# ADSactly Literature - Comic Books Edition!

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Hey @adsactly readers,

Today I thought we’d switch it up a bit and not talk about theater or comedy. See, I’ve always been a keen booklover, an avid reader. What can I say, it was always a big part of my life. And for the longest time, I used to look down on comic book readers. I used to think it was “lesser” literature, you know?
It was a silly view of things, but what can you do? And the truth is, many literature lovers have this misconception and often miss out on a lot of great stories, assuming that comic books are all action-packed, using small words and generally addressed to eight year olds.

But that’s simply not true, you know? And I’d really like to counter this view I was once guilty of, by talking of a few comic book series that really changed my mind about this genre.

## 1. Sandman Series

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I have to start with this one because it was the first comic I ever read. I’ve always been a big Gaiman fan and there came a point in my life where I realized I’d read all his novels and all that was left was the Sandman series he created in the early nineties.

Originally, it spawned dozens of issues, but it has since been assembled into ten, neat books. It follows a wide range of characters, stories and events (from Lucifer to Odin, to random New Yorkers), but its main character is Dream, the lord of dreams (naturally) and one of the seven Endless entities (Death, Destruction, Desire, Delirium, Despair and Destiny) that govern our world.
The writing is incredible and all the characters are immensely well-written (but then, it is Neil Gaiman, so what can you expect?) and it deals with a lot of interesting concepts, such as mortality, duty and also, love. I could ramble on for hours and probably describe each book, as I’ve binged the series several times, but suffice to tell you the first one tells what happens when the Dream Lord is imprisoned by a cult, seeking to entrap Death, his sister. You can read the rest in the books and I highly recommend you do.

## 2. Hellblazer

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Interestingly enough, my first encounter with John Constantine was a brief appearance in the first Sandman novel, which spawned another comics love affair.
John Constantine is this good bad boy. He’s an occult detective, who’s at the same time luckless and yet, extremely lucky. He’s clever and ruthless, but longs to do good and is always driven by a desire to see the greater good prevail.
See, I’ve never liked traditional good, straight-lace heroes, so John Constantine is right up my alley. He’s good without being sappy and he gets in a lot of cool situations involving magic, demons and the like.
Oh, and there was a 2005 movie adaptation starring Keanu Reeves and he was visually inspired off of English singer, Sting. What’s there not to like?

## 3. V for Vendetta

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Yes yes, you probably know of the movie, but were you aware that before any of that, it was a popular graphic novel written by legendary writer Alan Moore?
As you can probably imagine, it follows the adventures of V, an anarchist sporting a Guy Fawkes mask who begins a revolution and seeks to overthrow the fascist regime that has been established in the world.
Alan Moore’s also written a bunch of other really cool stuff like Watchmen and From Hell, which you might also like to check out.

## 4. Lucifer

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Again, this ties in really well with our post because it was a spin-off series based of a character that originally appeared in the Sandman series – at some point in the story, Lucifer grows tired of being the ruler of Hell and decides to abandon it, setting all the prisoners and all the tormenting demons free. He leaves the Keys to Hell to Dream, who is then forced to listen to various warring factions (such as the Lords of Chaos, angels sent by God, Odin, Thor and Loki, as well as many other deities) who wish to get their hands on the new keys.

Sandman very briefly explores Lucifer’s life after he leaves Hell, only mentioning in a latter book that he now runs a bar called Lux, where he plays the piano.
But the Lucifer series, written by Mike Carey, revolves around the fallen angel’s adventures on Earth (and not only). It deals with the issue of free will and how much of a choice Lucifer has in his own story and how much has already been decided by God.

Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s because the comics served as inspiration for the hugely popular TV series of the same name, starring Tom Ellis as the Devil who, a bit like John Constantine in our example above, is the bad boy with the heart of gold.

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In this post, I’ve mainly focused on Vertigo comic book series, because, as it happens, I get a lot of those at my local library. But I would love to hear what comic books you guys like to read? Are they dark and occult, like the ones I’ve mentioned above?
Are they more traditional and superhero-focused?

Please share with us in the comments – your favorite comic books (series, if that’s the case) and why you came to love it. Who knows who else might see it, read it based on your recommendation and fall in love?

#### Authored by @honeydue
References: wikipedia

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