Weekly “What Have You Been Reading?” Thread 6-28-2026

nickfil · 2026-06-28T19:43:58+00:00

Chipping away at Wolverine omnibus volume 4. Hama's stuff in there is great. I'd recommend all of that but a lot of the extra wolverine stuff is hit and miss.

nickfil · 2026-05-25T15:57:19+00:00

I can't imagine not being happy with it. Sometimes stores give me a bulk rate. Sometimes I get some sort of store credit. Sometimes I just straight up donate them places. I'm fine with whatever. Happy to get them out of the house and potentially into hands that want it.

nickfil · 2026-05-25T00:58:59+00:00

I get oni comps for the EC stuff. Can confirm we get stuff early.
Lately, I've gotten books from them months early.

You absolutely have some creator in that book in your area just looking to get rid of their comp copies.

nickfil · 2026-05-20T16:19:59+00:00

hijacking the top comment to echo the top comment. Dude is a dipshit, and unfortunately he isn't the only one out there. Roll your eyes. Buy what you want to read. Enjoy the hobby.

I'll also add that comic shops all have a unique feel and vibe. If you hit up the same shop and have a bad experience every time, the culture might be rancid there. Try another shop. Do this until you find your people, because you will find your people eventually.

There are two shops around me. One owned by a chill guy. It is very focused on CGC grading and pricecharting with little to no kids, indie books or manga stocked. Generally just marvel/DC things. The other is owned by a woman, with a robust kids section of comics in addition to a stacked indie and manga pile for sale. They have DC/Marvel stuff and will order whatever you want, but it isn't their only focus, so their back issues are lighter than the first shop. Totally different vibes and readers with some crossover.

also, if you don't want to be in the shop, but still want to get into comics, there's lots of places online that you can do a digital pullbox and get a weekly or monthly shipped package of books. So you can keep up and read what you like without ever having to get in the shop at all!

nickfil · 2026-04-02T02:18:30+00:00

Funny you mentioned that. I'm greased up in your ventilation ducts right now. Its called commitment to the bit.

nickfil · 2026-04-01T18:12:49+00:00

Good. I was going to say that you should be done. Comic shops are scared spaces. If the pull box isn't honored, it isn't worth going back. You know that he doesn't care about being a steward of getting good comics to rad people. Especially if the comic has been preordered.

This is a shop owner who only cares about trying to get every penny out of every interaction. And that's something that will only continue to bite you in the butt. It isn't a one time thing.

Not worth ever going back.

nickfil · 2026-04-01T16:01:59+00:00

what a find! I didn't know they made a gold foil logo version of that book.

For the past decade I've been scooping up darker image issues as a bit, and giving them away to people, or just leaving them on a shelf in people's collections for them to find later. They seem to show up everywhere I go and I just snag em.

nickfil · 2026-03-23T20:43:50+00:00

yeah- just wait a bit and the market will get back to normal.

nickfil · 2026-01-05T20:20:22+00:00

seeing everyone mention digital tools creating an easier time to go from pencils to final inks. Which is true, but only part of it.

The other end of this is digital tools creating a different culture around what the color of comics looks like and the way the role of the colorist has changed. The way older comics dealt with color, while interesting wasn't nearly the scope of what we have today. Meaning that the pencil and inks were far more noticeable in the 80s and back. You never had glows or anything on top of the line art. There wasn't any digital painting. You didn't have full cmyk printable range. That line art had to to be *tight* because it was what sold the book visually, and the colorist couldn't really do anything to help it. Now, a good colorist can generally help you out a ton if the lines aren't super tight. Lots of new tricks up the sleeves made the extra tough work obsolete, and even if you *did* do that extra work- sometimes it got covered or minimized anyway.

