Shopping for Comics Part 2

So in my last post I talked about how to find and shop for comics on your own, without all those "best comics ever" lists. I discussed shopping by franchise and finding comics based on which company publishes them, but like books, sometimes the best way to find something that you like is to find a comic created by whoever wrote/drew the last comic you fell in love with. I was going to write long descriptions about the following comic writers and artists, but I then I realized the best way to understand a writer or an artist is to look at their art, so below are quotes from some of my favorite writers and images from some of my favorite artists. These are just a small sampling of the quality of work that's out there and I encourage you to go out and find some favorite comic creators of your own. 

Writers:

Alan Moore

"Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof."

-V For Vendetta

Neil Gaiman 

"You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime." 

-Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes

Bill Willingham

"Once upon a time, in a fictional land called New York City..."

-Fables: Legends in Exile.

Matthew Sturges

"We're not afraid of the unknown. We're afraid of the unknown becoming known."

- House of Mystery: Love Stories for Dead People

Mike Carey

"When a book is read an irrevocable thing happens — a murder, followed by an imposture. The story in the mind murders the story on the page, and takes its place." 

-The Unwritten: Inside Man

Garth Ennis

"I'm the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and cigarette and arrogance, ready to deal with the madness."

-Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits

Jeph Loeb

"Deep down, Clark's essentially a good person... and deep down, I'm not" 

- Batman: Hush

Brian Azzarello

"That's what he is I guess; a disease that infected Gotham City...of which there is no cure."

-Joker

Brian K. Vaughan

"I used to love to go out, but I'm growing uncomfortably...comfortable in this dungeon. Some days I can't even get past the front door. I'm the escape artist who can't escape his apartment."

-Y: The Last Man: Unmanned

Matt Wagner

"Every piece is but a fragment of the whole. Every breeze a step unto the storm."

-Madame Xanadu: Disenchanted

Peter Milligan

"I would oscillate into madness. I would be a ship without an anchor,  drifting away from the shore."

-The Extremist. 

Brian Wood

"Hey, you ever get this weird feeling that you're different somehow?

-DEMO, Vol. 1

Artists:

Dave McKean 

(Death: The High Cost of Living, Absolute Edition)

Amy Reeder Hadley

(Madame Xanadu)

Tim Sale

(Heroes)

Eduardo Risso

(100 Bullets)

Mark Buckingham

(Fables)

Brian Bolland

(The Killing Joke)

Charles Vess

(Stardust)

Becky Cloonan

(Demo, Vol. 2)

Jill Thompson

(Paintings of Delirium and Desire, created by Neil Gaiman)

Writer/Artist

Jeff Smith

(Bone)

Jhonen Vasquez

(Johnny the Homicidal Maniac)

(Squee)

Roman Dirge

(Lenore)

(Painting)

Frank Miller

(Batman)

(Sin City)

Will Eisner

(The Spirit)

Shopping for Comics

So, in the last post I wrote up a list of my 20 favorite graphic novels of all time. For someone who’s never read a comic before, lists like these are great. I took the time to read a ton of comics and picked out the very best just for you. Now all you have to do is pick the ones that sound interesting, get them and read them. But what happens when you’ve read all the books on the list, oh comic virgin? Where do you go? What do you read next?

Looking for new comics can be somewhat of a hassle. It’s a little like going to the video store and trying to pick out a movie you know nothing about. (Did I say “video store?” I mean Netflix!) Either you’re going to spend hours searching for something good, choose something random (chances are its crap), or follow these age-old rules.

Shop by Franchise:

There’s a reason why Hollywood keeps making Batman movies. It’s the same reason why there have always and will always be Batman comic books. Besides the fact that Batman is awesome, people like Batman and will continue reading/watching things that feature him as a character. Why? When you walk into a comic shop you might be overwhelmed by the many, many different choices. Why waste time and money looking for something new that you might not even like, when you could just pick up the latest Batman comic?

Ok. So what if you don’t like superheroes? If you love superheroes, that’s great, since the comic industry will continue writing about all of your favorite heroes from now until the end of time. The problem with not liking superheroes is that non-superhero comics tend to be self-contained and have a short life span. For example, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman lasted 75 issues over a ten-year span. That might seem like a long time, but let’s put it in perspective. Batman has been running non-stop since it was first published in 1939. There are also many different comics that include Batman as a main character. If you were reading Sandman when it was published you would get one issue per month. That’s about 20-25 pages per month! I don’t know about you, but I can read that in less than an hour. Sandman’s last issue was published in 1996, but lucky for you it was collected in nice paperback trade editions that you can read in less than a month (or a week if you’re me). So what do you do now? Sandman is over. There are no more Sandman comics. None. No more. Too bad for you. You can read them over or:

Check out the publisher:

If you like superheroes, you’ll probably be content with DC or Marvel comics. Don’t know the difference? Check out my post here: http://beyondthecape.blogspot.com/2011/04/marvel-vs-dc.html.

