Graphic Content

Back in September, I stopped being able to go into town every week to buy comic books. There are two reasons for this: time, and money. I was minding my niece twice a week, and couldn't always arrange to get out on the other three days of the week when I wasn't minding her. I sometimes had to go into work, or help around the house. Life got in the way, and by October I stopped trying. The money side of this was my plan to save. It turns out it's impossible to save money when you're buying a lot of comic books every week on a small budget.

I decided I would finish reading Young Avengers, because it was ending. Aside from that, I was turning to graphic novels and trade collections.

This began with one I'd wanted to read for a while: Morning Glories. Alongside that, I had Preacher. I've read a lot more of the former than the latter, but I have volume 2 of Preacher waiting for me to get around to.

It wasn't enough, though. I needed more titles, more variation, and not the standard Marvel and DC Superhero stuff. I was beyond superheroes, because reading the older stories would only remind me that I wasn't reading the newer stuff. Plus, I wanted to try something new (to me).

Enter Sandman. Enter Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enter Haunt and Y: The Last Man.

I've finished the first volumes of Sandman and Buffy, and I'm currently reading Y, and I can safely say I'll be returning for more in the very near future. But they're not all I've got. I have a volume of The Unwritten calling my name from my shelf. I have the first volume of The Walking Dead to read. I have a couple of stand-alone graphic novels that are crying for me to read them.

I am turning to graphic content.

Sometimes, I mean that literally. Let's look at it this way. Of the ones I've read in the past few months, Y is the least violent, Sandman the least obviously violent (because, well, people going a bit mad in it... and stuff.) Buffy is necessarily violent, given the titular character's titular role. Morning Glories is outright insane, and people usually get shot or get ghostly-demon-weirdness hands forced into their brains. Because FUN!

And Preacher? Well, it's emotionally disturbing on a whole new level of violent. When the Word of God is taken literally in the first volume, things get messy pretty quickly. And it's wonderful.

I've found that reading graphic novels is a lot more relaxing that anything else at the moment. It's easier on the eyes, in terms of the density of the text, which is good for me. With a lot of morning traffic outside my bedroom, I don't get too many lie-ons. My eyes end up tired by, like, eight at night, and that's on the days I don't end up in front of a screen all the time.

The problem is that I'll very quickly run out of things to read. So, I need suggestions. If it hasn't been mentioned above, I probably haven't read it. If it's a particular arc in a superhero story (for example, World War Hulk, The Dark Phoenix Saga, etc.) I'm not interested. I want to be able to pick up volume one and enjoy for what it is, not for where it fits into a whole other story.

So, what do you recommend?