His run on Impulse and Flash introduced me to his dynamic style, and I’ve been following him ever since. I’ve read the Spider-Man titles, although the Spidey universe was a mess back then, his title was fun.

But his masterpiece in my mind is and will always be Tellos. A great fantasy series, with a great twist. His art really shines in that series, I don’t think I’ve seen anything else that suited his style more than Tellos. When the hardcover collection of Tellos comes out, I will certainly buy it.

I haven’t read his run on Fantastic Four with Mark Waid, but I will remedy that as soon as possible.

I am in shock and very sad that such a talented young man is gone. I will certainly miss his work.

I cannot buy single issues where I live, actually I cannot buy any comics where I live. Shipping here is cost prohibiting. So I can only ask friends to bring books back from US. I order online to be shipped to their address, and when they come here from home they can bring them for me. So obviously I don’t choose to buy singles, but only TPBs.

That being said, my opinion has nothing to do with my current situation. I just like having a complete story/arc in one book. I do not like reading serialized stories, unless they are somehow self-contained, which is not the case in modern comics. Most stories are written for the TPB, so I might as well read them in their intended format.

To me reading a monthly is like watching a movie 10 minutes per month. Why would I do that?! In my opinion you cannot even judge a single issue without knowing the ending. Everything that is said before reading the end, is just speculation. That is why I only review full stories here.

Another problem with singles, is that my memory sucks. Let’s say that one storyline is 6 issues long, it is often possible that issue 6 refers to something that happened in issue 1, which are 6 months apart!! I can barely remember what I read 1 hour ago, how can I remember what I read 6 months ago!!

There are exceptions of course. Fell aims to be a self contained experience each single issue. 52 is a weekly, and it is so long that I can see myself buying it every week (if I could).

However another problem presents itself, which is storage. Storing the single issues is a pain to me, and it doesn’t look as good as a shelf full of TPB.

An important issue related to this topic is that if nobody buys the singles, there might not be a TPB. Unfortunately that’s how the market works, and I can’t start buying singles just for that reason. I would rather buy an original GN by these artists.

There, my 2 cents.

One summer in the mid-90s, my brother and I were in Taiwan for about a month. We didn’t have much to do, but that year we had a couple of friends like us, living in Milano with Taiwanese origins. So we hung out with them. Their chinese was better than ours, so they could read chinese comics. They introduced us to some Japanese manga translated in Chinese, and told us about the story because we could only watch the pretty art. Once we got back to Italy, we started buying manga translated in Italian.

Many of the first manga we bought were famous anime series that we watched as kids in the ’80s: Ken il Guerriero (Fist of the North Star), E’ quasi magia Johnny (Orange Road), Lamu’ (Lum) etc…

However the ones our friend recommended us were new manga, and they were really my favorite.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures by Hirohiko Araki is a generational series about the Joestar family. This long series is divided by generations, so the first story is that of Johnathan Joestar, the second is of Joseph Joestar and so on. Each story has different characters, although some characters might be in more than one series. And each story is also a different world, with different “powers”. Starting from the 3rd story, every character has a “Stand”, which is a manifestation of a person’s inner strength. This manifestation can have humanoid form, an animal, or anything that the author can think of. The sheer originality and inventiveness of these powers is enough to entertain me, and the fights between these colorful characters is just genius. Add in a lot of humor as well as drama, and you’ve got a winnig combination. I highly recommend this series to whoever can find a copy.

Another of the first series we bought was Video Girl Ai by Masakatsu Katsura. This is about a high school boy who deals with his insecurities when dealing with girls. But there is also a fantasy twist, where Ai is not a normal girl, but comes out from a video tape… This was just right for my age when I first read this manga. Not to mention the art is very sexy.

