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

[Barrington Boots]

Bat Lash looks really good - I'm actually pretty excited to have a go at that. Looks like the collected edition is out of print but not insanley expensive (unless Colin's post sparks a run on it!) so I'll see if that's something I can justify picking up in the new year.
I've seen it around before, but the title plus it being DC made me write it off thinking it was some kind of awful elseworlds cowboy Batman comic. Whoops!

Dare... the C64 game

Absolute classic!

[Colin YNWA]

Folks who know me know I can't resist a good western, and a good western written by Sergio Aragones is almost too tempting to believe, baffled how this has slipped under my radar.
That showcase is going on the hunting list.

Bat Lash looks really good - I'm actually pretty excited to have a go at that. Looks like the collected edition is out of print but not insanley expensive (unless Colin's post sparks a run on it!) so I'll see if that's something I can justify picking up in the new year.

Now don't you two get into a bidding war and artifically push up prices... for a book I own... actually go for it!

Preacher: it really will be interesting, Colin, you coming to that series now, in this year and at your age, vs when it was released. As I've said elsewhere, it is right on the cusp of 'keep or sell' for me. Not sure it'll survive another re-read, whereupon I may well reallocate the shelf space for something more deserving. (I imagine, despite the fact I would never be able to rebuy them if I sold them, my BPRD HCs may well suffer the same fate. I hated where that ended up.)

Damnit Preacher is as much as 4 years from getting to the top of the pile (spreadsheet) - I know, I know there are so many good comics to read! I kinda want to read it now after all this talk.

[BadlyDrawnKano]

I'd not heard of Bat Lash before, and I never knew that Aragones* plotted comics that he didn't also draw, so that was fascinating to read, I have put it on my Amazon wishlist but that's so ridiculously large right now that it'll probably be 2026 before I get to it!



*Though outside of his work for Groo and Mad Magazine I know very little about the man, and really must rectify that.

[Colin YNWA]

Number 120 - The Li'l Depressed Boy

Keywords: Slice of Life, empathy, unfinished (a bit), forgotten

Creators:
Writer - Steven Struble
Art - Sina Grace
Colours - Steven Struble

Publisher: Image Comics

No. issues: 21
Date of Publication: 2011 - 2014

Last read: 2015

Some comics just get lost in the mix. They get forgotten, I mean there are a lot of comics out there. Some of those lost comics are well worth the effort of tracking down... if you think they will work for you. So give that let's remind folks of


Copyright - them what created it...

I got back into comics after my wilderness years around 2004 and fell into superhero stuff pretty hard. As my reading started to diversify after a few years I realised that the comics I was discovering really still centred around genre fiction and I began to feel an itch I needed to scratch. Where were the slice of life, autobiographical comics I used to love. Where was Peep Show, Yummy Fur (well when that did autobiographical stuff), Hate even. Then I stumbled across Li'l Depressed Boy and started to scratch that itch.

Now it's important to say that Li'l Depressed Boy wasn't like those mentioned above, or as good as this list will attest to, but it filled a gap that the absence those sorts of comics left me.

Initially created as a webcomic (I'm still to read those) Steven Struble created LDB as a semi-autobiographical account of his struggles with depression and life in general. The series follows Li'l Depressed Boy, or LDB to his friends, he's literally called that in the comics. He is also presented as a 'ragdoll' , a simplified representation of a person. Something I'll return to later.


Copyright - them what created it...

LDB moves through his life during the 21 issues. He falls in and out of love - or at least thinks he falls out of love, again another thing we'll come back to. Gets a bum job in a cinema that courses him all sorts of grief. Tries to find a creative outlet. Catches buses, walks in the park. Lives a life that many of us have lived and it serves as a useful meditative reflection of that life and for me, my life, at least when I was in the 20s / early 30s phase of my life.

