Comic recommendations

[Bucht]

Hello again,
The last time I started a thread I was asking if you could recommend me anything Marvel published, since then I've been buying tons of books and now I've reached the point where I have almost everything I want from them.
So here's the deal, There's a convention not far from where I live next weekend (it's called FACTS and it's in Belgium if anyone wants to know) and I've been looking around the internet what comics I could buy there, I was wondering if any of you guys could recommend me comic books that aren't published by the big two.
So far I've decided to pick up Bone and The Goon.

tl;dr Recommend me anything that isn't published by Marvel or DC (I don't know anything about Vertigo or Icon so feel free to help me out with those).

 

[Vault101]

The boys
Preacher
Transmetropolitan
Saga
Morning glories

the Boys is almost my absolute favourite aside form preacher...

none are marvel or maintream superheros (The boys involves superheros but is actually good even if yor dont like superheros)

I'm also loving the shit out of Saga...its like what fantasy should be...a race of people with TV's for heads? WHY NOT?

 

[Nouw]

Some of the Aliens comic books published by Dark Horse are pretty good. I suggest Labyrinth as a starting point, although that may be a bit too strong in content. Maybe Nightmare Asylum although I've only heard good things about that.

And if you haven't read the Tintin books, them.

 

[WolfThomas]

So many comics...

As mentioned Preacher is pretty spectacular. Though I'm off a mind that Punisher MAX is Ennis' best work. That or his run on Hellblazer.

Transmetropolitan, Planetary and Next Wave:Agents of H.A.T.E. all by Warren Ellis are brilliant, the last is my all time favourite comics. It's an over the top brainless distillation of the superhero genre.

All Star Superman by Grant Morrison is phenomenal. His recent Batman has been really good albeit divisive between fan.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

 

[Rastien]

I kill giants

Coming of age story one of the best, emotional ride for sure.

Spoiler

Gentleman Corpse

A weird, graphic nasty and witty comic about a worm who posses corpse dealing with the nastys of the netherworld.

Spoiler

Also "Joker" (Brian Azzarello) i know it doesn't fit the request but so many people haven't read this.

Awesome tale that follows Jack and his experiences with the freshly released Joker from Arkham Asylum

Spoiler

Chew
A police detective the ability to find out the entire history of something by eating it... corpse eating ahoy!

Spoiler

 

[Bucht]

Transmetropolitan, Planetary and Next Wave:Agents of H.A.T.E. all by Warren Ellis are brilliant, the last is my all time favourite comics. It's an over the top brainless distillation of the superhero genre.

All Star Superman by Grant Morrison is phenomenal. His recent Batman has been really good albeit divisive between fan.

Nextwave is definitely on my wantlist!
About All Star Superman, I've read Morrison's New 52 Action Comics run and I didn't really enjoy it, is the writing similar?

 

[WolfThomas]

Nextwave is definitely on my wantlist!
About All Star Superman, I've read Morrison's New 52 Action Comics run and I didn't really enjoy it, is the writing similar?

Not really. Well a bit similar. It is the same author and same character but different were it counts.

All Star Superman is how you make a story about a Superman whose supremely powerful and perfectly good but still really interesting. Superman is dying and it's how he deals with it. It crams in a lot of references and homages to other Superman stories and ideas but not in a way that it gets confusing. It's really enjoying and quite uplifting. I think it's the best Superman comic ever written.

Spoiler: And it does one of the best intros/origins for any character in four pictures, eight words

 

[Sonicron]

Sandman (Neil Gaiman)
Preacher
Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis)

All of these are must-read material in my opinion, but getting any of them will be costly. If you're forced to choose, I'd recommend Transmetropolitan, my favourite comic in the world. It's about a political journalist in the future who takes it upon himself to bring down the US presidency.
To give you an impression of the protagonist, here's a quote from one of his columns.

Did you ever want to set someone's head on fire just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, 'I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss?' Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a perfect new human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma and testosterone from every pore?
If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I will find you. Oh, yes.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Hellboy and its sister series BPRD. Basically, it tells the tale of Hellboy, a demon straight from the pit of hell who was raised by humans and works for a paranormal investigation burreau (the titular BPRD). To say more would spoil the series, but is definitely one of the best ever, hands down.

Locke and Key. A family recovering from the death of the father returns to the family estate, where the kids find magical keys that unlock strange doors, granting them supernatural powers. Much darker and more mature than my description lets on, and is one of my favorite series.

100 Bullets. Suppose a strange man walks up to you with a briefcase containing a fully loaded handgun. He says to you that you can kill anyone you want with the gun, and get away scott-free. What would you do? That is basically the premise of this awesome series.

Powers. Powers is a series that takes a look at superheroes from the POV of the police officers whom they support. Great series, really gets epic later on.

Fables. Fables basically chronicles the struggles of a group of fairy-tale characters trying to survive in the real world. While it sounds like your atypical fractured fairy-tale story, it is not. It is so much more. Really, it kicks ass.

DMZ. DMZ has some... problems. Okay, it has a lot of problems. Still, it has a lot of stuff going for it too. Worth a look, even though it is flawed as all hell.

EDIT: Forgot one! It barely counts as a series, but still...

Umbrella academy. This series basically recounts the tales of a group of children all struggling to survive in the world after their eccentric, wealthy, adopted father has passed on. Did I mention they were also all essentially superheroes too? There is that as well.

