People here have good taste! The ones I haven’t heard of/read before look really good. Thanks for the suggestions!
If you’re interested in some ongoing series, I must recommend The Unwritten by Mike Carrey (writer) and Peter Gross (art) with covers from Yuko Shimizu, which always look so darn SNAZZY. If you love reading and books, you’ll probably love The Unwritten.
Tom Taylor is living off of the residuals of his fame. Well more accurately, he’s living off of the fame of the fictional boy wizard (and is more famous than Harry Potter) who shares his name, created by his mysterious father, Wilson Taylor, who disappeared over a decade ago. The only thing more grating than the living off of Fantasy conventions is the fact that he can’t get away from Tommy Taylor, boy wizard, magic messiah and wielder of the wand Glitterspar, to live his own life, having failed at acting (he wasn’t “Tommy Taylor” enough), writing and jazz trumpeting. At a panel, Lizzie Hexam asks, “Who are you?” and then precedes to show that there is less evidence of Tom being Wilson Taylor’s son than anyone thought.
Then Tom gets kidnapped by a deranged Tommy Taylor fan dressed up as Tommy’s vampire arch-nemesis and things get weird. His kidnapper is suddenly much stronger than he should be and intends to kill him with a nail bomb in front of the eyes of the world via live-streaming webcam. Lizzie shows up only to knock him out with aerosol chloroform and the police find Tom, completely unharmed, by the explosion. Things only get more mysterious and stranger from here for Tom.
What is a story? Where does fiction begin and end? Is fame a story that is told again and again? What is a messiah? Can you just make one up? The Unwritten goes into a lot of really interesting questions while all the while being this strange yet wonderful “coming of self” destiny-fulfilling adventure.
I must insist that you look at the softcover first volume because it has my my favorite comic-book introduction penned by Bill Willingham of Fables fame, (which you should also read. It’s “what if fairy tales were real” done as a sweeping war torn and beautiful epic) because he describes this new genre, “LAF” that is finally coming into its own after bubbling somewhat unnoticed for the past decade or two. “LAF” stands for Literature, Animal adventure and Fairytales, which both Fables and The Unwritten are parts of–Fables using fairy tales and The Unwritten using literature. If you haven’t read the literary pieces it references to (and you would have to be not reading the words to miss it), it’s fine. You’ll want to read them. And the series tells you everything you need to know about it in regards to the series, but it IS extra gratifying when you have read said literature. It really makes all those English courses you took feel worthwhile. I have to admit, I have a weakness for anything that implies Mark Twain is a badass by refusing to become the tool of a shadowy, ancient and global cabal who wants to control the production of literature, directing when and where stories of great meaning and weight are written. It is full of classic literature and even if you don’t appreciate that, it’s a wonderfully written series with lots of nods, but never quite references to a lot of books you’ve probably read.
I mention Mike Carrey (like he’s some big name, even though he should be) not only because I love him as a comic book writer, but because of his earlier work on Hellblazer (John Constantine) and The Sandman spinoff Lucifer. Lucifer takes place after The Sandman Volume 4 “The Season of Mists”, where Lucifer, aka fallen Samael, decides to quit being the ruler of Hell and move on with his life. The charade of being the ruler of a place while still being trapped by predestination and The Plan just got too grating after too long so he decides to live on Earth and open a piano bar in LA. It’s serious with dark, almost acidic comedic beats when there are some, and quickly becomes this huge cosmic struggle between the desire for freedom, safety, true command of one’s destiny and destruction, anarchy and the fear of insignificance and impotency.
It is a completed series and is eleven volumes long.
As you can tell, I can ramble all day about these sorts of things so I’ll try to wrap this up.
I also recommend House of Mysteries (on-going) by Bill Willingham (writer), Matthew Sturges (writer), Luca Rossi (artist) and lots of other artists, Morning Glories font=arial, sans-serif [/font]by Nick Spencer (writer) and Joe Eisma (artist), Incorruptible and Irredeemable (on-going) by Mark Waid if you live your superhero stories high-octane and a bit dark, and any Astro City book by Kurt Busiek if you just want a really, REALLY good superhero story without any irony, wannabe/ignorant Moore-esque darkness or residual 90’s x-treme (actually, anything written by Kurt Busiek is awesome for the most part).
I know they aren’t exactly Fallen London books, but I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
