Dan’s Favourite Comics of All Time Ever!

In the past people have asked me what my inspirations were, comic-wise. It's always been a difficult thing to answer because I take inspiration from movies, TV,  games and real life a lot, moreso than comics. It's important to be inspired by more than just the industry you work in when you're involved in creative entertainment (or any art form for that matter). But in doing some nostlagic googling for inspiration for a couple projects we're doing, I got reminded of some really freaking AWESOME comics that helped inspire me sideways.

I first got into comics in the early-mid 80's after watching Superman movies and wanting more of that, but while tracing the drawings got me started in art, I was never very into comics as a medium. That changed when I first found these eight series/runs:

1) Grant Morrison's JLA

THE first ever comic I saw that did action, adventure and concepts better than any movie, game or literature, Morrison's Justice League came at a time when the League was nothing but unknown third-stringers who were too boring to be put anywhere else in the DC Universe. When Grant "Mad Man's on me business cards" Morrison took over in the mid-to-late 90's, comics suddenly became amazing!

The first four issues did nothing for me. JLA versus evil aliens pretending to be heroes. I bought the issues and sold them soon afterwards. But the previews for future issues, coupled with the buzz that was quickly building to a crescendo, got me back onboard and actually enjoying myself the very next month! I was a massive fan all the way after that.

Superman! Batman! Wonder Woman! Others! All together for the first time I'd ever known, battling genuinely fantastic bad guys and showing that with a little heart, a little characterization and a LOT of high-concepts, a comic book can really entertain you like nothing else can. I still daydream about that opening scene in one issue where Green Lantern wakes up on Wonder World, a beautiful dimension where everyone's Galactus-sized, or that scene where GL and Green Arrow are in a coffee shop and GA gets seduced into joining the bad guys by Wonder Woman villain Circe...

This series also had THE greatest scene EVER: Green Arrow and The Atom... TAKING DOWN DARKSEID. Simple science was used to create the ultimate dramatic win for the good guys. EPIC.

2) Asterix

A popular French cartoon book about ancient fiesty Gaulish villagers causing utter chaos for the vast Roman legion thanks to a magical potion the Druid Getafix concocts, this long series of graphic novels is a sheer joy for kids and adults alike. I remember my Dad even enjoying it, at one point even trying to get my grandmother to read one of the books!

The art is fantastic and energetic, with each panel feeling like several and putting across the motion of the characters in a fluid, fun way. This isn't "realistic" comic art as it's thought of today in American comics, but more like a cartoony sunday newspaper strip style with bumped up charisma. The writing is brilliant too, with the English translation giving the characters some brilliant Roman-esque names ("Vitalstatistix" the village leader, "Fulliautomatix" the weapon maker/blacksmith, "Geriatrix" the old guy etc...).

An old yet great series. I still want to call my dog "Dogmatix"!

3) Alan Moore's Youngblood

In my utterly un-humble opinion, this right here is THE greatest comic EVER.

Alan Moore, voted by many as one of the best comic writers of all time so far, teaming up with Steve Skroce, a man voted by me as one of the best artists of the 90's... to work on Youngblood, a fecked up team book that originated from Rob Liefeld's crazy brain-thing. Sure it had nice, undeveloped characters and some interesting props to play with, but before the Moore/Skroce tidalwave hit, it was really just an empty husk of a thing masquerading as a comic book.

This run was perfection personified. Modern superheroes making the world better one demonic alien entity at a time! They had a cool leader in Shaft, a modern day Robin Hood with an energy bow power that was kinda like that cool dude in Dungeons And Dragons (least I think he did... memory's a l'il fuzzy there). They had Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off in all the right ways. They had Doc Rocket, the cutest, bubbliest super-speedster this side of Sonic the Hedgehog. They had giant robots, people. GIANT ROBOTS.

Why is this run not worshipped by every man, dog and child today for the awesomeness it caused? Because it ONLY LASTED TWO ISSUES.

Two issues. Okay, technically three, as the third showed up in an anthology comic called Awesome Adventures. And there was also a short story in another anthology. So three and a half issues of the greatest comic of all time. What happened? Well, Rob Liefeld happened, with his cursed touch of cursey doom. The creative teams didn't get paid, the third, forth, etc issues never showed up... and then Mark Millar got ahold of it years later and turned it into his typical man-on-man blowjob fixation, and the rest is history.

Legend has it they're trying to bring the series back but with a different creative team. A complete shame, that. Legend also has it they're making a movie, with Twilight's Rob Pattinson set to play Shaft.

4) Alan Moore's Supreme

The forerunner to his run on Youngblood, Supreme was effectively what a 90's Superman comic SHOULD have been! It brought in all the fun and wonder from the old comics but set it in a modern world with modern artwork to match!

