Do you have a comics lover in your life who you’d like to get a holiday gift for, but haven’t got a clue what to get them? Read on, true believer.

These suggestions are heavily mainstream, and largely aimed at Marvel Comics. Marvel’s had more interesting projects over the last few years than DC, so I’m suggesting more Marvel-related products here. Check back over the next few weeks and I’ll try to get out a less mainstream-oriented list of comics suggestions.

1. The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1

Sandman is possibly the most important mainstream comics publication of the last few decades. It helped launch DC’s Vertigo imprint and solidified the role of comics for adults in addition to children. Absolute Sandman is a beautiful collection of the first 20 issues, corrected, re-colored, and with additional material including the full script for issue #19, winner of the World Fantasy Award.

Check it out at Amazon.com.

2. Earth X

Earth X is nothing less than the secret history of the Marvel Universe. The payoff for decades of reading Marvel comics, it deftly unveils the secrets behind the history any Marvel reader already knows, weaving together a new cosmology from the breadcrumbs dropped by dozens of writers. Earth X takes place in a the “near future” of the Marvel Universe, where everyone has super powers and the Celestials are about to return for the final time. This volumes collects all thirteen original Earth X issues.

Check it out at Amazon.com.

3. Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Marvel Ultimate Alliance has gotten a lot of press recently… it’s a massive game that allows you to play several different superheroes and go up against classic villains like Dr. Doom, even leading up to the biggest boss of all, Galactus. It runs on quite a few different platforms.

Click on the game platform name to check it out at Amazon: PSP PS/2 PS/3 Windows Xbox Xbox 360 Nintendo DS Nintendo Gameboy Advance

4. Comics on DVD-ROM

The ultimate gift for the Marvel Comics fan is the complete collections of three of Marvel’s most prominent titles, on DVD-ROM. Each issue is stored as a PDF file, easily readable on any platform which has an Adobe Acrobat reader available for it (for instance, Macintosh, Windows and Linux). The transfers are generally very good and the comics quite readable. The Acrobat files aren’t protected by any kind of Digital Rights Management, so you can easily copy them around and back them up if you want to.

40 Years of the Avengers

40 Years of the X-Men

44 Years of the Fantastic Four

Amazing Spider-Man Complete Comic Book Collection

5. Marvel Zombies / The Walking Dead

Those zombies you like are coming back in style! Zombie mastermind Robert Kirkman has been taking Marvel by storm, possibly even overtaking Brian Michael Bendis for the percentage of Marvel Comics he’s writing at once.

In the 70’s, the term “Marvel zombie” was a fondly used derogatory term for Marvel fans… it now has a whole new meaning, thanks to the success of Kirkman’s “Marvel Zombies” comics, which tell a story of an alternate earth populated solely by flesh-eating zombie versions of Marvel’s classic heroes. Marvel Zombies was a huge surprise hit, going into multiple printings, and spawning several spinoff projects.

Check out Marvel Zombies at Amazon.com.

Kirkman already had a successful zombie series running at Image. ‘Walking Dead’ started out very similarly to 28 Days Later but quickly staked out its own turf. Check it out at Amazon.com by clicking on any of the following volumes:

“ The Walking Dead Book 1 (Walking Dead)

The Walking Dead Vol. 2: Miles Behind Us”

The Walking Dead Vol. 3: Safety Behind Bars

The Walking Dead Vol. 4: The Heart’s Desire

The Walking Dead Volume 5: The Best Defense

6. Scott McCloud’s Making Comics

Twelve years ago, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics took the world by storm, exploring the medium of the comic strip, taking it apart and looking at what makes it tick and why it remains a compelling medium. McCloud recently published his second sequel to it, Making Comics, which goes deeper into how to use comics as an effective communications medium. Presented as a comic itself, it’s not just a fun read for comics lovers, it should be an essential manual for anyone doing computer user interface or web development.

Check it out Making Comics on Amazon.com.

7. Heroes

Do you have a comics-loving friend who hasn’t been watching Heroes on NBC (or has been watching it and needs to watch it over and over again)? You can gift them individual episodes or a season pass on the Itunes Store. To give the show as a gift, follow the link below into the iTunes Store, look for the “Gift this show” link, and click on that. The iTunes store will give you the option of emailing the gift certificate or printing it out.

Check it out at the iTunes Store.

8. Superhero Movies on DVD

Some of the most prominent comics-based movies from the last few years are available on DVD. Okay, I admit that Mystery Men was neither prominent or even from the last few years (it came out in 1999), but it was a fun, cute movie, and who can pass up William H. Macy as “The Shoveller” and Janeane Garofalo as “The Bowler”?

Follow the link to see the DVD on Amazon.

Superman Returns

Batman Begins

Spiderman 2

Mystery Men

And if DVD’s don’t work for you, you can get posters for many of these as well.

Superman Returns Poster Buy at AllPosters.com

Batman Begins Poster Buy at AllPosters.com

Spider-Man 2 Poster Buy at AllPosters.com

Mystery Men Poster Buy at AllPosters.com

9. Who Wants to Be a Superhero?

One of the odder things to hit cable this last year was the SciFi Channel’s summer series, “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?”, with Stan “The Man” Lee himself as the mastermind behind the creation of a new superhero team, featuring the likes of Monkeywoman and Fat Momma. With a philosophy of “No comics cliche left behind”, the show is both fascinating and appalling. You can get it at the iTunes Store or on DVD. To give the show as a gift from the iTunes Store, follow the link below into the iTunes Store, look for the “Gift this show” link, and click on that. The iTunes store will give you the option of emailing the gift certificate or printing it out.

Check out Who Wants to Be a Superhero? at the iTunes Store.

Check out Who Wants to Be A Superhero? on Amazon.com

10. Honorable Mentions

I’m hesitant to list these items because I didn’t enjoy them. That doesn’t mean they don’t make good gifts. X-Men lovers are split over the third X-Men film, for instance. I didn’t like the way it dealt with the story of Jean Grey and the Phoenix, possibly the most important X-Men story ever published. But it was a huge hit and obviously many people loved it.

So I throw these out as other suggestions for a simple gift. Click on the link to see the DVD on Amazon:

X-Men - The Last Stand

Fantastic Four

Ultimate Avengers - The Movie

Ultimate Avengers 2

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

[tags]comics[/tags][tags]holidays[/tags][tags]gifts[/tags][tags]sandman[/tags][tags]earth-x[/tags][tags]x-men[/tags][tags]avengers[/tags][tags]fantastic four[/tags][tags]ultimates[/tags][tags]mystery men[/tags][tags]heroes[/tags][tags]superheroes[/tags][tags]making comics[/tags][tags]scott mccloud[/tags]

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