Back in the day I read lots of comics. I was a big Vertigo and proto-Vertigo guy, Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing, John Constantine: Hellblazer, Lucifer. John Ostrander's The Spectre (and GrimJack, and all his Star Wars stuff. . .). Grant Morrison's X-Men. Also read the Robert Kirkman stuff for a bit, the Wildstorm stuff, Kurt Busiek's Conan, probably a ton of stuff I'm forgetting. Never liked Peter Milligan's real superhero comics but thought his spoofier X-Force/X-Statix stuff was a hoot. Generally like Ed Brubaker, was a fan of Greg Rucka for a time. Mostly really love reading a "run" of a comic series that feels like a giant novel. Big fan of Mike Carey.

Never liked Mark Millar, never on the same wavelength as Bendis or JMS. More hit than miss with Garth Ennis but still never perfectly on his wavelength. Much of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's independent and eclectic stuff I admired more than I liked. Read a lot of Dark Horse Comics IP stuff more because I was into the IPs than for the quality of the comics per se.

I think I was getting out of the game when guys like Jeff Lemire and Jonathan Hickman were hitting their stride?

Anyway, I've been revisiting some comics on a tablet which is a revelation -- I love the ability to zoom, I love that the pages don't yellow and spines don't break, I love that the middle of splash pages doesn't get lost in the crease, that the resolution is not limited by the limitations of the printer. I don't love the lack of a really good comics app that organizes series the way I'd like (or allows me to customize the directories -- similar problem I have with the kindle except compounded).

What are your favorite comics? Any recommendations from the last decade or two that might scratch the itch of the 80s/90s/00s stuff I really enjoyed? (Or older hidden gems?)

> Back in the day I read lots of comics. I was a big Vertigo and
> proto-Vertigo guy, Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing, John
> Constantine: Hellblazer, Lucifer. John Ostrander's The
> Spectre (and GrimJack, and all his Star Wars stuff. .
> .). Grant Morrison's X-Men. Also read the Robert Kirkman stuff for
> a bit, the Wildstorm stuff, Kurt Busiek's Conan, probably a ton of
> stuff I'm forgetting. Never liked Peter Milligan's real superhero comics
> but thought his spoofier X-Force/X-Statix stuff was a hoot.
> Generally like Ed Brubaker, was a fan of Greg Rucka for a time. Mostly
> really love reading a 'run' of a comic series that feels like a giant
> novel. Big fan of Mike Carey.

> Never liked Mark Millar, never on the same wavelength as Bendis or JMS.
> More hit than miss with Garth Ennis but still never perfectly on his
> wavelength. Much of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison's independent and
> eclectic stuff I admired more than I liked. Read a lot of Dark Horse
> Comics IP stuff more because I was into the IPs than for the quality of
> the comics per se.

> I think I was getting out of the game when guys like Jeff Lemire and
> Jonathan Hickman were hitting their stride?

> Anyway, I've been revisiting some comics on a tablet which is a revelation
> -- I love the ability to zoom, I love that the pages don't yellow and
> spines don't break, I love that the middle of splash pages doesn't get
> lost in the crease, that the resolution is not limited by the limitations
> of the printer. I don't love the lack of a really good comics app that
> organizes series the way I'd like (or allows me to customize the
> directories -- similar problem I have with the kindle except compounded).

> What are your favorite comics? Any recommendations from the last decade or
> two that might scratch the itch of the 80s/90s/00s stuff I really enjoyed?
> (Or older hidden gems?)

Yes! I just got back into comics in the last 5-10 years and with digital can now buy and read all the stuff I couldn't get from the quarter bins. We have similar taste! I am currently reading the Rick Veitch SWAMP THING run that followed Moore's and it's surprisingly good. I would say the highlights are better than the later Moore issues. I'm also working on Miller's DAREDEVIL and just finished Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR run and Mcgregor's BLACK PANTHER/JUNGLE ACTION. I'm a big DR. STRANGE fan and have read all DR. STRANGE issues up to the current decade. I'm still reading 80s and 90s comics though.

My all-time favorites:

THE MAXX (Sam Keith) 90s
ALL STAR SUPERMAN (Morrison) 00s
Grant Morrison's BATMAN run 00s
DOOM 2099 (Francis Moore) 90s
DOCTOR STRANGE TRIUMPH AND TORMENT (Stern) 80s
MIRACLE MAN (Moore) 80s
Jason Aaron DR. STRANGE 10s
WEAPON X (Barry Windsor Smith) 80s
Moore's SWAMP THING
Anything by Sam Keith

The original ALIENS comics are nightmare fuel and really high quality comics.

