The Sword and Laser discussion

I got back seriously in comics a few months ago after a 20 years break and I was wondering what are others people reading ?

Personally some of the favorites on my pull list right now are :
- New 52 Batman by Snyder
- New 52 Wonder Woman by Azarello
- New 52 Aquaman by Geoff Johns
- Saga by Vaughan ( Image)
- Chew ( Image)
- East of West ( Image)
- Jupiter's Legacy ( Image)
- Uncanny X-men ( when Bacchalo is the penciler)
- Wolverine and the X-Men
- Guardians of the Galaxy

In HC or TP :
- Fables
- Walking Dead
- Invincible
- Superman Earth One
+ catching up on old stuff ( Conan from Dark Horse, 100 bullets, ex machina, Northlanders, DMZ from Vertigo, BPRD from Dark Horse).
+ being french I am starting to import some european comics from Amazon.fr

Can I ask what you mean by 'pull list'? I'm picturing some sort of ordering system.

I like comics, but I lack cash, and I don't live near any comic shops. Ha, actually, I was around 24 before I realised comic shops were a thing, at least in England; I'd seen them pop up on American films now and then, but that was all.

I used to love comics by Serena Valentino ('Nightmares and Fairy Tales' and 'Gloomcookie') but I have not checked about those in a long time. Must have a look at comics again at some point.

I don't have a pull list (My nearest comic book shop is 270 Km away) but these comics I get on the day they are released on my iPad.

Walking Dead
Saga
Locke & Key

I'm quite enjoying a lot of the New 52, Saga is superb. You should check out Harbinger, it's been very good and is only up to around issue 12.

I think a 'pull list' has something to do with comics like Wonder Woman and Power Girl.

Star Trek
Star Wars
Conan the Barbarian
Green Hornet
Fatale
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Grimm
The Dresden Files
The X-Files
Planet of the Apes
Army of Darkness
Racehl Rising
Steed and Mrs. Peel
Angel and Faith
True Blood
Manhattan Projects
Aliens
Doctor Who
Legend of Oz The Wicked West
Saucer Country
Dark Tower The Gunslinger
Sherlock Holmes
Kolchak
Grimm Fairy Tales
Warlord of Mars Dejah Thoris

good lord, that's way too many comics

Attack on Titan - Imagine an army of Spider-men fighting man-eating giants.

A Certain Scientific Railgun - Sorta the Japanese X-Men. The heroine has the same type of power as Magneto, but she uses it to shoot bits of metal at people at hypersonic speeds.

Genshiken - Just the story of geeks who sit around a club room all day discussing geeky things.

DRRR!! Durarara!! - Hardboiled fantasy about gang wars and headless horsemen.

pull list is a old term for what the comic shop would hold for you on comic day.

If you're into searching out old-school stuff, anything by Alan Moore is worth a shot. Also, the old DC series Sandman by Neil Gaiman were all awesome.

I have mostly monthly books but there are some non-monthly books as well. The best books on my pull list are...

DC Comics:
Aquaman
Batman and Robin/whomever is there
The Flash
Green Lantern
Justice League
Wonder Woman

Marvel:
Thor

Independents:
The Shadow: Year One
Archer and Armstrong

I have some Marvel and DC titles but the best at the moment are Star Wars and Rachel Rising. The new Star Wars is the best thing since the first three movies. They are doing everything right. It is only 4 of 5 issues into the story so it should be easy to get in at the start.

Terry Moore's Rachel Rising is a horror story, a genre I don't care for but is so good I'm following it in spite of that. It is a fair way into the story, but there are some collected trade paperbacks to jump start your reading.

I didn't start reading monthly comics until I was over 30. But I love a good story, in all forms and comics is great at that. I also have a thing for Gotham, luckily several of them are good.

Batman
Batman and Robin
Batgirl
Batwoman
Nightwing
Action Comics
Saga
Revival
The Sixth Gun
Star Wars

And check out "The Private Eye" it's an e-book only book with a pay what you want model about an interesting future with you guessed it a P.I.

I'm also reading the "Fear Agent" in a beautiful huge hardcover addition. It's a great old school pulp Sci-fi story. I also just finished reading the modern "Star Man" series, really good story telling in a super hero setting.

