What are the best current 'creator owned' titles?

[fenway]

Matt Fraction's 'Casanova' is outstanding - my favourite current comic.

This is followed closely by 'Criminal' and 'Incognito' by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (I haven't yet read the new 'Fatale', but from the premise, it might be my favourite of their collaborations yet!)

I also enjoy Aaron's 'Scalped' and Brian Wood's 'Northlanders', and am just getting into Jeff Lemire's 'Sweet Tooth'. If Umbrella Academy ever continues, it will shoot toward (or TO) the top of this list.

Ultimately, I'm finding (it took me long enough!!) that creator-owned series (a description I am taking to mean, 'titles where the writer can do what they want, and are not tied to 50 other titles in the same universe') are FAR superior to most titles from the big two.

What other creator titles do you suggest? I may never go back to Avengers/X-Men, etc!

 

[Bass]

I agree Fenway; CRIMINAL and UMBRELLA ACADEMY are terrific. I've not read the rest though.

I also really enjoy MORNING GLORIES and FABLES.

 

[ProjectX2]

Everything you listed already is great. There are a bunch of new original series coming out that you might be interested in:

America's Got Powers (Image, Jonathan Ross)
Hell Yeah (Image, Joe Keatinge)
Jupiter's Children (Image, Mark Millar)
The Manhattan Projects (Image, Jonathan Hickman)
The Massive (Dark Horse, Brian Wood)
Mind the Gap (Image, Jim McCann)
Resident Alien (Dark Horse, Peter Hogan)
Saga (Image, Brian K. Vaughan)
Saucer Country (Vertigo, Paul Cornell)
Thief of Thieves (Image, Robert Kirkman/Nick Spencer)

Plus a few you might have missed that are currently ongoing:

American Vampire (Vertigo, Scott Snyder)
Chew (Image, John Layman)
Fables (Vertigo, Bill Willingham)
iZombie (Vertigo, Chris Roberson)
Morning Glories (Image, Nick Spencer)
Spaceman (Vertigo, Brian Azzarello)
The Unwritten (Vertigo, Mike Carey)
The Walking Dead (Image, Robert Kirkman)

All I do is read the Image/Vertigo/Dark Horse solicits and check out anything that sounds even remotely interesting.

 

[fenway]

How could I forget Chew, American Vampire and Morning Glories?? Three of my current favourites also!!

Bass - Fables, I've heard, is great! How daunting would it be to get into at this time? (I think its over 100 issues?)
Proj - Thanks for the list of up-and-comers! This will take some research!

Thanks, guys!!

 

[Friday]

Matt Fraction's 'Casanova' is outstanding - my favourite current comic.

Mine too. I just wish we could get issue 3 of the current run. The fact that he's announcing a new creator owned with Chaykin isn't making me optimistic about seeing it anytime soon either.

This is followed closely by 'Criminal' and 'Incognito' by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (I haven't yet read the new 'Fatale', but from the premise, it might be my favourite of their collaborations yet!)

Criminal is AMAZING. Incognito is less amazing, but part of that is it reminds me SO much of sleeper. Too much. Fatale hasn't grabbed me yet but I'm not dropping it anytime soon either.

What other creator titles do you suggest? I may never go back to Avengers/X-Men, etc!

I also really enjoy MORNING GLORIES and FABLES.

I started reading Morning Glories about 2 weeks ago off Comixology. Its interesting. I really need some big piece of the puzzle to drop soon though. I can't imagine having read it for a year and a half ans still know so little about whats actually happening.

I'd reccomend BPRD and Hellboy from Dark Horse. They just started putting out these HUGE hardvocers of BPRD that'll let you catch up really quickly. The first two are out and each one contains 3 different TPBs. There'll be 4 in all and you can pick up the beautiful Hellboy Library Editions which each contain 2 TPBS in an oversized format.

I think everyone is getting Saga when it ships week after next. I'm personally looking forward to this Wednesdays The Manhattan Projects as I've been checking out Hickman's back catalog lately. Pax Romana is quite good.

Wasteland from Oni Press is amazing. Its about what happens after the world ends in The Big Wet. Its now a barren dustball with the few people remaining barely surviving. ITs got 2 very nice Hardcovers and recently did a sort of relaunch with a dollar issue and promising to be monthly until the end of the series. I don't know if anyone else here reads it bt I've gotten the singles on and off and fell in love with the Apocalyptic Edition Hardcovers.

I'm a bit of a format whore.

The Goon from dark horse is awesome. Words don't express it. If you're alright with digital comics you can get issues 16-32 for $1 at Dark Horse's site right now.

I think all of this comes down to one thing: Creators are going to do amazing work when they're telling the stories they want to tell most. Some people do that on company owned characters. Has Goeff Johns ever done a creator owned book? Some love those characters but want to tell something different. When you find that labor of love its magnificent.

