morpheus514

Wow. I can't begin to tell you how much this sucks. Shit. Eisner knew how to tell a story through comics better than probably anyone else, and I mean ever. His books on storytelling and narrative should be required reading to everyone, and any one of his graphic novels is a gem. There's just so much of his work that most people never even hear about it, but it's all beautiful stuff. This just about ruined my day, jeez. Took me about half an hour just to write down that one paragraph, just because I'm finding it hard to put into words how sad this really is. Rest in peace.

Have yet to read it, but picked up the other Miller-Darrow comic, the oversized copy of "Hard Boiled", and Geoff Darrow's art needs to be seen to be believed. The man's out of his goddamn mind.

Damn, I could've SWORN I'd posted in this thread already. I'll just try to go through all of them briefly, like Darque did... Preludes & Nocturnes - has some really amazing stories towards the end ('24 Hours', 'The Sound & The Fury' and 'The Sound of Her Wings'), but as a whole the story feels scattered. Gaiman hadn't found his footing yet, and I'm glad the introduction of other DC Universe characters stopped after this volume, for the most part (though I still love Constantine). The Doll's House - Not one of my favorites, though it has a lot of great ideas, and the Cereal Convention is a blast. I dunno, it felt rather similar to the first one, in the sense that it's mostly about Morpheus collecting stuff than striving for a single goal. In Preludes, he's looking for his lost artifacts, and in Doll's House he's looking for lost dreams. Eh. Oh, CRAP, almost forgot to mention that a standalone story in this volume introduces Hob Gadling, probably my favorite recurring non-Endless character, in one of my favorite stories in the whole series. Awesome, awesome story. Dream Country - Really really cool short stories, but can't be considered the best single story, it's not really fair. Has one of the three stories where Shakespeare makes an appearance, which is awesome (as is the Charles Vess art). A Season of Mists - Great story, and a lot of fun due to cameo appearances by dozens of gods from different religions. The Nordic gods rule all in the brief period they're in the story. Lucifer's one of the best characters in the series as well, and Gaiman does a great job of making him rather well-rounded and motivated. A Game of You - Bah. My least favorite out of the ten volumes. Haven't read it in a long time, and it fits right in with the pattern of alternating male/female storylines, but I didn't seem to enjoy it as much as the other volumes. I can't deny how well written it was, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Fables & Reflections - In my mind, the best out of the three short story collections. "Ramadan" is one of the best Sandman stories from the whole series (P. Craig Russell RULES.). The stories involving Orpheus, Emperor Norton, Marco Polo, and Augustus Caesar are all fascinating reads, especially if you know the myths and stories surrounding the characters. Brief Lives - YEEEEEESSSSS!! Far and away my favorite Sandman story, though this doesn't seem to be the popular opinion. This story did more to develop the character of Morpheus than the previous six volumes combined. Delirium was awesome as well, as was the character they meet at their destination, and his animal companion... Also, I love Jill Thompson's work, this is probably my favorite art for an entire Sandman story out of the ten volumes. World's End - Don't remember much about this one, other than it had a story that made me care for Prez. That's a pretty damn big accomplishment. The story about being inside a city's dream is really good, too. The Kindly Ones - Everything comes to a head in this volume, and marvelously so. Pretty much all the characters from the entire series are here in some form. 'Offputting' is a great way to describe Marc Hempel's art, indeed, but it's also extremely expressive. Really. Kinda wish Kevin Nowlan had drawn the entire thing, rather than just the little opening number, but oh well. The range of emotions this book covers is just insane. Beautiful stuff. Also, while reading, notice the similarity between two detectives that come looking for Daniel, and the two detectives from Alan Moore's "Watchmen"...hmmm.... Yes, avoid the horrendous spoilers in the introduction, to which I fell victim. The Wake - Perfect ending to the series, with some of the best art in the series too. Probably not the best story, because it really relies on the events of all the other volumes for its emotional impact, but amazing nonetheless.

This poll is fucked up, due to the absence of Dave McKean (who gets my vote, under 'Other'). 'Who would vote for anyone other than Moore?' I would. I'd probably vote Gaiman over Moore too, since the subject is 'favorite', not 'technically the best'. Anyway, McKean's mini-series "Cages" is my favorite comic book work of all time, so that easily leverages this poll in his favor. Most of his other comic book works (like "Black Orchid", "Violent Cases", and "Arkham Asylum") are also great, though entirely different, stylistically. His short story collection, "Pictures That Tick", has some fantastic work as well, more like "Cages" than "Arkham Asylum". Not sure if I should count his work illustrating all the Sandman and the Dreaming covers. I won't, because I think this should be based strictly on their sequential work, rather than illustration and design. Doesn't matter though, 'cause I'd vote for McKean solely based on "Cages" anyway. I'm biased like that. Look forward to your column on British comic creators, by the way.

Not sure I understand the question this topic presents. You say favorite comic book story ever, and I start thinking graphic novels, but everyone else seems to just be thinking in terms of story arcs in ongoing series. If standalone graphic novels are valid, then Dave McKean's "Cages", pretty much a 500 page dissertation, through a group of characters living in an apartment building, on art, moral values, religion, and far too many other topics to list here. It's insane that one person put this much work into one story, and for as crazy as the art gets, most of it uses a pretty standard, nine panel comic book layout. Really crazy, and it will get you thinking about much more than just comics, I guarantee you. The characters are well fleshed out, but the storytelling is so accomplished that you don't feel like you're just being taken through pages and pages of exposition; it feels like an integral, organic part of the story. Not really sure how to describe it to someone who hasn't read it, because in retrospect, it is very much McKean's personal beliefs, it seems, filtered through this wonderfully constructed world, but it's hard to pin down a paragraph-long synopsis of the plot. It is a story about coming to grips with your limitations, and how to transcend them, on one level, but it is also about the nature of art, and how it relates to whoever is experiencing it. A close second would be the Brief Lives story arc in The Sandman. Out of curiosity, Yoda, I'd gladly hear about your Top Ten comic book stories of all time. Hell, I've been trying to make that list for a long time now, and just can't put them in order...

Read lots of Brazilian kids' comics, but the first comic book I actually remember buying was an issue of X-Men during the Fatal Attractions crossover (the one where Wolverine had the adamantium ripped out of him by Magneto), because it had this awesome hologram thingie on the cover. Either that one, or this one issue of Spider-Man fighting Boomerang, of all people, on an oil tanker, and a minor Spidey character called Cardiac shows up and blows the boat on them, due to the evils being caused by the company the boat belonged to. Can't remember which of those came first, really. But it was one of those. I think I only looked at the hologram on the X-Men comic, and never really read it until like three months later.

Haven't met many people who agree with me, but Brief Lives was, by far, my favorite Sandman story arc, just from pure character development. If I hadn't read Brief Lives, I'm not sure just how much I'd sympathize with Morpheus. Love The Wake too, just cause Hob Gadling's such an awesome character (probably my favorite, other than Morpheus himself). All the minor characters are a lot of fun, particularly Merv, Matthew, Barnabas, and Destruction (not that minor, I know, but he's only there for the bulk of one story arc). The last story in the series, "The Tempest", really helped me in trying to understand the character of Morpheus. Regardless, everyone should just read the whole series, I guess.