"pull lists" are comics that you want the store you have a file with to reserve for you as they come out, saving you from visiting on whatever day they come out (currently Wednesdays, around here) and ensuring that you'll get a copy in the event the store sells out (in theory!). You just visit the store, give them your file number, and they pull out your books ...

Usually you get a discount based on how much you buy or how many books are in your pull list ...

I've been reading regularly for about 30 years ... when I was younger I followed artists, now I tend to follow writers.

I have a large reading list, but some current faves are:

* Spider-man - Slott has been great
Hellboy/BPRD/Abe
Animalman
Avengers
Batman
Conan
Daredevil
Fables
Green Lantern
Mice Templar
Sixth Gun
Thor

I'm a bit behind on my reading ... time to catch up!

I enjoy the Marvel Digital Unlimited. It's good fun to real all the Sterenko issues or the complete 1st run of Silver Surfer.

I haven't heard that DC, Top Cow, Archie or anyone else has an all you can read option. Am I just missing it?

sorta off subject but HOLY COW green lantern #20 was good

Mark wrote: "I've been reading regularly for about 30 years ... when I was younger I followed artists, now I tend to follow writers.

I have a large reading list, but some current faves are:

* Spider-man - Sl..."

I hear you about writers.
I'm slowly catching up on most of the stuff Brian K Vaughan, Brian Wood, Brian Azzarello and Scott Snyder have written ( the Vertigo stuff, not the superhero stuff).

What my husband brings home that I read:

Saga (OMG SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD), I sometimes take this away to read before he can.
Plume, I sometimes take this away to read asap.
Finding Gossamyr
Ghost
East of West
the various Oz comics
Anything with art by Amanda Conner

What he brings home for me that he may or may not read:

Anything Dark Tower or other wise related to Stephen King
Anything Farscape
Womanthology: Space (or any Womanthology project)

I've been reading comics on and off since I was 10 or 11 (I'm now 32). Unlike DC Comics, I still "draw the line at $2.99" and refuse to buy any non-creator owned titles that cost more than that.

Angel and Faith
Animal Man
Batman Incorporated
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Criminal
Daredevil
Demon Knights
East of West
Fatale
Hawkeye
Incognito
Kick-Ass
Manhattan Projects
Saga
Secret
The Unwritten
Winter Soldier
X-Factor

Sadly, Demon Knights, Winter Soldier and X-Factor are all ending, so my list of Marvel and DC books is rapidly shrinking.

Saga & Locke & Key are really good.

been spending my extra dough on valiant comics.

It's good to see that so many folks on Goodreads are reading Saga ;)
Aside from the story and the fabulous art, I really enjoy the presentation and the lack of advertising in Saga.( as well as the backpage color matching the cover background).

Brian K Vaughan author of Saga also has an online 'you set the price' comic called 'Private Eye'. You can buy a drm free ebook version.

http://panelsyndicate.com/

I'm still disappointed that Fiona didn't get nominated for a best Professional Artist Hugo, she is so deserving. I know that traditionally the PA Hugo has gone to book and magazine cover artists, but I would still stack the work that she has done this year against any of the other nominees.

At least with Saga making the short list for Graphic Story more people will see her work, and thus a greater chance of making it next year.

American Vampire (currently on hiatus)
Witch Doctor (best new creative team in a long time)
Anything in the Buffy U
Saga (which is actually great for this book club cause it's sf&f in one)
Fatale
Hack/slash (sadly at an end)
the Walking Dead (even better than the show)
Invincible
Luther Strode
Revival

and authors I love whose books I'll always pull:
Scott Snyder (American Vampire, Batman)
Brandon Seifert (witch doctor)
Tim Seeley (hack/slash, revival)
Grant Morrison(Batman inc, Happy)
Robert Kirkman (invincible, the walking Dead)
Brian K. Vaughn (saga)
Warren Ellis (transmetropolitan)
Brian Azzarello (Wonder Woman)
Garth Ennis (The Red Team, The Boys)
also I know a lot of people say he's gone crazy, but if Frank Miller put out a new book I'd probably get it

I refuse to pay $3.99 so I've gone subscription (price is about $2.60 an issue this way) on Marvel so my pull list for Marvel is that and real pull list on the others:

Uncanny X-men (my main comic love)
All New X-men
Avengers
New Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Nova
Superior Spiderman

Animal Man
Swamp Thing (strongly leaning to dropping now that Snyder is gone)
Aquaman
Green Lantern
Green Lantern Corps
Green Lantern New Guardians
Batwoman

Buffy Season 9
Angel and Faith

The Walking Dead

Recently Dropped Books: Flash, Justice League Dark, Justice League, Batman, Earth 2, Dial H, Sword and Sorcery

Dropped due to Cancellation: I, Vampire (awesome book that I wish was still going).

