The Crow and other recommended American comics for Berserk fans

I was never too big on American comics. Superman and all that never really captured my interest, but eventually I found Berserk. Shortly thereafter I also found American comics that had many simular characteristics with Berserk. Anyone who knows of an American comic that has simular traits as Berserk, or thinks that Berserk fans would enjoy the comic, feel free to leave suggestions for other's to check out.

One I recomend is "The Crow". I saw the movie a long time ago, and upon realizing it was based on a comic book series I searched for the comics. I've allways considered "Berserk" as dark fantasy and "The Crow" as more hyperreality based. Both though have a high dose of gothic romance. Both give me a simular vibe.

Preacher. Sandman. Walking Dead. In that order

They're nothing like Berserk, but anyone who appreciates the quality of Berserk will also appreciate these.

I'm a pretty big fan of Garth Ennis' take on the Punisher. For an American comic series it was the only one I could sit through and enjoy. As far as similarities between the two series there's not many [besides boobs and gore, but if that's why you follow either series you should stop]. Where the similarities between the two is just between Guts and Frank. I view Frank as being what Guts would have been if he had continued killing apostles, which could have left him alone or getting anyone that associates with him killed.

Anyways you're looking for American comics, I'd suggest Punisher: Year One, Punisher Max [I think it's called Punisher: Frank Castle now I haven't followed the newer stuff after Ennis left] and Planetary.

Walter said:

Preacher. Sandman. Walking Dead. In that order

They're nothing like Berserk, but anyone who appreciates the quality of Berserk will also appreciate these.

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Crap forgot about Preacher and Sandman. How is Walking Dead?

Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:

How is Walking Dead?

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It's good. I'd recommend it, though it's nowhere as epic as Preacher or Sandman.

The Crow & Preacher are quite good comics, Also has anyone ever considered reading Swamp Thing?

Swamp Thing? I don't think i've ever heard of that outside of horror movie titles. Whats it like?

Also, has anyone ever read the comic book version of "The Dark Tower" series based on the Steven King books? I was wondering if they where any good. I've only heard of them.

Scud: the Disposable Assassin isn't really like BERSERK but I like it a lot. It's really hilarious and has great characters, unfortunately Rob Schrab the creator quit at the end of the series about 10 years ago, then last year he finally made an ending and it's not quite up to par to what it once was, but I still love it. And you can get the Whole Shebang (a big book with all 24 or so comics) for around $40.. Other than that I don't really get into American comics as much, besides guys like Frank Miller and R. Crumb of course.

"Watchmen", of course, so obvious it needn't be said, but whatever - again, not Berserk 'style', though it does have definately its dark moments - and is transcendent in places, and should be included in every mention of high-class American comics.

I'm in the middle of "The Watchmen" right now. I like it a lot, surprisingly dark. You won't pick up on that unless you read some of it though, on the outside it looks like a typical Batman type deal.

Is "Tales of the Dark Freighter" really a comic series? Any comic where a character builds a raft out of the rotting corpses of his friends, then gets attacked by sharks is something else.

Beings_Mythos said:

I'm in the middle of "The Watchmen" right now. I like it a lot, serprisingly dark. You won't pick up on that unless you read some of it though, on the outside it looks like a typical Batman type deal.

Is "Tales of the Dark Freighter" really a comic series? Any comic where a character builds a raft out of the rotting corpses of his friends, then gets attacked by sharks is something else.

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It's just called Watchmen and the Tales of the Black Freighter is the comic within the Watchmen comic, not a separate series.  It's good stuff, have fun reading it.

I just thought of some. The "Masters of Horror" series. Each book is a compilation of some famous horror writer's works, mainly poems and short stories. They then get a bunch of graphic novel writers and artists to put images to them in a comic book type format. They do a lot of H.P. Lovecraft. I highly recomend them.

As mentioned before: Preacher and Sandman. Haven't read Walking Dead, but have been meaning to.

As for others, I would strongly recommend:

Garth Ennis' run on Punisher MAX. It spans 10 volumes and even has a few spinoff series, one shots and backstories that compliment the series itself. Just to elaborate, though, Ennis has written a shit-ton of Punisher stories. Like, a lot. He wrote a lot for the Marvel Knights Punisher(which spans like 35 issues in total, I think) and then a lot of one-shots(Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe). All of them are great, but the Punisher MAX series really stands out because Ennis doesn't have to censor himself as much as he would with non-adult imprints.

The Boys, also by Garth Ennis, has been a great read. I haven't been reading it much lately, though, because it's been rather slow-paced and extremely exposition-heavy. In the beginning, it had a lot of action and some great quips, but, as the story has progressed over the past few years, the action and violence(for the most part) has taken a backseat and the characters are pressing the story forward more and more.

