: Wow, I guess I was a lot more tired last night than I thought. I've
: definitely read Sandman, and I have no idea how that one slipped my mind.
: Mig was actually kind enough to mail me his whole collection for a little
: bit. That was the second comic series I read, before my roommate loaned me
: Preacher. Definitely a good one that I need to re-read at some point. A
: lot of it went over my head. But that is definitely one of the more
: emotional comics I've read. I got really choked up on Season of Mists
: and The Wake , and really, really fascinated by World's End .

: Typically, I prefer the more heady, existential/philosophical stuff to the
: straight-up action or more physically-focused stories. I'd rather read a
: comic of two characters sitting and talking to each other in a room with
: nothing going on physically but a lot going on mentally than a bunch of
: action sequences. I think those actually take the most skill to make
: interesting in comic format. Also, anything with some sort of meta
: commentary, where they make you stop and think about what you're reading,
: and yet still manage to do so without pulling you out of the story. What
: Bioshock was/is to video games.

: Additionally (and although I fundamentally disagree with Cody's opinion) I do
: still find that comics have a hard time surpassing film. While the comic
: versions of Watchmen and V for Vendetta are undoubtedly filled with way
: more ideas and symbolism, I don't think that they're likely to better
: capture the idea or the intent of the story than the films. I prefer
: not to have redundant experiences. I was fortunate that I read Watchmen
: before I saw the film, but I think the film did such a good job that from
: now on I'm going to stick with that (don't worry, I'll go back and read it
: again at some point down the road, it's just that for now if I ever feel
: like re-experiencing Watchmen, the film doesn't take as long to get
: through and contains a lot of the same messages). I feel like the same
: would be true of V for Vendetta, which is what's stopped me from picking
: that up before. I love that film as it is.

I liked V when I saw it but there was a number of things in the plot I felt confused by or that seemed rushed. I read the comic for the first time after I had seen the film (benefiting from Hugo's great voice in my head) and immediately saw the important nuances that they missed, that for me, really made the story hit more effectively. Developing Natalie Portman's character better, putting more emphasis on the people letting the government go wrong and less villians in power, and especially the ending (SPOLIERS ahead). V was not a superhero, not a fighter with bullet time, he was a puppeteer and purposeful martyr, intending to be killed to fulfill his plot. And then instead of citizens uniting with masks on to overturn the government, the comic had the far more realistic happen: painful and bloody chaos and revolution.

As for The Watchmen, I felt the movie grabbed most of the literal story okay, at least with the first half, but had none of the meta-stories that the comic told, which is what truly made an impression on me when I read it. I'm still noticing things in the designs and paneling that reveal more subtle cues, metaphors, and comparisons when I re-read it. Like I said in another post, it was a comic about comics, that told it in such a special way that I'm still learning about comic stortelling from it now. I'm not slighting it - it's just that he movie just couldn't replicate the diamond and x-patterns in the paneling and color schemes, the juxtaposition of the pirate story and newsstand duo alongside the superheros... because it's a comic about comics.

: Along those lines, I watched the Year One animated film. It was great, but
: even that felt redundant after watching Batman Begins. I'm definitely more
: interested in some original Batman stories that maybe haven't made it onto
: the screen yet. Stuff where I don't know how it'll turn out.

Perhaps Arkham Asylum? That's definitely a pyschological romp, and its illustrated by Sandman's Dave McKean.

: I'm interested in reading some more Alan Moore writing. Swamp Thing always
: interested me because it seemed so far outside the realm of his style, I
: wanted to see how he worked with that.

: Maus sounds fascinating (even though I also disliked Animal Farm for the use
: of animals). See, I guess I'm just kind of a tough guy to please when it
: comes to comics.

: I'm gonna look into all of these. There's a comic shop here in Chicago that I
: love to visit, I'll take a look at whatever they might have. :)

If you want more existential/philosophical stuff, there's always the Death spinoffs Gaiman wrote, and all his early standalone works with McKean (like Signal to Noise I mentioned in another post - that is definitely one of the most meta stories I've ever read). There's also Violent Cases, Mr. Punch, Murder Mysteries, Cages. All good stuff. Hellblazer also has some great stories along the same lines.

Look up Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Jonathan Hickman's indie stuff - a lot of their work might hit a good balance between the philosophical and science fiction I know you love.