This would be my "First Wave" of recommendations for someone new to Image......
Manifest Destiny
East of West
Lazarus
Birthright
Revival
Monstress
Saga
The Wicked + The Divine
Deadly Class
Chew
Southern Bastards
The Fix
Paper Girls
Hey all,
I'm brand new to the forums and am getting back into comics after a multi-year hiatus. I've dipped my toes in occasionally, but am now looking to get back to my local shop on a weekly basis.
I've read some of Saga, Sex Criminals, and The Wicked and The Divine, and plan on catching up on those. I've also borrowed Low and East of West from a friend, but haven't started them yet. I read some Chew back in the day, but it didn't hold my interest. For someone that used to basically only read DC/Marvel, what else would you recommend? I tend to like things that are funny and/or establish a cool world.
Also, I don't want to get this thread off-topic, but I'm looking to get back into DC/Marvel stuff as well, and didn't see a similar thread in the DC discussions. I'm so far behind that it's possible I just didn't understand the references to New 52 and post-crisis and all that nonsense...
Thanks!
I'll take this one too! Lol. You'll love LOW. It's one of my favorite books from Image. East of West as well. You should also try Descender. Especially if you happen to be a Mass Effect fan.
The ultimate world building is being done by Rucka and Lark on Lazarus though.
Some great shouts from cc008 already! If you don't mind your spacefaring very R-rated for violence and can stand some pretty weird, wacko stuff, I would also recommend Prophet. But definitely check the art for that before you try, it's a bit of an acquired taste I think. If you like East of West, check out Black Monday Murders by the same writer, everyone on this forum seems to love it. Furthermore, if fantasy is your thing, Monstress and Autumnlands are very good picks. For horror I would look into Spread, and there's also a book called Rumble which I have a hard time placing in a genre, but I guess if you ever liked Hellboy/BPRD that's a really quirky lil' title to consider.
For DC, that whole New 52 refers to a sort of branding they did a while back. I think it relaunched their characters, anyway it wasn't very well received besides the Wonder Woman run by Brian Azzarello, Scott Snyder's Batman series, and the Swamp Thing and Animal Man books. If you wanna get into current DC, Batgirl was pretty highly acclaimed and kind of led the way for more cartoony takes on their characters. Also Supergirl has gotten a lot of praise since the recent 'rebirth' storylines, then there's the just-starting Doom Patrol too. And of course Batman is always popular and well-liked I think?
Marvel I would look at the Fraction/Aja run on Hawkeye, Squirrel Girl by Ryan North, Ms. Marvel is a big hit, the recent run on The Vision was great and perhaps Doctor Strange or Black Panther. Those are all fairly contained stories without cross-overs with Avengers and X-Men, so besides being good stories, they're good entrypoints if you wanna dive in deeper.
Anyway as you can see there are soooo many options, so just flip through a few things that catch your attention visually or ask your shop for pointers. Maybe sample a few things before committing to reading everything, because it's just impossible to keep up with everything haha! FWIW, I get the impression that right now people are more hyped on DC than Marvel for whatever reason. Perhaps because Marvel seems to be running a lot of cross-over events currently, but these things always fluctuate.
Same here haha, I was reading Ultimate Spider-Man and the like, Captain Marvel a bit later. And those would just get dragged into cross-overs that felt like they derailed the series every few storylines. Don't wish to imply that cross-overs are always a bad idea, there's a very short Daredevil/Punisher/Spider-Man one I liked fairly recently for example. But yeah it's so much more convenient to just have a linear story where you don't need to check wikipedia every 6 issues to see if someone decided you should've read the recent issue of Green Lantern before moving on.
There's some Image books that do it too of course, Spawn and Savage Dragon recently. I liked the Revival/Chew cross-over too since it was sold as a separate issue with no bearing on the storylines of either series; easy to ignore, but a fun addition for those who want to read it.
What is the general consensus on "Revival"?
I read the first issue and enjoyed it enough where I am interested in following up. However, I don't really see this title talked about and it seems to be overshadowed by other Image titles.
Is it worth picking up the first deluxe hardcover?
Gonna be boring here and quote myself from a year or two ago if you don't mind:
I still stand behind this assesment for the bulk of the series. The last year has been super tense and ramping up towards it's finale, but before that they were constantly throwing curveballs and starting new storylines instead of working towards a resolution. You liked issue #1, and I'd say it keeps up that vibe pretty much throughout. Revival is super solid and reads best in trade/hardcover collection, so in that regard I would say it's a great pick!
Thank you both for replying so quickly!!!
I will grab the first HC and give it a go!
Just wanted to say thanks to people who've rec'd Birthright in this thread - I grabbed v1 on Comixology a couple of days ago as it was cheap and loved it! Looking forward to reading more.