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If you haven't heard, the website/service Scribd has recently added comic books to their service, allowing unlimited reading amongst the publishers that they've partnered with.

My intention is to use the free trial period to review the service and their offerings and write up an entry for our blog about them.

To this end, I'm hoping that I can find out what comic books and/or specific issues our users would be looking for in a service like this. For example, I would personally be looking for the Dark Phoenix saga from Marvel Comics, or perhaps the Death of Gwen Stacy. From IDW, I would personally be looking for the All Hail Megatron issues.

From the following publishers below, what would you be looking for?

  • Archie Comics
  • Dynamite Comics
  • IDW Comics
  • Marvel Comics
  • Top Cow Comics
  • Top Shelf Comics
  • Valiant Comics
  • Zenescope Comics

Was your favorite publisher not included (I hear you DC comic fans screaming "WHAT ABOUT ME?!")? What publishers would you be hoping for?

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    why do we even have a "primarily opinion based" closed reason on meta? isn't that the point of meta? – KutuluMike Feb 17 '15 at 15:34
  • Fawcett, Fiction House, EC. – user14111 Feb 17 '15 at 20:43
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    Note to users who think about voting to close: on meta, opinions are wanted and the question is on topic, since the OP is not asking what he would like to read, but what titles should be used for a review on the blog. – SQB Feb 18 '15 at 12:32
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For Marvel, I'd say 3 types of comic should be checked:

  1. Books published recently, ~1 year ago. Also see how recent the most-recent available comics are.
  2. Seminal books from 20-30 years ago.
  3. Really old stuff from Marvel's early days (or even pre-dating Marvel proper).

For #1, I'd recommend looking at a random smattering of books that were released about a year ago. A quick google search can find all the comics published each week, so pick a week and check a bunch of books that were released then.

For #2, I'd suggest big events from the 80's and 90's. Things like Secret Wars, Infinity Gauntlet, Maximum Carnage, etc.

For #3, look up first appearances for some of Marvel's big guns. Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers, etc. and see if those first appearances are available.

A methodology like this may work on other comic publishers (admittedly with a more compressed timeline), but I'm not familiar enough with most of them to say with certainty.

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  • @MichaelEdenfield That's pretty much everything Marvel since 1974! – phantom42 Feb 17 '15 at 16:55
  • It might be good to cover the comics about wolverines death for #1 – AncientSwordRage♦ Feb 18 '15 at 7:33
  • @phantom42: Nah, that's just ones he's on the cover of. He's not really in most of them. – Jeff Mar 3 '15 at 1:42
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For Dynamite, I think it pretty much has to be the The Boys. Everything else is licensed. As to which story, just start at the top - the origin story is pretty sharp, and complete in 2 issues (though their first adventure is the next four issues). I don't know if they would have the rights to those issues, as they were originally published by Wildstorm but have subsequently been reprinted by Dynamite. If the first 6 issues aren't there, then "Glorious Five Year Plan" (issues 11-14) would be an early hit from the series.

Nearly everything else from Dynamite is licensed properties, which will be very hit-and-miss in terms of fans (fan either like the source material or not, but the comic will only be enjoyed by fans of both the original and the new comic). Still, you could check out Classic Battlestar Galactica for a flavor of the type of thing they do.

For Zenescope, you ought to just go with their flagship title, Grimm's Fairy Tales. Most issues of this series are standalone, but if you want to select a popular one, you could try issue 15's "Three Little Pigs".

For Top Shelf, the big hits are going to be the Alan Moore books, and the top title is likely going to be League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III, but Lost Girls is probably going to be up there, too. Other popular comics are going to be the critically-acclaimed works that people have a hard time shelling out $30 for in their bookstore. Titles like Blankets, or Good-bye, Chunky Rice from Craig Thompson, or Clumsy from Jeffrey Brown.

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