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?
With Western comics, you sort of don’t. You follow specific series with the characters you like, or you obsessively compile reading order lists from various wikis and comic tracking sites that each seem to add more and more issues until you’ve spent way too much time and money.
Reading manga is a lot more straightforward, in my experience. You just read it in order and then check if there are any sequels or spinoffs.