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The 50 Things That Every Comics Collection Truly Needs

comicsreporter.com — The Comics Reporter presents a eclectic, intriguing list of 50 excellent comic book titles, a must for all comic fans.

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  • bigstinky, on 09/28/2008, -2/+17I would add:

    1. The Tick
    2. Hate
    3. MADMAN
    4. Bone
    5. The Maxx

    Still, imo, a pretty decent collection and a nice post.
    • archivist, on 09/29/2008, -2/+16. Arkham Asylum
    • Jeffrsmall, on 09/29/2008, -1/+27. Milk and Cheese
    • Shakermaker, on 09/29/2008, -2/+18. Comics no one has heard of.

      /but probably should?
      //comics n00b
    • Cpt0bvius, on 09/29/2008, -1/+19. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac(JtHM) and/or Squee

      Jhonen Vasquez is a crazy genius.
    • Akaziel, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2I liked all of the six you listed, but I Dugg you for Bone. ;) And a little for The Maxx.
    • robopuppy, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2Dugg for Sam Keith. All comic collections should have a plethora of Sam Keith.
  • GamingForever, on 09/28/2008, -3/+3Dugg for Spiderman!
  • Zabstract, on 09/29/2008, -1/+5Comics Reporter does it right! all on one page =)
  • subfusc, on 09/29/2008, -1/+6A functioning website, perhaps?
  • benotago, on 09/29/2008, -3/+251) fap hanky
    • passedoutghost, on 09/29/2008, -1/+6It's COMIC collection, not PORN collection.

    • Relikh, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1That, my friend, is the unsung hero.
  • joebus, on 09/29/2008, -2/+4The server was definitely on the fail boat as it sank into the sea.
  • Millsee, on 09/29/2008, -5/+2Best article everrrr!
  • Jimbeeer, on 09/29/2008, -4/+0Buried for buckling under the Digg effect and not working.
  • Hiwitori, on 09/29/2008, -3/+1Found another site with (I think) is the same content.

    http://www.collectedcomicslibrary.com/2008/09/28/t ...
  • archivist, on 09/29/2008, -1/+2I just bought Batman: Murder at the Wayne Manor - i highly recommend this because it's very interactive.. there's a mystery to be solved and each of the evidences are included in the book, like blood stained invites, etc... it puts you in the shoes of a detective. it is awesome.

    Like griffin and sabine
  • kishosingh, on 09/29/2008, -2/+2Along with 50 things comics will be great for kids.
  • beefchi, on 09/29/2008, -2/+31.flaming carrot
    2. anything by bob burden

    teh end.
  • CoreOverride, on 09/29/2008, -1/+9Transmetropolitan
    Deadpool
    Sinfest

  • eugenesucks, on 09/29/2008, -1/+1Bratpack and The Maximortal
  • snurfle, on 09/29/2008, -1/+3Dark Phoenix series
    Secret Wars (yeah, crossovers series, I know.)
    Marvel / Star Wars ep 1-3, first edition, wrapped in plastic and pressed in the pages of my High School yearbooks since they were new...
    Yeah, I have *those*!!!!
  • smacksaw, on 09/29/2008, -1/+2So, would one of you lucky 16 commenters who actually read the article care to post the list?
  • MarrowMan, on 09/29/2008, -1/+1Original Valiant

    Solar
    ShadowMan
    Eternal Warrior
    X-O Man o war
    Harbinger

    classics
  • jslice, on 09/29/2008, -1/+3I would say this is not a very good list but, heres it is:

