The Final ’90s Countdown: Prologue.
pictured: a 1990s comic book
So I think I’ve recovered sufficiently from the Final ’80s Countdown series of posts, in which I tallied
Thus, it’s time for the Final ’90s Countdown, in which I ask, nay, demand of you to tell me your favorite independent title of the much-maligned 1990s era of comic books right here in this post’s comments section. ’90s comics may get a lot of grief, but honest, there were good books too!
There are rules, because aren’t there always?
- This poll is for indie titles only…no Marvel, no DC, no Vertigo, none of their other subdivisions, etc. I know Wildstorm leaves Image and joins DC Comics in 1999, but…let’s try to stick to pre-DC Wildstorm if you’re picking one of their titles.
- No one-shots or graphic novels…just actual comic book series that ran at least three issues.
- Series had to start in the 1990s. If it’s a feature that ran through multiple mini-series, you can nominate all those as “one” series if you want, but those series had to have started in the ’90s (like, for example, Lady Death, but not the 1980s-originating Concrete).
EDIT: if you’re not sure when the series started, you can look it up on the Grand Comics Database!
- Just ONE vote per person, please! That means leaving just one title in your comment…maybe with a little additional commentary if you want, or it could just be the name of the book.
- I am going to have to request my more…verbose commenters to please not get into an extended conversation in this comments section. Just leave it for votes only, please. (I’ll set up a separate post where you can chat about this here.)
And I think that’s about it. Please tell me your favorite indie comics of the 1990s, and eventually I’ll cut off voting and start discussin’. I’ll try to get some folks on Bluesky to participate, too, to boost up the numbers hopefully.
Thanks, pals, and we’ll see how it goes! I look forward to talking about your choices! Even if it’s Purgatori!
Gen 13
It’s gotta be Pirate Corp$/Hectic Planet for me. I was 19 when I discovered this. The perfect age. Think I picked up HP5 to start with and then worked my way back. Love how it evolved from a space opera to a crazy rock n roll slice of life punk rock dramedy without ever retconning itself one bit. Was my intro to Evan Dorkin too, who I will always have time for, tracking all of his stuff down as it came out: bill and Ted, instant piano, Fight Man, Beasts of Burden…
Yeah. I vote Pirate Corp$. Changed my life, for real.
Adam – I love Pirate Corp$ but the Slave Labor run started in the late ’80s! I discussed it here in my ’80s Countdown. Did you want to pick something else (likw his series Dork)?
EDIT: my initial suggestion for a replacement was a Marvel series, which means I can’t even follow my own rules. Sigh.
The Nocturnals: Black Planet (1995, Malibu/Bravura) by Dan Brereton. Instantly fell in love with the characters and the vibe, a comic that still has gas today.
Adding to the love for Evan Dorkin…His comic Dork. I think it started early 90s. Looking back, probably my favourite 1990s indie. There are so many stand out comic strips in there.
I love it so much I’ve got all the originals – which are not so easy to find in merry old england – and the hardback reprint.
Skeleton Key by Andi Watson.
Peter Bagge’s HATE – Since I nominated Cerebus for the 80’s countdown I double-checked: #1 came out April 1990 Whew, that was close !
Bone! Just a perfect mix of adventure, comedy, and heart.
Strangehaven. Which I can’t believe has been around for 30 years now. I think I’m missing a couple of the latest chapters.
I’m kind of sorry I cannot go for the James Robinson Starman, he seems like a very 90’s kind of guy and would be very different if still around today.
So staying out of the DC lane, I’m going to go with Bone. (although I very tempted to go with Astro City)
My pick is Strangers in Paradise. I did not find it until late 1996, but it had a strong run starting in 1993 and still is a viable, recognized property to this day.
Stray Bullets
its a bit of a toss up-but between Bone and Hellboy, it’s Hellboy.
So many great choices! I love so many of the books already mentioned, but if I’ve gotta choose just one it’s Stray Bullets.
Gotta be Jeff Smith’s Bone.
Johnny The Homicidal Maniac
Finder by Carla Speed McNeil.
Hellboy gets my vote
First issue of Eightball came out in August of ‘89?! Damn it!
Ok, so I’ll go with Acme Novelty Library, then. Jeez, the 90s were a good decade for Indy comics!
I also vote for Jeff Smith’s “Bone”.
My vote’s for Hellboy even though I didn’t start reading it until after the nineties.
Strangers in Paradise
Peepshow.
(We still miss you, Joe!)