At this time manga were fairly popular, but it was nothing compared to the big boom later on. This started when Star Comics first published a manga without flipping (manga originally are read from right to left), and that manga was Dragon Ball. I had seen the original cartoon of Dragon Ball, and I liked it, but that was only the beginning of the manga. The manga goes on to tell Goku’s story as an adult, and alter on as an angel. This was truly the most successful manga ever, and it started the manga boom in italy and probably in Europe. The story is very simple, this is just a succession of big fights, one after the other, with the big bad getting increasingly more powerful and badass. This is just a fun read.

A cult favorite of mine was Bastard! This is a classic fantasy story, with orcs and wizrads and warriors. The neat thing about this manga was that it was over the top funny and R rated. The star was the manga is a real “bastard” and is crazy about women. His actions would sometimes make you laugh and sometimes make you think he was cool. The story was failry complex as it went on, to a point where it was too confusing for me, and the author couldn’t get more than one volume out per year. So in the end I gave up.

Probably my personal favorite manga is City Hunter. Ryo is a P.I./helper who was a paid killer with a heart. He is infallible with his gun and fighting skills, but he does have a weakness: women. He just drools over women, and if a client is not a hot woman he refuses to accept their case. Kaori is his partner, and she hates it when he becomes a mindless zombie who goes after skirts, so she beats him up with a huge hammer. This is just a fun and cool action/comedy/detective manga.

Another mangaka that I really like is Mitsuru Adachi. I first encountered his work when I watched the anime adapted from his manga Touch. In Italy that cartoon was titled “Prendi il mondo e vai” (Italians have horrible translations for anime titles!). It was about the story of a pair of twin brothers, one very athletic, a good baseball player and responsible, the other a slacker and lazy guy. Both grew up with a girl, and both were secretly in love with her. One day the responsible one dies, and the brother is trying to deal with it. A really great series, which is mostly light high school sports comedy, but it has a lot of heart. Other works by Adachi that I read are Rough, Slow Step, H2. All are light high school sports comedy with heart.

There were many other manga that I bought and read, but these were the first few and also my favorite to this day. Unfortunately ever since I left Italy I lost track of manga, but I can’t wait to go back to Italy and get a huge stack of manga that I missed in these years.

When I started reading Marvel comics, There wasn’t a lot of DC comics being published. There was an athology which reprinted some second tier series, and an old series printing old Batman comics that nobody wanted to read.

Then one day this last old series decided to skip all those old stories and start publishing the bat-titles from the Knightfall event. I think they only managed to print one or two volumes when some other company snatched up the publishing rights for DC Comics. The new company, Play Press, was also publishing some Marvel comics, but they finally brought back the DC universe to the italian readers.

They started with the Death of Superman volume, and continued the Reign of Superman in their new Superman bi-weekly. I bought this series because I was curious to check out the first superhero comic, and I really enjoyed the Death of Superman. The reign and then return of Superman were also interesting, but after that I felt the story was stagnating, so I dropped this title.

At the same time they also published the post crisis Superman series in Superman Classic, which I enjoyed immensely. The main reason is because I was a John Byrne fan, so I was really happy to be able to read of his best runs. It was also perfect for new readers to read Superman’s story virtually from the beginning. After Byrne left, I did not continue to get this title, I was just happy to get the Byrne issues, and know the beginning of Superman.

Batman followed a similar fate, with the new Batman monthly publishing new Batman stories starting from Zero Hour. I only bought the first few of this title, just to sample the stories. There were too many series in the bat universe, so I decided not to get into it all.

The other batman title was Batman Saga, which printed the Knightfall/Knightquest/KnightsEnd events. I bought most if not all of this title, and enjoyed these stories for what they were. I stuck with this title because I knew there was an end to it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have even started buying this.

Another great title by Play Press was Flash, which included Mark Waid’s run on Flash, Impulse and Ron Marz’s Green Lantern. Waid’s Flash was my favorite series, with the introduction of the Speed Force and all different speed characters in the DC universe. One day I will read this run from start to finish. The first few issues of Impulse by Waid and Ramos were also fun. Green Lantern started with Hal Jordan going crazy and wiping out Coast City. Then the new Green Lantern was introduced. I really liked the the Hal Jordan story, and was excited to read the start of a new Green Lantern. The series was ok, but it didn’t leave a clear impression on me. Unfortunately this title was cancelled due to low sales, which was such a shame, since they didn’t finish Waid’s run on Flash.