One constant in LDB's life is music. He loves music. He goes to gigs, he constantly has his headphones and is listening to cool indie bands. He turns to music when he is feeling down, and he's listening to music when he's at his best. Music is the art form through which he draws so much from and how he processes his experience. Again this is something that I can relate to. In those aforementioned wilderness years, when I wasn't reading comics, music was a massive part of my life too. It still is, but during my 30s comics came back and dominated more. Either way I can easily relate to how you throw yourself into a creative medium as a way to try to understand who you are and to feel connection to others. So I do things like this to feel engaged with comics and the comics community, LDB is in the same phase with music.


Copyright - them what created it...

This connection to music and the music scene has led to this series being labelled as 'hipster' by some folks. I'm not sure I see that. I mean firstly what exactly is it to be a hipster, just cos someone is into the indie music scene, being a 'hipster' is more than that isn't it? I'm too old and 'nerdy' to even really know and lots of lovely people have well maintained beards these days it seems to me. I don't think this comic is designed to appeal to a specific demographic, sub culture or group.

I mean look at me when I discovered it. I was past the stage of my life LDB is in. He's single or just starting in a relationship, in his 20s, lives alone, still dealing with the discovery of who he is. When I read these I was married, had young children and had well and truly settled down. I was well into my career and frankly far too busy to really dwell on who I was. I'm also lucky enough to have never suffered from depression, though many close to me have. I'm also not a cool dude from middle America. None of this matters, these are comics I feel empathy with. These are comics that tell a tale that reflects so many elements from my past and in different ways relate to me now.

LDB's relationships with his lovers, friends, and work colleagues still speak to me. I remember one scene that made me wince at myself - now I'm too lazy to track this down, but even my shoddy memory has held onto this. He relates to someone how he didn't want to become that friend to someone he was attracted to in some vain hope they were attracted to him but he 'wouldn't want to ruin the friendship' by not addressing his feelings head on. Christ I admired that, I've been that person so many times in my youth. He fact he addressed that, with a little scorn, hit home and settled in my mind. So much of this series does and that's why it comfortably makes this list. It's settled in my brain, it had an impact and I think of this series very fondly.


Copyright - them what created it...
 
LDB isn't alone in his world and the story introduced any number of great, relatable characters, Spike his girlfriend, who is frankly very cool, Drew his best friend, Jazz a woman he fell for, but only saw LDB as a friend (see above!), Lance a pain in the ass work manager. All these people I know, or have known in one way or another over the years and that makes the series feel very real and grounded to me.

There's an artistic trick played here that helps all this as well and it revolves around the design of Little Depressed Boy. In a previous entry (Orbital #130) I flagged a video by Matttt (right number of 't's believe it or not!) about how Manga uses a technique of simplifying the way faces of characters are drawn in context of more detailed and fully realised background and environments. This allows the reader to more easily identify with the characters, as they don't have as defined specific features. They could just be you, so you engage with them and therefore their situations and story more. Do this in contrast with a more detailed realised world in the backgrounds and that impact is amplified.

This is done to great effect in this series. Little Depressed Boy is so simplified, there is nothing in their features to define them, so the reader can fully engage with them and there are no barriers to seeing yourself in them. This is further aided by the fact that here the other characters are more 'realistically' drawn, or at least more developed. So the reader feels a fuller connection, finding LDB more relatable than the folks that fill his life. It's really effective here.

Important to say that I don't know that Steven Struble does this deliberately. In an interview linked to below, he chooses not to say why LDB is drawn the way they are. It might be this, it might just as well be so that Struble is able to distance himself from the autobiographical elements. It could be that LDB sees himself as not as complete and whole as the other people in his life. There could be other reasons I'm not smart enough to read into. It may well be a combination of a number of reasons. Whatever.

It's important to remember however that the final product of any comic (or book, or film, whatever) is created by the reader. The work isn't completed until the reader comes to it, takes what is presented to them, adds the needs they bring to that piece of fiction, mixes in their reflections and reading. Sees the themes and ideas they want to give to the work and only then is the comic (see above) finally fully created. To that end, regardless of Steven Strable's intent, even if this effect isn't deliberate, I suspect it plays a large part into why I engage with this work the way I do.


Copyright - them what created it...

