The Invincible Iron Man #1-150

Captain America #225-255

I first got into Captain America with the infamous Roger Stern/John Byrne arc starting in issue #247 and loved it so much that I eventually collected every issue all the way back to issue 225 and even now and then I love taking this run out and re-reading them again. Some highs, some lows, but all great reading and the Stern/Byrne issues #247-255 are some of the best comics ever made!

X-Men: The Hidden Years #1-22

I'll be the first to admit that John Byrne's series about what took place between the cancellation of X-Men #66 and the restart with the new X-Men in Giant Size X-Men #1 is hit and miss, but hey, where else are you going to see Byrne drawing our favorite mutants again? For me it was worth it and despite mis-steps like placing the storyline in current 2000's timeline and creating potential paradoxical situations (like having them team up with Storm months before Professor X even discovered her), it's still a fun read and besides, no one can draw the X-men like Byrne!

Beasts Of Burden: Animal Rites

I've loved artist Jill Thompson ever since her stint in my still favorite Sandman arc BRIEF LIVES and so when my friend told me about a new series she was illustrating featuring a team of sleuthing dogs (the titulars 'beasts") of a rustic town (Burden Hill) how could I refuse? And as written by Evan Dorkin, this series was as fun and imaginative as I'd hoped!

Alpha Flight #1-28

Although almost completely overshadowed by his work on the Uncanny X-Men, John Byrne's Alpha Flight run from issue 1-28 are, in my opinion, some of the finest stories he's written, with strong and imaginative characters, groups, powers and plot devices, the only drawback being that he left right in the middle of its final arc! Nonetheless, It's till a series run I love taking out and reading again, so, so good!

Godzilla, King Of The Monsters #1-24

GODZILLA was the very first comic that I read that wasn't of the Richie Rich/ Archie Comics variety, and it is pleasing to dig these comics out and discover that the stories that thrilled me and blew me way as a kid still hold up today- they are still fantastic tales I can still read with passion and excitement!

Dreadstar #1-38

I first discovered Vanth Dreadstar in the pages of EPIC Magazine, as my friend was a big fan of the serial, but it wasn't until a regular comic came out (under EPIC Magazine's new line Epic Comics) that I really became a huge fan myself! Ifollowed the comic for its whole initial run, including its' jump to First Comics, until writer/creator Jim Starlin kind of moved away from illustrating it and finally giving up writing it as well.

I never got into the later Peter David written stuff (though I'm a big fan of his), but the Starlin stories are a joy to return to and re-read every so often, and I felt it was the time to re-life the exploits of Vanth Dreadstar and his Galactic Crew!

Heartland

I initially picked this one up because it was done by the incredible team of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and though I was first surprised to find it wasn't a super-hero comic per se, I was soon taken in by the powerful and emotional story of Hellblazer character Kit Ryan and her life and childhood in Northern Ireland. VERY moving story.

The Pro

AHAHAHA, A wonderfully crass and bawdy take on the super-hero genre much like the similarly flavoured MARSHALL LAW where archetypical super-beings run rampant all over the world and a skewed eye is taken on what it would be like if these heroes got a dose of darkened reality, The Pro follows the exploits of a harried, foul-mouthed woman with child who suddenly becomes the latest super-heroine on the block, and the rude, crude and outlandish things she does once empowered!
Another Comic I love re-reading over and over again!

The Eaters

An absolutely AWESOME Vertigo one-shot story, this one from Peter Milligan and Dean Normston about a tight-knit and loving family of cannibals and the perils they face as EATERS.  A fun (if VERY black-humoured) comic I LOVE re-reading over and over again!

Hellblazer #47-93,129-133 + Special

As you can see, I'm a big fan of Garth Ennis' run on Hellblazer, especially his collaboration with Steve Dillon on art. and after reading the trade "Dangerous Habits", I began buying the individual issues starting with #47 to issue 93, with one Special in between, and later when Garth Ennis returned with Mike Higgins for issues 129-133.

Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits

The beginning of the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon run of Hellblazer, this trade was so damn good that I ended up buying every individual issue that followed it!

Hellblazer: Original Sins

I was a HUGE fan of the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon Hellblazer stories (the first Constantine book ever read was the Fear and Loathing trade) so I had to get original sins, which collected the very first Jamie Delano Hellblazer stories,  just so I could experience where it all came from, the characters, the country and the whole mythos of the John Constantine legend, and this first book is pretty great!

Fantastic Four #120-233

I've read and re-read the Lee/Kirby and Lee/Buscema stories (Issue 1-119) and the later John Byrne run (#236-291) so many times that I know them like the back of my hand, but aside from the pivotal Doctor Doom story arc in 196-200 and the Galactus/Sphinx Storyline in 203-214, there were quite a very issues in the late Silver Age/Early Bronze age that I didn't know too well...so I decided to dig them all out and re-read them again in order, from issue 120 all the way to issue 233! Was really refreshing, some of them I'd only read maybe once before, and ending it on the excellent Byrne "Mission for a Dead Man"was a great way to end it!

The Complete Peanuts 1950-1990

Yeah, I dedicated about six weeks of evening reading to reading the entire Peanuts strips from 1950 all the way to 1990 in chronological order. yeah i know there was more after that but i have no sentimental attachment to those so never got the collections surrounding those years.
Man, how I loved these comics growing up. probably the single most important comics of my life, if I think about it. These strips and Richard Scarry storybooks made me the Graphic Novel/Comic Book aficionado I am today!