 

[Ldude893]

DMZ. DMZ has some... problems. Okay, it has a lot of problems. Still, it has a lot of stuff going for it too. Worth a look, even though it is flawed as all hell.

Problems like what?
Seriously, I've enjoyed the DMZ comics (and I recommend them to any comic reader as well), and I'm curious over what flaws you found in them.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Don't remember exactly who published what, but since I was mostly riding ye Dark Horse, I'll just put up a small tiny little list from the top of me head of items that entertained me well for an average ten to twenty years and counting:

Hard Boiled (Geoff Darrow,...)
White Like She
Deadface
anything LOBO where Simon Bisley was let loose, fluffy bunnies and all.

I think it was DC, but if you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you check out JUDGEMENT ON GOTHAM. It's a Batman/Judge Dredd crossover. Great fun.

 

[BreakfastMan]

DMZ. DMZ has some... problems. Okay, it has a lot of problems. Still, it has a lot of stuff going for it too. Worth a look, even though it is flawed as all hell.

Problems like what?
Seriously, I've enjoyed the DMZ comics (and I recommend them to any comic reader as well), and I'm curious over what flaws you found in them.

The comic was preachy as all hell, set itself up as being morally gray despite not being so in the slightest, the main story got a bit too bogged down with side stories at times, the series had a weird morality that I could never come to terms with (can one be a nationalist for a city? The comic sure as hell thinks one can), and Zee was a freaking awful person that I hated despite the comic seeming to push how great she was at every turn. Think those were my main complaints.

 

[busterkeatonrules]

OK, you NEED to check out Transmetropolitan.

Meet Spider Jerusalem: Gonzo journalist, superhumanly rude, obnoxious and violent, unwilling to function without a cocktail of hardcore drugs, and fuelled by an obsessive (but wholly justified) hatred of human society. And he's the good guy. Seriously. You will come to genuinely like him, and laugh as he stomps on the face of an old woman selling flowers.

His mission: Battling the rampant corruption in a futuristic, nameless American city where every possible human vice has grown, mutated and festered to monstrous proportions. It's a dog-eat-dog dystopia filled with nightmare-inducing grotesquery, where criminals run wild and beggars starve to death on busy sidewalks as passers-by step on their fingers. The most alarming aspect: No part of this world comes across as wholly implausible!

Spider's opponents are usually powerful enough to sic their personal army on him, if not the actual police force itself. Spider's weapons: The Truth, The Chairleg of Truth -

- and a gun that makes people crap themselves. Yeah.

 

[Sonicron]

OK, you NEED to check out Transmetropolitan.

Meet Spider Jerusalem: Gonzo journalist, superhumanly rude, obnoxious and violent, unwilling to function without a cocktail of hardcore drugs, and fuelled by an obsessive (but wholly justified) hatred of human society. And he's the good guy. Seriously. You will come to genuinely like him, and laugh as he stomps on the face of an old woman selling flowers.

His mission: Battling the rampant corruption in a futuristic, nameless American city where every possible human vice has grown, mutated and festered to monstrous proportions. It's a dog-eat-dog dystopia filled with nightmare-inducing grotesquery, where criminals run wild and beggars starve to death on busy sidewalks as passers-by step on their fingers. The most alarming aspect: No part of this world comes across as wholly implausible!

Spider's opponents are usually powerful enough to sic their personal army on him, if not the actual police force itself. Spider's weapons: The Truth, The Chairleg of Truth -

- and a gun that makes people crap themselves. Yeah.

If you actually wrote that summary yourself, you need to look into some form of writing career.

Currently re-reading Transmetropolitan, and loving every panel of it.
I want a bowel disruptor. xD

 

[Rastien]

Oh and Crossed yo, fucking crossed i am not linking ANY crossed pictures or comics here...

Probably the most sick nasty comics you will ever read rife with gore, violence and nudity, it doesn't pull it's punches but my god if it isn't good.

 

[Euryptus]

Hoo boy - lots of good recommendations out there already. I'll happily second Transmetropolitan, Hellboy, Sandman, Preacher, Sin City and The Boys.

'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is good too - well, to be brutally honest the first two graphic novels are by far the best of it before it gets self-indulgent. O'Neill's art is still wonderful though.

Large chunks of the 2000AD canon are well worth checking out; as a gnarly old Brit I grew up with it. Dredd, Nemesis the Warlock, ABC Warriors, Slaine at al. If you fancy starting a sprawling brutal epic full of dark comedy and timeless characters, start at the beginning of Judge Dredd and see if you like it. If you do - check out 'The Simping Detective'by Simon Spurrier and Frazer Irving.

In that vein I can't believe no-one has recommended 'D.R. & Quinch' by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. Yes, Moore does comedy.

Something something oranges something.

 

[II2]

- Transmetropolitan
- Watchmen
- Promethea
- Neonomicon
- Swamp Thing
- Akira
- The Invisibles
- The Filth
- The MAXX
- Wasteland
- The Authority
- Global Frequency
- Maus
- Preacher
- Crossed
- The Walking Dead
- Miracleman

Go.

 

[Vault101]

Oh and Crossed yo, fucking crossed i am not linking ANY crossed pictures or comics here...

Probably the most sick nasty comics you will ever read rife with gore, violence and nudity, it doesn't pull it's punches but my god if it isn't good.

although I REALLY like Ennis's work (well granted Ive only read preacher and the Boys)

I'm not sure I could stomach crossed...it sounds to dark for me