I'm in Sault Ste. Marie right now, and I found a place that sells old comic books. What titles should I look for?

Bone.

I love Bone.

Persepolis

American Born Chinese

The Four Immigrants Manga

Buddha

A signed 1st run printing of Tetsuwan Atomu for $1. I'll give you $2 for it.

Atomic robo

Keep in mind that when I say old comics, I mean, '70s-'90s. They might have some newer stuff, but I'm not sure.

The Question

In particular, look for the issue where he confronts The Riddler. I want to say it was #23, but I could be mistaken.

Early Vertigo stuff (some of what I'm listing is pre-Vertigo, but led very directly to DC's decision to take that particular experiment):

Watchmen
The Books of Magic (first mini-series, especially)
V for Vendetta

Sara enjoyed those. She has read the novels they based on the comics as well.


Ok, Starting with Superhero stuff.

If I were looking at 70s stuff I would probably look for Fantastic Four. The late 70s\early 80s were a good time for them.

For 80s the original X-Factor which was made up of the 5 original X-Men was particularly good. The late 80s were good to the Punisher as well. I am a Superman fan and the John Byrne reboot of Superman after Crisis in the late 80s are some of my favorite Superman stories. Everything built up to the Death and from there it kind of went down hill fast. I wouldn't recomend most of that timeframe to anyone that isn't a die hard superman fan, BUT I would recommend the Supergirl Saga (Superman #21, Adventrues of Superman #444, and Superman #22.)

As for the 90s that was when I started really collecting. The Death of Superman, The Age of Apocalypse, Knightfall, and I could keep going on for pages of stories that I look back on as some of my favorites. Outside of the big two some of the other companies really stepped up during this time. I loved the early Valiant books(almost anything from the company) especially Harbinger and X-O Manowar.

Also keep an eye out for "What if?" It was a series that did one-shot stories based on regular storylines if they had ended differently.

Someone mentioned Watchmen, but you would be better off with a newer trade of it in my opinion.

So, non-superhero stuff. This is harder for me during those years. I could do pages of stuff for the last 10 years, but I just don't know the non-super stuff from the 70s-90s very well.

I'm gonna echo the 'What if?' series--they were a LOT of fun, because the writers were literally there to figuratively kick continuity in the nutsack with no apologies. DC's own variant, Elseworlds, also got pretty fun, and usually was just published as a TPB.

Hm... on the superhero front, I have fond, fond memories of The New Mutants, at least pre-demons-invade-NYC. Oh, and if you want some "We are just here to write some ass-kicking action and not worry if it makes too much sense, The New Defenders (technically, it was a continuation of The Defenders, at issue 125, but the team was completely re-vamped at that point, and was kinda funky for the next twenty-five-odd issues).

I also enjoyed Cloak & Dagger, pretty much for their entire run.