I've been collecting for about 29 years now and was in fact just earlier tonight catching up on boxing the comics I've bought over the last six months. I've got 26 crammed tight longboxes of comics where I actually double comic every bag with one in front and back of the board. I have no idea how many comics I have but I do know I have a complete run of Uncanny X-men going back to #141 with a smattering before that along with many other huge runs of other books. . . . I know I have at least 500 various Avengers books, 500 Spiderman books, and probably close to 1000 X-related books. Not to mention a wide smattering of random books from DC, Marvel, Image, Crossgen, and others.

I got out of comics a little over a year ago. My local comic book shop is about 40 minutes away so that doesn't help. I don't like the prices and there are too many crossovers. I got tired of having to buy 25 issues of crap I didn't like to get the whole story.

I still pick up some collections of series I like from time to time. Mainly Batman.

I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch.

I usually pick one or two a month and usually they have a summary that catches me up

Hey Brian,

Have the Luna brothers done anything since "The Sword"? I really enjoyed that run, but I don't remember hearing anything since that ended a couple of years ago. I know they have some earlier stuff, but I don't know of anything more recent.

Here are my monthly reads (although I'm behind on some of the Marvel ones)

Boom
Supurbia

Dark Horse
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel and Faith

Image
Saga (come baaaack!)
East of West

Marvel
All New X-men
Guardians of the Galaxy
Uncanny X-men
Ultimate Spider-man
X-men

Also reading Fables and Sandman with the trades.

Captain America
Daredevil
Daredevil End of days
Winter Soldier
Age of Ultron
Thunderbolts
and I am going to take a look at Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman.

I read Schlock Mercenary, a daily web comic

and

I love Kill Shakespeare, a series where Richard the Third tries to convince Hamlet to Kill William Shakespearr.

Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

Bwa ha ha!!! If I could get my list down to $100 a month I'd be laughing ... my biggest yet was ~$350.

Fables
Kick-Ass
I buy in comics

I'm also (one issue a week, I'm not rich) collecting 'The Sandman' by Neil Gaiman.

Mark wrote: "Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

Bwa ha ha!!! If I could get my list down to $100 a month I'd be laughing ... my biggest yet was ~$350.


My pull list had gotten that big a few times. I always was mainly a DC fan but I would start in on Marvel with Iron Man or following an artist I loved. Of course when I started collecting books were 20¢ and twenty bucks would get me more than a hundred does now.

I trimmed my list way back to just the necessities of life-
Legion of Super-Heroes,
World's Finest,
The Phantom Stranger,
and
Weird Doctor Who crossovers like the Star Trek ones.

I can't remember half the things I order, my comic shop is on Facebook and that can be lethal when they post photos of books that I just have to have lol.
I know I have order for
BPRD
Hell boy
Atomic Robo
Killjoys
Chew
Unwritten
Dark horse presents
Rachel rising
Lenore
Hit girl
Fables
Fairest
Fatale

The reason I can afford it though is I don't drink alcohol or smoke, being severely ill comics are something to look forward to

I finally bit the bullet today and supported my first Kickstarter project. Of course I quickly found a second project to support. This is why I didn't want to get started on there, I knew it could start to get expensive.

Anyway the reason I mention this here is the second project I supported was a web-comic collection by Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett based on a fantasy steampunk world. It only has a few hours left, and it is fully supported, but it seems like something that might interest the group here.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...

I got to see Fiona's Staples at Denver comic con this past week-end ;)
Got me a large print of saga 8 cover signed too...

Well American comics are.not enough anymore so being French I have started to import some French comics (bandes dessinees in french) from Amazon.fr.
I really like Okko and Long John Silver right now (both are being translated in English by Archaia and cinebook)

Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

No one starts by spending that much, your pull list just keeps growing and growing, and takes just a little bit more from your paycheck each month. It's kinda like your cable bill, you start with a low introductory rate and then it just balloons over time.

