Oh, I find this a bit of a challenging one.
Like probably a lot of people here I got into comics during my youth, first European comics, and later a lot of translated American comics such as of course Superman, Batman, Spider-man, Avengers, and surprising also news paper comics like Garfield which weekday comics were collected here in comic book form.
Now at a young age superheroes of course have a big impression on a person, but as I grew older I tended to gravitate more towards licensed comic book material, you know the ones based on movies and toys such as Transformers, Robocop, and the old Marvel Star Wars comics which run had long since ended by then and which I usually found at flea markets.
By the time I finally became serious about reading American comics I went for licensed material again, Alien, Predator, Starship Troopers (something I regret a little bit to be honest, for every good written or drawn story there were a lot of duds), and humor comics like The Simpsons and later Futurama which I enjoyed reading for a long time until their quality had declined so much that I decided to stop with them.
At this point Marvel had the Star Trek license and being a major Trek fan I was of course drawn to these, especially as the internet was not sufficiently developed to stream episodes on it.
Sadly I came into these when Marvel had already decided to drop the contract with Paramount. A shame really as I enjoyed a lot of their titles such as Star Trek Early Voyages, Star Trek Starfleet Academy, Star Trek Unlimited, and the two comic series based on the then current running series were also finally improving in quality. (for a long time the stories in these were average compared to the comic original series)
I did however collect all of Marvel's 90s run of Star Trek comics with exception of the First Contact movie comic tie in (no point in collecting that one), and it remains one of my favorite possessions.
After Wildstorm picked up the Star Trek license I loyally followed and bought all of their releases including the hardcover graphics albums. In general I felt that the quality was pretty decent with only the occasional dud, and I was sad to hear that Wildstorm dropped it again.
Eventually IDW picked up the Star Trek license and started publishing various mini series based on the series. Unfortunately I found the quality of their stories very lacking, a lot of these mini issue stories read like average episodes of the television shows, nothing really exciting happened that would draw me and make me wonder what happened next.
It also did not help that the TNG mini series had various references to Star Trek Enterprise, a show I rather loathed for its average episodes, bad characters, and ST history retcons.
IDW only released a few ST mini series that I really liked and found worth collecting.
I think IDW's best decision was to allow John Byrne to start making Star Trek stories because his material was in general a lot better than that of the other IDW writers.
The Tipton brothers were doing a lot of stories and their stories were in general more 'miss' than 'hit'.
When the new ST movies came out IDW decided to switch and focus almost completely on these (with exception of John Byrne), giving it an ongoing series.
Well I don't like the new movies, and when the new series was announced it was also mentioned that it would re-imagine the old series episodes with the new casts. That didn't help to sell this series much either. I read comics to read new stories, not re-imaging of old stories. (one of the reasons why I also rather dislike the superhero comic reboots that happen from time to time)
After having followed this series for a while I decided that I pretty much had enough of IDW's Star Trek with the exception of John Byrne's Star Trek comics and asked the comic store owner who was keeping them back for me to stop doing so.
I really feel I have not missed out much as Star Trek has gone the route as so many other comics do when they seek to appeal to more people than just their standard audience; the Crossover!
There was already a TNG-Doctor Who Crossover that I found very average, going to much for the tropes of each franchise. Also you would think such a crossover would go for what fans would like to see the most; Captain Kirk and the crew meet the Fourth Doctor and having an adventure.
Well other than a cameo/flashback the action is mostly on Pre Generations TNG and the Eleventh Doctor who must fight a Borg-Cyberman Alliance. (which actually makes the Borg invasion in First Contact look pathetic. Normally that should be praise worthy but I kind of feel that the writers wanted to upstage the only decent TNG movie)
Well there has been Star Trek-Planet of the Apes since then, Star Trek meets the Green Lantern which apparently will get a sequel.
Recently IDW has finally been releasing a ST comic publication that garnered my interest again, a bi monthly release that has short stories from all over the main franchise that tries to be a bit more like the shows.
However IDW has now also announced a TNG – Aliens crossover, something that boggles my mind.
The TNG crew is far better equipped than the Ellen Ripley and the Nostromo crew, or the Colonial Space Marines, to deal with the unknown.
Most likely the TNG rule book will have to be thrown out in order to make the xenomorphs actually work as a threat as I think that the Enterprise's sensors and transporters and handphasers would make quick work of them.
Thing is, I don't think the xenomorphs are any more the scary creatures they once were in Alien and Aliens, they have become to overexposed.
Enough Trek, time for Wars.
You might think that as a comic reader who is into licensed comics that Dark Horse's Star Wars comics would also appeal to me.
Well they did for a while, especially their reprints of the newspaper comics, adaptations such as the Thrawn trilogy, and the X Wing comics that take place before the book series of the same name.
But I really couldn't care much about the Dark Empire stuff which even then I already recognized as being rather average, and the Old Republic stuff because of the ugly art (and when I decided to read them later I also discovered what a mess their storylines were, there is barely any time for development as the comics jump from event to event. I think Kevin J Anderson is an average writer in general)
Then Episode 1 came out and Dark Horse started to focus on material around and later on the Clone Wars.
At the same time they also did a lot more Jedi vs Sith stuff that eventually also became rather done to death.
There were also these ongoing Republic/Empire Rebellion series, but I was pretty fed up of Star Wars by then because of how suddenly it was completely in public again.
