So Sup Forums I'm going to a comic book store for the first time in my life (what a disappointing life...

so Sup Forums I'm going to a comic book store for the first time in my life (what a disappointing life, I know) with the hopeful prospects of buying a few comic books. Is there any suggestions you guys have?

self bump

bump for this poor man

You should probably go in already knowing what you want.

yea I should except I don't know whats currently ongoing, I actually started trying to read Spider-Man and Batman from their first serializations so I'm really behind

You're going to have to be more specific. What kind of books are you interested in? Comics cover a lot.

nitty gritty superheroes or comedy stuff like howard the duck and deadpool

Don't buy from stores. They're overpriced. Go buy trades from instocktrades or Amazon for a reduced price. If new to comics start with the basics like watchmen, zot, will eisner's spirit, etc.

Do what I do and torrent them except for ones you really like or ones that you can't get online.
The money I save doing that I use on Japanese X-Men doujinshi instead.

how much do comics go for?

>Spider-Man and Batman from their first serializations

You seriously went back and read the first issues ever?

Way too much.

>start with the basics like watchmen, zot, will eisner's spirit

FEDORA DETECTED

OP, don't listen to this faggot. There's nothing "basic" about any of those.

yes

currently issue #317 for Batman and #179 for Spider-Man

like how much? give me a number bro

Pirating comics is easy.

I'm not telling you not to buy them, but you probably will save yourself a lot of money and a lot of frustration if you try before you buy.

If you like gritty superheroes, try Frank Miller's Daredevil or Batman: Year One. Also Alias is pretty good. Also Batman: The Long Halloween.

If you want funny books, can't go wrong with Joe Kelly Deadpool. Also Dan Slott She-Hulk is pretty good.

Are you fucking kidding me? You read 317 issues of Batman and 179 issues of Spider-Man?

no I'm not

Smaller trades run from $15-$20, depending on how old they are. Larger books can range from $25 all the way up to $60 if they're big omnibuses.

$4 if you're lucky, $5-10 if you're not (read: Marvel shit)

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?

Don't buy like a giant fucking stack of comics. Set a hard limit for what you want, say like five or six issues tops.

After you read each issue, ask yourself if you wish you had the next issue right now. If not, don't bother getting the next issue at all. If yes, put it down on your pull-list for next time.

Basically the biggest mistake people make is they get a shit ton of comics right off the bat and waste a lot of money. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone come into a shop, say "I wanna start reading comics guys!", get like $100 worth of comics and then never come back.

Another thing: before you buy a book in a series, check it to find out if it's in the middle of a story-arc or not. Usually you can find this by opening it to the credit page and seeing if it says "Part 1" or 2 or whatever. If it is in the middle of one, don't get it, just wait till the arc is over. If you're not sure, ask someone in the store, or check online. Arcs are usually less than five issues so it's not like you're gonna have to wait forever.

If you really like a certain series, you might want to catch up on the current run by buying some trades.

I see that kind of insanity a lot. People don't realize 99.999999% of a series is completely irrelevant to the current story arc. You see people go "I want to read Spider-Man, but I don't want to buy over 700 issues just to understand what's going on!". These are usually people who are used to reading manga.

Spend around $50 on trades

read them in an hour or so

Then read $50 worth of novels and realize that buying comics is horribly expensive and never do it again

I was actually really surprised, I spent like 5 days reading all of Naruto and One Piece but its taken me months to get this far in Batman and Spider-Man. It's a pain but I still feel I should understand the roots before reading the more recent ones. No its not sufficient to just read a wiki on what happens

when I checked the comic book store online the prices ranged from $2.99 to $5.99

Continuity basically does not exist in comics. DC reboots every fucking decade and Marvel since the Disney buyout a decade ago has just flat out started ignoring their own continuity.

>nitty gritty superheroes

What the fuck is "nitty gritty"?

