Shelf Life - Jul 6, 2012

[CBR News]

Despite the fact that he's not a fan of list articles, Ron Marz returns this week with a list of his favorite comic book runs of all time, including work by Howard Chaykin, Alan Moore, Jack Kirby and Matt Wagner.


Full article here.

[Batman and Charles]

My favorite comic runs:

Uncle Scrooge/Donald Duck by Carl Barks
Scrooge is my favorite comics character. Barks is a master of story-telling, comedic timing and priceless facial expressions

Uncle Scrooge/Donald Duck by Don Rosa
Rosa's stories are often based upon obscure historical facts, and he makes a lot of effort to make the background for his stories as historically accurate as possible, which is awesome. His art is fantastic, really giving off a feeling of grand adventure.

Hellboy by Mike Mignola, Richard Corben and Duncan Fegredo
Hellboy is a really well-developed and interesting character, as well as being hella cool-looking. Mignola is a stellar artist, and Corben and Fegredo add their own beautiful flavors to the stories they draw. The story just gets better and better, and more and more interesting. Can't wait for Hellboy in Hell!

Lucifer by Mike Carey, Peter Gross and Dean Ormston
An epic story with Deep Themes and a great ensemble cast of characters.

Bone by Jeff Smith
A lovely cast of characters and a real mastery of black & white art from Smith.

Shade the Changing Man by Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham
The three main characters are wonderful and really drive the series forward. It's surreal sci-fi but it's really a drama at heart, and that's why I love it.

Uzumaki by Junji Ito
this comic is horrifying to the point of being beautiful. It's also a great example of great worldbuilding through a series of short stories.

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, John Totleben, Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch.
I really like this run for its amount of touching moments, and how it's a personal journey that's also an epic journey.

Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison, Richard Case etc.
Morrison comes up with a lot of really weird crap in this comic, and it's awesome. Apart from that it just tells great stories and has a lot of great character moments.

Orion by Walt Simonson
I'm also a fan of other Simonson runs like FF and Thor, but this one resonated far more with me personally. Simonson weaves a huge, larger-than-life story with Orion and the rest of the New Gods. Filled to the brim with awesome moments.

[Predabot]

Ahh... not a bad list, still, it's impossible to agree with every choice! ;)

Alas, here is my list:

1 Scrooge's Life - by Don Rosa ( no, it's not actually a mini-series. It's an entire run, with lots of extras and tid-bits added here and there, long after the first issues tackling the subject)
2 Thor - by Walt Simonson
3 Fantastic Four - by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
4 S.H.I.E.L.D - by Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver
5 Amazing Spider-man - Lee, Ditko, Romita
6 Elf Quest - by Wendy and Richard Pini
7 Modesty Blaise - by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway
8 Little Nemo - by Winsor McCay
9 Tintin - by Hergé
10 New X-men - by Grant Morrison

Woe to me that I cannot add All-Star Superman to the list... as it is truly my most favourite comic-book of all time... :( But alas... it's merely a maxi-series.

[Scoobydid]

Just off the top of my head....

Do totally agree on Miller's Daredevil, & American Flagg

I would throw in

the Manhunter run in Detective by O'Neil and Simonson
X-Men #108 to ? Claremont and Byrne
and of course the all too brief Detective run by Englehart and Rogers

[mmurphy1968]

Also in no particular order:
X-Men by Claremont & Byrne
Justice League by Giffen/DeMattis
Planetary by Ellis
Fantastic Four by Byrne
The Question by O'Neil
Wonder Woman by Perez
Sandman by Gaiman
Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner
Transmetropolitan by Ellis
Dreadstar by Starlin

That was a bit harder than I thought it would be

[Zevious Zoquis]

The GOON
Atomic Robo

[Crunch C.]

What a great list Ron! Great comic storytelling all around! I'd like to add:

FF by Byrne
Hulk by Peter David
X-Men by Claremont and Byrne
Kamandi by KIRBY
Justice League by DeMattis/Giffen/Maguire

[Thad]

Going for stuff nobody's mentioned yet:

Astro City -- Busiek/Anderson/Ross
Love and Rockets -- Los Bros Hernandez
Quantum and Woody -- Priest/Bright
Madman -- Allred
Frank -- Woodring
Black Panther -- Priest et al
Groo -- Aragones/Evanier
Eightball -- Clowes
X-Statix -- Milligan/Allred

[Scoobydid]

Sorry that was Goodwin/Simonson Denny O'Neil was Editor I beleive

[LEADER DESSLOK]

It was tough but all I had to do was look at how I store my comics. The ones most dear to me are the most accessible in case there was a fire and I had to grab em first!

