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Yea Watchmen is an obvious choice. I recently finished reading it, and my head is still spinning cos I went for a power-read sort of thing. The fact that it’s unputdownable anyway helped obviously. Let’s get the other obvious choices out of the way, but one at a time.

Dark Knight Returns. My favorite episodes from this are: 1. The conversation between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent (not Superman and Batman). 2. The three panels where Joker’s smile returns upon hearing of Batman’s return to action. 3. Batman on horseback (how manly can he get really? Do I sound like a li’l girl?) and of course… 4. The final moments of the fight between Superman and Batman (“I want you to remember…”). Big Blue Boy Scout, Bah!

I actually never had a chance to read that one, but it sounds pretty cool.

How about The Killing Joke? If we’re already about Batman. I’ve recently had a chance to go through a copy, and I’m starting to think that maybe that interpretation of the Joker is even better than the animated-series one from the 90’s (which in my opinion has the best Joker around). It’s weird how the line between funny and scary is so thin.

Oh yea The Killing Joke is awesome, and the ending with the two arch-enemies laughing like crazy over a silly joke is beautifully twisted! But Moore attempts to explain the origins of joker’s insanity. It makes the character more complete, but I kinda like the mystery surrounding complex characters. Which is one of the reasons I loved Heath Ledger’s portrayal. He makes a joke of his origin too!

If it’s a scary joker you want, I strongly recommend DKR. Well there are other reasons too.

Or maybe watch Heath Ledger again. That’d do the trick too.

I haven’t read watchmen – will be getting my hands on it soon. Of the ones i have read – Would rate Sandman as the best. Something about the entire way neil gaiman has protrayed the protagonist, that i find simply awesome.

The dark knight returns is also very awesome – probably my favourite batman work.

Sandman is my absolute favorite comic series of all time, but i doubt it can be considered as a graphic novel. (its more of a series of graphic novels) As far as graphic novels are considered, my favourite would be Watchmen.Moore at his best!

Yup Sandman really is something else, but there’s no doubting that it’s a graphic novel. The market for graphic novels may be relatively limited compared to conventional novels, but the genres run parallel to a great extent. Sandman is kinda like fantasy fiction, although the stunning visuals give it an altogether different feel. Watchmen is genre-bending in a way, but broadly falls in the superhero/crime/pulp genre, with a dash of anthropic principle thrown in :)

Although Watchmen clearly is the most acclaimed of Alan Moore’s works, I find V for Vendetta almost as good, and even better in certain ways. What it lacks in character development compared to Watchmen, it makes up for with the sheer awesomeness of dialogue. The movie adaptation was okay, but nothing compared to the comic. They made unneccesary story changes and totally blew the anarchy theme.

I only recently got my hands on the Hellblazer series, though I’d been hearing about it for a long time, and had even seen Keanu Reeves’ retarded depiction of John Constantine. What a pity they cast the most stonefaced actor of all time to play such an amazingly badass character.

I think Keanu Reeves as Constantine wasn’t as bad as Nicholas Cage’s Ghost Rider… what an awful pick! Talking about stonefaced, seriously. But I just hate Cage.

I’ll make sure to read V though, I actually haven’t yet. And I always wanted to read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that movie was relatively good. Did anybody read that one?

Someone recently suggested Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

It takes place in Toronto and includes a bunch of Toronto landmarks such as Honest Ed’s, the Sonic Boom music store, Sneaky Dee’s restaurant, and even Pacific Mall in Markham (a suburb of Toronto). I guess if you’re familiar with Toronto it’s kind of cool to see your city in literature. Scott Pilgrim is in love with Ramona Flowers and wants to date her – but has to beat her Seven evil ex-boyfriends first. I haven’t read it, but it looks pretty good. Anyone read this or heard about it?

Nope, haven’t heard about it. But I agree that a story based in your city sounds kinda cool. Although I’m pretty sure the Big Apple dwellers must be sick and tired of the concept by now :)

V for Vendetta… yeah, it was great, especially V’s television presentation. But tell me, any of you read the Miracleman series? (Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman writing the same character- it was heaven on earth, and it couldn’t be finished due to copyright battles. Damn all the legal stupidities)

Recently read Maus A Survivor’s Story; an eloquent narration of a Polish man’s life in Nazi Germany. Beautiful.