This leads us neatly to the rest of the art. It's good. Sina Grace handles the characters perfectly. Their interactions and emotional responses feel real and are projected simply and to great effect. The world feels as solid as it needs to. The action of the music that plans such a big part of the story is full of energy and life. The jagged, rugged line work carries the difficult world LDB lives in, difficult to him, to great effect.  It's a really good job, even if it doesn't blow me away.

The series had a 16 issue ongoing, then a 5 issue mini 'Supposed to be there' which ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Just as LDB starts to feel settled with Spike and confident enough to tell her he loves her, Jazz appears back into his life. This shakes him as he begins to question whether he actually ever really got over her. Then Spike gets some news that might impact their relationship in another way... we just don't get to find out though. As the mini series ended we were promised more, but didn't get it. Life doesn't end neatly and so neither does this series, which kinda works, but is kinda annoying too. Would love there to be more.

The Little Depressed Boy. When reading it I remember one initial frustration was I whizzed through reading the issues. You pick them up and 5 minutes later you'd be done. The collected editions are a similarly quick read. This isn't as annoying as it is with some comics however. As though it might have drifted from most of the public's consciousness, its impact has lingered with me. If you enjoy slice of life comics and don't think what I've described to you will not relate or appeal, you could do worse than try this one out.


Copyright - them what created it...

Where to find it

There are 5 trade paperbacks collecting the whole series and a Volume 0 collecting the webcomics. Alas some seem out of print.

The floppies didn't sell bundles and so this one is getting a bit hard to get hold of. If you have the patience I'm sure there won't be many tracking them down so you should be able to get um but alas this one isn't as readily available as many on this list physically at least. Add to that I can't immediately see digital versions. Sorry!

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page doesn't even seem to exist, how unknown does a comic need to be to achieve that! Even Image who published it only have a stub page without a cover gallery or anything!

Best I can is a Facebook page and and a Tumblr from the creators. Both have not been updated for some time.

Bleeding Cool has an interview with Steven Struble which provides some insight.

For the rest just the standard reviews from the standard places

[Colin YNWA]

Number 119 - The Red Seas

Keywords: Pirates, 2000ad, stop-motion movie, adventure, black and white

Creators:
Writer - Ian Edginton
Art - The Mighty Yeowell
Colours - It's all in lovely black and white baby

Publisher: Rebellion

No. issues: 142 Prog episodes (doubling up for the numerous double length parts) which by my estimates is around 35 US size comics.
Date of Publication: 2002 - 2013

Last read: 2020

I love when two runs on my list sit next to each other but are so different. I do wonder if they'll be a better example of that than the quiet introspection of The Li'l Depressed Boy (last post) sitting right next to


Copyright - Rebellion

I mean come on just look at the title of that volume - the title of the first story arc for Red Seas 'Under the banner of King Death' probably the greatest every 'chapter' name for any 2000ad story which perfectly sets up the tone and feel of this series!

We all know Red Seas here right, we've all read it. Well maybe not, you gotta hope that 2000ad is pulling in new readers on a regular basis and since this finished 10 years ago (I can't believe I've just typed that!) some may not have read this classic series. Red Seas is 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger' (It's the thrill of the fight, Rising up to the challenge of our rival...), Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans. The very best Ray Harryhausen film you've ever read.

Jack Dancer and his pirate crew travel the seven seas becoming embroiled in conflicts with numerous mythical beasts and monsters, ultimately angering the Devil himself. Leading them into a final conflict with Ol' Nick and his horde of the damned. Along the way they befall a giant shark, meet Aladdin, recruit Erebus the two headed guardian of Hell and Issac Newton, journey into the Earth to fight dinosaur riding lizard people and challenge the diminished Norse Gods to name but a few of their adventures. Yes it's as rip roaring and exciting as that makes it sound.


Copyright - Rebellion

First and foremost then we need to salute Steve Yeowell, or the Mighty Yeowell as I've come to call him, who drew the entire series. He is able to draw all those fantastical creatures, those amazing worlds, the realms of wonder and mystery and never lose sight of the need of his characters to convey emotion and humanity. The action doesn't wipe out the importance of those characters, as the reader needs to engage with them, and their all to real reactions to the marvels they witness and so often fight.