Love and Rockets, Vol.6

Back To Palomar once again with Los Bros Hernandez....

The Kite Runner

Second time reading this Graphic Novel version of the powerful Khaled Hosseini novel, with amazing art by Fabio Celoni and Mirka Andolfo.

Hard Boiled Defective Stories

Aw Man, Charles Burns' awesome stories of El Borbah, the Wrestling Detective were some of my favorite things about Heavy metal magazine back in the 80's, and when i found out they'd put 'em all together in one cool collection, I knew i just had to have it! Besides the four stories featured in the pages of Heavy Metal, (Robot Love, Dead meat, Living In The Ice Age andBone Voyage) they even featured one I don't remember seeing before, "Love In Vein"!

This is one collection I read and re-read again constantly!!!

Neil Young's Greendale

Second time reading this Graphic Novel take on Neil Young's Greendale album, by Joshua Dysart and Cliff Chiang and it's even better the second time around! My copy is signed by Josh Dysart and therein lies an interesting tale...
When I first met my friend Gerg, he offhandedly mentioned that he didn't like Neil Young and I snorted and said "Then you can go to Hell!" He was stunned by such a passionate retort from me, but as a huge Neil Young fan I'd been hearing from people who groused that they hated his voice, "He Can't Sing!", etc. all my life, and had just been reading earlier that day about Def Leppard's Joe Elliot putting Neil down too, so my gumption was up!
We laughed about it, and as we became close friends, we would occasionally remember that time, and jokingly say "Never diss Neil Young in front of Z!!"HAHAHA!
 Anyway, one day back in late 2010 or so ,Gerg was visiting his local comic book shop, and that day they had an in-store signing with writer Joshua Dysart, promoting Greendale! Seeing the title, on the cover, Gerg remembered how much I liked Neil Young and decided to not only get me a copy of the book, but have Dysart autograph it as well!
When Gerg went up to Dysart, he explained about me, who really liked Neil Young and how I got mad at him cause he said he didn't. "So you don't like Neil Young?" Dysart asked Gerg, who admitted he didn't. Dysart laughed, and signed the book to me:"Z, your friend here sucks!" LOLOL!

Fatale, Vol.1-5 (Complete Series)

Encouraged by how many good stories I've been discovering from Image Comics, I decided to give this film noir/horror series FATALE a whirl, and sure enough, this "Mike Hammer meets the Exorcist" tale was just another incredible title!

Stephen King's The Stand, Vol.1-6 (Complete Series)

Stephen King's The Stand is one of my all-time favorite novels, and when Marvel Comic began their comics book take on it, I bought the first few issues before deciding to wait til they were collected into TPBs. I then bought both Book One: Captain Trips and Book Two: America Nightmares when they respectively came out, but I didn't get around to picking up any of the later books until the very last book came out a few months ago! I went ahead and bought all the remaining books I'd missed right there in one crack!
For the first time I sat down and read the entire thing from beginning to end, and It's pretty darn great- not as good as the book, of course, what is, but a fine graphic novel take on a story that friends who may not like to read can enjoy!

Love And Rockets, Vol.5

Ahhh, time once again for the annual offering from Los Bros Hernandez, still keeping us up to date with Maggie and Hopey and the folks from the village of Los Palomar, and introducing us to new characters as well!

Saga #1-5

My friend Gerg who keeps abreast of all the newer comics and graphic novels out there came to town for a visit, and after shooting the breeze over lunch, we made our way to check out our old haunts, including a couple of comic stores that still were around back when he lived here.
 So we’re in there and he begins pulling the latest issue of a comic called SAGA, which was at the time on issue 4. I ask him about it, and he says it’s a comic that he’s really getting into lately, and thinks even my overly-discriminating eye would like it. I laugh and tell him I’ll think about it, but then I see him mosey over to the clerk and ask her if she has the first three back-issues available. She concurs, and directs him to the shelf where issues 1, 2, and 3 are hidden behind some older releases. I eye the stack in his hand suspiciously, saying, “Hey, if you already have these issues, why are you buying them again? He doesn’t answer, but then OF COURSE, once we get back to my house, he hands them to me!!!
 I’m like, “DUDE! You don’t have to BUY me these- I told you that if I wanted to read ‘em, I’d get ‘em myself!”  “Yeah,” he replied, “But If I waited for YOU to buy these, the series might end before you felt like it!” “Besides”, he waved off my exasperation, “this series is written by Brian K. Vaughan, and I KNOW you like his writing.” I stopped for a minute. “Oh, wait, really? The guy who wrote Y THE LAST MAN??? Ummmm…Then…..OKAY, I’ll check it out, LOL!”
By the time I actually got around to reading it, Gerg had already flown back to LA, but read it I did, and I was floored at how good it was! Like Y The Last Man, the stories were just FULL of these intriguing characters, and before you knew it, I was totally immersed in this story (and equally blown-away by Fiona Staples' amazing artwork!!)...The tale begins with the star-crossed relationship between a guy and girl from opposite sides of a war (two alien  races, one horned and one winged), who are trying to escape with their newly-born child while bounty hunters and government agents alike follow in hot pursuit! As the story progresses and you get to know all of them, hero and villain alike, you get the feeling you are getting prepped for a tale of immense proportions!!!!
I became an immediate fan and jsut this week, I ran down to my lcola comic store to l=pick up the latest issue which jsut came out (issue #5) and am sure i'm going to continue collecting it for good!!!