Best comic ever written (and drawn)?

[I, Cosh]

It's Pull Shapes, the first issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club.

Feel free to argue about number 3 (#2 is Kill Your Boyfriend) below.

Reasoned debate will be tolerated but not encouraged. I'd much rather see a load of angry assertions and sarcastic trashing of other people's opinions.

No serieses or single stories from an anthology please. It has to be a complete single issue, so you can pick the Mars issue of Watchmen but not the whole thing.

[ZenArcade]

Well if you switch this over to the science is drokking fantastic thread you'll get your fill of thrashing and unreasonableness. Z

[Professor Bear]

Phonogram is a comic for NME-reading nerds who don't even like music, they just like using it as a fashion accessory to define their own image while trying to pretend what they're doing is any different from what 13 year old heavy metal fans do, and that's why they like Phonogram, because it's a comic everyone else says is good even if they can't tell you why when you suggest it's actually aimless and boring sub-Sandman tosh that even Vertigo wouldn't publish.

The best single issue of a comic is Onslaught Reborn #3, and I once stabbed a man in the throat with a broken bottle for saying otherwise.

[Colin YNWA]

What, hold on you stand there* and state that this so called comic is the best comic ever created... and therefore bait me into trying to think of the single best comic I've ever read ... I'm tired and my brain hurts so this is too hard... but I'm coming for you Cosh, I'm coming and when I get there you got yaself a comics-off... down behind the Rec after School, bring your friends, you'll need them...

... or it might be too hard which means you'll win by default... damnit...

*Or more likely sit there as ya typing and all, and not Stan Lee...

[Satanist]

If The Killing Joke counts then I'm having that.

If not then issue #12 of The Invisibles "Best Man Fall" which was really cool until Austin Powers done it for laughs.

OK so lets go with Doom Patrol #45 "The Beard Hunter" but deep down I know its really The Killing Joke.

Or is it "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow"?

I might need to give this more thought.

[Greg M.]

Various Grant Morrison things floated through my head (All-Star Superman #10 – "You're much stronger than you think you are", The Filth #11 – "Is there a hell for monkeys, dad?") but I might have to settle on Morrison and Quitely's We3 #3, which has the best use of a splash page ever. Bandit the dog faces the ravening Animal Weapon #4 alone – outgunned and out-pheromoned, there's no chance that the plucky hairy guy will survive the encounter...

And then you turn the page.

Makes me well up just thinking about it.

[locustsofdeath!]

Sergio Aragones' GROO is the comic for me (especially the Marvel Epic run). Always brilliantly drawn by Sergio, with incredibly smart, witty and hilarious scripts by Sergio and Mark Evanier.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Yeah, it's pretty much Killing Joke all the way. The original version with the lovely John Higgins colouring, obviously. Perfect story, perfect art.

I suppose it is now necessary to trash other people's choices. Oh well, here goes:

We3 and All Star Superman both suck, and I never got past the first Phonogram book, which I didn't like at all. Even Groo has completely lost it these days, if issue 1 of Groo vs Conan is any indication.

I don't even know what Onslaught Reborn is, which makes it the clear runner-up on the thread so far

[Greg M.]

Yeah, it's pretty much Killing Joke all the way. The original version with the lovely John Higgins colouring, obviously. Perfect story, perfect art.

Knowing your profound Moore-love, I was actually half-expecting you to go Swamp Thing #56 - My Blue Heaven.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Knowing your profound Moore-love, I was actually half-expecting you to go Swamp Thing #56 - My Blue Heaven.

I'm ashamed to say Saga of the Swamp Thing vols 5 and 6 are missing from my collection. Glycon forgive me!

[radiator]

[sheridan]

I see no-one has so far picked Fleischer's Harlem Heroes or Crusade by Millar and Morrison... ;-)

[radiator]

I know threads with this kind of premise tend to go off the rails and end up getting locked very quickly (and I wouldn't dare to start one myself...), but I wonder if there's ever been a thread where we try to identify the single worst prog ever published? Like, cover to cover notoriously unpopular strips?

[sheridan]

I know threads with this kind of premise tend to go off the rails and end up getting locked very quickly (and I wouldn't dare to start one myself...), but I wonder if there's ever been a thread where we try to identify the single worst prog ever published? Like, cover to cover notoriously unpopular strips?

You've got me wondering now - the only thing to upset that is that even when Fleischer or Millar do their best to sabotage the prog, you tend to have artists like Dillon, Walker and Mick Austin to retrieve some semblance of readability - surprisingly, for the artist who painted the Marvelman cover for Warrior I didn't rate his JD figure-work that highly, but I did like a few pages...

[The Adventurer]

Best single issue comic?

Mega Man 35


No, I am not kidding.


Jack Staff 12 is a close 2nd.