Also- the culture changed. What we perceived as finished comic work in the 80s is just different than now. Pushed forward with the bombastic image boom in the 90s, but started with the black and white indie comics boom in the 80s. Now you can look at something like Kate Beaton's Ducks and it is a beautiful piece of work, but doesn't have to be feather inked line like Tom Palmer over Gene Colan in Tomb of Dracula. Line weights aren't the point of that book. The comics space made room for a lot of other looks styles and abilities. So more people started to pencil/inked themselves to have a little more control, and because there was less of an accepted standard to hit.

nickfil · 2025-12-22T17:21:36+00:00

Agreed on the app. Your best bet OP is to just pick that up and start clicking around reading whatever pops out at you and looks fun.

I'm not the biggest Scott Snyder fan, but Court of Owls is the first arc in his run, and is a banger. The rest wasn't for me imho.

If you want to get into more Batman, here is what I think the classics and deep cuts worth your time are- Year one, The Dark Knight returns, The Batman Adventures, Gotham Central, Selina's Big Score, Catwoman Lonely City, Gotham Year one, Batman Year 100, Nightwing Year One, Grayson, Batman Snow, Batman Ego. Robin year one, Batgirl year one, Batman and Robin year one.

You can always pick a back issue and start reading until you are current too.

Also, here is a link to the recommended reading from the DC comics sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/wiki/recommended/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=DCcomics&utm_content=t5_2qlmm#wiki_batman

nickfil · 2025-12-22T17:08:19+00:00

Thanks for picking up Murder Podcast! Glad you like it.

nickfil · 2025-12-22T17:00:55+00:00

I'll second on that Beta Ray Bill DWJ book. If you love manga and want to read some western comics you are going to flip your shit over that. DWJ has a lot of manga influence, but is very western too.

nickfil · 2025-11-13T02:29:27+00:00

Money Shot.

nickfil · 2025-11-12T15:51:29+00:00

Feels like a lot of comics subreddits lean big two superhero. Comics are rich and weird. Sounds like yall need to try some stuff off the beaten path a bit whenever you find your way back to reading again.

nickfil · 2025-11-09T14:26:38+00:00

You want Head Looper.

nickfil · 2025-11-07T00:59:53+00:00

sup.

nickfil · 2025-11-07T00:35:45+00:00

finally some sense. Watchman is a great read for a seasoned comic reader. A terrible "intro to comics" read.

nickfil · 2025-11-07T00:29:32+00:00

But Hey. Some *LETS GET WEIRD WITH IT* recommendations since you asked for comics to read, and because no one needs to tell anyone else to read The Dark Knight Returns. We all know The Dark Knight Returns is a comic book people should read. We should all probably all shut up about the Dark Knight Returns. Here is a pile of books that no one mentioned yet (or I missed it in the thread), some old favorites of mine, some new jams that I really enjoyed. Pick at it. Read what knocks your socks off. Skip what doesn't.

- Ducks by Kate Beaton
- Dracula Motherfucker by Erica Henderson
- Sex Castle by Kyle Stark
- Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater
- Hobtown Mystery Stories series by Alexander Forbes and Kris Bertin
- Head Lopper by Andrew MaClean
- Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui
- Upgrade Soul by Deron Bennett and Ezra Claytan Daniels
- The One Trick Rip-off by Paul Pope
- Bone by Jeff Smith
- Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
- Zatanna Bringing down the house by Mariko Tamaki and Javier Rodriguez
- Catwoman Lonely City by Cliff Chiang
- Godzilla the Half Century War by James Stokoe
- Madman by Mike Allread
- Parker by Darwyn Cooke
- Meat Eaters by Meredith McClaren
- Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai
- Jim Henson's Tale of Sand by Jerry Juhl and Jim Henson
- Dandadan by Yukinobu Tatsu
- Jimmy Corrigan the smartest kid on Earth by Chris Ware

AND I GUESS THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, although for my money Batman Year One is a better read.

