Sorry if the title is confusing, but that’s as succinct as I could think to make it.
I’ve been out of comics for a while, but I’d like to read some more. I don’t like collecting issues, but I do like larger collections. Call them trade paperbacks, graphic novels, whatever. I’ve read some over the years (Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Akira, etc.) but I wanted to try some mainstream (DC, Marvel, etc).
I got a Green Lantern TPB (I loved the cartoons!) but the story was super confusing. It jumped back and forth, the characters referenced things that weren’t in the book, and random side characters joined and left without any explanation. I asked a friend who said that the publishers would put a narrative arc in several different titles, so as to make people buy different things. So readers were somehow supposed to get all those random issues to understand what’s going on.
I’m fine buying whatever, but I want a cohesive narrative. How can I make check that a complete narrative is in a TPB and I don’t buy the incomplete style like I did previously?
I look at the issues collected in the graphic novel. Often I’m buying these quite late in the game. Standalone series are the best - it IS difficult to drop into such an established universe as Marvel or DC. I haven’t run out of reading material yet, if you want suggestions.
Sometimes there is a reboot, I read Moon Knight when it got rebooted, well before the TV show, and that was easy to follow. So if you look for a series that starts at a new beginning point that works.