I was spending about $150 a month when I decided to start keeping track of my weekly comics expenditures (that was in 2008). I'm now down to around $35 to $50 a month. I feel like there should be a support group for this.

Aildiin, I must say I'm a bit jealous. I think that issue 8 cover is my favorite piece of visual art from 2012. It just captures everything good about Sci-Fi. Enjoy it.

Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

Easy you just stop smoking.
My wife and I were heavy smokers and we were spending close to 400$ a month on cigarettes.

Now I spend 100$/month on single issues comics ( I have about 25 titles total on my pull list), 100$ on graphic novels (ordered through Amazon, hardcover graphic novels are just too expensive at local comic stores) and 120$ or so on french import...

Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

There is a reason the comics industry is dying and thats because only adults with adult incomes can afford them anymore. I look at it like this. . . .back in the 80's when I was a teen working minimum wage for $3.35 an hour that would buy me 4 to 5 comics and given it was the 80's there wasn't much else beyond cassette tapes competing for my dollars. Nowadays with minimum wage being $7.25 a teen could only buy two comics for one hour of work and then only if one of them was a $2.99 comic. Then you must consider how many other things teens have to spend their money on. Its no wonder that a massive best seller of today only sells about 1/10th of what a mediocre book sold back in the 80's and 90's.

John wrote: "Aildiin, I must say I'm a bit jealous. I think that issue 8 cover is my favorite piece of visual art from 2012. It just captures everything good about Sci-Fi. Enjoy it."

I'm going to get it framed this week end and it's going to be on the wall of the new comic room my wife and I are designing at home ( we're talking over the daughter bedroom as she no longer lives with us)

Rik wrote: "Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."

There is a reason the comics industry is ..."

Actually the industry has been going through a nice revival the last 3-4 years.
Sales have been up sharply thanks to several factors :
- It's cool again to be a nerd and read comics ( Big Bang Theory, San Diego comic con selling out its 130k tickets in 2h every year)
- Walking dead and others movie/tv shows success
- Relaunch of DC and Marvel lines of comics
- Development of the graphic novel market.( like you pointed out single issues comics are down compared to 20 years ago but graphic novels sell very well while they barely existed 20 years ago. Last I remember I think last year the graphic novel market ( if you include manga there) was over 50% of the total comic market...

skullkickers!

it's my favorite. makes me laugh and doesn't take itself too seriously. here's a link to the archives if anyone wants to check out the early stuff: http://skullkickers.keenspot.com/d/20...

i think issues 0 & 1 are also free on comixology.

also:
saga (duh)
sixth gun
bandette
lookouts

i'll occasionally pick up adventure time for funsies.

and i will do the happiest of happy dances on the day the houghton brothers bring back reed gunther. :)

Aildinn,

I'm really interested to see how you had your issue 8 Saga print mounted since I just got one online from Essential Sequential. Most of my other sci-fi art is mounted in black frames, but this might call for something different. Maybe something with a stainless steel, or a chrome look to it?

Rik wrote: "There is a reason the comics industry is dying and thats because only adults with adult incomes can afford them anymore. I look at it like this. . . .back in the 80's when I was a teen working minimum wage for $3.35 an hour that would buy me 4 to 5 comics and given it was the 80's there wasn't much else beyond cassette tapes competing for my dollars. Nowadays with minimum wage being $7.25 a teen could only buy two comics for one hour of work and then only if one of them was a $2.99 comic. Then you must consider how many other things teens have to spend their money on. Its no wonder that a massive best seller of today only sells about 1/10th of what a mediocre book sold back in the 80's and 90's."

I've often thought the same thing. My first comic book cost fifteen cents, and I spent years seeing "35 cents" on my covers, so today's prices are a bit shocking. Even with the improvement in paper, printing and art (less face it, reproduction in the 70s was terrible), 10 times the price is hard to take.

The publishing industry has claimed for years that the main reason books have increased in price is because the cost of paper was so high. Ebooks put the lie to that when they suddenly started claiming the cost was due to overhead and revealed that paper was fairly low on the expense list.