absolute beginner's questions

brand new to the comic book game so apologies in advance. i recently spent an evening fascinated by my girlfriend's brother explaining the chronology of the batman comics, and a few days prior i downloaded all the achewood comics as i loved reading them a few years back. with these two things in mind, i've got a couple of 101 questions:

1) what's the best comic book reader out there? i'm going to use an ipad. done some reading and YACreader and comic zeal sound good, but i keep seeing mention of 'panel-by-panel reading' where each panel fills the screen. i really like the sound of that as it could be great to use on my samsung s5. i understand this function needs to be sorted in advance by the publisher of the cbr file, but does any reader have a function where it automatically recognises the outline/border of each image, and the flow of panels, and work out p-b-p on that basis? i guess it's not a deal-breaker but would be great if anyone has any advice on how to get as near to this as possible (just a simple pinch+zoom?).

2) so i got hold of all 1,719 achewood comic strips and i'm wondering how to convert them all to a cbr file. would i be better converting to pdf? they're in gif format, mostly a4 but the early ones are shorter, but the same width. will this cause problems? is there a good simple program to do this?

ok thanks and sorry if this has been covered before, i couldn't find anything in search

1. i use YACreader + love it

2. i think but i'm not positive that if you zip/rar all the files into a zip/rar file and then change the extension to .cbz/.cbr it should work

great, thanks. didn't think the cbr thing would be so simple.

just heard about this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.dexx.solutions.comicreader.comictime&hl=en

does anyone have any experience with it, and is there a panel-by-panel equivalent for ipad? or am i getting fixated on something that isn't really that important?

I liked the panel-to-panel reading on Comixology initially, and it does let you see the entire page at the start, but I quickly came to use page-to-page reading. That initial look and then panel movement doesn't give you enough feel for the layout IMO.

ok yeah, i think i like the idea of reading it on the ipad screen rather than a phone. and im assuming the ipad screen is big and crisp enough that you dont need to zoom in at all. is that the case with the batman comics etc? i'll suck and see i guess

if you've got a retina ipad, full-page comic reading is great. i found reading on older ipads much more of a strain on my eyes.

Reading comics on a phone is an act of barbarism

it's my gf's ipad, need check what kind it is.

is it really no good at all on a phone, even with the panel thing? not read comics properly since my whizzer & chips days in 1987, determined to do this RIGHT

afaic the best thing about ipads is reading comix on them. i don't even have a retina one and i love it. (no eyestrain problems.)

I use Sidebooks which is fine for me, but nothing clever. Single pages are a decent size, but double page spreads need a pinch-zoom.

is it really no good at all on a phone, even with the panel thing

Comics panels aren't really meant to be read in isolation, but within the context of a page's overall 'flow'/structure - obviously esp true of comics drawn before smartphones became a reality. Can't really think of many comic artists whose work would benefit from being shrunk right down to the size of a phone screen; as with watching movies on a phone, you're essentially reducing the work to 'dialogue'and pure narrative function, losing all the the deeper pleasures of visual narrative storytelling, that combo of words & pictures working together yadda yadda

ward 100% otm

I read digital stuff on a Kindle, and the screen resolution is pretty much perfect for full-page reading. I have to zoom in occasionally but not very occasionally. And I agree: comics reading is pretty much the #1 reason for owning a tablet in my book.

i just upgraded to the lolhueg iphone 6+ because I had gotten so heavily into creating electronic music on my phone that I wanted the extra real estate for virtual keyboards, fretboards, sliders etc. Side benefit: unlike prior generations, this screen is def big enough to read books on. It might might be just big enough to read comics on too. I think it'll depend on the particular comic. Los Bros or From Hell, no way. silver and golden age stuff, probably.

I've read odd comics on the Marvel iPhone app and quite enjoyed them -- obviously it decimates the flow of a single page, but it does add a level of panel-by-panel suspense that you don't get from the floppies. Some zany Waid Daredevil issue with a motorcycle chase -- the panel-by-panel reveal added a palpable forward momentum to everything.

Obviously it wouldn't work for everything. It could be great for someone like Ditko or Giffen though, with their very uniform panel shapes.

"Comics panels aren't really meant to be read in isolation"

I've tried that Marvel online product a couple times and found it highly annoying for this reason. The old CDs where they just scanned actual comics and you read them in PDF opened to full screen to me is a far better reading experience.