A nice little miniseries to check out is Sliver Surfer: Requiem, by J. Michael Straczynski. It's quite possibly my favorite thing to read. Ever. It's extremely heavy-handed and very heart-warming. If you've ever read any of "The End" comics and hated them, then just forget about them because this one will really pull your tears. The synopsis is that the Silver Surfer is dying and he's remembering his life and trying to do as much as possible for everyone he loves before he dies. It's a very VERY good farewell. But, keep in mind, it isn't cannon and is simply an "End" story that has no value on the current situation in the Marvel universe.

Also, I would highly recommend "Midnight Nation", also by J. Michael Straczynski. It's about a man who is caught between life and death because the "Reapers" stole a certain part of his soul. He begins his year-long quest to walk across country to confront the demon who sent his reapers after him in the first place. It's a great story that spans about 12 issues, I believe. Well worth the read!

Swamp Thing was mentioned earlier in the thread, I think? Yeah, it was. I have the first three volumes of Alan Moore's run and, I gotta say, I didn't expect the Swamp Thing to be so interesting. It's hard to find a good writer for the series. The character, seriously, has had about four or five series to himself(one spanning 10 issues and another spanning close to 175). The character is hard to lock down and even more difficult to get good stories out of due to his speech pattern and, well, boringness? How he made it past the planning stages is beyond me. But, Alan Moore did a great job with the character because he reinvented him: Instead of an actual monster, he's an actual elemental, which is a giant step away from the original origin. I thought it was really interesting how Moore pulled it off, but he did it. Mark Millar upped the antie with a 25-part storyline where Swamp Thing basically becomes the god of all elements. The series was cancelled after that, though.

Infinity Guantlet is a badass story and I would HIGHLY recommend reading it. It's about Thanos acquiring the Infinity Guantlet and becoming God of the universe. Half the people in the universe get killed and, man, it's just an all-out war between Thanos, Marvel characters and even eternals. Great read. FANTASTIC read.

Watchmen has been mentioned already, so no need to elaborate on that.

If you like Spiderman, I would recommend J. Michael Straczynski's run on the series. Well, not the ENTIRE run, but up to a point: Books of Ezekiel. Anything after that is just plain shit(Sins Past, Skin Deep, New Avengers, Civil War, Back in Black). Also, please do NOT read One More Day. That story is complete shit and is the ultimate cop-out way to revert a character. So, stop at Book of Ezekiel. Seriously. Brand New day has been shit from beginning to right now.

I would also recommend the current Thor series. It's not classic "Thou art" Thor, but, instead, is more Shakespearean and much more dramatic than its previous installment. It's been pretty heavily delayed, so it's only had about thirteen issues released since 2007. But, honestly, it's a damn fine read and I would highly recommend it above anything else.

Check out the latest Captain America series. Ed Brubaker has done an AWESOME job with the series and it's even received media attention with the death of Captain America. It's about 50 issues in, so, if you start now, you'd really enjoy it for a good while.

Planet Hulk was awesome. It was written by Greg Pak. It's about the Hulk, having been exiled from Earth, stranded on a new planet where his powers are drained and he becomes a slave to an empire. It's a really good read and lasts about 12 issues and is actually the prelude to World War Hulk--which, in itself, is also an awesome read.

Moving on to less mainstream titles, I would recommend the following:

DMZ, Promethea, Top 10, Leage of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, Hitman, Dicks, The Pro, Chronicles of Wormwood, 303, Crimson, Incognito, Criminal, Cable and Deadpool(hilarious), Desolation Jones, Jonah Hex, Planetary, Midnighter, The Authority, No Hero, Black Summer, Crossed and Transmetropolitan.

I've got a pretty wide frame of reference with comics, so if you need any information about a random series then just let me know.

Green Lantern. In the Berserk World, humans aren't the ones running the world. The apostles, especially the God's hand, are the ones pulling most of the strings. There are few humans who know a little something something about the world like Flora and Daiba, but for the most part you get the sense (or at least I do) that humans know very little about this world. The presence of dwarves, elves, and apostles (until recently with "Griffith" exposing them) have all be hidden to the humans. This is the same setting with Green Lantern. While most super heroes are dealing with the issues on earth, the Green Lantern(s) are defending the world and even the universe at a much larger scale. Humans fighting in a nonhuman war.

Clawed The Bum said:

In the Berserk World, humans aren't the ones running the world. The apostles, especially the God's hand, are the ones pulling most of the strings.

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The apostles and the God Hand are two very distinct groups. Apostles don't pull too many strings, mostly they just live as they want and prey on humans.

Maybe pulling the strings was not the correct phrase to express what I meant. I meant more of like ruling the world. Ganishka, the Snake Baron, and the Slug Count are who I had in mind. They do what they want no matter the human interference. Nevertheless the point of my post wasn't to discuss whether or not apostles or God's hand are "pulling the strings" :x .

Clawed The Bum said:

God's hand

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It's God Hand, not God's hand.

Thank you.

Clawed The Bum said:

Nevertheless the point of my post wasn't to discuss whether or not apostles or God's hand are "pulling the strings" :x .

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I know, and I like the Green Lantern too. But you can't expect me not to intervene whenever Berserk is mentioned, do you?