Another title they published was Wonder Woman/Catwoman.This was a flipbook, one side the Mike Deodato Jr Wonder Woman run, the other side the Jim Balent run. I enjoyed Wonder Woman, first the Deodato run, and then the John Byrne run. Catwoman was not as appealing to me, but I enjoyed it. Another series in this title was Birds of Prey, which unfortunately I never got into. I stopped buying this series after a while, it just wasn’t that good overall.

Play Press also published a lot of TPBs, both new and old stories (Batman: Year One, Watchmen, Kingdom Come etc..). I bought quite a few of them.

Among them there was Starman by James Robinson and Tony Harris. They made the best decision in publishing this series in volumes, not in monthly singles. I got the first few volumes, but then I left Italy. One day I will finish reading this great series.

Overall I was not impressed by the main DC heros (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman), but I was glad I got to read some of the most important runs and stories from DC. Other secondary characters were much more interesting to me (Flash, Starman), but unfortunately I never got to finish these series for one reason or another.

After we started buying Marvel comics, Star Comics (one of the italian publishers of Marvel material) started publishing Image comics. The art was pretty, and me and my brother jumped on the Image wagon.

The first title was Spawn, which included Savage Dragon. Spawn was a very intriguing book, with great art by McFarlane and then Capullo. I was also glad to see many great writers pen some single issues, some of them even deal with important topics in the comics industry (the Dave Sim issue. Too bad McFarlane did exactly the opposite in the next years). Spawn’s story should have been limited, it should have been a 50 issue story at most, stretching it out. Instead it kept going and going without any point to it. Too bad.

Savage Dragon is the only series I still follow. Not only because it is the only one that survived along with Spawn, but also because I really enjoy this series. Erik Larsen (not Eric Larson) manages to keep this series fresh, by changing the status quo completely. This is what I wished superhero series would be, an ever changing series month by month, not decade by decade.

A new title was launched soon afterward, called Image. This would include Wildcats, Cyberforce, Youngblood and others.

Wildcats soon spun off in its own title, which obviously included all series produced by Jim Lee’s studio. I started buying WIldcats because of Jim Lee’s art, no doubt about it. He was and is today one of my favorite artists in comics, and I am glad that he came back to his art in the past years. Plus he’s been to Italy many times, one of those times in Milano where I managed to see him and get a signature from him. So there’s a small connection there (Asian guy in Italy… ok a tiny connection). Once James Robinson and Alan Moore started writing Wildcats I had other good reasons to buy this title. After I read a few more titles in the Wildstorm universe, it was clear that the history of this universe was somehow outlined since the beginning, and the various secrets of the past were slowly revealed. This is why I really liked this universe.

At first Youngblood and other Extreme series where published inside the Image title, but readers complained about it, so they spun off all Extreme series into their own title. Needless to say, it was the first to be cancelled. But I still bought the first few issues. Hey I was young, and very enthusiastic about this new cool company, so I was blinded by it. My brother was not, he had a good eye for art, even then.

The Image title later became the Top Cow anthology, including Cyberforce, Strykeforce, Ripclaw etc… At first I thought Cyberforce was pretty cool, and Silverstri’s art was intriguing. Not as pretty as Jim Lee, but still attractive. However after a while, there was nothing that  made this universe particularly appealing to me.

There were other newer titles, and we bought some of them. But the first batch were an important era for me and my brother. I remember one summer we took some of those early issues to Taiwan, and there my brother started copying pages from Spawn and WIldcats. That’s when he caught the design bug, and now he’s a professional graphic designer. Who said comics are not important?