    1. Something From The ACME Novelty Library
    2. A Complete Run Of Arcade
    3. Any Number Of Mini-Comics
    4. At Least One Pogo Book From The 1950s
    5. A Barnaby Collection
    6. Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary
    7. As Many Issues of RAW as You Can Place Your Hands On
    8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics
    9. A Suite of Modern Literary Graphic Novels
    10. Several Tintin Albums
    11. A Smattering Of Treasury Editions Or Similarly Oversized Books
    12. Several Significant Runs of Alternative Comic Book Series
    13. A Few Early Comic Strip Collections To Your Taste
    14. Several “Indy Comics” From Their Heyday
    15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books
    16. At Least One Comic That Failed to Finish The Way It Planned To
    17. Some Osamu Tezuka
    18. The Entire Run Of At Least One Manga Series
    19. One Or Two 1970s Doonesbury Collections
    20. At Least One Saul Steinberg Hardcover
    21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped
    22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can’t Explain To Anyone Else
    23. At Least One Woodcut Novel
    24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand
    25. Maus
    26. A Significant Sample of R. Crumb’s Sketchbooks
    27. The original edition of Sick, Sick, Sick.
    28. The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics
    29. Several copies of MAD
    30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books
    31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books
    32. A You’re-Too-High-To-Tell Amount of Underground Comix
    33. Some Calvin and Hobbes
    34. Some Love and Rockets
    35. The Marvel Benefit Issue Of Coober Skeber
    36. A Few Comics Not In Your Native Tongue
    37. A Nice Stack of Jack Chick Comics
    38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody’s Kid
    39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics
    40. A Comic You Made Yourself
    41. A Few Comics About Comics
    42. A Run Of Yummy Fur
    43. Some Frank Miller Comics
    44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books
    45. A Few Great Comics Short Stories
    46. A Tijuana Bible
    47. Some Weirdo
    48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres
    49. An Editorial Cartoonist’s Collection or Two
    50. A Few Collections From New Yorker Cartoonists
    • jslice, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2Let me follow this up by saying...I have not read 99% of whats on this list, but I would add the following:

      Scott Pilgrim

      A real must own, hilarious comedy, good action, and easy for non comic book fans to read too. Seriously buy this and trick your girlfriend into reading comics!
    • DocCochran, on 09/29/2008, -1/+1Jack Chick? WTF? I'd rather not, thanks.
    • rblancarte, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2IMHO, this is a list of the comic snob.

      I mean, I had what I enjoyed, and it makes up about 10% of that list.

      I guess the real question is - why would I collect something that doesn't interest me, which a lot of this list makes up?
  • RyomaNagare, on 09/29/2008, -2/+81)Dark Knight Returns
    2)Kingdom Come
    3)Superman Man of steel
    4)The Death of the man of tomorrow
    5)JLA New Frontier
    6)TOP TEN
    7)SANDMAN
    8)HELLBOY
    9)Marvels
    10)Days of Future Past
  • oblique63, on 09/29/2008, -0/+7no Brian K. Vaughan?
  • qualar, on 09/29/2008, -8/+1One thing that every comic collection truly needs:

    A match
  • Philbert, on 09/29/2008, -2/+2I'm a comics fan And have never heard of most of those. They should have said "American comics"
    • oblique63, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1if I recall correctly, Tin Tin isn't American, and I thought it was pretty well known internationally?...
  • 0xbaadf00d, on 09/29/2008, -0/+3I recently read Joss Whedon's run of Astonishing X-Men and I highly recommend it.
  • zingdoozer, on 09/29/2008, -1/+5heres my top 20
    1- Preacher.. trashtalking, irreverent romp. the definitive road trip graphic novel.. Jesse Custer (J.C.. umm) recently imbued with superpowers, his girlfriend and cassidy his vampiric best buddy seek out God demanding answers from him for vacating his place in heaven. succeeds in offending just about everybody. 66 issues, so pretty easy to collect the whole series.

    2 -sandman - supposedly along with watchmen the greatest graphic novel of all time

    3- Nausicaa- valley of the wind

    4 - acme novelty library

    5 - why i hate saturn..

    6- Jimmy corrigan, the smartest kid on earth -Funny, tragic, absurd, moving, frustrating look at a lonely man in his mid-30s with an inferiority complex, a debilitating lack of self-confidence and an overbearing mother.
    Sublime.

    7- Demo

    8- Local

    9- Y the last man - Award winning interpretation of a world where all men are killed by a mysterious virus and only Yorick remains.