I try to read one comic book a day (it's medicinal).

(Message edited on Sunday, May 4, 2025, at 5:46 p.m.)

The Maxx is the gold standard.

And yes on those Aliens comics. Never understood why they just didn't source these for the films.

I read a lot of Spider-Man (amazing and otherwise) in the late 80s to mid-90s, the MacFarlane run into Erik Larsen. I also got into the spider-man 2099 series.

I recommend them all.

Recommend thwm

I'm a big fan of oversized, hardcover, "deluxe" compilations, and collected those pretty steadily for a while. As an artist my primary consideration has always been for the art, with story a bonus, but some of my favorites don't disappoint in either category.

My all-time favorite artist was Darwyn Cooke, and cried some sad adult tears when he died so young.(Did the same for Dave Stevens). I have the giant Parker collection as s prized possession. Sits next to my oversized volumes of Criminal (Brubaker/Sean Phillips).

Longtime fan of Rick Remender (who was also an animator before his comic career took off). His Last Days of American Crime introduced me to the art of Greg Tocchini, and that, along with "Low" are also big favorites from those two. I adore Tokyo Ghost (with Sean Gordon Murphy).

As suggested in prior comment, Sam Keith's The Maxx is my gold standard. The MTV Animation adaptation of the comic is still a favorite thing, and its minimalist style was a big part of my artistic inspiration as an animator.

Y:The Last Man ( Brian K. Vaughn/ Pia Guerra) is another prized hardback collection on the shelf. I've yet to ever watch the television series, but the comic is damn near perfect storytelling. As good as it gets.

Of course, I also have the collected Sin City. Just a gorgeous beautiful brick of a thing, all collected in a single volume. Also love Frank Miller's run with Elektra, Batman, and Daredevil.

Used to love the old Dark Horse stuff. Some magic stories with the movie properties they took on.

Like most things, I just sort of fell out of it in the past five years or so. Just time and money--and bookshelf space.

Nice to see fellow comic readers in here! Agreed with reading on a tablet: it's made the medium so much more accessible and enjoyable.

I started reading comics relatively recently (in my late 20s/early 30s), so most of my favourites — aside from the excellent ones you already mentioned — are from the 2010s and veer towards more self-contained miniseries.

I'm a big fan of Tom King's works. He's extremely divisive, but in my opinion, he swings for the fences in trying to tell thought-provoking, conceptually compelling stories. In doing so, he seems to piss a lot of people off by 'misusing' their favourite characters. If you're not someone who gets hung up over canon, you might enjoy his stuff, although they're not really happy reads. Here are a few of my favourites, with some context if you haven't read them.

- The Sheriff of Babylon (Vertigo): Follows three characters whose lives are linked whenan Iraqi police trainee is found murdered in Baghdad. Draws from King's experience as a counterterrorism officer in the CIA during the War on Terror. A really compelling and poignant mystery/drama.
- Rorschach (DC): This one is technically a sequel to Watchmen, but barely so: it uses the legacy and world of Watchmen as a way of exploring its own interests. A detective is brought in to investigate the failed assassination of a presidential candidate by two people in Rorschach costumes. Fascinating rumination on conspiracy theories, paranoia, and our current political climate.
- The Vision (Marvel): This one moved me deeply. The Vision creates an artificial family and moves to the suburbs, trying to live a normal life. Things fall apart.

You mentioned Hickman, and his X-Men run really kick-started my interest in the kinds of stories superhero comics could tell. Starting with the miniseries House of X/Powers of X, it tells the story of how mutantkind's decision to set up a sovereign island-nation, backed by their newfound ability to export life-changing medicines to humanity. Really interesting concept that played out across a few different series, each looking at a different aspect of how such an island would function: politically, economically, spiritually, socially, etc.

Beyond that, big fan of the following works:
Grant Morrison: Doom Patrol (DC/Vertigo), Animal Man (DC/Vertigo), Invisibles (Vertigo)
Greg Rucka: Lazarus (Image Comics), Gotham Central (DC)
Ram V: Many Deaths of Laila Starr (BOOM! Comics)
China Mieville: Dial H (DC)
Matt Kindt: Mind MGMT (Dark Horse)
Saladin Ahmed: Black Bolt (Marvel)

Always more to say, but I'll leave it at that!