EDIT: Oh ****, how did I forget about Locke and Key? Its by Joe Hill (one of my favorite writers right now, reguardless of the medium) and follows the Locke families return to Lovecraft Mass. after a familiy tradgedy. And they Locke children discover the secrets of The Keyhouse while there. Its got 4 volumes finished with a 5th in issues and one more to go after then its finished.

 

[Zombipanda]

Thank god no one said Phonogram. Ech.

The Unwritten is my favorite creator owned book right now.

 

[Friday]

Thank god no one said Phonogram. Ech.

The Unwritten is my favorite creator owned book right now.

The last volume of The Unwritten didn't really do much for me. I thought V1 was brilliant, especially the use of social media/websites in worldbuilding.

 

[Zombipanda]

The last volume of The Unwritten didn't really do much for me. I thought V1 was brilliant, especially the use of social media/websites in worldbuilding.

I'm just following trades. I'm at the second right now, Inside Man.

 

[Bass]

Bass - Fables, I've heard, is great! How daunting would it be to get into at this time? (I think its over 100 issues?)

You can just pick up the first trade and go from there until you're up to date. The spin-off, JACK OF FABLES has its moments, but the crossover it has with FABLES is the only bad arc so far, and it's pretty crappy.

I think all of this comes down to one thing: Creators are going to do amazing work when they're telling the stories they want to tell most.

I disagree. Some writers cannot write at all on their own projects, such as Mark Millar. His company stuff is fun, but his creator-owned work is awful. The only Garth Ennis comics I've liked are his WAR STORIES and his PUNISHER (and they were both incredible).

 

[Ultimate Houde]

EDIT: Oh ****, how did I forget about Locke and Key? Its by Joe Hill (one of my favorite writers right now, reguardless of the medium) and follows the Locke families return to Lovecraft Mass. after a familiy tradgedy. And they Locke children discover the secrets of The Keyhouse while there. Its got 4 volumes finished with a 5th in issues and one more to go after then its finished.

I'm glad it has a finish point, I was worried about that.

And it's eerie how Lovecraft, Mass is similar to Gloucester Mass, my hometown.

 

[Friday]

I disagree. Some writers cannot write at all on their own projects, such as Mark Millar. His company stuff is fun, but his creator-owned work is awful. The only Garth Ennis comics I've liked are his WAR STORIES and his PUNISHER (and they were both incredible).

Well, Bass, I kinda mentioned that. My next sentence pointed out Geoff Johns lack of creative owned as an example of people who just want to write company characters.

And I loved Preacher.

 

[Bass]

Well, Bass, I kinda mentioned that. My next sentence pointed out Geoff Johns lack of creative owned as an example of people who just want to write company characters.

And I loved Preacher.

Your point was that the reason quality is higher in creator-owned is because the writer has more control. You used Geoff Johns to explain that quality is high in company projects because they want to tell those stories as much. But that wasn't my point; I was disagreeing that writer control has a corollary with quality. For some writers yes, but there's examples of writers who are worse when given free reign. Sometimes, the restrictions inbred in an intellectual property give you the best results.

I know a lot of people liked PREACHER. I should give it another go at some point.

 

[E]

I don't read a ton of creator-owned stuff, but will agree that Fables, The Walking Dead, and Criminal are all great.

Bass - Fables, I've heard, is great! How daunting would it be to get into at this time? (I think its over 100 issues?)

I got into it fairly recently and had no problem getting into it. It's been kind of slow lately, but maybe that's because I read the first 80+ issues all in one go.

I know a lot of people liked PREACHER. I should give it another go at some point.

I tried Preacher - read the whole series and I think most of the non-regular series episodes. It was OK...it seemed like it tried too hard, though.

 

[Friday]

Your point was that the reason quality is higher in creator-owned is because the writer has more control. You used Geoff Johns to explain that quality is high in company projects because they want to tell those stories as much. But that wasn't my point; I was disagreeing that writer control has a corollary with quality. For some writers yes, but there's examples of writers who are worse when given free reign. Sometimes, the restrictions inbred in an intellectual property give you the best results.
.

Actually my point was when the creators have passion for what they're making the quality goes up, not when the writer has more control. Millar is a perfect example of someone that needs to be reigned in to do their best work.

Honestly I think Stephen King falls into this camp. His best work to me is always his earlier stories before he became STEPHEN KING and wrote tons of epics that wondered aimlessly forever.

 

[Bass]

Actually, your point IS WHATEVER I DEEM IT BE!

 

[Friday]

Mine too. I just wish we could get issue 3 of the current run. The fact that he's announcing a new creator owned with Chaykin isn't making me optimistic about seeing it anytime soon either.

Heh, guess I got egg on my face for... sonofa*****! That wasn't in my bag this week! God damned ****ty shop can't order my ****ing books.

This is why I keep trying to start one of these money pits...

 

[Zombipanda]

Just finished King City. Add that to the list.

Apparently there's more coming this year!

 

[Ice]

It is definitely going to be dropped. Move on people. Only warning.