There were a lot of great choices listed that I didn’t even consider…but I have to go with my first choice, one of my favourite comics ever, Hellboy.
Madman (The Oddity Odyssey > Madman Adventures > Madman Comics)
Stray Bullets, and I’m glad to see other people listing it, too. Issue 4 is one of the creepiest comics I’ve ever read. Great art, and every issue was compelling.
So that it doesn’t get forgotten, I’ll throw in a vote for The Mask by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke.
Amy Unbounded by Rachel Hartman
The Maxx — I’m betting the “spirit animal” aspect hasn’t aged gracefully but it was still absolutely gorgeous
Honorable mentions: REN, INTERGALACTIC CHIHUAHUA
Gotta go with Bone. It’s the definitive indie book of the era, really, as well as being a perennial classic.
Any Hellboy.
“Most” 90s or “best” 90s?
Most 90s has to be Hate! by Peter Bagge. Not that it encapsulates the 90s comics industry so much as it encapsulates being young(-ish) in the 90s.
Best 90s? I’ll vote for Akiko as I find it’s the comic from the period I return to most often.
Hm. I guess the first chapters being in the Taboo anthology first rules out From Hell. There’s a lot of quintessential 90s books that technically started in 1989 in general.
So I’ll go with Kurt Busiek’s (and Brent Anderson’s) Astro City.
Surprised at the votes so far, I thought it would all be Optic Nerve and Palookaville and Yummy Fur. Warren Ellis also had an outsized impact on the 90s, though his reputation means he’s unlikely to pick up many votes.
I’m torn between four: the Alan Moore run on Supreme is excellent and extremely of-its-decade, and never finishing is very 1990s Image. Stray Bullets I love and it certainly outweighs the others in terms of ambition, though it’s petered out. Sin City was fantastic, the sheer materialising of an artist’s vision on the page, the stripping-down of noir.
But I’m going for Joe Matt’s Peepshow, the ultimate of those 90s confessional comics in that it went in harder on its subject than any. And also Joe’s sadly gone so it’s a tribute.
I hate having to choose only one. So many great indy books started in the 90s. Hellboy, Bone, Artbabe, Stray Bullets, Madman, Optic Nerve, Whiteout, Harbinger, True Swamp, Stormwatch, Black Hole, Action Girl Comics, Blue Monday. So many more that are disqualified because the started in the 80s.
I think my vote is for Paul Pope’s THB
Supreme.
Even the pre-Moore madness is pure 90s delight. Babewatch, anyone?
(Okay, maybe not Babewatch…)
So many to choose from! But I’m gonna opt for “Strangers in Paradise”
Second vote for HATE!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_(comics)
I confess that I wasn’t reading a ton of comics in the ’90s, but picking from that meager selection, I’ll go with Madman.
Oh shoot, no, Optic Nerve! I’d delete my previous comment if I could.
Black Hole by Charles Burns
Strangers in Paradise. Although it had runs where it made less sense than usual, SiP is the series that most affected me.
I’m a big fan of Astro City and Bone but feel those could have somehow come from DC or Marvel on their best days.
Well, since Gregory came out in ’89, I’m going to say Tug & Buster
Oh, definitely Hellboy.
I came late to that party, but man oh man. And I love the BPRD stuff as well. Such great characters, fighting on when there is little to no hope.
Meat Cake
Jeff Smith’s Bone.
Louis Riel by Chester Brown
Three issues were published in 1999 — I checked!
Peter Bagge’s HATE, please!
A third vote for Peter Bagge’s HATE,please!
I really think Eightball deserves to be grandfathered in as it is very much a 90s comic even if a quirk of time had the first issue out in (late!) ’89.
But even if it were, my vote would still be for Acme Novelty Library. (Next would be Stray Bullets.)
Strange Attractors(i’ll comment further in the comments thread). Suffice to say here I couldn’t choose from the excellent choices above so I’ll point out Strange Attractors has a POD/digital Omnibus available plus a color special(covers and guest artists, since only 15 issues were published-warning I don’t remember if the story was completed in the follow-up mini series Moon Fever[only 2 published out of 4 planned, out of print] I had more to say I guess.
Astro City (special shout out to #1/2, easily the best of those Wizard 1/2 issues)
The first chapter of From Hell was published in 1989? Ugh!
It feels weird to vote for anything Valiant, it’s not really an “indie” except in the sense that anything not Marvel/DC gets called “indie.”
