Because people ask....
Nov. 8th, 2009 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litheraSo, people ask me about where to start in reading comics from time to time. It very much depends on the person asking but there are a few things I will recommend to most people. Here is what I would recommend - feel free to add your own. There is likely plenty of stuff I've forgotten.
Maus - By Art Spiegelman, this recounts the struggle of Spiegelman's father to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. In 1992, it won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award. I remember being very struck by it the first time I read the whole thing through.
Sandman - I know. It is obvious but it /is/ good stuff. The Absolute versions are gorgeous and I recommend them to anyone. The Sandman was the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award and is one of the few comic books ever to be on the New York Times Bestseller list (before there was a comic/manga specific list). While I can sum this one up quickly, I shy away from doing so as there is so much more here than the main story.
Y: The Last Man - This is solid stuff. The plot is that every male mammal on the planet dies except for one guy and his pet monkey. There are a few places where it starts to wander a little off path but I think if it didn't, it would have just been unrelentingly brutal. Keep in mind, that it is a Brian K. Vaughan story. If you're expecting happy endings, you should probably find another author to read.
Promethea - Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III. This book is a hell of a ride through metafiction and all sorts of other Alan Moore sorts of things (Hermetic Qabalah, symbolism, mythology) but I never really felt weighed down by it all. I had a lot of fun picking through all of the references and symbols. That and Promethea kicks ass.
Gotham Central - Being a cop in Gotham takes a special kind of crazy. This is a great exploration of what that would be like. If you like crime proceedurals, you might get a kick out of this one. And, well, it has Rene Montoya in it, who is all kinds of awesome.
V for Vendetta - Again, Alan Moore. If you've seen the movie, you haven't seen the whole story, really. While I thought that the movie was a good adaptation, there is a lot that didn't make it in. Like Watchmen, I recommend reading the original and seeing which you like better.
Queen & Country - Spies and assassins working for Her Majesty the Queen. I liked the first one but the second graphic novel is what had me hooked. Nothing is easy for these characters and sometimes it is heartbreakingly hard. At the same time, it is an excellent depiction of good people trying to do the right things in situations where there are few good choices.
Strangers in Paradise - This, I will warn you up front, is not for everyone. This is mostly a story about relationships. There is, admittedly, a lot of guns and butt kicking and such that goes on but mostly, this is about relationships and how messed up everything can get when people are being people. This is a heartstring jerking ride and I had to take some time off from it and come back to it. The ending is beautiful.
DMZ - I'm new to this one myself, having only read the first two of them but so far, the whole thing is well planned and well told. The series is set in New York City. It seems to be sometime in the near future and in the midst of a civil war that has turned the island of Manhattan into a demilitarized zone between the two sides. I like the interaction between characters and I like that everything is not spelled out clearly for you.
Planetary - I love Planetary. This is a exhilarating romp through fiction in the first half - pulpy sci-fi, noir comics, Tarzan and many more genres/eras are shown off. You get all of the good parts and none of what may have left a bad taste behind. The second half is more plot focused but it brings together all of the elements built up in the first half, using them as touchstones. It took forever to be finished but the result is awesome.
I didn't put much 'superhero' stuff on here and that's on purpose. While there are runs of almost every character that I would recommend, they're harder to pinpoint and they're not well self-contained. In most cases what I've put up above is held in one book, though Y sprawls out to encompass ten and SiP more than that. I've also noticed that people react differently to superhero comics than other things I give them. I still haven't entirely figured out why that is or if it is my guess as to what they like about things that is wrong.
Maus - By Art Spiegelman, this recounts the struggle of Spiegelman's father to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. In 1992, it won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award. I remember being very struck by it the first time I read the whole thing through.
Sandman - I know. It is obvious but it /is/ good stuff. The Absolute versions are gorgeous and I recommend them to anyone. The Sandman was the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award and is one of the few comic books ever to be on the New York Times Bestseller list (before there was a comic/manga specific list). While I can sum this one up quickly, I shy away from doing so as there is so much more here than the main story.
Y: The Last Man - This is solid stuff. The plot is that every male mammal on the planet dies except for one guy and his pet monkey. There are a few places where it starts to wander a little off path but I think if it didn't, it would have just been unrelentingly brutal. Keep in mind, that it is a Brian K. Vaughan story. If you're expecting happy endings, you should probably find another author to read.
Promethea - Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III. This book is a hell of a ride through metafiction and all sorts of other Alan Moore sorts of things (Hermetic Qabalah, symbolism, mythology) but I never really felt weighed down by it all. I had a lot of fun picking through all of the references and symbols. That and Promethea kicks ass.
Gotham Central - Being a cop in Gotham takes a special kind of crazy. This is a great exploration of what that would be like. If you like crime proceedurals, you might get a kick out of this one. And, well, it has Rene Montoya in it, who is all kinds of awesome.
V for Vendetta - Again, Alan Moore. If you've seen the movie, you haven't seen the whole story, really. While I thought that the movie was a good adaptation, there is a lot that didn't make it in. Like Watchmen, I recommend reading the original and seeing which you like better.
Queen & Country - Spies and assassins working for Her Majesty the Queen. I liked the first one but the second graphic novel is what had me hooked. Nothing is easy for these characters and sometimes it is heartbreakingly hard. At the same time, it is an excellent depiction of good people trying to do the right things in situations where there are few good choices.
Strangers in Paradise - This, I will warn you up front, is not for everyone. This is mostly a story about relationships. There is, admittedly, a lot of guns and butt kicking and such that goes on but mostly, this is about relationships and how messed up everything can get when people are being people. This is a heartstring jerking ride and I had to take some time off from it and come back to it. The ending is beautiful.
DMZ - I'm new to this one myself, having only read the first two of them but so far, the whole thing is well planned and well told. The series is set in New York City. It seems to be sometime in the near future and in the midst of a civil war that has turned the island of Manhattan into a demilitarized zone between the two sides. I like the interaction between characters and I like that everything is not spelled out clearly for you.
Planetary - I love Planetary. This is a exhilarating romp through fiction in the first half - pulpy sci-fi, noir comics, Tarzan and many more genres/eras are shown off. You get all of the good parts and none of what may have left a bad taste behind. The second half is more plot focused but it brings together all of the elements built up in the first half, using them as touchstones. It took forever to be finished but the result is awesome.
I didn't put much 'superhero' stuff on here and that's on purpose. While there are runs of almost every character that I would recommend, they're harder to pinpoint and they're not well self-contained. In most cases what I've put up above is held in one book, though Y sprawls out to encompass ten and SiP more than that. I've also noticed that people react differently to superhero comics than other things I give them. I still haven't entirely figured out why that is or if it is my guess as to what they like about things that is wrong.
