Comics, editorial cartoons, and animations: what are your favourites?

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Retro games (before they were retro), demo programming and love of comics were all together in some crucial times.

What are people's faves on comics in particular, and editorial cartoons and animations as a side thing?

For me, 2000AD in the mid- to late '80s was the best thing ever in action/culture comics, not that much of the earlier or later stuff (earlier was better in my opinion, later got a bit too occult and PC for my tastes) wasn't fantastic.

Loved it so much, in the imaginary or composite city of my dreams, a frequent event is finding a newsagent with a lot of reprints and all of the latest issues, I buy them, go home, and read them ... and love them as much as at the time ... bitter disappointment to wake up from that.

So many good artists, the only reason I ever bought Star Wars comics was the stage where most of their good artists were from 2000AD, Cam Kennedy and Ian Gibson did especially great work on those (well over ten years ago now).

All-time favourite was Nemesis the Warlock, I think, but too close a competition with the many other great stories and artists, so my vote goes to Kevin O'Neill (can't be bothered to check the spelling now). Always preferred Torquemada   to Nemesis, who except for Pat Mills would back a superhuman alien demon against a  very mortal human? Bit like the Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote.

What do others here most love in these fields?
 Sorry for not posting media, very tired and lazy mood.

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I was a huge fan of the original Star Was comics of the late 70's.

I had to track them down and re-read them. Sadly, I am missing loads of them as they are swamped with the American version of the same comic at every turn.

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Should have checked those, too, but the franchise factor kept me away until later on, didn't even notice the 2000AD factor until about 10 yrs ago, by which time the good ones were few (but I have a couple).

[headkaze]

When I was a youngin' I used to read mostly English comics... like Buster, Whizzer & Chips, Oink and Beano. I just found out that Buster was supposed to be the son of Andy Capp (which is another comic I used to read). I did read a few Crisis comics which I believe were offshoots of 2000 AD or something. A couple of mates collected 2000 AD but I never got into it myself.

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Re. reply from Headkaze: Yarr, I went through a Whizzer and Chips phase, read most of the others, but ended up much more interested in reading Look and Learn and making stuff up with schoolfriends (radio plays on the cassette recorder and written stories) at the time . Andy Capp was pretty cool in an uncool way, but I only ever saw the four-frame ones for the papers (or maybe there were long versions?). Interesting that much of it would be subject to the interests of PC kangaroo courts if published now.

Was enough of a loyal fan of the 2000AD empire at the time to buy and read at least three issues of Crisis, didn't last much longer anyway. Good art, but stories were way too preachy.

Am surprised that you aren't interested in comics, knowing your great pixel art (often looks like a comics sensibility at work).

Re. reply from Flash: What are your favourites from those early Star Wars comics? The one I like most (not an expert) was drawn by Cam Kennedy, a Fett the bounty hunter story with Jabba the Hutt's relatives, very smart and beautifully done, writer was also from the 2000AD stable. I think it's much later though, mid- or late '90s, but as I said, not an expert, didn't realise the great stuff was there until too late, when there was only US crap.

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Here is an animation I really love, made by drawing directly on film (although I am not fortunate enough to have seen it direct from film, have seen it on HD DVD, beats the YouTube version, but you will get the idea!).

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MAD! That is my best description... Lol

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MAD! That is my best description... Lol

That wasn't a bad comic either

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True.. Lol..

I used to,like the folding back covers.

Another fave of mine was the 'Giles' magazines/books

[sverx]

I was reading almost exclusively Peanuts stripes (Charles M. Schulz) when I was a boy/young adult.
I bet I could still tell what's said in the 4th image if you show me the first 3

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God, I enjoyed cartoons by Giles but had to look it up to remember.

A link to a specialist site.

http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/

Mad was great, but their greatest days were before any of us could have been reading it. The reprints from the 50s have (IMHO) the best art and strangest parodies, much of the early 60s stuff was on the same level, 70s had some good media send-ups but not on par with the earlier stuff (to me it looks lame in comparison), same (but further downhill) ever since. Also liked the folding back covers, but they were late relative to the mag's birth.

Oh well, my assumption was based on people around me at the time, we are all always inside our own skulls looking out.

Speaking of Mad, though, their stablemates at the time (that helped trigger Dr. Wertham to write Seduction of the Innocents and were perhaps the main reason for the panic that led to the Comics Code in America, and decades of superhero crap being dominant) were the EC horror and SF comics, Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science, etc. First saw them at about ten (in reprints, they pop up every eight or ten years), in love ever since.

Peanuts, sure, fun while Shultz was still in control, a bit cloying to me.

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Tales from the crypt was wonderful. I really enjoyed that at the time.

The superhero mags were something I never got in to. Never apealed (apart from the artwork).

Giles was (as I said) wonderful, and so was Peanuts (70's) and used to read them constantly. I still get a ton of amusement from the tv series of the 60's and 70's

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Will try to find some good links tomorrow, but I have two major exceptions for superherostuff (excepting iconic art by Kirby and Ditko).

2000AD ran a couple of series called Zenith in the very late 80s, the characters were mainly heroes from 60s Fleet St. comics BUT they also threw in big doses of HP Lovecraft (the superbaddies, one even clearly modelled on Siouxsie Sioux, have the aim of changing the universe so that Cthulhu and his Lloigor buddies can take it all back). Add a big dose of acid house, lots of pop culture refs ...

Leave the other until tomorrow.

[BaDToaD]

For me it had to be 2000AD Some of the one off short stories were great. What I call proper SciFi and often far deeper that the serial strips. There are a few I can still remember today.

I think there are some issues in my parents loft going back as far as issue 3. I dug them out a few years ago and had a read. What a nostalgia trip!

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Yar, the one-issue SF/horror shorts presented by Tharg were always fantastic.

Re. Zenith, this essay is a bit po-faced for my liking, but contains a few examples of the great art (I preferred the monochromatic original series).

http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/troublewithcomics/2009/09/zenith-examination-appreciation-massive.html

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The other great anti-superhero series, IMHO, is Marshal Law by Kevin O'Neill and Pat Mills.

Marshal Law is an anti-superhero in a world where insane veterans from US adventures in South America are running riot, and he hates them all. Whether they are really superheroes or just deluded is never completely clear. With thinly veiled parodies of everyone from Superman (as the incredibly vain and hypocritical 'Public Spirit') to Spiderman (minor character in an asylum), and Batman (the 'Private Eye', who drives around in a coffin-shaped car), it was breathtakingly wonderful at the time.

O'Neill talking about Marshal Law, includes some good frames from the comics.

These anti-superhero superhero comics (and the Frank Miller Batman comics, not much good in retrospect) certainly influenced the idiots in the US megacorpses, so they desperately tried to work in a little street cred on their lame mags, perhaps also helping inadvertently to launch the load of cinematic crap from which they make so much money.