While I was still reading Italian comics, I started reading Marvel comics. I remember once I was on the metro, and I bumped into some guy I barely knew. He had an issue of Spider-Man (Uomo-Ragno in italian), and he started talking about it. He went into this propaganda promoting Superheroes against Italian comics, how the superheroes had a continuing story and they evolved, whereas in fumetti the characters did not change at all. At that time I didn’t pay much attention to him, I just didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Until one day I or my brother decided to buy L’Uomo Ragno.

A little bit of Italian publishing history. In the 80’s and early 90’ Marvel and DC comics were published by 4-5 different Italian companies, each getting the rights for a different title. The most popular title was L’Uomo Ragno, published by Star Comics. It was obviously thanks to the Spider-Man cartoons, that this was the most known Marvel character. Since the Italian version was many years behind the American, in each Italian issue there were 3 American issues. And this title shipped twice a month. So we got many stories to read each month. But my brother and I were not satisfied, so we started buying even more titles.

The one that I started to collect was Gli Incredibili X-Men. This title included all the main X-Men titles: Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, New X-Men etc… When I started the title was in the middle of the Inferno storyline, and even though I was very confused, I was hooked. I then started collecting old issues, I actually bought all back issues of this series. And I also looked for the other X-Titles, which were published by another company and out of sync. Sooner or later we tried every single Marvel title out there, among the best:

We didn’t buy all of these series, but we did try at least a few issues of each. I stopped collecting them when I left Italy, but I managed to buy some TPB in english around the world. More in future posts.

I am back in Italy, and I walking towards one of the comics shops in Milano. Sometimes it’s a newstand (they sell comics in newstands in Italy), but most of the time it’s a comics shop. I enter the shop and start browsing the shelves. I am very very excited, and I can’t wait to catch up on my favorite series.

I look at every single comic they have in the shop, and decide carefully what to buy. I pick the items I want, while I keep browsing for more. I see some of my favorite comics, some old ones that I lost track of, or some new series that I’ve never heard of. The dream usually ends before or right after I pay for my comics, and I never dream of reading them.

This obviously expresses my desire to read buy comics, and it’s not just getting comics, it’s being in a comic shop, browsing a variety of titles and picking the ones I like. That’s what I’ve been missing in the last few years. Living in a country that has no comic shops, I am left with the only choice of ordering them online.

But there’s no joy in looking at an online catalogue, you cannot look at the whole selection, cannot flip open a comic, hold it in your hands and smell it. It’s just a different feeling. Which is why I think comics will never will become paperless. But that’s a discussion for another post.

Dreaming about buying comics has been a costant for the last few years, and I can’t wait for the moment when I’ll be able to really go to a comics shop.

Fate was on my side in 1997 though. My family decided to visit friends and family in California, around July. I did not plan to go to San Diego, but I mentioned it to my mother. When we got there, my brother and I got the opportunity to spend one day in SCC, and I was very excited

Not having planned the trip, we had to queue to get tickets, and it was a long and hot time. But I was so excited that I wasn’t too bothered by it. At that time my english was not very good, especially speaking/listening. So what I was most interested in was getting hold of old comics that I could never find in Italy. And I did. I spent most of my time in the dealers area, looking for some very old back issues, or an obscure TPB from the 80′. I knew I would buy a lot of stuff, so I brought a backpack with me. Obviously it wasn’t enough…

I don’t exactly remember everything that I bought, but I do remember getting old John Byrne runs on Marvel series Namor, Alpha Flight, She-Hulk, at 25 cents each!! Yes, they were not in perfect condition, but I just wanted to read those stories.

I also saw many comics writer/artists: Claremont, Peter David, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Warren Ellis, Jeff Smith etc… The queues to get signatures were too long, so I only went to a few (don’t remember which), but I was just glad to see them in person. I  wouldn’t have been able to say much to them anyway.

After the initial rush in the dealers area and the publishers booth, I took a look at the panel schedule in search of something I could understand and enjoy (not to mention sit down and rest my poor legs and feet!). I tried some of the more popular ones, but I couldn’t get in. So I just went to a room where they were showing some anime (Tenchi Muyo if I remeber correctly). I just wanted to sit down, take a look a my puchases and rest a bit.

