Summary
Indie comics have fought hard to become mainstream for a long time, and it’s a goal they’ve achieved with flying colors. There are an incredible amount of indie comics out there that are extraordinary stories, from both an art and story perspective.
There are enough great ones out there that some of them can get lost in the noise sometimes, despite being well worth the investment. While there are a lot of indie comics that are household names, there are plenty that deserve to be, and aren’t, quite yet.
8Murder Falcon
Creators: Daniel Warren Johnson and Mike Spicer | Publisher: Image
An 8-issue series from Image, Murder Falcon has a wild abundance of energy. Featuring a Falcon sent to destroy all evil, powered by the shredding ability of Jake on his guitar, it’s a series truly unlike anything you’ve read before.
It’s not often you get such a singular vision as Murder Falcon, and it’s part of what makes it so special. You can tell there was a lot of love put into this book, and it shows through in every page, helping you lean forward that much more intothe characters.
7Geiger
Set in a world post-nuclear apocalypse, Geiger is a story about a man who’s become a wasteland legend. It’ll have a familiarity to fans of Fallout without stepping on any of Fallout’s mutated toes and has a beating heart throughout the story that keeps you plugged in right from the end of issue #1.
With a whole comics universe sprawling out called Ghost Machine involving the world of Geiger and the worlds of other indie characters, all with creative teams of immaculate caliber, Geiger is just a part of a machine that has a lot of great comics on offer.
6God Country
Creators: Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, and Jason Wordie | Publisher: Image
Some books just have a kind of special sauce right from the get-go. It can’t be forced, it can’t be learned, sometimes a book just has it from issue #1. God Country is one of those books. Combining realistic fears of old age and family, with giant swords and gods, it’s a book that combines scopes big and small, all of it resting on one man’s shoulders.
It’s a limited series with trade paperbacks easy enough to find. Coming in at 6 issues total, God Country is a book that’s easy to pick up one afternoon and not let go of until you’re finished. It’s an afternoon that you could not regret.
5Invincible
Creators: Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, Ryan Ottley, and John Rauch | Publisher: Image
Making indie superhero comic books that achieve any kind of popularity is hard, butInvinciblemanaged to have a long-running series featuring a wholly new superhero world, managing to feel fresh without trying to completely reinvent the genre.
Providing a very long-form look at a superhero, from the first moment he flies too long into his adult life, Invincible is a very cool character study on what that kind of life could do to a person. It manages to balance hyper-violence with an occasionally very sweet tone. It’s easily collected in trade paperback form, with a great animated adaptation on Prime.
4Saga
Creators: Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples | Publisher: Image
An immensely popular, long-running series created by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, Saga is one of the most inventive and somehow still-familiar genre-blends ever created. Saga mixes occasionally absurd concepts with relationships and character dynamics so familiar to everyday life that it somehow makes all of it feel like lived experience, both the relationships and the absurdity.
Saga has a very consistent creative team throughout, making for an extremely cohesive vision. It has a planned 108-issue story, making Saga a meaty investment. It has easily obtainable trade paperbacks and a compendium available.
3TMNT
Creators: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird | Current Publisher: IDW
TheTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesdon’t particularly need an introduction. One of, if not the most popular indie comic creations of all time, the Tutles' success is for a very good reason: they’re awesome. They blend a mix of well-tread ideas, fresh territory, and a completely ridiculous premise that has so much heart that it still somehow manages to land beautifully.
TMNT has seen a myriad of different takesin the comics (and on-screen) at this point, suitable for every age range under the sun. The original comics were darker than much of what came later, but there’s a particularly healthy blend of Turtles across different mediums now, with something for pretty much anybody. IDW has a lot of new TMNT runs coming out in 2024, making those series a perfect jumping on point.
2Hellboy
Creators: Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart | Publisher: Dark Horse
A book with a tone all its own, Hellboy has seen quite a bit of success, all of it very much deserved. Mike Mignola has a style, both with his art and his writing, that handles big and epic scopes with a lot of subtlety. The commitment to that kind of style makes what is there pop out in a really extraordinary way, whether it be a great shot, or a quiet, beautiful little moment.
Hellboy has seen a lot of adaptations, including asolid roguelite game, and some of those adaptations have even been great. But there’s a lot to the comics that haven’t been touched on the screen, and much of what’s on the page could not be translated to a screen in the same way, simply due to the differences in the mediums.
1Bone
Creator: Jeff Smith | Publisher: Cartoon Books
Bone is an absolutely superb comic from Jeff Smith, blending the comic strip and comic book forms to create something very unique. There’s a mixture of humor, grounded fantasy, and high fantasy here, but manages to toe all of those lines so well, it never feels like it loses its way. 55-issues all told (not counting spin-offs and prequels), Bone is a great ride, and a very fun book to revisit.
Bone is also an all-ages book; that’s not to say it’s just a kid’s book, by any stretch. It’s more along the lines of something like Spirited Away, where kids and adults can both fully enjoy the story, and possibly get different things from it.
