God help my wife, I've found a new geek money pit. Comics. I never got into comics as a kid. A friend of mine was an avid comic collector, and I read a few of his. I remember enjoying reading The Death of Superman, and some of the Shadowhawk comics by Image, but that was pretty much the extent of my experience.
Thanks to the fantastic Hollywood renditions of Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and Batman this year, I suddenly had an interest in reading the comics responsible. Especially Batman comics. I was a huge of fan of Batman: The Animated Series when I was a kid. That's pretty much where I got all of my Batman "knowledge" from. Having only seen the cartoon and never read a single Batman comic, I looked to the Internet for a list of good comics to start reading. I picked up The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller from my local library based upon many recommendations. I thouroughly enjoyed the story, but the artwork just didn't seem to strike a chord with me. I'm not going to go into any deep analysis of these comics, since that's been done to death on many of them already. Next was Batman: Year One. I really liked this one, and the art spoke to me a little better.
About two weeks ago, I picked up Civil War: A Marvel Event. I burned through it in its entirety the next morning. The story was fantastic with just enough grit and darkness to really appeal to me. The artwork is absolutely amazing. I've always wished I could draw, and this made me want to even more. There was nothing static about the images I was looking at, they were lifelike and in motion to me. I think that the "modern" Marvel look is probably going to be my favorite style.
Last week I picked up Watchmen and just finished it last night. Wow. One of the best stories I've ever read. I always love stories that point out the flaws in their protagonists, and these characters are all deeply flawed. Rorschach is undoubtedly one of the best written characters of all time. While the artwork didn't have the "modern" look that I enjoy, it was very detailed, and really served to draw me further into the story.
Next up, I'm reading Ultimate Spiderman Book 1 and also have The Walking Dead Vol 1. I have a feeling that this is going to become an addiction.
