Not long ago I finished reading the entirety of Bone. The above-linked item is the massive 1300+ page omnibus edition, and at that price ($27.00 US), it''s a steal.

Bone is a comedic fantasy epic revolving around three cousins who get lost in a strange valley. These comics do away with the omniscient narrator text which is present in so many comics. Nor are there any ""thought balloons""... none at all. As a result, you''ll find yourself focusing more on the artwork to divine such things as setting, character thoughts and emotions, etc. Jeff Smith''s bold, black-and-white artwork is more than up to the task of presenting the necessary subtext. The result is that Bone feels less like an abridged novel and more like how a good comic should feel. I recommend it.

The Sandman series I thought was interesting, and is completely out in trade paperback.

Cerebus the Aardvark finished its run a while back, the longest running independent series ever. It started as a spoof of Conan the Barbarian back in the 80''s and worked itself into its own story complete with social and political conotations (sp?).

As a plus you can possibly find the trades collected in your library, at least I can in mine and I don''t exactly live in a metropolitian area.

But that''s what makes it a guilty pleasure (ahem).

""No honey its not porn. Its a comic!""

The only one I''ve bought in 20 years...Vol 1 of ""The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"". Vol 2 is just out in softcover, I believe...

Outstanding!

Powers, by Brian Michael Bendis is great. A lot of it is in trade paperback, the one linked here is the first 5 issues I think.

100 Bullets
Queen and Country
Astonishing X-Men
Watchmen
The Sandman
Planetary (Anything by Warren Ellis really, like Transmetropolitan or even his Ultimate Fantastic Four run which I think is still going)
Preacher (The only Garth Ennis stuff I like, but check out his Punisher: War Journal runs if you dig the Punisher.)
Bone
Lenore (I love the art)
30 Days of Night is in TPB, and I think Return To Barrow is as well now. Might be wrong.

You''ve read the great Batman storylines, right? Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, etc? I don''t read a whole lot of strictly Superhero stuff anymore, but I still respect it. I''d say go into a local comic book store, look around at some of the covers, and see what art catches your eye. That was how I got back into it a year or so ago.

Transmetropolitan. Brilliant sci-fi/satire, starring gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem. (Think Hunter S. Thompson. Except even more so.) All out in in TPB too, which is nice. The first one, Back on the Street, collects only the first three issues and consequently can be bought with someone''s stolen lunch money. You won''t regret giving it a go at that price.

Flaming Carrot

Cerebus (again)

Knights of the Dinner Table (I honestly think it''s hilarious)

Hate

Eightball

Love and Rockets

Preacher
Y: The Last Man

only two I''ve bothered with in recent memory

That''s been a longstanding fantasy of mine as well. As a teenager, that fantasy drove me to hoard apocalyptic fiction of all stripes. Things like The Stand by Stephen King, Lucifer''s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard (it''s not a bad book, I swear!), etc.

I''ve always secretly (or not so secretly) hoped that the world might someday be devastated by some great catastrophe, leaving me with naught but guns and wits to ensure my own continued existence. Sometimes in my reveries, I meet up with friends of mine who also managed to survive, and we have to navigate the decrepit planet as we search for high adventure. Usually, I stumble upon a suitable mate, which is cool! And on rare occasions, I find myself grouping with a community of lawful-good survivors, and we must endure great hardships in order to deliver enlightenment and rationality to the blighted planet.

So, there''s a big part of me that craves an element of the epic. This is why, when I lose myself in fiction, it''s usually in an epic of some sort. Whether it be the poems of old, the movies of today, or a suitable game (Fallout comes to mind as one example, but really any game in which the player is the hero will suffice), I am ineluctably drawn toward it. I haven''t done P&P RPGs for a while now, but when I did, it was because of the epic stories in which it allowed me to participate, or which it allowed me to craft as a DM. Escapism is a wonderful, marvelous thing; our proclivity for it is, I think, perhaps the finest attribute of our species.

I''d recommend ""Kingdom Come"", it''s one of the DC Elseworlds series. Basically, it''s what would happen if all the DC superheroes were allowed to age naturally, what kind of world they''d end up in. It''s pretty good for the most part.

Also The Dark Night Returns. That''s all I have to say as I don''t read many comics.

I''m going to have to insist that you consider Preacher. A little on the violent side, but tons of fun. I read through the entire trade paper collection over my first winter in New England, and it really hit the spot.

I really don''t ""do"" comics, but Preacher and Sandman are my guilty pleasures.

If violence is what you are looking for, check out Frank Miller''s Hard Bolied three issue series. Two page, tabloid spreads of meticulously drawn violence, carnage and mayhem. Plus great names for future cars like the Clint Eastwood and the Jesus Chrysler.

Indeed. Also by Brian Michael Bendis.

Only about 26 issues, but good stuff. Jessica Jones (the heroine) now appears in The Pulse, also by Marvel (straight up Marvel, not Marvel Max like Alias, so expect a LOT less sex and swearing) which is good, but a distant second place to Alias.