After a while I went back to the con floor, and wandered around looking at stuff. I lost sight of my brother as soon as we got in, and couldn’t find him at all for several hours afterwards, even though I knew we were both in the con floor (it just shows you how big that convention is, and how sore my feet were afterwards). I bumped into my bro not long before we left, but I think it was for the best. We were both free to look at things we were interested in, without having to wait for each other.

Even though my experience of SCC was different from anyone else’s, I had a blast there. I spent the next several months reading comics I bought there, which I would never have been able to buy in Italy.

I am now living in China, married and with a baby, so the probability of another visit to SCC are even slimmer, but if for some unexpected reason I ended up there again in my lifetime (maybe bringing my kids?), I would do it completely differently. I would first go to panels, trying to talk to people, queue for some sketches, and then going around dealers area during free time. But I am dreaming, I am never going there again…

But Dylan Dog was the first adult comic I ever read. It is a horror series, where the star is a private detective/ex-cop who finds himself involved in paranormal events.

As the majority of italian comics, each issue is a self-contained story, so anyone can pick up a random issue and enjoy the 98 pages long black & white story. Some characters appear more than once, but you don’t need to read previous stories at all. Writers and Artists vary for each issue,.

I started buying DD by myself, and I also looked for the back issues. Once I was all caught up, I started looking for other series to buy. Naturally I first looked at comics published by the same company, Bonelli Editore. This is the most popular comics publisher after Disney Italia, and they have almost 20 monthly series.

After DD, I started buying the following series:

Zagor: an adventure story in the old American frontier in the first half of the last century. Zagor fights to maintain peace, protect the Indian tribes and hunt down criminals.

This series was a lot of fun,  there was plenty of adventure and environmentally friendly stories. Lots of humor as well, thanks to Zagor’s sidekick with a very long Spanish name I can’t remember.

I found a huge stack of back issues one day and enjoyed them all. Then also continued to buy the new issues up to a certain point. I still enjoyed it but I had to cut some series to make room for the new American comics.

Martin Mystere: before the Da Vinci Code, there was MM. A great blend of history, adventure, mistery. I really enjoyed this comic, even though I do not like history in general. But these stories really bring out the most fascinating aspect of history. It’s never boring or scholastic, even though the history feels pretty accurate, I am sure the writers make a lot of research for their stories.

But there’s also a lot of action adventure and plenty of investigations into historical mysteries. There are obviously fantastic elements to this series, not everything is real, even though the basis for the stories is real.

The format of the stories is not a clean story for each issue, the length of a story is dictated by the subject itself, so sometimes in one issue we get the conclusion to one story and the beginning of another one. Sometimes we just get the middle of a long story. I found this frustrating on one hand, because you don’t always get a full story, but on the other hand this is good for the quality of the story.

Tex: the longest running series, a classic western. I enjoyed these stories, they felt really like an epic western. I remeber when my brother and I decided to start buying this series, he went out with his bike to the newstand to get whatevet he could find about Tex. When he came back, he had a huge stack of comics with him, enough to last us a few weeks.

These stories were very long epic stories, reading them I always felt like I was immersing myself into an epic journey full of deserts and horses. I loved some of the specials they printed with one very long story of 3-400 pages in one volume. Those were great summer reads.

Nathan Never: probably the favorite of mine, this is a sci-fi series which my brother collected from the start. Great sci-fi stories, great art, and most importantly there was an overall story. The overall timeline of this future world had been mapped out from the beginning, and the misterious past of the star was also conceived from the start. These back stories were revealed little by little throughout the single stories, and sometimes there was an entire issue dedicated to the overall myth.

I stopped buying italian comics after a few years, not because I lost interest, but because there were new comics to explore (superheroes, manga etc…). The good thing about these comics is that if I felt like reading them, I could buy a new issue off the rack and enjoy it (which cannot be done with superhero comics). The bad is that after a while you keep reading the same type of story every month, and it gets a little bit boring.