Anyone who recommends people get into comics with Watchmen should have their computer taken away and smashed with a bat.
A general recommendation of "the one book to get into comics" is bullshit, anyway.
For some, it's gonna be Raina Telgemeier, or a single X-Men issue from 1994, or reading a Scott McCloud book, or webcomics, or a Chinese copy of Maus they found in a hotel room and can't actually understand -- there's no one-book-fits-all.
What "start with Watchmen" communicates is: "I think it's the best one, and my opinions haven't changed since 1995."
How *I* got into comics is essentially impossible to recommend outside of the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and 1993 -- Donald Duck comics don't tend to exist in the same way, and you're not learning to read.
How I got into superhero comics is with Ultimate Spider-Man, and though that's aged pretty well, it's extremely 2001, extremely decompressed, and not something I'd necessarily recommend to a new reader in 2019.
Basic questions to ask someone who says they want to get into comics:
* How familiar are you with the form? Do you read any webcomics, or manga?
* What makes you say you wanna get into comics? A recent movie, or TV show? Something you read online?
* When you say you wanna get into comics, what are you talking about wanting to get into exactly? Superhero stuff?
If somebody's not very familiar with reading comics, "start with Watchmen" is like telling someone to get into action movies by starting with six very serious Italian films.
@maj @minx What have you read, and what didn't you like?
First recommendations, all for if you wanna read superhero stuff but feel the overwhelming continuity gets in the way:
* Robert Kirkman's Invincible is a standalone -- indie, so not Marvel or DC -- superhero story over about ~150 issues.
* All-Star Superman is absolutely beautiful, and really sells what I like about the character.
* Nextwave, irreverent superhero action comedy juuuust off to the side of the Marvel Universe.
@Alexis @dirk when I thought about what I didn't like: I'm instant overwhelmed when it comes to classic superhero stories because I never know where to start. I always feel like that I already need all this knowledge about the hero and the universe to enjoy it in the first place. I can hardly relate to the characters because it's all references. so ... maybe I need a beginning?
@maj Yeah, that's one of the big problems with the big superhero universes, and a completely reasonable complaint -- I hope you don't mind me asking you some more questions:
* What's your, say, top three favourite non-superhero TV shows, movies?
* Are there any superheroes you're specifically interested in?
* Are you okay with me recommending comics from, say, the 1960s? Or would you prefer to read something modern, from the past few years?
