must own comics for comic creators

[karacho]

Hey,
what do you guys think are comics every comic creator should own or at least read? You know those comics that invented something new, or did something amazing, or are just pure examples of storytelling or art or charakters or whatever. Basically comics that are great examples of "how its done right".

My entry would be:

Watchmen
Just to see how deep you can go with what is basically an archetypical group of heroes. After you have read it you know basically everything about the charakters, and you have one complete story where you should add nothing and take away nothing. Everyone has a motivation and pretty much nothing is done at random, not inuniverse and not by the creators.

[Ugga Bugga]

Bone. ........... Great characterizations. Moves from silliness to fantasy with ease. great characterizations. Wonderful simplicity in it's art. Would go for the black and whites first. Not that the colored versions are bad, but I think it takes away some from the beautiful black and white.

[turnbolt]

All the Cerebus books... every single damn one... even the ones you almost can't make it through because Dave Sim decided suddenly to become a novelist!

These books start as little simple parodies of Conan the Barbarian and stretch into a brilliant and intricate web of amazing and deep story with fantastic characters, great humor, big drama and adventure adventure adventure!!!

Disclaimer: Sometimes adventure has a BROAD definition... Hahahaha!

[Cody Andreasen]

I cannot recommend "Asterios Polyp" highly enough.

David Mazzucchelli makes great use of the page spread vs. page turn in telling his story as well as putting style to work for him in carrying content and setting a tone.

Really, really great read and an amazing use of the medium.

[autowagon]

there is just so much good stuff in those black and white Essentials, or Showcase collections that it is easy to get a large amount of awesome stuff. savage sword of conan, unknown soldier, house of secrets, house of mystery. . .and then there are a lot of EC collections in hardback but they are more expensive. i just got a hardback collection of all the bernie wrightson Creepy stuff, now a prized possession.

[The P.R. Man]

Preacher has always been my favorite. there's action, but a hellovalot of great scenes of people just hanging out and talking. haven't always loved everything Garth Ennis has done, (although he is one of my favorite writers) but I sure loved this.

[Toddoss]

Older
Batman Year One- Great expose on Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, and Gotham as characters. wonderful storytelling
Rocketeer- blows my mind everytime I look at the art and great play on stereotypical good guy vs bad guy
Contemporary
Wanted- cause you got read one when not only do the bad guys win but dominate the heros
Invincible- Fresh take on Spandex heros that mocks the genre while unabashedly accepts it. With plot twist that will have you saying out loud, "WHAT!?! No WAY!"

[Mashiem]

Asterix
One of the great series. The Goscinny and Uderzo duo was magic! The stories were simple but fun, and the drawings were extremely expressive with wildly exagerated poses and facial expressions.

Calvin and Hobbes
Waterson truly hit the mark when he tried to portray the life of a kid. Everythings taken way out of proportion, sure, but he nails the "essence" of being an imaginative kid! He's syill one of my favourite artists when it comes to drawings of nature. His brushmanship (if that is a real word) is spectacular.

Sandman
The artwork is hard to nail down, having been drawn by so many different artists, but the writing is a true masterpiece, weaving together a multitude of small stories and meshing them all around one character; Dream. Everytime I read through the series I discover new things. Neil Gaiman rules!

Pondus
A norwegian newspaper-strip about a footballfan/family guy. At times a truly funny series with a bizarre set of characters. Check it out if you understand norwegian (or just for the artwork itself).

[John Shine]

Cerebus. All 300 issues have something that is done brilliantly that any aspiring comics creator can learn from.

[Silver Age Guy]

The Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run of the Fantastic Four. They did 102 issues along with 6 annuals which is a record that still stands today. They created so many characters in that run ranging from Dr. Doom, to Adam Warlock, etc. Starting in issue 44, Joe Sinnott took over as the pernament inker with the exception of a couple of issues that were inked by Frank Giacoia.