This. I got some friends into pre-Infinite Crisis YJ back in the day and they loved it. Then everybody they loved died and they felt so confused and cheated they didn't bother continuing with DC. To me, it's just how capebooks are, but DC lost several new readers then. Great going with that one, DC.

snikt snikt bubfam

It's very good to read the roots but focus more on reading specific runs or eras rather than just reading everything, because vast quantities of them are just shit and none of them are relevant plotwise to the current stories.

Those are single issues. Trades, or trade paperbacks (TPBs) are collections of issues by a single writer. So for example, you'll have a trade of "Batman by Archie Goodwin" that has a bunch of stories by Archie Goodwin from the 70's, but there's also "Batman vol. 1: The Court of the Owls" which is the first six or seven issues of the New 52 Batman series by Scott Snyder, and volumes 2-8 or however far it went contain the rest of the New 52 series by the same writer, up until the writer changed to Tom King last year, when the TPB releases restarted to "vol 1: I Am Gotham".

Buying the trades is far cheaper than buying the single issues, but the downside is of course you have to wait till all the issues are out before it's available. DC trades range from $10 to $20, while Marvel's run from at least $15 typically because they're greedy fucks.

The difference between something like Naruto and something like Batman is that Naruto is all written and drawn by one guy, and it's one continuous story. Batman has been written and drawn by tons and tons of people, each telling their own self-contained stories, called "runs".

To be fair YJ are like the most consistently fucked over characters in DC by a longshot, and that's saying something considering their competition are the New Teen Titans crew.

That's for individual 20-page issues. If you want a BOOK that's got 4-6 issues in it, those are usually around $15.

thanks, I think I'd like to stick with issues rather than trades, its easier to spend child's money every month than have to wait for them all to be out I think

so what would you suggest about understanding the roots? I know for example Spider-Man has this whole thing with being possessed by Dr. Octopus so I think that'd be important as well as stuff like Secret Wars?

Don't worry about that kinda stuff. If it's important, the comic will explain it. So much has happened to these characters over the decades and decades they've been around, you'll drive yourself crazy if you're too caught up in continuity.

>Trades, or trade paperbacks (TPBs) are collections of issues by a single writer.

This is very frequently not the case.

so I should focus on reading in the moment rather than from a historical perspective?

If you know that Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider, his Uncle Ben was killed by a criminal that he had ignored, and then he became Spider-Man, then you know literally EVERYTHING necessary about Spider-Man.

Just pick a fucking story and read it.

This may be hard to understand, but "continuity" is not really taken seriously in superhero comics and is constantly being either replaced, changed, or outright ignored.

alright thanks

Spider-Man's current run is not very highly regarded, the thing with Ock inhabiting his body in particular. That's one of the very few modern examples of a writer staying on a book for many years, guy named Dan Slott. However none of the prior stuff is really important to the current story, as said
here
and here
It's really up to you. Do you want to read the best bits from all of a character's history, or do you want to see just what they're doing right now? Personally I prefer the former because you always get something good and there's limitless material to choose from.

Not sure what you mean, I have over 300 trades on my shelf right now and IIRC the only ones not limited to a single writer are the Essential or Showcase Presents collections.

One positive thing about starting from the beginning of Spider-Man is that his early comics were actually mostly decent for the first couple decades.

Also all of Dan Slott's Spider-Man is being posted by a kind user over here
It's sort of an "epic" in that it's very long. If you managed to read over 300 issues of fucking Silver Age Batman though you should have no problem reading that if you want to really sink your teeth into something long.

Pretty much. Just pick a point you'd like to start from and just start going forward.

I started reading from the collection The Next Chapter, which was the relaunch they did in the 90s. In the mid-2000s there was a relaunch called Brand New Day, which is another good starting point. The current new relaunch is called Worldwide, which I can't honestly recommend, as I haven't been enjoying it.

yea I think ill stick with the former

are the newer ones just not up to par? I feel one of the good things about Spider-Man in the early issues was his being a constant failure makes him relatable, is that missing?

thanks

in that case I think ill probably pick Brand New Day or something prior

Here are some things to start with. I'll go off what I think you mean, user. Superhero titles go from one end to the other, so not many are just one thing to expect and read for.

