angsty edgy teenager and young adult now felt sour, ugly even. Kirkmans politics better reflecting a soap opera parody of pubescent nihilism other anything of actual substance.
I had a similar experience with my long readership with Erik Larsens Savage Dragon, which though I still applaud for it's longevity with Erik remaining as sole writer and illustrator, came to find over time just feels po-faced and dreary while maintaining an air of smug self importance.

In short, it's kinda gratifying to have that epiphany you don't settle for the lowest common denominator anymore.

[Proudhuff]

Cheers Colin, enjoying this thread, nothing I've read here yet, but a few I've been curious about.

 

[Blue Cactus]

I had a similar reaction to Saga as you Colin. In theory I should love it but I became disengaged after a few of trades because I realised I was waiting to feel really invested and it wasn't happening. I read everything up to the hiatus but am not bothered about picking it up again. The whole thing has a kind of glossy sheen to it in terms of characters, plotting and art that feels conspicuously designed. I mean I know it was all designed, of course. But I feel like it was designed with a specific type of reader response in mind and I just didn't respond like that. Even though the characters can be irritating or engaging, which should mean they feel more flawed or fully formed, to me it seems somehow contrived or inauthentic. And their journey just... wasn't that interesting? The designs are great but again the art has this polished quality to it that doesn't engage me. Actually the series feels like when everyone loves a glossy US tv show I don't get.

 A lot of people love it though so that's grand.

Same with Bruce Springsteen. I once read someone saying they found his stuff a bit like a big broadway musical version of working class anthems, which they found a bit inauthentic, but other folk hear it as the genuine article. I realise I am saying nothing deep here, just that some people react differently to others!