Copyright - Rebellion

His stark black and white work, his use of contrasts brings to the fore the celluloid aspects of this series. This is an old time action, adventure, fantasy movie and the fact it's in black and white really brings that to the fore. It's not just any ol' black and white it's the Mighty Yeowell's Black and White (capitals deliberate), he is just so expert in his use of the contrasts. He got flack from some quarters in the latter story arcs for seemingly not putting in enough lines, there's not enough detail for some folks. For me this is a prime example of him using the lack of colour to have real impact.

The idea that he doesn't add enough detail misses a key element here. He never skips on the important things, he always shows character and emotion, even if with just a few pen strokes. The use of white to open up space, to give the story the epic scale it needs on the comic page. He draws entire oceans with a few lines to suggest waves, the vast amount white space provides the sense of enormity. They allow the waters to spread beyond the limits of the page and in doing that throw the small vessels and creatures that inhabit that space into a larger than life world to operate in.

When he draws the monsters that are so central to the series he makes them large, they have power and strength. He somehow manages to give metal and stone beasts a sense of the moments that is that of a Ray Harryhausen's stop motion creations. Whether that's me that projects onto his images doesn't matter his designs, his superb storytelling awareness means his panel layout and creature design realise the world in a way I'm able to project those motions. Similarly when he draws organic beasts I get the same sense of old movie motion, rubbery limbs flail around and twist and bounce. It's astonishing stuff.


Copyright - Rebellion

Mighty Yeowell's art across the Red Seas is consistent in its greatness, however the series ran over 11 years and as you might expect over that time there are changes in the details of his style. It always remains very distinctly The Mighty Yeowell's art, it never loses his core skills, his brilliant use of contrast, his ability to convey emotion and action, this fantastic design sense and storytelling. That is always there, but it's interesting to note the more subtle changes.

In the early stories he's using blocker, more solid blacks. It's closer in style to say Zenith Phases 2 and 3 as if he was leaning back into this earlier black and white work after a good few years having his work coloured most of the time. He was refinding that confidence in not leaving the spaces he'd learnt to open his work to colourists. During the middle stories he starts to add much more fine line detail. To my eye it looks almost as if he's being inked by Terry Austin (he's not) whose fine line work worked really well on say John Byrne's X-Men. Latterly he started to open things up and leave the white open spaces with the skills and confidence I mentioned above.

Across the series we are treated to a great example of an experienced and supremely talented artist still experimenting and developing his art style constantly. Restlessly trying new things, even though he has already mastered the form, grown into his fundamental stylistic choices and had a mature artistic voice. It's really an artistic masterclass.


Copyright - Rebellion

While I'd happily discuss The Mighty Yeowell's art all day, doing so would be a disservice to Ian Edginton and the fantastic story he crafts. Red Seas is on the surface a very straightforward tale. It's an adventure on the high seas, action, adventure, mystery with a smattering of romance and great barrels of good humour... and to be honest it's that below the surface as well! This isn't a deep comic. This won't change the way you think about yourself, your world or comics as a form. This is just what the individual story arc's magnificent titles suggest they will be:

Under the Banner of King Death
Twilight of the Idols
The Hollow Land
The Chimes at Midnight
Hell and High Water
Fire Across the Deep

And possibly most of all Gods and Monsters.

Ian Edginton seems to be having such great fun with it all and that crashes in waves through the pages to the reader. There are no holds barred on the imagination and with just plain fantastic and fantastical joyous yarn it weaves. Some folks claim it started to drift in the latter half, that it lost its way and needed to cut to the chase and get to its ending. I do not get that personally, I fully understand how the creators just didn't want to let this go and as I reader neither did I.

When it does get to that ending it wraps things up in perfect fashion. It's the climactic conflict between armies of good and evil. It resolves in a bombastic finale that the movies that it draws so much from could only dream of having been able to realise. It literally raises a glass to the reader to thank them for coming along on their breathless ride.


