Reddit reviews Stray Bullets Uber Alles Edition

Check out some more Matt Kindt work - Mind MGMT is fabulous, and I really enjoyed Red Handed.

Also, if you want the DC version of Civil War, released ten years earlier and (IMO) much, much better, give Kingdom Come by Mark Waid a look.

I haven't read Bunn's Deadpool, but IMO the absolute best Deadpool is Joe Kelly's.

Just some other books to check out:

• Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender (also available in Complete Collections)
  
  
• Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
  
  
• Planetary by Warren Ellis (Omnibus also available)
  
  
• Chew by John Layman
  
  
• Starman by James Robinson
  
  
• The Maxx by Sam Kieth
  
  
• Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli
  
  
• Bone by Jeff Smith (there's also a full-color edition but it's out of stock and much more expensive, not that it matters - the art is considerably better in black & white)
  
  
• Stray Bullets by David Lapham (you can get individual volumes for about $12-$15 bucks each but there's 12 of them, the $45 omnibus is considerably better value for money)
  
  
• Scalped by Jason Aaron.

Stray Bullets by David and Maria Lapham and Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba, and Fabio Moon have had... complicated... publishing histories, but they are amazing, world-class books.

The first leg of Stray Bullets was self-published starting in 1995 under Lapham's personal El Capitan imprint, with 41 issues out between then and the wrap-up (after much delay) in 2014. It's part-noir, part slice-of-life, inherently dark, but utterly beautiful when it wants to be. Since they wrapped up the first run (the first volume is called The Innocence of Nihilism, and Reddit seems to be preventing me from embedding a link, but it is on a huge sale on Amazon as of 09.12.18), there's been a mini-series subtitled Killers that (seems to) tie up the first 41 issues, and a new run subtitled Sunshine and Roses.

The truly amazing thing about Stray Bullets is that it's only gotten better, and only continues to get better, since its debut. It's consistent, occasionally stunning, and always compelling. If you start from the beginning (the series is very generous and well-constructed in that you can jump into most issues and just get going), you get to see Lapham grow so much as an artist and storyteller. There's nothing else like it.

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Casanova was published by Image starting in 2006, then Marvel's Icon imprint starting in 2013, and now Image again as of, I think, 2015. Explaining all of it would give us all nosebleeds.

The easiest way to pick these up is through the hardcovers of the first three volumes and the two trades of the most recent volume. If you'd rather buy a trade than a hardcover, you can jump in with volume four (which is also on a huge sale). It's mindbending sci-fi about a man becoming his own evil twin, layered with pop-culture references, weird sex, and a reverence for the poignant and the bizarre in equal measure. There are story beats that hit like a truck, and storytelling tricks that are just amazing.

Casanova asks a little more patience from its readers than the aforementioned Stray Bullets, but everything you put into each, you get back. Stray Bullets is really rewarding for different reasons that Casanova. When I read Cass for the first time, I had NO IDEA what was going on. I bought the first Image hardcover (published in 2006 or 2007) at least twice before I finally Got It. I ended up buying the Image singles for Fraction's backmatter essays: there's some great process stuff, but some incredible heart-on-your-sleeve, ass-out-in-the-open matter about his life, the cultural references, and how deep he digs to create this lovely thing.

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Anyway. Highest possible recommendation.

I'm a huge fan, really love it.

FWIW, the über alles edition is also still available on amazon, if you'd like a printed version:

http://www.amazon.com/STRAY-BULLETS-UBER-ALLES-ED/dp/1607069474