I'd think traditional 'strip' style comics would work somewhat better in a small screen format.

what would you guys recommend for the batman comics? i'm starting with year one. still kinda undecided what to go for - frustrating that the ipad doesn't have a reader with auto panel zoom, as that'd cover all options

For all batman? What have u already read?

not read anything yet, this is all geared toward my first proper comic reading session and the best way to go about it

everyone has their own favorites, but here are a few:

1. Alan Moore - The Killing Joke
2. Jeph Loeb - The Long Halloween
3. Jim Starlin - A Death in the Family, Batman #426-429
4. Steve Englehart - Dark Detective, Detective Comics #469-476
5. Scott Snyder - The Court of the Owls (2011), Batman #1-11
6. Paul Dini, Detective Comics #821-??
7. Grant Morrison - Batman R.I.P, Batman #676-681

a great batman comic that doesn't star batman: Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka - Gotham Central
a good currently running batman story: Scott Snyder - Batman: Endgame (Batman #35 and I think concluding next month)

I think those Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told would make a good first Batman book to read. Those things are cool as you get to see some of the best Batman comics through the decades side by side. Some of the older comics are pretty decent reads and windows into a different time. DC did an updated version for Batman and The Joker's 75th Anniversary, but you will see the old volumes in used book stores all over place.

Batman Year One & The Dark Knight Returns
Batman Year 100
Batman Prey (new version includes sequel story)
Batman and the Monster Men & Batman and the Mad Monk
Batman: The Man Who Laughs & Going Sane (other takes on the Joker's origin)

The thing that kinda sucks is DC hasn't been that good at compiling much of the 70s and 80s Batman. Some stories on character based trades and some incomplete stories and ill put together books based on creators. That stuff like many comics is aching for someone to really go through and compile it better.

Batman Faces is another good one, pretty much any Batman by Matt Wagner is ace. Trinity is a good Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman 'origin' story.

I also think Knightfall and No Man's Land were generally pretty good mainstream 90s comics. Being the big 'crossover' story, not every chapter works, but there are really good elements and parts in them. It's easy to see why they used some of them in the last Batman movie.

ah sorry, when i said 'recommend for' i meant the best reader! as for the batman comics, my gf's brother has a pretty intense system and recommended to go for year one, long halloween and killing joke first, to see if it's my bag. and if it is, to work through them using his personal chronological system. i like the idea of the 'greatest x stories ever told' though, might give them a go too

oh, well YACreader is the best. that's what i use exclusively

I still haven't read it for whatever dumb reason, but David Lapham's City of Crime is supposed to be a particularly ace Batman story that is also relatively self-contained.

I will also second the entirety of Morrison's Batman run (which is a little labyrinthine and might require a reading guide). Maybe my favorite mainstream comics thing from the past decade or so.

Second the recommendation for Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, loved that book when I was kid.

I'd wait on these:
City of Crime is fantastic, but frankly, so damn weird I would not recommend reading it until after you've read a bunch of other Batman books.
Same thing with Morrison's phenomenal Black Glove/RIP/Inc run - it's better if you read the older Batman stories (like Death in the Family especially) before you get to his saga to get some context.
Knightfall and No Man's Land are super long, sprawling crossover-filled stories, and while fun to read and historically relevant I would put those off until later.

the brubaker Catwoman sorta counts as a Batman series and is amazing so throw that in there too.

Yeah, I'd highly recommend that one. Pretty much self-contained for the first couple of years, too.

think those Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told would make a good first Batman book to read

This is a million times better idea than starting with Year One

also Morrison's run is not intended for people who haven't read a wide spread of Batman comics over decades

^^^^
This is especially true once you get into Batman RIP and the whole middle section of the run. That part of the run and Final Crisis is some grad school level super hero comics, you got to read the pre-requisites to even get how deep the easter eggs roll in those stories.

The Legends of the Dark Knight series had lots of great stand-alone Batman stories (some set early in his career, some set "whenever"), my favourite that hasn't been mentioned so far is Blades by James Robinson and Tim Sale.

Earlnash is correct about how badly 70s and 80s Batman has been compiled, and that actually applies to 90s Batman too, outside of the "big event" stories like Knightfall. About half of the Moench/Jones run has been collected, and a trade for the Grant/Breyfogle run is soon to appear, but based on DC's track record with these things, who's to say any more will follow?

Peter Milligan's Dark Knight, Dark City is another personal fave, recently collected with some of his weird, creepy one-shot stories from the early 90s.