Copyright - Rebellion

For all this talk and Gods and Monsters it's possible to lose sight of the fact that the story is full of great characters. Jack Dancer, the captain of a brilliantly rich pirate crew is probably the least interesting of the lot. He's cheeky, charming, brave and suitably lost in the world of wonders he travels in. He acts as the perfect foil to emphasise quite how dazzling the world he is in is by being ... well frankly... a bit bland. Luckily his crew is anything but, Ginger Tom, Jim, Julius, Issac Newton and Jack's irascible brother Alexander all add something to the story, all have well crafted arcs of their own across the series. They all add to the humanity needed to ground the reader in a world that would otherwise wash them away. Best of all is Erebus the super intelligent, at times grumpy, but always endearing two headed canine guardian of the underworld. Without doubt the greatest bi-headed dog attached to a robotic body comics, or indeed any medium for imaginative literature has ever known.


Copyright - Rebellion

So there we have it, Red Seas, a story that came out a year before Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm always a little amazed by that as it is hard to shake the idea that this did that most 2000ad of tricks of taking something from popular culture and placing a thrilling spin on it. Apparently not, what it does do is Pirates of the Caribbean even better than that movie franchise can ever dream of. A story I've talked about here so much I really can't have much left to say about... oh... well... yeah, sorry about that.... A story of scale and otherworldly wonder and delight. It popped back in a special brilliantly crossing over with Ant Wars, its high seas adventures leaving plenty of space for fun returns when the creators want to, but is entirely satisfying in itself.


Copyright - Rebellion

Where to find it

Though this has never had a full trade collection from Tharg there are a couple of nice easy packages you can use to get the lot. Hachette Partworks has the entire series in 4 rather lovely hardcover volumes with some decent back matter. All seem to still be available (at the time of typing).

And if you fancy an even cheaper dollop of fun, and you do digital, there are two Rebellion Digital collections of the whole thing. I link to vol.1 but from there you can link to the second volume from there as well before you check out.

Other than that you can do a lot worse than track down the Progs the story appears in and if you want to know which one's there's a couple of great links below.

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page

Though for all things 2000ad our own Funt Solo's 2000ad in Stages is a must see source...

... or to put it another way of course for all things 2000ad (well most we'll get to that down the road) Barney is your first go to port of call.

There is also, again will be for most 2000ad stories, a nice brief video summary as part of 2000ad's ABCs... although this one always bugged me as just as Molch-R is introducing the importance of The Mighty Yeowell the background image he talks to is a Cliff Robinson cover! Nothing against Cliff Robinson at he's he's aces, but come on!

Judge Tutor-Semple does a brief review of the two digital collections...

... and after that... well not much. I mean you can do a search on this board and there will be LOTS of insightful and since I've talked about this series a lot less insightful comments.

[broodblik]

This is one of my favorite 2000AD series. High adventure, great characters a true beginning, middle and end. And please do not forget the awesome B/W art by Steve Yeowell, he should now be one of the legends of the prog.

[Hawkmumbler]

Though it was eventually the unfolding nightmare that was Day of Chaos that enthralled me into the tooth forevermore in my early days, it was the heady line up of Red Seas, Dante, and Flesh: Texas that first got me to pick up those initial precious progs.

I love love love love Red Seas and miss it terribly each year, and as nice i'm sure as the Hachette tomes are (and indeed the digital omnibus' (omnibusi? omnibuseses? fuck it...) surely are too) I long for an artists hard cover edition ala Zenith or the Deviant Editions to really give the mighty Ye-Owl droids art the respect it deserves.

I still have that massive stack of progs representing my first two years as a reader from 2011 to 2013, and was on a knifes edge about chucking them but might give them one final peruse for the sake of Red Seas if nothing else.

[Barrington Boots]

Here's one that I've read!
Lovely writeup Colin and I can echo the sentiments that Red Seas is great. I had the benefit of reading it for the first time in its entirety in the Hachette collection - I missed it in the Prog and only the first arc was available collected prior to that - and it was a terrific experience. I do think it lags a little bit coming into the final stretch, and some characters are poorly served (Erebus is the best character by far) but it picks it all up again for the ending and it's a glorious mashup of golden age piracy, Ray Harryhausen and myth and legend.

