Manga:
Monster, by Urasawa Naoki. This is the one I recommend to anyone who wants to try out manga. It's sort of a cross between The Fugitive and The Boys From Brazil, a tense psychological thriller set in Germany before and after the Berlin Wall falls. So many awesome plot twists and character development, and I just love Urasawa's way of drawing faces, infusing them with so much character and emotion. I'm half looking forward with dread to the US movies being made of this.

Fullmetal Alchemist, by Arakawa Hiromu. I admit, I haven't actually read this in a while, leaving me quite a ways behind, but damn if it isn't utterly awesome anyway. Like others have said, I really like the anime (I even prefer some aspects of it), but the manga is so much better it's ridiculous.

Hajime no Ippo, by Morikawa Jyoji. The anime is fairly good, but it stops about halfway through where the manga's at (83 volumes so far bitch!). Awesome fights, great friendships, and some seriously dirty jokes make this one of the (if not THE) best sports manga around

Great Teacher Onizuka, by Fujisawa Tohru. The third in a series of manga featuring Onizuka Eikichi (the first two had him as main character alongside Danma Ryuji, who's relegated to side character this time around). A gross-out comedy in the hideous way only the Japanese can achieve, with plenty of arse-kicking and attitude to accompany it, it's just a great read. It's just a shame that Fujisawa can't write for :skull::skull::skull::skull: if it doesn't have Onizuka in it.

Yotsubato! by Azuma Kiyohiko. This is just too damn adorable to not be loved. It's about a five-year-old girl and her everyday life in Japan, and the very strange way she sees the world and interacts with it. ...Yeah, I'm not explaining this all too well. Just read it, for god's sake, it's brilliant.

Slam Dunk, by Inoue Takehiko. If Hajime no Ippo is the best sports manga ever, Slam Dunk is the second best. I don't like basketball (but then, I don't like boxing either really), but Inoue makes it pretty exciting in how he plots out the matches, and while the main character, Sakuragi Hanamichi, is a total idiot and incredibly pompous, you really do grow to like him. What's most impressive about Slam Dunk is really the main character's progression as a person, not just as a basketball player. One day, I might try watching all 101 episodes of the anime version.

Others include Genshiken by Shimoku Kio, a manga about otaku (geeks obsessed with manga and anime). Mahoraba by Kojima Akira, about a girl with multiple-personality disorder (it's a romantic comedy, really!). Glass Mask by Miuchi Suzue, about a poor girl tryng to break into the world of acting. Jiraishin by Takahashi Tsutomu, about an emotionless Tokyo cop, going through the motions as he works cases. Eden by Endo Hiroki, about a world devastated by the Closure virus struggling to get back to its feet.

Comics:
Transmetropolitan, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Steve Dillon. How do I describe this? Hunter S. Thompson running loose inside Judge Dredd's Mega City One? It's about a journalist, Spider Jerusalem, returning to The City after living in self-imposed exile out in the mountains, and writing stories to try and wake the people up from being so smurfing stupid. Heavy doses of awesomely thought out Sci-fi, some nasty humour, and a really awesome plot that picks up about a third of the way through as Spider takes on the upcoming presidential election, and the aftermath. 60 issues and two specials of sheer freaking awesomeness, I can't recommend this enough.

Hitman, written by Garth Ennis and drawn my John McCrea. Once upon a time, in the DC universe, there was a big event called Bloodlines. It featured space aliens who could eat humans, but would occasionally somehow infect them with powers instead. It smurfing sucked. But it did spawn Tommy Monaghan, an Irish-American hitman living in Hell's Kitchen. With only x-ray vision (which yes, he does use to cop a skinny of Wonder Woman naked with) and mild telepathy which always gives him a major headache so he never uses it, the comic is really just about Tommy killing people, and his friendship with the other hitmen who visit the bar, Noonan's. Seriously funny, gross humour (for which both Garth and Warren above are known for; gotta love British writers), and it has two issue zombie aquarium story, which no one should ever miss. And the ending, man, I know of no other comic ending that has made so many guys cry as the ending to Hitman does.

Powers, written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Mike Oeming. OK, seriously guys, get over the fact that there was an issue all about monkeys having sex with each other. I know, I know, but it really DID have a point to it, I swear. A cop comic set in a world heavily populated with superheroes (though not the Marvel or DC universes, I should point out), Powers is seriously good.

Gotham Central, written by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka. Another cop comic, but this time, set in DC's Gotham City. One of my favourite things in the DCU has always been the non-powered people getting on with their lives, and many of the characters in GC have been built up in the Bat-Family comics over the years, including Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, Maggie Sawyer (actually coming in from Metropolis and Superman) and Jim Gordon. With two of the best writers to come from the US in the last decade or so working together on it, Gotham Central is a great read. And yeah, there are plenty of familiar superhero faces that pop up from time to time.

Birds of Prey, written by Gail Simone. Sure, Chuck Dixon started Birds of Prey, and it's currently being written by Sean McKeever (of the actually surprisingly good "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane"-fame), but it was Gail Simone's run (#56-#108) that made BoP one of the best comics being published right now. Featuring an all-female team of super-heroes, Oracle, Black Canary and the Huntress (and later including the likes of Big Barda, Katana, Judomaster, Manhunter, Gypsy, and even the [then] deadliest woman in the world, Lady Shiva Woosan). Sure, there's cheesecake, but there's humour, good action, some really good inter-personnel drama and plain awesomeness. Gail Simone is probably the most consistently great writer there is around at the moment.

Ultimate Spider-Man, written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Mark Bagley (and recently replaced by Stuart Immomen). The mainstream Spider-Man (from the 616 universe) has like, forty-five years of backstory. Or well, had, until One More day wiped most of it, stupid frigging Joe Quesada (though Brand New Day, at least so far, has been good). Ultimate Spider-Man, on the other hand, started from scratch less than ten years ago, and beats the ever-loving :skull::skull::skull::skull: out of the 616 version. Just read it, I swear you won't regret it.

Hellblazer, written by many awesome writers, with many awesome artists. The longest running comic on DC's Vertigo line (most recent was #239), it's about John Constantine (yes, that :skull::skull::skull::skull:ty film was based VERY loosely upon this comic), a Scouse magician who's a devious :skull::skull::skull::skull:, trying to save the world from itself, using whatever method's necessary to pull it off, including sacrificing his friends (they do seem to wind up dead an awful lot), making deals with the devil, and generally being as much of a wanker as he can. It's just brilliant.

I really need to mention some other great comics. Garth Ennis' run on The Punisher, from v3 (the Welcome Back, Frank maxi-series) to v5 (on Marvel Max) which is the ONLY Punisher worth reading. Nobody does it better than Garth. The All-New Atom by Gail Simone, which is hilarious. Blue Beetle v2 (or is it v3?) written by Keith Giffen, with Jaime Reyes as the new Blue Beetle is another excellent relatively recent series, with a hell of a lot of depth to it. Y, the Last Man written by Brian K. Vaughn and drawn by Pia Guerra, which has just one issue left to come, is a great post-(sort of)-apocalypse story. Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Stuart Immomen is a hilarious pisstake of the Marvel universe, while still actually being set in the Marvel Universe. And finally, Lucifer by Mike Carey, about the Morningstar deciding he's had enough of well, the universe, and his ongoing quest to make one of his own to contend with that of his father, Yahweh; dark and twisted, but funny at times, and how can you not love Mazikeen?