10. THE X-MEN: CHRIS CLAREMONT w/various artists. I gave up on them after he left the first time and never returned. His highpoints were 1976-83

9. DAREDEVIL: FRANK MILLER #169-190

8.BATMAN: BOB KANE 1939-1949 w/various writers. It's cartoony and awkward but I love it. Technically his tenure doing full pencils came to an end around 46 when he hired Lew Schwartz to do backgrounds but he still did the figures of the main characters up til 49-50 when Schwartz took over all of it.

7. THE AVENGERS- (TIE) STEVE ENGLEHART and JIM SHOOTER

6. WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES (DONALD DUCK)- CARL BARKS The shorts were consistently funny while the longer stories not as much

5. EC COMICS- AL FELDSTEIN The main writer for their entire line of New Trend books!

4. YOUNG ROMANCE-JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY It was a toss up between YR and the Fantastic Four but it just came down to the fact that I find more interesting things in this little romance comic than the FF. I guess with me, human drama is more entetaining in the long run than sci-fi!

3. TOMB OF DRACULA- MARV WOLFMAN, GENE COLAN & TOM PALMER See #4. The horror was there but the drama was even more intense!

2.LONE WOLF AND CUB- KAZUO KOIKE & GOSEKI KOJIMA

1. KAMUI- SANPEI SHIRATO

[Boabie]

My top two runs would be Jim Starlin's original Warlock run, then Simonson's Thor. After that, Lee & Kirby/ Buscema on FF, Conway & Andru on Spidey, Ennis on Punisher, Starlin's Dreadstar and Infinity Gauntlet, David on Hulk, they'd all be in my top ten.

[Harlock999]

Top 10 favorites, huh?

Well, in no particular order, I've gotta go with...

- Priest's Black Panther
- Claremont's entire X-Men run
- Miller's Daredevil work
- Harras/Epting/Palmer's Avengers run (still criminally underrated)
- Casey's Wildcats material
- Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo
- Ostrander's Suicide Squad
- Lee/Kirby's Fantastic Four
- Barks' Uncle Scrooge
- Millar/Hitch's Ultimates

Honorable mentions go out to Grell's Green Arrow, Englehart's Green Lantern, Claremont/Davis' Excalibur, the Simonsons' X-Factor, Nocenti/JRJR's Daredevil, Brubaker/Phillips' Sleeper, Moore/Charest's WildC.A.T.s, Gruenwald's "The Captain" saga from Captain America, Morrison's JLA, O'Neil/Adams' Batman work, O'Neil/Adams' Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Hama's G.I.Joe, Jones' Hulk, Waid and Shooter's work for the Legion of Super-Heroes "threeboot," Eastman/Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Byrne's Namor the Sub-Mariner, and Stern/Buscema/Palmer's Avengers.

I'm sure I'm probably missing a few others...

[sonicx1977]

I like what most people like:

Watchmen: Its really great, and i read it several times
The dark knight returns: Same as Watchmen
Batman: Year One: Same, same
Bone: Whats not to love? Read it 4 times
Spider-Man: Romita and Lee run
FF: Kirby and Lee
Ultimate Spider-Man: Bendis and Bagley. Till Death of Spider-Man
Preacher
Savage Dragon: still going strong
Amazing Spider-Man: Ross andru and Conway

[Batman and Charles]

Frank -- Woodring

huh, I didn't include Frank on my list because I didn't really see it as a run... I mean it certainly was serial at one point but now it's all graphic novels.

My top ten list of favorite comics looks a little different from my list of favorite comics runs.

Anyway great list. I love X-Statix as well.

[MonteMike72]

My Top Ten:
10-Lee and Kirby on the FF
09-Stern and Byrne on Captain America. Way to short
08-Wolfman and Perez on The New Teen Titans
07-Levitz and Giffen on the Legion of Super-Heroes
06-Thomas and Adams on the X-Men
05-Miller on Daredevil
04-Wein and Buscema on the Hulk
03-Byrne on the FF
02-Claremont and Byrne on the X-Men
01-Shooters first run on the Avengers