Also, picked up some Bat Lash and it looks good so far!

[Colin YNWA]

Here's one that I've read!
...
Also, picked up some Bat Lash and it looks good so far!

Well I am playing to the home crowd here! And Gulp - hope you enjoy it. I get a little nervous when folks pick things up based on what I say as different tastes and all that. Glad you are enjoying it so far.

I long for an artists hard cover edition ala Zenith or the Deviant Editions to really give the mighty Ye-Owl droids art the respect it deserves.

Amen to that. I mean it'll never happen but would be a thing of wonder.

This is one of my favorite 2000AD series.

Really reasuring that folks here are so far 3 for 3 in loving this one. By the end of its run it was getting such a hard time but I genuninely believe if people revisit it they will see it as the 2000ad classic I do.

[IndigoPrime]

Red Seas was always a strip I wanted to like more than I did. I'd hoped it would read better collected, but we had two cracks at that – one skinny HC and then the paperback – and it never went further until the digital editions arrived. I never got around to reading those and so was delighted when the series ended up in the UC. And, sure enough, it was great, from start to end. One of those strips that heavily benefitted from being compiled.

I hope the same's true for The Order when the other half rocks up in the UC.

[2000BC]

I haven't read this since it was in the progs, but remember enjoying it.  I'm not normally a fan of pirate themed stories but Steve Yeowell's amazing art got me interested and invested in the story.  For me his art on Red Seas tops his art on Zenith. (Although it's been many years since I've read either so maybe it's time for a re-read of both).  Another vote for an artists hardcover edition!

[Colin YNWA]

I haven't read this since it was in the progs, but remember enjoying it.  I'm not normally a fan of pirate themed stories but Steve Yeowell's amazing art got me interested and invested in the story.  For me his art on Red Seas tops his art on Zenith. (Although it's been many years since I've read either so maybe it's time for a re-read of both).  Another vote for an artists hardcover edition!

Topping his art on Zenith is a BIG claim and really interesting. I might Books 2 and 3 are the zen... nah I can't do that... are the peak of his art but chunks of Red Seas certainly challenge it. Its incredible that even on Zenith there are 3 distinct phases (okay, okay I'll allow myself that one!) to his art. He's so distinct and yet so restless in the way he keeps reinvigouring his output.

... I never got around to reading those and so was delighted when the series ended up in the UC. And, sure enough, it was great, from start to end. One of those strips that heavily benefitted from being compiled.

So happy Red Seas is getting such a positive reception. It getting the re-evalution it deserves it seems... well at least in our small corner of fandom.

[Le Fink]

I only caught Red Seas in the Hachette collection and thought it one of the best of the more modern (to me) thrills. A very pleasant surprise as at first glance it didn't look that appealing to me (not sci-fi). But it is a very exciting romp with enjoyable characters and as Colin notes, just like those Sinbad/Titans stop motion adventures that I loved watching as a boy. Surprised they waited for the first extension before printing it. It's certainly more likely to be reread by me than many of the other books in the series. I raced through it and didn't detect any sagging in the story, or notice the changes in art style, oops! I suppose Yeowell may have moved to fewer strokes of the pen for expedience, who knows!

[IndigoPrime]

I get the feeling the first UC set was intentionally quite conservative, to include full runs to that point of the heavy hitters. That snares you subscribers who'll fuel the full series. Sláine, Nemesis/ABC Warriors, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper and Nikolai Dante between them adds up to well over half the original collection. Four of the remaining volumes on a fairly obscure thrill would have been quite the commitment.

What perhaps surprises me more is how little John Smith there was in the initial run. I realise he's also divisive, but Firekind/Leatherjack in particular would have been something I'd have dropped in that first 80, given that both strips were finite. Really glad we got them eventually, though (and then all of Indigo Prime, Tyranny Rex, Cradlegrave, etc).

[Le Fink]

Yes, fair enough.

We got a few John Smiths in the JD collection. Perhaps the non-JD stuff was considered a bit more obscure. I agree with you though, those series some of the best of Tooth.