    10- 100 bullets - Tautly written crime/conspiracy series. Agent Graves and his 100 untraceable bullets keep you coming back for more.

    11- transmetropolitan

    12- Fables.. brilliant brilliant rendering of fairy tale characters interacting with each other in fabletown

    13- Akira

    14- Love and rockets

    15- strangers in paradise

    16- Watchmen -The comic that put graphic novels on the map. The legendary Alan Moore's beautifully written rendition of a group of superheroes facign their own human foibles.

    17 - Invisibles - Grant Morrison's best work IMHO, time travel, conspiracy, punk rock and magic

    18- Swamp thing

    19- Hellblazer

    20- Anything by alan moore v for vendetta, from hell, and of course watchmen
    • 22pages, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1Have you read Morrison's Doom Patrol run? I liked the Invisibles but I still think his Doom Patrol was better. His new X-men stuff was excellent as well. For a short series, Flex Mentallo is my fave of his.

      Apparently his favorite is The Filth (at least as of ny comic con this year) because he got so much creative freedom.
  • sircomix, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1Not a bad list, I would also add Watchmen, as some have mentioned. And some EC horror/crime comics, like Tales From The Crypt or Crime Suspenstories.
  • Steeple, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1SHARK-MAN!
  • bixf, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2Remains, Blankets and more recently Y- The Last Man should all be added. Overall it's a pretty good list. I would change some Calvin and Hobbes to ALL Calvin and Hobbes.

  • jontilton, on 09/29/2008, -0/+3two words: Scott Pilgrim
  • rootsm3, on 09/29/2008, -1/+351. A safe so no female ever knows about it.
  • newbill123, on 09/29/2008, -1/+2I gave up on "collecting" when I asked my local comic shop what value some of my comics I liked had. Basically, nothing.

    (lesson 1) I bought it because I liked it when it came out, but reading and collecting are not the same thing. Collecting is about speculating about things you think others will like (and not know to buy yet). Reading is about satisfying your own wants and interests.

    (lesson 2) Comic numbers do more for organizing and following the story than for adding collectible value. Collectors want to have the "first" of something, but even the numbers on the books don't tell you that. In the comics I was asking about, they had low numbered comics numbers (below #20), but the earlier ones were apparently not the "first" run. It was a Brittish comic which had been republished (after some edits and trademark changes) and published again in the US.

    (lesson 3) scarcity is not collectibility. Unlike coins or stamps, people have to know the comic is out there. Reprints for a small portion of a run will create interest and demand from those who didn't know about it originally. Without demand there is no value. The content owners of my comics created such an inane intellectual property squabble that it's never likely to be published again until it enters the public domain. No knowledge = no demand growth. No demand growth = Declining value.

    (lesson 4) But probably the worst sin I could do was to actually read the things before storing them away somewhere. They will degrade over time just being in storage. They will degrade when the comic valuator has to open it to inspect the printing and binding quality. If you've actually admit to reading it, it's unlikely to get higher than a Fine in terms of preservation quality.

    So honestly, even if you think that the comic you have is the greatest in the world, hang on to it and read it due to your own interests and enjoyment. If you are a reader, you probably don't have much in common with the comic collector. If some day before these comics enter the public domain, they became popular and had value, I'd probably be more interested in reading them again than selling them to others anyway.

    Heck, and even if I wanted to sell them I'd have a very hard time finding trustworthy people who knew what Miracleman was but who'd be honest enough to give me close to what they were really worth. (lesson 5)
    • bigstinky, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2I've dealt with the same kind of thing. I was a big collector in my youth...Spidey, Cap, Batman, etc. when comics were "still only 25 cents" and prior back to 1969 when my dad first started picking me up comics from the corner magazine shop. It's how I learned to read initially.Unfortunately, I sold thousands of silver era comics to a ripoff buyer for 35 bucks. I was a stupid 15 year old. Mostly because these comics defined my youth...I mean Spiderman was my hero and I sold out to the man for nothing. Nowadays I wonder what those old first run X-men and Spidey comics would be worth.