>nitty gritty superheroes whatever that means
Batman: Year One, DKR, Arkham Asylum, Gotham By Gaslight, Year 100, All Star Batman, there's a buncha them
Superman: All Star Superman
Deathstroke
Suicide Squad
Swamp Thing
The Authority
Constantine
Punisher
Venom
The Maxx
Hellboy and BPRD

>comedy stuff
Ambush Bug (he was Deadpool before Deadpool was Deadpool but DC instead of Marvel)
Plastic Man
The Tick

Not much Marvel in this list because who really reads Marvel anyway.

The most recent spider-man series has been kind of bad. The writer has been on the book for a very long time and has clearly ran out of ideas. However his work on Brand New Day and forward was pretty good, some of which were incredible, like The Gauntlet and Grim Hunt.

>are the newer ones just not up to par?

Current Marvel is literally nothing more than sjw propaganda. And the writing quality and art are literally amateur level. LITERALLY. Some of Marvel's writers were hired as bloggers or webcomic """"""""""""""""artists"""""""""""""""" with no prior professional writing or art experience, let alone in comics.

>being a constant failure makes him relatable, is that missing?

He's a super-scientist who can do no wrong and constantly tells the readers how oppressed females allegedly are. He also fucked a midget and is no longer married.

so he's a normie? I'm really disappointed

>I think ill probably pick Brand New Day

ABORT! ABORT! DO NOT DO THIS!

Holy fucking shit, dude, that's fucking amazing, god damn. Has it been worth it so far?

If you like superhero comedies I would highly recommend reading the Giffen/DeMatteis era of Justice League, known among fans as "JLI". This was when the Justice League was all b-list heroes and was an action-comedy superhero sitcom.

On that note, if you enjoy this, try reading Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. Both pretty funny follow-ups to this series.

>Superman: All Star Superman

This is the fucking opposite of "gritty".

Yes I forgot those two, user is correct.

I also forgot Superman Red Son.

Shhh.

However if you DO want a pseudo-gritty Superman story that ALSO gives you a real good look at the character, try reading the story "What's So Funny about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?". Real good stuff.

ultimately I'll say it has not been worth it, many chapters are just unnecessary conflict with weirdo villains. Spider-Man has my interest but I can sadly not say the same for Batman, every issue makes me want to go and shoot myself. It seems more like the mindless comedy I used to watch as a child in tom and jerry or looney tunes. It's not bad by any means just uninteresting and repetitive. Alternatively if you're talking about reading Naruto and One Piece, it was interesting I just think Naruto for example could have succeeded all the same with half the number of issues it ended with (don't even start on fucking Boruto). One Piece was semi interesting with some stretching as well but who knows, maybe the writer couldn't think of future arcs and needs to pan out the issues to get ideas

Classic Spider-Man is legendary and was the basis of everything that followed, so it's a very common theme for his life to be shitty.

IMO THE best Spidey era was the late 80's early 90's, specifically the story "Kraven's Last Hunt". That's available as a TPB on Amazon.

One of the most famous comics of all time, Spidey or otherwise, is "Death of the Stacys", also available as a TPB on Amazon.

Looking on Amazon actually surprisingly little of Spider-Man's legendarily great history has been collected. Some other good ones I'm seeing:
>Spider-Man by Roger Stern
>The Death of Jean DeWolfe
>Return of the Sinister Six

This is a meme, there are like six books that are actually "SJW". However, most of Marvel's stuff right now IS indeed shitty, it's just that it's regular shitty instead of "SJW" shitty.

Can't speak for him, but Spider-Man is one of the most consistently great comics of all time, but Batman turns to shit for like a decade after Bill Finger stops writing most issues. Batman doesn't get good again until around 1969.

OP, DON'T LISTEN TO THIS FAGGOT. IT IS NOT A "MEME". MARVEL IS LITERALLY NOTHING BUT SJW PROPAGANDA LITERAL FAGGOTRY.