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So, good shit of the past ten years. Not obvious, and not necessarily superheroes.
Word.
Bullet-points, from general rules of thumb to specific titles, then cheat-sheet style advice. I'll be sure to mention if the book has finished its run. I'll recommend stuff I've enjoyed, not just "stuff I've heard others say they like" (I hate those kinds of lists). I'm also gonna ignore the "standard recommendations" (Preacher, Sandman, etc). This is going to be a long post. Do yourself a favor and just copy-past it into a word document. You got no excuse for not knowing what to read after this list.
I do it for the people.
GENERAL RULES OF THUMB
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's been published by VERTIGO, an imprint of DC Comics, it's good.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if Brian Michael Bendis wrote it, it's good.
*General rule of thumb for the past five or so years: if it's a crime comic, it's good.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if Terry Moore did it, it's either great or you hate it, but will feature the best drawn women in comics.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if Jae Lee drew it, who cares what it's about it, it's good.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's a major superhero crossover NOT called Civil War, Darkest Night, Secret Invasion, or Avengers vs. X-Men, ignore it.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if Ed Brubaker's name is on it, it's very good and probably the best book of that year.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if Grant Morrison wrote it, it's either good or "the one bad one he wrote" (opinions vary on which one is his "one bad one he wrote").
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's a comic about/prominently features women, it hasn't been good. It has not been a terribly great decade for women in comics. Just STUMPTOWN, BATWOMAN and WONDER WOMAN.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's a comic about/prominently features black characters, it's bad. It's been a REALLY bad decade for black characters. Luke Cage (AVENGERS) is lucky he's Brian Michael Bendis' favorite Marvel character. Even the good books starring black characters (BROTHER VOODOO, INCOGNEGRO) disappear with little fanfare.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's a comic that features, mentions or refers to Batman, it's good. There's been an amazing streak of high quality Bat-material this past decade.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it's about Spider-Man, it's been either good or great. Every year there seems to be a great Spidey book, out of nowhere.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it was published by AMERICA'S BEST COMICS, a subprint of Wildstorm Comics - itself a subprint of DC Comics - it's either great or boring.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: the rest of Wildstorm's catalog isn't worth the ink.
*General rule of thumb for the past decade: if it features the X-Men, it probably sucks. They've been the San Diego Padres of comics this millennium. Even vampires, the most ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon of the past decade, couldn't make the mutants interesting.
WORDMAN RECOMMENDATIONS
*Y The Last Man - great premise. Read it before they make it a TV show and ruin it. The series is finished, available in a couple TPB editions.
*DAYTRIPPER - best comic of 2011. Only about six issues long. So much better than its logline, absolutely wonderful. The word I'd use to describe it is transcendent.
*UNWRITTEN - best ongoing series for the past 3 years now (#39 came out last week). Think of the following statement like directions from an old hillbilly: "Get through the Harry Potter-ness of the first story arch. When you get to the whale, you'll get it." They've been collecting each arch in TPBs very quickly, so they should be easy to find. You're not reading great comics today unless you're reading UNWRITTEN.
*HOUSE OF MYSTERY - Vertigo does the best premise-based comics since '60s Marvel. The "inner story" idea is used beautifully. The plot gets a little janky (you're familiar with that word, right? You're from down South, right?) about 2/3rds of the way through, but it closes strong. This series is finished, I believe the whole thing is available in trades now.
*100 BULLETS - I'm hard pressed to call it the best crime comic of the past decade (there's been A LOT of great crime comics), but I can't think of anything better. Series is finished and is collected in TPB.
*WONDER WOMAN - the new Wonder Woman series, only 11 issues in (I think), is arguably the best DC superhero book out now. Basically, after 70 YEARS, DC finally created a good WW comic.
*JASON - my favorite cat doing it right now. Very left of center, brilliant stuff. He's published a series of TPB through Fantagraphics. Start with LOW MOON.
*SCALPED - ongoing series from Vertigo. Has arguably the most fully developed characters of any series going. The TPBs of this series are quite inexpensive, read 'em and get on board.
*CHEW - The most fun ongoing series of the past decade. This book is so much fun! Also, the best premise of any book in the past decade. The first three TPBs I think are only $5 (!). You gotta read this, it's so much fun.
*BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS - I know I mentioned him previously, but seriously, his name shows up on more comics I've bought in the past 10 years than any other. All the AVENGERS stuff, DAREDEVIL, AVX. He's been the guy driving Marvel the past decade, and he's done a good job with the keys.
*POWERS, THE AUTHORITY, TOP TEN - The "cops in a superhero-filled universe" subgenre has been a pretty good one. POWERS is probably the most fun of the three. It's ongoing and in TPB, the other two are already finished.
*BLACKSAD - Recipient of two of the coolest compliments I've heard a comic get this past decade. "It's like Devil In A Blue Dress with animals" and "This is the kind of shit Disney would make into a movie if Disney still had BALLS." The first TPB came out a year or two ago (a little on the pricey side, but worth it). The second TPB came out two weeks ago.
*INCOGNEGRO - Very well done, did not think it was going to be as much fun as it was (considering its theme).
CHEAT-SHEET
*A lot of great work of the past decade is collected in trade paperback/graphic novel format, making it MUCH easier to read.
*A lot of these great books can be found at the library. You know, that place where you can read stuff FOR FREE.
*You know how you have that one mechanic friend who fixes your car for free? That one computer geek who fixes your laptop for free? Yeah, time to get a comic friend.
*A lot of great comics are being republished in second and third editions in graphic novel format. That means there's a growing secondary market of OOP editions.
*Both of the big companies have done a good job of reprinting relevant TPBs. There's not much in DC's or Marvel's back catalog that you'd need that you can't find.
*It's getting a lot easier to find stuff online. So get your comic-napster on to catch up.
"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams
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