The run was great until the Liefeld curse hit it again. It disappeared mid-story and came back in a new series a year or so later. Though Moore was writing still and artist Stuart Immonen was kicking all kinds of arse, the series just wasn't the same. Gone was the awe and wonder, to be replaced with, what I felt, was a cynicism and mocking of the mythos of superheroes. There was one issue that even had Hilary Clinton ditching her husband Bill, who was president of the US at the time, in favour of the main bad guy... and the bad guy begged the hero for help in escaping her!

Moore went on to start his own company, America's Best Comics, which continued the cynical aura of his final Supreme stuff.

5) New Men

My first Image comic! Hell, my first non-DC/Marvel American comic, probably! This series ROCKED, and it was all down to the great characters and cool designs!

Originally they were Image's answer to the X-Men, with mutant-style ordinary humans discovering they had "Nu-Gene" DNA that gave them amazing abilities and caused them to wear form-fitting costumes and fight fat guys called Girth.

I started reading around the mid 90's - maybe issue #15 or so? - and was amazed to see a hot girl get her bra ripped off by a monster. Yeah, I was at that level. To be fair, I was only about 14 or so... I'd hardly even seen bras at that point, much less superhero bras!

Oh, innocence. I miss thee so...

Anyhoo, these characters (Reign, Dash, Bootleg, Exit, Kodiak, Paul... okay, not Paul. He was a twat. But a Vampire, so that's cool!) have a fondly cherished place in my heart to this day. They had a lot more potential than they should have had, and the series was cut off long before it was ready. *sniff*

The series also introduced fan-fave artist Todd Nauck to an audience. Nauck went on to find mainstream fame with DC's Young Justice a few years later.

And the girl? Got her bra back. Yep. And met a dude who looked like Yoda, too. Happy days.

6) Will Eisner's The Spirit

The beauty of Eisner's Spirit isn't in the plot details, or the character (cool as he was). It was the way Eisner used single comic book pages to create pop art that was so awesome in the 40's and 50's, it STILL hasn't been matched all this time later!

They named an award after him, he was so good. Sh'yeah.

Inspiring due to the sheer charisma of Eisner's style and storytelling. This series actually reminds me a lot of the Asterix books, funnily enough. One's a detective noir thing and the other's effectively a Carry On movie, but they both have a similar style of energy and motion.

The Frank Miller movie, however? Forget it. I had to walk out on it half way through... and I watched it for free!

7) Superboy

Me all-time fave Superhero character, the young Clark Kent before he became all... well, old.

This isn't the 90's Superboy-clone series, nor the live action tv show tie-in. I had both of those. But this was the old, oooold series from the 60's onwards (yeah, the prehistoric age!), including the early 80's "New Adventures" era. When I first got back into comics in the early 90's - everyone got back into comics in the early 90's - Superboy stories were what I searched for. Most of the ones I could find were reprints of old stories, usually with art by George Papp, a dude who was, again, kinda similar in style to Asterix or Will Eisner's stuff, except much more tame and conservative.

I LOVED these stories! They'd do the occasional story with Superboy as a baby too, talking in a dumbass kind of "Me like to fall down well, wheee!" type of fashion that was a bit weird. But hey, it was the 60's. Maybe babies actually talked like that back then...

George Papp rocked, man.

8) Generation X

This one was purely about the art.

I saw previews of the series when it first came out and thought it looked too weird. Then, while browsing in a comic store - probably in Brighton, I think - I saw issue #5 of the first run... and was BLOWN THE FLIP AWAY!

Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham brought the awesome. The artwork in these early issues was a HUGE visual orgasm for me. Though both have done bowell-bogglingly wicked-cool work since, this was their pinnacle. The few issues of Gen X after the big Age Of Apocalypse crossover.

As a side note, I also developed a crush on Husk after seeing her acting all drunk and cutesy in this issue, which was also a draw to stick with the series. Hell, the image of her lying tipsy on a bed upside down, giggling started a whole new upside-down fetish in me.

The Bachalingham combo has a lot to answer for.

Honorable mentions go to Mark Waid's runs on The Flash and Impulse, showing me a comic can have the dramatic resonance and thrilling pay-off of a big budget, well-done movie! And that Impulse run was hilarious!

As for comic companies, forget DC and Marvel! Image Comics in the 90's were a HUGE inspiration for me. Oh sure, the stories were freaking dreadful. The art had a lot of issues, and I'm not talkin' sequential issues here... but for sheer energy and style, this company rocked the frickin' kasper!

Wait, what?

At the top of their game they had brand new characters being successfully introduced and spinning off into their own books like every month or so. The designs were completely stunning on most of these characters with a helluva lot of imagination coming out with each character.

I hope our stuff can someday be as groovy and spectacular as theirs was in their heyday!

Man, this is a long friggin' post. Heaven help me if I ever do a movies-inspiration post!...

Demi & Paige Adventures

Since they'd been bugging me for about 2 years now to do it, I finally did a mini comic (with help from CJP) for my nieces a few months back and gave it to them for Christmas. I didn't see them open it but apparently they dug it.

Anyhoos, I thought I'd post it here for fun. Hope you enjoy it too!