I do however think that their Pre KOTOR1 comic series, Knight Errant, and Dawn of the Jedi stuff were pretty good.
Anyway, I think around ten years ago I finally decided to venture into original material no longer licensed comics, and discovered how good and sometimes superior these series or mini series are compared to the earlier mentioned category of comics.
Edit: at this point I realized that I had no interest in superhero comics. A lot of them had been running for so long that it would be difficult to get into them, and reading some series would mean that I would eventually also have to read crossovers which I in general detest.
I also find that some superheroes have become incredibly cliche such as Batman which I feel is way to overhyped by its fandom.
Though I am always on the look out for science fiction comics I also developed an interest in comics dealing with the supernatural and horror (as I am an Indiana Jones fan who enjoys the more fantastic elements that would a logical next step), and after having seen the first Hellboy movie I discovered the Hellboy comics and all the other spin offs in this franchise such as the BPRD comics.
I have been a fan of the franchise and other work by Mike Mignola since then such as Baltimore and Joe Golem.
Dark Horse has also been releasing some other comics since then I find interesting to read such as Weird Detective and Colder.
Occasionally I still look at their Alien and Predator titles but I think the highest point of those franchises has passed.
Someone mentioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles here, in particular the new IDW series.
Interesting coincidence really as I have been reading a lot of TMNT comics for the last two months.
My interest in the TMNT franchise started back in the 80s/90s when the Fred Wolf cartoon aired on Dutch television. I did not know that it was based on an Indie comic (and I probably would not have been able to understand them as I did not know English, plus the cartoon was more colorful than the gritty Mirage comic that was really meant for older readers).
A Dutch publisher that also handled a lot of Superhero comics and other licensed comics started to publish the Archie TMNT Adventure series (which was actually by artists from Mirage, much to my surprise).
After a few adaptations of the cartoon's first season and second season it started to produce original stories (there was apparently a clash between Mirage and Fred Wolf) which really appealed to me as the stories became more serious and there was a longer running storyline thread interwoven in them.
In general I really enjoyed the comics, but then the main writer started to use the comics as a platform for his own views on environmentalism and politics.
And after he had written out the main antagonists Shredder and Krang (both would make an occasional re appearance) the antagonists suddenly became big business and such.
After a rather boring arc in South America the series had one last highlight for me before going into decline again. By then I was pretty fed up by eco messaging that even at that age became rather obvious (and obnoxious) to me.
Years later I decided to read the entire run in complete English again along with the mini series and spin offs. As someone else in a review mentioned, the TMNT Adventure series is perhaps better than a licensed comic should be, at some point it handled subjects like culture and religion from other nations and people
This resulted in a rather amusing letter exchange between a child's Christian mother and the main writer. The mom apparently took offense that the writer had put the Japanese creation myth of the world into a story. I can't imagine what the shit storm might have been like when he also brought up Buddhism, or Islam without portraying as being warlike and oppressive and instead just telling what it is about.
There were actually a few more story arcs I would probably have enjoyed reading back then, but dammit, the eco preaching, the damn eco preaching!
Yes, I get that we need to be careful with the environment on which we as a species depend, but talking about the cause and effect of the greenhouse effect during a battle?!
Hell occasionally the story came to a standstill so that the writer could put a character on a soapbox.
The writer did introduce an interesting character, a rather merciless businessman named Null who might actually be a demon. But you can guess what he was into, ruining the environment.
(the reviewer on TMNT Entity already mentioned that even Captain Planet would probably throw up from all this environmental messaging)
The IDW run of TMNT. Well actually it is pretty decent in general, being this mix between the Mirage comic and the 1987 cartoon (and a little bit of the Archie TMNT Adventure series).
If there are some problems I think it has is that the stories are sometimes really 'decompressed', it can takes multiple issues before something finally happens.
Also a bit annoyed that we get yet another “Exile to Northampton” plot. That together with the “Return to New York” plotline has become such a tired repeat. (not sure if the 2003 series had it, but probably as it adapted a lot from the Mirage comics)
Some stories probably took a lot longer than they really should have.
The other issue I sometimes have with this comic is that occasionally it does feel like a comic advertisement for toys. I would not be surprised that sooner or later there is going to be a IDW TMNT toy range.
I had also wanted to talk about the Mirage comics but this article already takes more space and more of my time than it should really have. It is just that I really enjoy talking about comics.
So my favorite publisher? Definitely not Marvel, especially not after they went all SJW.
I also can't give crap really about DC comics, I am just not into superheroes.
That leaves Dark Horse and IDW as I never read anything by Image (well their old Battlestar Galactica comic but that was really bad).
IDW is to much a licensed comic book publisher in my opinion, completely focused on bringing back past franchises such Transformers, X Files, MASK, ROM, GIJoe, Strawberry Shortcake, along with contemporary franchises such as My Little Pony Friendship is Magic.
I barely know of any original material they have published, Zombies vs Robots I think, and that vampire commandos comic that launched another crossover title in which Kirk & Spock, the Ghosbusters, GIJoe, and the Transformers had to fight zombies invading their universes.
And truth be told I find most of their franchise stuff like the mentioned Star Trek comics average to bad.
So I guess that leaves me with Dark Horse. Dark Horse publishes some very good comics I enjoy but even then I find it a bit difficult to call them my favorite publisher.
Sorry for the long text people.
