Yeah, I'm also a fan of shorter, more self-contained stories.
That's one of my biggest complaints, that the new books rarely come to a satisfying and complete conclusion, like the old stories did.
Regarding Japanese comics, I really enjoyed a series called LOST CONTINENT that was published by Eclipse in 1990, a six-issue series of reprinted manga-type books, but with really clean and detailed b&w art, and color covers, mostly painted.
It's an Edgar Rice Burroughs-type story, discovering an ancient civilization living in the center of the Earth. A great series, one of the last that Eclipse published, before they went the way of the Brontosaurus. And an example of the heroism and adventure that's mostly missing from comics in recent years.