If you want more small-scale Batman done-in-ones and two-parters, Paul Dini's run is also worth checking out.

City of Crime is fantastic and I wish there were a dozen other Batman stories like it

I am kind of a fan of Blind Justice, written by the scriptwriter of the first Burton movie, Sam Hamm, to go with the fiftieth anniversary. I seem to recall it is the opposite of a fan favourite though.

Also Gothic, GM's first Batman story, is fun.

the batman adventures series based on the bruce timm animated show had some fantastic stories, although obviously none of them are in dc universe continuity.

those greatest batman / greatest joker collections really are excellent tasters for the many permutations the characters have been through over the years.

i remember really enjoying greg rucka's detective run at the time.

Scott Snyder's Parliament of Owls stuff from the Johnsiverse shouldn't be overlooked.

Will anyone stan for Grant/Breyfogle or Starlin/Aparo runs in Detective or Batman?

breyfogle's batman visuals are some of my favourites, although it's been so long since i read the stories i can't be sure they're as good as i remember them. grant brought a bit of 2000ad weirdness to the books, like the ventriloquist and anarky. can't overlook the vitally important post-crisis introduction of ace the bat-hound either.

I read through a lot of Batman issues last year and enjoyed both. The Grant/Breyfogle run hit the right balance between gritty, freaky and funny, with lots of good one-shot villains. The Tulpa/Etrigan three-parter is simply awesome, as is the Tim Drake vs Scarecrow story when they switch over to Batman. The only downside is that, at times, Grant had a tendency for heavy-handed preachiness, but that's forgivable. Breyfogle suffered a stroke recently, terrible.

Starlin wrote Batman very much in the gritty street crime vein of Miller, and there were some great issues, although Ten Nights of the Beast is hilariously over the top at times (and worth a read for that very reason). The Wolfman run which followed wasn't so hot, but I guess he deserves credit for the emphasis on Bruce Wayne and Alfred as characters, who the other post-Crisis writers had largely ignored at that point.

I really like the two stories which appeared on Batman and Detective when the Grant/Breyfogle and Wolfman/Aparo teams switched over: Milligan's Dark City as mentioned above (Batman 452-454) and John Ostrander's meta-comic story in Detective 622-624, with covers by Dick Sprang!

I know he gets knocked a lot here, but Chuck Dixon also wrote some good stories with Graham Nolan and Tom Lyle on art. He could get pretty generic (and a lot of his run is spent on big crossover stories) but also wrote excellent issues like "A Bullet for Bullock", which I think is the only comic issue which got a straight adaptation in the Animated Series which came out after the show had begun.

Greg Rucka's post-NML run is really good, but it's more about the perspective on Batman from different characters, which is why Gotham Central was so good.

I'll second Blind Justice. And actually, City of Crime seems to be more of an "opposite of fan favourite" story, I've come across a few who consider it the worst Batman story ever! Wasn't too crazy about it myself.

That part of the run and Final Crisis is some grad school level super hero comics, you got to read the pre-requisites to even get how deep the easter eggs roll in those stories.

i find it funny that nobody mentioned Hush yet, but I assume the OP will get around to it sooner or later... just because it is a big deal and is a huge part of "2000s-era" Batman

i didn't mention hush becuase it's fucking terrible

I never read any of Loeb's Bat-epics, but I'm curious if their general critical reception has soured in light of the subsequent revelation of Loeb as one of the most inexcusably terrible comics writers of our era?

eh, just because he's bad now doesn't mean he wasn't a competent storyteller back then (see: Frank Miller)
(though I definitely wouldn't back up Hush so much as The Long Halloween)

see also: John Byrne

I just got the first collection from Detective Comics New 52 run - my problem with superhero comics was always dealing with decades of back story and interweaving storylines and shit, so I figured I'd just pick a starting point.

Read The Killing Joke recently and tbh I didn't think it was that special?

Frankly, I don't think it's all that special, either. Definitely one of Moore's lesser works. Pretty, though.

Similar to Morrison's Arkham Asylum in that a) important read in context of what had been coming out at the time and b) impressive artwork

really appreciate all the replies here. would the consensus be that year one isn't the best place to start? those greatest x collections sound interesting. are they like a best of, compilations of various comics or a separate individual thing? i do like the idea of starting from the beginning though (chronologically not publication date)

If u make a task of reading like all detective comics from the beginning I might join along :p

The Greatest collections are hodgepodges of stories from all over the place, usually in a big overprint size with a ton of pages. Mostly good self-contained issues and stories, though I think they update the contents every 10 years or so. Another great benefit is instantly seeing how the character evolved through different writers and artists over 60 years.