Gen 13– yeah, Stray Bullets is better, but it was hugely influence, both stylistically and in other ways (the 13 variant covers for #1 of the ongoing).
Gonna stir the pot here and add some manga: Sailor Moon.
Per Wikipedia entry: Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha’s shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi from 1991 to 1997; the 60 individual chapters (later reorganized into 52), along with several side stories, were compiled in 18 volumes.
I’m going to go for Archer & Armstrong from Valiant. If I’m allowed an honourable mention I’d go for the First Comics version of Classics Illustrated which premiered in January 1990. Each one is a classic in it’s own way.
Gotta be Bone, it must have outsold everything on this list by now
It’s a licensed title, so I don’t know if it counts, but I’m voting for X-Files. No show had the cultural cache that it did for a while there, and being published by the very 90’s Topps Comics doesn’t hurt either.
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac!
ScienceGiant: Sailor Moon was published (in part) in single issues in America by Mixx/Tokyopop.
Greta is correct! Astro City.
While my brain says “Bone” my heart is gonna offer up (probably) the only vote for Savage Dragon. I’ve been reading it for most of my life, and while I’m a little icked over the more recent pornier aspects, Erik Larsen is a fantastic cartoonist, and I love that it’s still going.
I love a lot of the books that have already been mentioned but I’ll throw my vote at Alex Robinson’s Box Office Poison just to make sure it gets a moment in the spotlight.
@ Nicholas Doyle
I think that technically Savage Dragon first appeared in print in the late ’80s in Megaton comics–unless that is just considered a prototype of the character. Either way, I recall an iteration of Savage Dragon fighting a character called Vanguard in an Erik Larson story in an issue of Megaton circa 1986 or so.
Whoops, sorry Mike! I think I’ll plump for Action Girl as my vote instead. I checked and it’s def a 90s series. Such an amazing anthology. Got my daughter hooked on comics – she’s a huge Chynna Clugston fan to this day.
“Bone! Just a perfect mix of adventure, comedy, and heart.”
I’m gonna have to agree. the entire run is classic.
Hellboy is a close second- the Mignola ones are best, obviously.
Honorable mentions to Savage Dragon (if it’s eligible), X-O Manowar, and Archer & Armstrong, but ONLY if Barry Smith was writing & drawing. also, Dork and Milk & Cheese. And the black and white comic by Ed Brubaker WELL before he wrote Captain America. Lowlife??
“It feels weird to vote for anything Valiant, it’s not really an “indie” except in the sense that anything not Marvel/DC gets called “indie.”
Well, it’s indie in the sense that it’s no longer around, like the rest of these publishers, except Image!
Bone really was BRILLIANT. Best-era Cerebrus w/out the problematic bits, and kids can read it. Pogo, but modern & without the soon-out-dated political references.
Oh, honorable mention to Astro City, too.
Hello.
My vote is for STAR WARS: TALES OF THE JEDI (1993-1999) which was mainly written (and sometimes co-written) by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson with various artists, most notably Christian Gossett, if that is permissible.
It’s a Dark Horse comic so I hope it should be okay as an “indie” book, but I am unsure whether the fact it is a licensed comic (and a Star Wars comic to boot) might disqualify it from consideration.
In the event that you can’t include this one, I would like to submit ELTINGVILLE CLUB by Evan Dorkin as my backup, if that is alright.
@Sean Mageean
Larsen created Dragon when he was a kid, and threw him in those Megaton comics when he was just starting out. *Technically* Savage Dragon (the comic) was a brand new fresh start, although he did later bring the OG Dragon into the book as a different character. COMICS! Regardless, if Mike doesn’t think it should count, I can rescind my vote.
SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN. Cowboys don’t quit!
One more for BONE, please. It’s like the film of The Wizard of Oz: good no matter how old you are.
Strangehaven! I remember salivating at the prospect of a new issue, it came out so rarely.
@ Nicholas Doyle
My apologies. I didn’t mean to come across as trying to invalidate your vote, I just recalled that a version of Savage Dragon appeared in Megaton in the late ’80s. But if the ’90s comic was a fresh start on the character, that makes sense.
After all the decades it is hard to keep everything straight. People have been voting for Peter Bagge’s “Hate” and I could have sworn that was from the ’80s, then I did some research and realized what I had read in the ’80s was actually Peter Bagge’s “Neat Stuff;” so, I got the two Bagge series confused.
