Everybody should read Metabarons:

Ha! Love that I open the thread for the first time in a long time and find a giant image of Rat Queens. I am also a fan. A page of it popped up on tumblr and I ended up downloading volume 1 and all available issues on Comixology.

Comixology is the devil. As physical storage space is limited it's great as I can read way more books than possible, but this also means I can read WAY more books.

Current books I'm reading are Rat Queens, Batman '66, Batman Vs Green Hornet, Captain Marvel (2014, and working my way through the earlier volumes), Transformers Vs GI Joe, Transformers More Than Meets the Eye, All New X-Men, Black Widow, working my way through Classic Deadpool and Deadpool 2012 onwards, Rocket Raccoon, Harley Quinn, She-Hulk, Bee & Puppycat and picking up Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd Casefiles every so often. Also waiting for Orc Stain to return, which I think Rat Queen fans would enjoy. James Stokoe art is awesome.

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Link to the Offtopica Pic Challenge album: http://s162.photobucket.com/user/Offtop ... e/library/
@_Jackalope_ on the twitters.

Ultimate Marvel, DC: Vertigo, Image, 2000AD (though not for a while) and anything that takes my fancy really...I have hundreds of TPB's and re-read them regularly ;)

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Living in the shadow of Baby Davros...

Saga is pretty great:

just found "Time Brigade" which seems fun thus far (12 pages in - however only 2 volumes )

Everybody should read Enki Bilal:

just started reading this:

now going through:

Lanfeust of Troy

currently reading the English version of

While I've always sought out comics published by companies other than the Big Two, I effectively gave up on DC and Marvel several years ago due to the endless cycle of one-huge-year-long-crossover-event-after-another, plus the fact they both starting completely rebooting their universes every three-four years. Recently I've found myself buying quite a few titles from Titan Comics, simply because they've started producing the kind of material I like to read, such as an English reprint of the French Chimera Brigade (frustratingly incomplete at time of writing - I suppose they're waiting to see the sales figures for the initial four issues). They've also revived the classic British characters Hook Jaw and Johnny Red, the latter being part of Garth Ennis's on-going mission to bring back as many UK comic book heroes as possible, following his Dan Dare mini-series for the now-defunct Virgin Comics a decade ago, and his Battler Britton mini for Wildstorm. And although I'm not much of a fan of New Who, Titan's upcoming mini-series Doctor Who: Ghost Stories, centring on the superhero and supporting cast introduced in last year's Christmas special 'The Return of Doctor Mysterio', looks intriguing.

I tend to stick with Marvel precisely because they don't reboot other than the odd soft reboot (and because Marvel Unlimited is as cheap as chips) and I have recently been rewarded because some of their comics about what Avengers do on their days off are actually good. If there is a better comic than The Vision then I haven't read it.

currently reading Walking Dead, Marvel Zombies, Injustice Gods among Men, 2000AD just for Dredd, Frostbite and the Lost Boys

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People keep making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow

Considering the massive popularity of horror comics in the rest of the world, I've always been mystified that comparably so few have been published in Britain, especially considering our country's long tradition of ghost stories. For example, nearly all of the horror comics published here during the Fifties (Black Magic was the longest-running) were full of American reprints instead of homegrown material. Historically, the Big Two comic publishers in the UK were Scottish company DC Thompson and the London-based IPC/Fleetway, and between them they only produced six horror titles (well, five actually - see below) over a period of almost fifty years. In fact, so wary of the genre were they that the first two truly British weekly comics dedicated exclusively to the supernatural were actually humour titles (!);

Shiver and Shake. IPC/Fleetway. 10/03/73 - 05/10/74. 83 issues. A weekly humour comic with horror-themed characters and stories.

Vulcan. IPC/Fleetway. Scotland-exclusive print run: 22/02/75 - 20/09/75. 30 issues. Nationwide print run: 27/09/75 - 03/04/76. 28 issues (58 issues in total). An experimental reprint series which collected together several sci-fi/fantasy strips about strange & sinister anti-heroes that had originally been scattered across various conventional boys' comics (such as Lion, Ranger and Valiant) during the Sixties. The line-up consisted of giant robotic gorilla 'Mytek the Mighty', 'Kelly's Eye' (about adventurer Jim Kelly, rendered indestructable due to a mystical amulet), supervillain 'The Spider', sci-fi saga 'The Trigan Empire', invisible criminal-turned-secret agent 'The Steel Claw', the self-explanatory 'Saber: King of the Jungle' and 'Robot Archie'. So while not a true horror comic per se, it's contents were so weird, dark and uncanny that it would be neglectful not to include it in this list. Vulcan was initially only published in Scotland, and when distribution was expanded to the rest of the UK, the numbering of the series reverted back to #1, so non-Scottish readers would believe it was a brand-new comic instead of the continuation of an existing one. IPC also published a German language version of Vulcan entitled Kobra, that considerably outlasted the UK version and ran for three years.

