…and do they, in fact, suck?
You’ve covered the advice I’d give for the most part! But I do have a couple of asides and random comments though that will probably get me derailed from my point by the end of this post!
I agree that Jaime’s work is the essential entry point for the series, and it’s much easier now to just find volumes that are just his part of the series to read in order, rather than the mixed volumes I had as a teenager (or the comics themselves, at least for the first 50 issues). I will confess: I have never been able to enjoy Gilbert’s work as much as Jaime’s, but your mileage may vary!
I also think that it’s easy to dismiss the early sci-fi stuff as jarring and goofy, but a whole bunch of DNA of Jaime’s work is present in that first volume, including character relationships and even hints of his later style, so I consider it pretty essential. It’s also much easier to see his inspirations in the work of earlier comic artists like Will Eisner, Milt Caniff, and Wally Wood there. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, there are a bunch of short videos on Jaime’s IG (probably also on Twitter) where you can be completely demolished by watching how quickly and easily he’s able to create 100% on-model ink portraits of his characters in like 30 seconds.
Of the early stuff, my absolute favourite era is the material in what used to be volume 9, Flies on the Ceiling, which comes in at about the ⅔ point of the original run of the comic, and Whoa Nellie, which goes heavily in on the subject of women’s wrestling (a subject that Jaime covers over and over, even as far back as the first volume). And as for the newer stuff, the Love Bunglers is some of his strongest stuff since the early 90’s (and that’s saying something). @yeso I’m very curious to hear what your favourite bits are!
Anyway, I think if it grabs you, you will almost certainly get pulled in for the series in its entirety!