I also had to look up Eightball, because I remember buying the first four or five issues of that. It turns out no. 1 came out in 1989. But it made me realize I stopped buying Marvel and DC and all superhero comics in 1989, but I was still buying Love & Rockets, Eightball, and a few other independent comics through 1990.
@Sean Mageean
Oh no I wasn’t offended/bothered at all! If I’m being honest, I’d completely forgotten about the Megaton comics, since they were so different from the actual SD series.
I’ll go with Hellboy. There are other individual arcs or stories I like better, but Hellboy has the consistent quality.
If it counts, Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre by Batton Lash (previously a strip in a law journal in the 80s)
Peepshow by Joe Matt
“If it counts, Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre by Batton Lash (previously a strip in a law journal in the 80s)”
I think I saw some of those in the Comics BuyersGuide, as well.
If the first issue wasn’t published in ‘89 I would have voted for Eightball, but to follow the rules, I will instead go with the Maxx. The cartoon, which was pretty much a motion comic, was a huge influence on me growing up. I began picking up issues as they came out right around the time jump/Alan Moore scripted issues.
Yummy Fur would be my second (or is it third?) pick.
Stormwatch, specifically the Warren Ellis run, and if you’ll allow it the Ellis/Hitch run on The Authority.
Instead of casting the billionth vote for Bone I’ve decided to do something crazy. I’m going to cast a vote for a comic I’ve never read, simply because I want to see it discussed.
My vote is for Soulsearchers And Company, Peter David’s indie comic.
Ever since I saw the Amanda Conner covers I’ve been curious about this, but it must’ve had a print run of 100 per issue or something, because I’ve never run across a single issue anywhere. No collections, not even any scans online, nothing. If Mike can dig up anything about this book I’ll be shocked, so I want to see him try.
Is the comic good? How should I know? I can’t read it! But it appears to have a valley girl witch and a talking groundhog in its cast, for starters. I think it would do a lot better today were there a reprint; now that people are more open to comedic comics and know who both David AND Conner are.
Soulsearchers and Company has been collected over 6 volumes of omnibus (0mnibuses?) I imagine that’s the whole shebang collected.
It’s all rather good by the way.
ooh – Hilly Rose – that was a good ‘un. Those were the days when the pages of Previews just overflowed with interesting stuff worth taking a chance on.
@jim kosmicki
I bought half the Hilly Rose run a few months back that I found in a dollar box just based on the great covers. I felt like the artist was channeling Wally Wood and Frank Frazetta fairly nicely. I think B.C. Boyer is the artist/writer–I recalled the name from some stories published in Eclipse Comics. I believe his other character was called the Masked Man, and was kind of an early ’80s homage to The Spirit.
Spawn.
Bone for sure.
But a shoutout to Carol, for reminding me of Amy Unbounded. I wish there were more issues, and will have to revisit those tonight. Searching for those covers online to reminisce brings to mind another joy in Castle Waiting.
I’ve really, really over thought this.
Hate, by P. Bagge.
“0mnibuses?”
Omnibi?
One for Dork, please! Me love me some Milk & Cheese! :)
What if I always had a soft spot for Ninja High School from Antarctic Press?
Ok, I gotta go with Hellboy – I still find myself enjoying the new mignolaverse stories
From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
If that doesn’t qualify, Stray Bullets by the great David Lapham
From Hell first appeared in 1989, so it is not eligible.
X-Files
Bone
Pickle! I was so sad when this comic petered out, but then so amazed and overjoyed when Dylan Horrocks returned to finish it in the Hicksville graphic novel. (Doesn’t look like he’ll ever complete the vampire tale that shared space with the Hicksville stories in Pickle for a bit.)
Kind of interesting how much closer our own world now is to the fictional town of Hicksville, with the comics medium much more accepted and present in the larger culture.
Far too many good choices. I’ll throw in with HATE!, but I also loved Slacker from Slave Labor.
ACME Novelty Library has the distinction of keeping me from quitting comics altogether in the mid-90s. Credit or blame? U-Decide!
Madman by Mike Allred
If we can only name one, I’m going with THB.
Ooh I second PICKLE. What an amazing book.
Since by the rules, I can not go with Transmetropolitan, let’s get crazy. I’m going with Harlequin from Dark Horse Presents issues 48-51. It was beautifully drawn, beautifully written, absolutely lovely. When I find those issues of DHP in the bins, I buy them.
As it was called at the time, Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. (Honorable mention to Leave it to Chance, Sin City, 1963, and From Hell.)