Getting Started in Comics

the first 2 indy books i found in the Previews catalog, those "Gems of the month" are a pretty good start, another good way is to stick to creators you know and like from the big two and try their indy stuff too.

and it wouldnt be me without pointing you toward Stjepan Sejic's stuff, go here for a sneak peek and then go buy all his stuff please, especially Death Vigil, it needs the sales. nebezial.deviantart.com
[NSFW] shiniez.deviantart.com

Falcon,
First, let me say welcome to the forum & comics! I will echo harmonica's recommendation of Death Vigil, great characters, art, & story. In addition, here are some things I'm really enjoying or have enjoyed. Fair warning, my non-superhero tastes tend to lean toward the darker tones & humor of comics...
~ Low written by Rick Remender; art by Greg Tochinni (Image)
~ Southern Cross written by Becky Cloonan; art by Andy Belanger (Image)
~ Sheltered written by Ed Brissen; art by Johnny Christmas (Image)
~ Lady Killer written by Jaime Riche; art by Joelle Jones (Dark Horse)
~ Hexed written by Michael Allen Nelson ; art by Emma Rios (vol. 1) & Dan Morra (vol. 2
(Boom)
~ East of West written by Jonathan Hickman; art by Nick Dragotta (Image)
~ Rat Queens written by Kurtis Wiebe; art by Various (Upchurch, Sejic, Fowler) (Image)

Hope this helps, I'm sure you will get more recommendations, if you don't just ask Bob... Dude is a comic guru... Like yoda level!!!

Hi Falcon, thought I'd take a slightly different approach to recommendations and start from the idea that you've been enjoying Dredd. I'm just going to suggest things I think are good reads of their kind rather than necessarily things that are brand new, so most of this should be at least in part easily available in trade or digital collections at a sensible price.

toxicsooner - since Falcon is already reading Dredd I don't think dark humour should be too much of an issue!

For me there are two main strands to Dredd, crime & dark sci-fi so I thought I'd throw out a suggestion or two in each of these areas (you could also add satire as a third strand, but I would never try to recommend pure satire without having a better handle on someone's tastes...):

Crime:
~Criminal by Brubaker & Phillips. There are six volumes - the first 5 are among the best crime comics I've ever read. The sixth is still pretty good but a huge shift in tone so doesn't work as well for everyone. I suggest these as all of them can be read happily as stand alones, but if you like them it's probably worth tracking down anything by these creators.
~Parker - adapted by Darwyn Cooke from Richard Stark's novels. Again, these can be read quite happily as stand alones and all of them are excellent.
~Stray Bullets - Lapham. Think a years long Pulp Fiction in B&W comics. Told from many viewpoints in a non-linear fashion it's a very singular project and well worth reading.
~Thief of Thieves - originally Kirkman, Spencer & Martinbrough. Reads mostly like an Ocean's Eleven type heist - one of the least noir inflected crime comics and a good read for a change of pace.

Dark Sci-fi:
This genre is going through a bit of a golden age at Image at the moment so there is a lot to choose from. To start with I'll happily second the recommendations for Low and East of West. I'll also add a couple more:
~Lazarus - Rucka & Lark. A fantastic view of a dark future where the world has essentially returned to a feudal state ruled by a handful of powerful families. Probably my favourite piece of ongoing world building.
~BPRD - Mignola, Arcudi & various. A staggering epic that grew out of Hellboy and has been consistently changing its own status quo and ramping up the stakes for well over a decade.
~Starve - Wood & Zezelj. In the future, real food is sufficiently scarce that only the super wealthy can eat it. Everyone else only experiences it through watching competitive cooking on reality TV, where the chefs are star gladiators. A strange and so far rather wonderful series. Also a pitch black satire in a Dredd-like vein...

Hope that helps some. I'm sure you'll get plenty of super-hero suggestions as well from people who know the field far better than I do, but I'd have to agree that you can't go far wrong with Marvel Unlimited.

No, they're set in the same world, but you can quite happily read them independently.

All of the Mignolaverse comics have spun out of Hellboy, but I honestly think BPRD works best a a stand alone (although they're all good enough that you may well wind up reading more). Start from Plague of Frogs and go from there would be my suggestion.

East of West is really good, but with most things that Hickman writes it better to read in big chunks.