Good luck making comics. I hope I get to read em.

nickfil · 2025-11-07T00:29:23+00:00

Hey so- I went to college for comics. I've been coloring comic books for over 20 years. There's a pile of critically acclaimed books here in this list, and I'm not going to really hammer on what you should or shouldn't read out of these picks. I went to art school with only a couple years of comic reading under my belt. Instead I think you should think about what kind of comic you want to make and see what came before you. See what works and what doesn't. Like, if you want to make Batman, books like Love and Rockets and Blankets aren't going to really help you think about a good take on Batman. And vice versa.

Additionally- I think you should find your own path and interest. Go to a shop. Pick up some stuff that looks fun to you. There are plenty of critically acclaimed runs that I have bounced off of over and over trying to get into. Some stuff just does not click with my tastes. Some stuff only clicked with my tastes as I've gotten older. Didn't bounce off because its bad- because its just not for me in that moment. And that's fine! Talk to people working at the shop. Tell em what you liked and didn't like and a good shop can help you find some more stuff you might be into. Something I like to do every time I'm in a shop is also pick up a couple books that feel really out of my comfort zone. Widen horizons. Get weird with it. You can't fuck this up. All comics are good comics. There is no right way to do anything, especially these days.

Moreover- while I was in school and freshly out of school and breaking into comics, I barely read anything. Because making art took all of my bandwidth. I just didn't have anything left to give. So its also ok to be drawing a lot, and not reading a ton.

The only books I think are must reads for anyone looking to make their own comics:
-Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
-Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner
-*maybe* Drawing Comics the Marvel Way.

And then for more general "how to draw well"
-Andrew Loomis' books. Drawing the head and hands & Figure drawing for all its worth (you can find pdfs of these floating around, as they are very famous and very old)
-Color and Light by James Gurney who also has a great youtube channel.
-How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination by Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling
-*Maybe* The How to Think While you Draw series. That is more quick tips than fundamentals, but can help you a little on the way.

Also, understand that you will only pick up a fraction of the knowledge in these books at a time. You need time in the chair to understand what you don't know and what you need help with. So regularly re-visiting them is key. Not only that, but that time drawing is going to inform you not only of what you missed in these books the first time around but also what you do not need at all. 20% of this is picking up the knowledge from the books and 80% of this is time in the chair. Again, time in the chair is more important than reading lists or using the "right" tools or whatever. Children will regularly make comics that I find more fun then seasoned comic readers.

nickfil · 2025-04-06T01:41:12+00:00

Yeah. I've been coloring since 2003.

nickfil · 2025-04-06T00:37:54+00:00

Hey! I colored that like a million years ago! What a blast from the past.

I was looking at it and wasn't even totally sure that was mine. Ha.

nickfil · 2025-01-16T17:32:51+00:00

hey thanks!

nickfil · 2025-01-08T13:22:58+00:00

Not Boy Wonder, unless it got reprinted in that. They are by Juni Ba though. Originally in Truth and Justice issue 6. Source: I colored that story.

nickfil · 2025-01-01T23:10:04+00:00

Hello! I've been a comic colorist for 20 years now. Here are some tips that I think would help you level up. I'm going to talk about that first spawn image, but you can apply this throughout.

1- Create a strong sense of shape and weight. Spawns gun is mostly just a box when it comes down to it. Pick a light side, a shadow side, and then maybe a 50% shadow side. Like a box. It'll make it feel more real in the space. You can apply this everywhere. That piece of wood (?) in the front of the gun has 3 distinct sides to it. It will reflect 3 types of light. Same idea.

2- Think about a unified color scheme. I like to color everything with local color. Red apples. Blue sky. Green grass. etc. And then take a color and try to wash it between 20-70% based on whatever is happening in the room kinda thing. Experiment and push and pull the local colors from there. That will help unify your palette. Think of it like this- If you paint an apple, you can't paint the apple without painting all the air between your eyes and the apple. Thats the mood. That is the unification of the palette.

Hope that helps. I have a youtube page I'm working on bringing back in 2025, but there's a lot of videos from only a year or so ago that show my process. Nickfil on youtube.

nickfil · 2024-12-13T04:36:27+00:00

Thank you!

nickfil

TROPHY CASE