Year One - like all the darker, grittier, noirish takes on Batman, DKR, TKJ and so on - are more fun to read IMO if you understand the context of Batman going from the 30s/40s street avenger to the 50s/60s wackadoo camp to the 70s gothic dark detective era before it settled down into basically, the uber-serious, hyper-competent THE fucking BATMAN of the modern day.

(Skipping over the '90s/'00s extended Batman Family-era, I suppose, though I like that stuff too, that "style" of Batman was best done by the various Animated Series)

The Long Halloween is flawed and doesn't really deserve its "classic" reputation, but it is a fairly engaging Batman mystery featuring most of his villains, and a good place to start.

Another big fan of City of Crime over here.
Blind Justice, too! There's some film podcast that recently had Sam Hamm on to talk about Batman Returns, and he told a great story about working on Never Cry Wolf, that basically his job was to get rid of all the swears for Disney.
And Blind Justice had some lasting effect...bit of a dry run for the Bane/Broken Bat story...the Ducard character introduced in it was kind of in Batman Begins... though, admittedly, my best memory of those issues is the 50th Anniversary pin-ups in the back. Especially Keith Giffen's.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/hukl/giffenbatman.jpg

Recently re-read the first chapter of The Long Halloween, and it signals the "twist" in exactly the same way Hush does.
If you must read Loeb, read his Batman/Superman run, at least the McGuinness issues, and the Carlos Pacheco ones are great too. Real Bob Haney style over the top kookiness (bogged down by overbearing "he completes me" parallel interior monologues.

Ian - Nhex's post is good advice.

There's a run of 1970s issues -- I think they're O'Neill/Aparo or O'Neill/Adams -- that had me absolutely riveted as a teen, but I couldn't tell you the issue numbers because I read them in UK reprints. Lots of Talia and Lucius Fox and a butch but slightly emo Bruce Wayne. Any ideas?

My general preference is for long but self-contained Batman stories -- feels like the title's been in Big Event Mode since Knightfall 20 years ago.

Loeb is interesting - he's superb at setup and just astoundingly awful, like who-did-you-fuck-awful, at finishing stories.

Is the run drawn by Marshall Rogers any good? I dig that guy.

The 70s Rogers & Englehart is primo 70s Batman. If you like Marshall Rogers, you'll love this. I don't know if the Strange Apparitions trade is still in print--but you're reading mostly digital, anyway right? The first issue of the the 2004-ish reunion did nothing for me, despite my admiration for the 70s stuff.

Englehart's notes on the run: http://www.steveenglehart.com/comics/detective%20comics%20469-476.html

Thoughts on any of these/are they worth purchasing? Trying to trim down my continually expanding list.

Station 16 (Its pretty short? concept sounds like The Thing in comic form, cant be bad but worth the $$??)
Xmen - Bishops Crossing & Fatal Attractions (is there an identifiable point in the 90s when xmen goes from good to bad? read an issue of age of apocalypse and it just seemed so lame)
To Terra
Cross Game
Frank Miller Daredevil (read the issue where bullseye kills elektra and loved it, is the whole run on that level of quality/storytelling?)

Miller Daredevil starts wonky but picks up quick.

I don't know if the Strange Apparitions trade is still in print

OOP and very expensive.

'90s X-Men was actually decent for a little while. Age Of Apocalypse might be the wall you don't want to breach unless you're a super-fan. Bishop's Crossing is a good jumping-on point of the issues immediately following Claremont's departure. Fatal Attractions is probably a less good jumping-on point, as it collects stuff from about two years later and is a crossover involving all of the X-titles from that time. From the looks of it, Mutant Genesis 2.0 would actually be the best companion volume, as it collects the X-Men issues that were released at the same time as the issues of Uncanny collected in Bishop's Crossing. Helpful hint: they printed sooooo much of this stuff at the time that almost all of it is still available really cheap in back issues.

Okay, I just did some hardcore nerd work for you. If you're interested in reading post-Claremont '90s X-stuff up through the first crossover, here's what I'd recommend beyond the two books in my previous post:

-The first three Peter David X-Factor Visionaries trades (collecting 71-83). Good stuff that still holds up and pretty directly informs David's current run on X-Factor.
-The X-Force collections A Force To Be Reckoned With and Under The Gun (collecting 1-15). Mind you, although it gets better as it progresses, this is mostly Liefeld stuff. You have been warned.
-X-Cutioner's Song (collecting the following issues of all four titles).