Monster Fun. IPC/Fleetway. 14/06/75 - 30/10/76. 72 issues. Another horror-themed humour weekly. Despite Shiver and Shake being relatively short-lived, someone at IPC clearly still believed in the concept.

It was probably the success of IPC/Fleetways' girls weekly Jinty that ushered in the non-humourous horror titles. Although it started out in the mid-Seventies as a traditional mainstream girls comic, the editors of Jinty experimented by including a number of sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories. These proved popular, and so the practice continued. So while not an actual horror comic itself, Jinty acted as an influential forerunner;

Spellbound. DC Thompson. 25/09/76 - 14/01/78. 69 issues. The first 'serious' British horror comic weekly. Like Jinty, it was intended for female readers. Sadly, the only DC Thompson title in this list, but the Scottish publisher's output always had a reputation for being tamer, safer and more conservative than competitors IPC, especially from the late Seventies onwards (when young guns John Wagner and Pat Mills joined IPC, revamped Valiant, launched Battle - in response to the success of DC Thompson's Warlord - and swiftly created Action, 2000AD and Starlord). In retrospect, it's surprising that DC Thompson were responsible for such a milestone title as Spellbound in the first place.

Misty. IPC/Fleetway. 04/02/78 - 12/01/80. 101 issues. Also intended for girls, but quite liked by boys as well. Part of the wave of late-Seventies IPC comics created by Wagner and Mills, it was supposed to directly compete with Spellbound, but ironically the DC Thompson title folded three weeks before Misty launched. If you're looking for the most classic and iconic British horror comic, then Misty is it.

Scream. IPC/Fleetway. 24/03/84 - 30/06/84. 15 issues. The first British horror comic aimed specifically at boys, it concentrated on blood and grue. Never stood a chance. Didn't anyone at IPC remember what happened several years earlier to the ill-fated, ultra-violent Action?

The failure of Scream meant that the Big Two never again attempted a horror title. IPC/Fleetway got out of the comic business in the late-Nineties, selling their last two titles - flagship 2000AD and it's spin-off The Judge Dredd Megazine - to computer game company Rebellion, who thankfully continue to publish both to this day. DC Thompson still produce The Beano and Commando.

Pleasantly surprised to discover that having recently produced two volumes of Misty reprints, Rebellion (who own the rights to all IPC/Fleetway material from the early Seventies onwards) are launching a series of Jinty collections. Volume One - containing the entire runs of the stories 'The Land of No Tears' and 'The Future Zoo' - will be available in June.

Read Rebellion's Action 2020 Special yesterday. One disappointing aspect is that the longest story it contains is nothing to do with Action . Entitled 'Hell Machine' and written & partly drawn by Henry Flint, it's an all-new and open-ended tale that smacks of being originally conceived as the first two instalments of an ongoing story intended to appear in 2000AD, only for Rebellion to re-consider and dump it here instead. Authentic new Action material includes 'Kids Rule OK' and 'Dredger' stores that are acceptable reads but nothing particularly noteworthy. But one of the Special's highpoints is a 'Hellman' story written by Garth Ennis. We all know that Ennis loves his war comics - especially British war comics - and following his Johnny Red mini-series for Titan Comics a few years ago, he now gets to write about another classic wartime character. it's a simple but effective tale set during the final days of the war in Europe, as Hellman and his tank crew come to the aid of three young orphans trying to flee the advancing Russian forces, with one of the children - a hero-worshipping little boy - receiving a quiet but sobering lesson about the realities of war and the true nature of the Third Reich. The Special's other highpoint is (of course) a crowd-pleasing 'Hook Jaw' tale, told entirely without dialogue as the Great White surprisingly faces off against another iconic British comic character (I won't spoil who), with a group of extremely unlucky fishermen/hunters caught in the middle. Enormous fun.

Looking forward to Rebellion's Smash Special, featuring all-new tales of The Spider, The Steel Claw, Mytek the Mighty, Johnny Future and the (female) Thunderbolt, and their Misty & Scream Special, both due out later this year.

I might pick up the Scream special for nostalgia's sake, but I was never really into the other comics (unless I couldn't get anything else).

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Did you get the previous Scream and Misty specials that Rebellion published in 2017 and 2018?

No, the trouble with being a 2000AD and Meg subscriber is I don't really get around to going to any shops that sell the kind of range of comics that include the specials so I miss out (assuming life is normal and not locked down!).