      I always continued to hold an interest in comics, and when Image came with Spawn, Gen 13, and The Maxx I got hooked again. But this time I would do it right...(or so I thought)... I purchased 2 of every book. One for reading, one for boarding and bagging. I figured I'd get the best of both worlds. I mean I was seeing Spawn #1 going for twenty bucks.

      Just then the Valiant comics implosion occurred. Comics going for 30 - 40 bucks and more, became worthless overnight. It seemed there were a lot more comics being made than what the trade-mags said were available. I soon realized that the only comics worth collecting for cash were old gold and silver era books. The ones I got rid of.

      I took my lumps on the second issues I wasted all that cash on. We're talking 3 bucks a cover, times 2. But I learned a valuable lesson in collecting. It ultimately is the joy received in reading the book that's worth most. And luckily I have a seven year old to pass on my second collection to. I gave up on trying to make my millions in the comic market long ago.
  • johnnyliteral, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1Oh god, the first image they have, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Boy in the World, is THE most depressing comic I've laid eyes on. It's fan-*****-tastic, very well written, and the art is great as well, but all of this is rolled around a brutally realistic story; definitely not what I was expecting. That comic itself should be in every collectors hands.
  • antdude, on 09/29/2008, -0/+2http://www.comicsreporter.com.nyud.net/index.php/f ...
  • 22pages, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1I like that the list made overtones to some historical precedents for the modern comic book, but it sadly missed some important ones. If you want to impress me with your comic geek cred, I also want to see

    1. A Windsor McCay Nemo in Dreamland Compilation
    2. Several Japanese Prints or at least a book about them
    3. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic dictionary
    4. Books about other 'pictographic' traditions (Mesoamerican writing systems, chinese characters etc.).
    5. At least one pack of tarot cards (one of the most common early western comic book type forms).
    6. Several mythology reference books (proving you track down the names of characters and understand the underlying traditions / ideas / stories they are taken from).
    7. Some video games related to comics (freedom force for example)
    8. A copy of the Incredibles DVD or at least something from Pixar




  • mentalplosion, on 09/29/2008, -0/+0I would add to the list some of the new radical comics. The quality on these are beyond anything I've ever seen in a comic book, amazing artwork, high quality print, great writing.

    http://www.radicalcomics.com/
    http://caliber.radicalcomics.com/
    http://hercules.radicalcomics.com/
    http://freedomformula.radicalcomics.com/
    http://cityofdust.radicalcomics.com/
    http://shrapnel.radicalcomics.com/
  • meatball1989, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1Is it me but does the Comic Character "The Smartest Kid on Earth" remind any of you guys of Stewie Griffin? (The Football shaped head, the lack oh hair, and what seems to be a genius in a toddlers body).
  • Avolin, on 09/29/2008, -0/+1How about some print versions of webcomics?
  • ralphc, on 09/29/2008, -0/+0To the Alan Moore list I would definitely add Marvelman/Miracleman.
    A Marvel/DC crossover, such as Teen Titans/X-men or JLA/Avengers
    Keith Giffen's run on Legion of Super Heroes
    Star*Reach
    '70's Jim Starlin, his Captain Marvel run or Warlock
    The Adventures of Luther Arkwright

  • edwartica, on 09/29/2008, -0/+4Sandman was not on the list.....WTF!!! Its canonical comic literature and its not on the list!!! WTF!!!
  • valleyvideo, on 09/30/2008, -0/+1Bloom County
  • MarrowMan, on 09/30/2008, -0/+1***** you, whoever buried me, you *****
  • Literaturfan, on 09/30/2008, -0/+1The Calvin and Hobbes... I love it.
  • WArlordtwo, on 09/30/2008, -0/+0#51. To get laid...oh you ment comic COLLECTIONS.
  • KellyNordin, on 10/13/2008, -0/+0This needs nothing http://digg.com/comics_animation/New_creative_work ...
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