If you're not feeling it at that point, it might be worth moving to a different era.

Greatly appreciated! I'm working may way through claremonts 80's stuff and just trying to plan ahead. Things look pretty messy after he's done and I don't want to guess and check so those are a huge help.
The glimpses I got of the artwork of Fatal Attractions are what had me intrigued.

Frank Miller's Daredevil is dope. Note that he doesn't officially become writer until about 10 issues into the run, at first just doing the artwork, but you might as well go for the whole ride as he gradually gets into the plotting. After you've finished his first run, you'll want to pick up the miniseries Elektra: Assassin as well as his return arc, Born Again, which is probably his crowning achievement here. Then if you still want more you can get his "Year One" of Daredevil, The Man Without Fear miniseries.

Fatal Attractions has about seven different artists, so I'm not sure which caught your eye. Quesada on X-Factor and Capullo on X-Force are the only ones I can think of that stand out. They both started on their respective titles around the time of X-Cutioner's Song and neither lasted much past Fatal Attractions (about a year). Oh, Romita, Jr. might've been on Uncanny by that point, too. I guess '90s X-art generally looked pretty good for a couple of years there until it went into the shitter.

Then if you still want more you can get his "Year One" of Daredevil, The Man Without Fear miniseries.

don't do this, it is a pointless comic and not very good

otm

I kinda hate Romita's art too

i used to as well, actually, but he got better in the 2000s. (and/or was helped by better inkers/colorists/technology)

for readers i recommend and use Comic Zeal for ipad and Ehon for the mac
reading comics on an iphone or on a panel-by-panel basis is madness
I would second all of mordy's choices and recommend most of Legends of the Dark Knight and Batman Black and White and Gotham Central

miller more or less stopped doing anything of interest immediately following sin city tho ymmv
the daredevil run is canonic, dark knight really doesn't hold up.

torranced Strange Apparitions over the weekend, looking forward to reading it

Look forward to learning that Marshall Rogers didn't "lose it" in the late '80s, he really couldn't ever draw properly

miller more or less stopped doing anything of interest immediately following sin city tho ymmv

specifically after the DHP run, not the decade+ of subsequent series

(I call Give Me Liberty #1 as his last sort-of-interesting / sort-of-good work. By the fourth issue you could see 90s Miller in full flowering.)

the daredevil run is canonic, dark knight really doesn't hold up.

Dark Knight holds up exactly as well as it did in 1987 - formally clever* & thrilling, gorgeous to look at (Varley), operatically overblown in a really fun way, seethingly right-wing & nigh-fascist 5 microns below the surface.

*heavily influenced by American Flagg, but Miller did process those lessons and develop an incredible sense of pacing & panel rhythm along with the grid variation, talking screens & quick cutting.

i agree that the first book of sin city is the cut off point; the other books and Liberty have moments but they're often horrible

it's very very hard for me to see dark knight the same way as i did when it first came out as i got copies about a year after the release and those babies are catnip for a thirteen year old. they're all but unreadable now but v v pretty btw.

my longer form miller flowchart is roughly as follows (the importance of Darrow, Gibbons, Mazzucchelli, Jansen is hard to understate):
daredevil first run > daredevil second run > ronin > Sin City v.1 up to big fat kill >hard boiled > year one > martha washington > rusty and the big guy > elektra > later sin city > wolverine > Dark Knight > DK2 > all star batman and robin

"hard to overstate"

http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.ie/2013/11/marshall-rogers-batman-portfolio-1981.html

I haven't seen much Marshall Rogers, but this stuff is pretty good.

Jeez, when it comes to a lot of the art you'll have to tolerate from mid-80s onward superhero comics, Romita Jr is a godsend. Tim Sale, Walter Simonson, Jerry Ordway, Chris Weston and Alan Davis are talented too. Mike Weiringo and Ed McGuinness have quite pleasant cartoony styles but don't know how often you're likely to bump into them if you're looking for storylines. I don't think Kevin Nowlan ever done a proper "run" on any superhero but he's good.

Rogers' artwork got more anatomically wayward the further he got away from Terry Austin, but I like the architectural flamboyance of his best work, and even have a fondness for Detectives Inc

Agree that JR JR only got really good after DareDevil Year One, but for a while he was easily Marvel's best, most consistent superhero artist