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Latest great reads are

Dark Ark - God saved Noah so Satan thought great idea I can make an ark as well ...just not for people

Firefly - The New run, I love the Serenity Crew

Gung Ho - Spiritual sequel to Walking Dead

2000AD - Still just for Dredd

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People keep making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow

British superheroes. Over the last twenty years we've seen the following: from Wildstorm there was the rather wonderful The Establishment which lasted thirteen issues, the sadly disappointing Albion mini-series co-written by Leah Moore, and Dave Gibbons' workmanlike but unremarkable mini-series reboot of Thunderbolt Jaxon. Marvel gave us two entertaining Union Jack mini-series, Paul Cornell's highly enjoyable Wisdom mini-series which lead directly into the equally-as-good Captain Britain and MI13 (fifteen issues, a special and a Spitfire oneshot), and while their attempts to bring back Miracleman never got off the launch pad, there was the Revolutionary War event (several oneshots and a bookending two-part mini) that revived practically all the early Nineties' Marvel UK characters and then killed most of them off. From DC there was the Knight & Squire mini-series from Cornell, which was up to his usual high standard. Paul Grist's Jack Staff bounced around various independent publishers before finding a permanent home at Image for several years. The revived Valiant Comics gave us a rebooted and rebranded Ninja-K; while the Superman equivalent in Oni Press/Lion Forge's fledgling superhero universe (which appears to have been curtailed or gone into hiatus) was Kino, which owed a massive debt to Alan Moore's run on Miracleman.

However, in regards to British superheroes from British publishers, the only example from a mainstream company has been The Vigilant from Rebellion (owners and publishers of 2000AD), which teamed up over a dozen characters (heroes and villains) from numerous IPC comics from the Seventies and Eighties (Rebellion have also produced several revival specials for titles such as Misty, Scream, Action, Smash, Battle, etc). I'd immensely enjoyed the first and second Vigilant oneshots published in 2018 and 2019, and was looking forward to the third and final oneshot that was to conclude the story... But it turns out the earlier oneshots clearly didn't sell, as I've recently learnt that the final part of the saga has already been published, hidden away inside the June issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine. Oh well. Apparently the entire story is being collected in a trade paperback early next year, so I'll probably get that. And on a related note...

The Union, a five issue mini-series from Marvel featuring Union Jack and introducing four new heroes (Brittania, Snakes, Kelpie and Choir) representing the nations of the United Kingdom, was supposed to be published earlier this year as part of Marvel's epic universe-wide Empyre crossover event, but fell victim to the comic book publishing and retail industries closing down due to Covid 19. It was announced however that The Union would see print later in the year, and as Empyre had been brought to a conclusion in the various titles that had been published on schedule, I'd figured that The Union would be marketed as 'An Untold Tale Of Empyre' and reveal what had happened in the UK during that event. However, the first issue of The Union is coming out in December and is now part of Marvel's new epic universe-wide crossover event King In Black! I know that both some rewriting and alteration of the artwork will have taken place, but this just proves how utterly similar, interchangeable and cynical these massive crossover events are.

Batman - Three Jokers
Dead Day
DCeased – Hope at World’s End
Firefly
Gung Ho
Injustice Year Zero
Joker Harley 06
The Boys Dear Becky
Resident Alien vol 1 - 5

2000ad Still Just fro Dredd ...although they have just started a Fiends of the Eastern front prequel

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People keep making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow

No love for Sinister Dexter? Awesome story. And The Out was a great idea, possibly not quite meeting its potential but I love the concept.

The musical episode of Lawless in the Megazine was a bold move, considering the medium. I think they just about pulled it off, surprisingly. Apparently there's professionaly recorded live versions of the songs on the 2000ad website but I don't really want to hear them if I'm honest.

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I dip into the megazine (bulk buy old mags online) and then I read other stories like Corbin, Lawless or Other city stories stories but the mainstay for me is 2000AD and Dredd its the only reason I still get the mag ... been reading 42 years (with a 6 year break in the late 90s)

Sinister Dexter just never grabbed my attention, neither did classics like Slaine (preferred Blackhawk) ,Halo Jones, Ace Truckers or Zenith ..liked them but never loved them

Mr Cairo and My old username Preacher are both from Dredd stories ..loved the man since I was 9 and my dad bought me my first back in 77 (yes Prog 2)

My Work Desk ...

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People keep making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow

Current and upcoming titles;

Alder (Titan Comics)
Batman: Three Jokers (DC)
Bomb Queen: Trump Card (Image)
Broken Gargoyles (Source Point Press)
Commanders in Crisis (Image)
Exciting Comics (Antarctic Press)
Ghost Wolf: The End of All Tales (Amigo Comics)
Once & Future (Boom! Studios)
Patriotika (Antarctic Press)
Seeress (Source Point Press)
The Union (Marvel)
Villainous (Mad Cave Studios)
World Wide Warriors (Red Anvil Inc)