If you don’t care about superheroes things get a little difficult. The two largest comic book publishers in America almost exclusively publish superhero comics. So here’s a couple of the smaller publishing companies to help get you on the right road.

Vertigo

Since we were discussing Sandman, I thought we should start with the company that published it. (Which also happens to be my favorite comic publisher). In the late 80s DC Comics published Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Sandman, The Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, Shade the Changing Man, and Hellblazer, with a mature readers label. In 1993 editor Karen Berger took these seven comics and created Vertigo, an imprint of DC that, according to Berger was made to “do something different in comics and help the medium 'grow up.” Today Vertigo publishes some of the best comics for older readers. (Did you notice that most of my top 20 list was published by Vertigo?) As of 2010 it is also a strictly creator-owned imprint.

Image

Image was started in 1992 by high profile Marvel artists who wanted to keep the copyrights to the characters they created, which makes Image, like Vertigo, a creator-owned publisher. Image’s canon includes, Spawn, Walking Dead, Invincible, and Witchblade, to name a few.

Dark Horse

Dark Horse, founded in 1986, is know mostly for comics based on licensed characters including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Aliens, and Predator. Not to be outdone, by the top two entries on this list, Dark Horse also publishes some of the most famous creator-owned titles including Sin City, Hell Boy, Usagi Yojimbo, and Akira.

IDW

According to THE comic distributor in the country, Diamond Comic Distributor, IDW, founded in 1999, is the fifth largest publisher of American comic books. Starting as a horror comics publisher, printing titles like 30 Days of Night and Dark Days, IDW has moved on to licensed properties such as Angel, Transformers, Star Trek, and Dr. Who.

Avatar Press

Avatar in an independent publisher founded in 1996. Originally publishing “bad girl” comics, Avator branched out and started publishing comics written by Alan Moore, Frank Millar, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis. Avatar also publishes licensed comics including Night of the Living Dead and Friday the 13^th.

BOOM!            

BOOM!, founded in 2005, is another comic publisher that deals in mostly licensed material. Their titles include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Farscape. They also have a line of comic books geared at a younger audience incorporating classic Disney, Pixar, and Jim Henson characters.

Oni Press

Oni was started in 1997 by two guys in Portland, Oregon who wanted to publish comics that they themselves wanted to read. According to Wikipedia they have “built Oni Press into one of independent comics' most respected and innovative publishing houses by publishing one of the most eclectic and varied lines in the comic industry.” Titles include Scott Pilgrim, Queen and Country, and Jay and Silent Bob.

SLG

SLG or Slave Labor Graphics, started in 1986, is probably most famous for putting Jhonen Vasquez, creator of Nickelodeon’s Invader Zim on the map. If you’re a goth kid you’ll love SLG. Popular titles include Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, Lenore, and Gloom Cookie. SLG also publishes licensed Disney titles including Tron, Haunted Mansion, Wonderland, and Gargoyles.

Top Shelf

Another creator known imprint, founded in 1995, Top Shelf publishes titles such as From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman III, Blankets, and Monkey vs. Robot.

The problem with looking at publishers sometimes is that, although they tend to publish similar types of material, their lines do vary, so there will always be a range of things to choose from. So how are you supposed to weed out the good from the terrible?

Find out next post on Beyond the Cape!

20 Essential Graphic Novels

I recently read DC Comic’s list of 30 Essential Graphic Novels. I agreed with most of the list, but I found it to be lacking, not only because it concentrated solely on DC comics, but because it was missing some great GNs from DC’s own canon as well. So I’ve decided to create my own list, which will share some items from the DC list. And, since I’m not affiliated with DC, the comics on the list will come from a variety of publishers. (I am also going to break one of my rules and list some superhero comics because they are what I consider to be the epitome of that genre).

So here it is: Becky’s list of 20 Essential Graphic novels (in no particular order).

Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC): Considered by some to be the best comic book ever written. See my review here: http://beyondthecape.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-comic-ever.html

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (VERTIGO): In a dystopian future England, a masked revolutionary works to destroy the totalitarian government. I would recommend it especially if you enjoyed the movie.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland (VERTIGO): In my opinion, one of the best Batman comics ever written by one of the best comic writers in the business. ‘Nuff said.

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and John Totleben (VERTIGO): The classic monster originally created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson is re-imagined by a comic master. The first issue is amazing and if you read enough, you’ll get to the origin story of John Constantine, Hellblazer.

Hellblazer started by Jamie Delano and John Ridgeway (VERTIGO): Speaking of John Constantine, he got his own horror comic series originally written by Jamie Delano. Constantine, a streetwise magician, has been the star Vertigo’s longest running series running over 277 issues and counting.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Various Artists (VERTIGO): A mix of horror, suspense, and fantasy, Sandman revolves around Dream, the incarnation of the dream world and his siblings The Endless: Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction, and Delirium. One of the best comic series written in the last 10 years.

Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (VERTIGO): Before they worked on Sandman, Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean told the origin story of Black Orchid, a super plant/human hybrid similar to the Swamp Thing.

Fables by Bill Willingham, Lan Madeira and Mark Buckingham (VERTIGO): Kicked out of their home worlds by the “Adversary,” classic fairy tale characters, including Snow White, The Big Bad Wolf, and Cinderella, take refuge in modern day New York City. My favorite comic series of all time.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra (VERTIGO): When a mysterious virus kills of all mammals with a Y chromosome, Yorrick and his monkey Ampersand are the only living male mammals left on the planet.

Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona (MARVEL): You might be wondering by the largest comic company in America only got only one item on the list is simple. Marvel does superheros and pretty much nothing else. They have been breaking out that a little bit over the years, but Runaways is one of the few collected comics that you can pick up with without knowing a lot of mythology. What are the Runaways? Marvel’s way better version of the Teen Titians.

           

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso (VERTIGO): What if someone gave you a gun and 100 bullets and told you that you could have complete immunity from the law if you used the gun and bullets to avenge a wrong done to you? That’s what 100 bullets is about.

Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (DC): No this isn’t a comic version of the game, in fact it was published in 1989. Batman walks into Arkham after the Joker incites a riot. The question is whether Batman will ever walk out.

Batman: Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale (DC): A stand-alone Batman comic written in the style of film noir. A mystery penned by the great Jeph Loeb with Tim Sale the brilliant artist behind the paintings in Heroes. All you need is a rudimentary knowledge of Batman to thoroughly enjoy this graphic novel.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (IMAGE): Do you ever wonder what happens after the zombie movie ends? Well pick up Walking Dead and find out.

Bone by Jeff Smith (CARTOON BOOKS): Jeff Smith mixes light hearted comedy with high fantasy in his epic Bone. Looney Tune-esque Fone Bone and his cousins, having been kicked out of Boneville arrive in a mysterious valley and end up fighting evil in an attempt to save the world.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (PANTHEON): A memoir by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood growing up in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution.

Sandman Mystery Theater by Matt Wagner and Guy Davis (VERTIGO): A reimaging of the Golden Age Sandman, a masked crusader who fights crimes using knock out gas, told in a gritty film noir style.

Madame Xanadu by Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley (VERTIGO): A beautiful comic that follows Nimue, the sorceress from Arthurian times, as she spans the ages helping the innocent and deciphering cryptic messages from the Phantom Stranger.

Superman Red Sun by Mark Millar (DC): What if Superman did not land in Smallville, USA and instead landed in Communist Russia? Read this and you’ll know.

Maus by Art Spiegelman (PANTHEON): Art Speigelman tells the story of his father’s time as a concentration camp prisoner during World War II using mice as a metaphor.  

It would be hard to go wrong picking up any one of these many excellent titles. 

Comics and Graphic Novels: What's the Difference?

In my previous posts I’ve been using the terms comic book and graphic novel pretty much interchangeably. From now on I’ve decided to just stick with the term “comics” to collectively mean anything comic booky in nature (including comic books, graphic novels, and manga,) unless there is a reason to differentiate between them. Hopefully it will make things less confusing. But what is the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel? Is there even a difference? We’ve already talked about Manga, which are Japanese comic books that read right to left, instead of left to right. (More about Manga in a future post).

So, let’s discuss the differences between a comic and a graphic novel. For the most part there is only one difference. A comic book looks like this:

And a graphic novel looks like this:

As you can see the difference lies in the binding. A comic book comes in the monthly magazine format, while a graphic novel is bound like a book. The problem comes when a comic book like this:

Is bound like this:

Is it a comic book? Is it a graphic novel? Technically it is a called a collected edition or a collected reprint, as well as a trade paperback, or trade for short. The Eisner Awards, the awards given for excellence in the comic medium, has two separate awards for “graphic novels.” They are “Best Graphic Album: New” and “Best Graphic Album: Reprint.” Are you confused yet?

You might be wondering where the term graphic novel even comes from. Most people think that the term is relatively new. In fact, the term “graphic novel” was coined by Will Eisner (the same Eisner the awards are named after) in 1978. In the forward for A Contract With God, the first graphic novel, Eisner writes:

“In 1978, encouraged by the work of experimental graphic artists Otto Nuckel, Franz Masareel and Lynd Ward, who in the 1930s published serious novels told in art without text, I attempted a major work in a similar form. In a futile effort to entice the patronage of a mainstream publisher, I called it a “graphic novel.” It was a collection of four related stories, drawn from memory, which took place in a single tenement in the Bronx.

I’ve spent a long career – spanning eight decades – combining and refining words and pictures. My early work in newspaper comics and comic books allowed me to entertain millions of readers weekly, but I always felt there was more to say. I pioneered the use of comics for instructional manuals for American soldiers, covering three major wars, and later used comics to educate grade school children. Both were heady responsibilities that I took very seriously. But I yearned to do still more with the medium. At an age when I could have “retired,” I chose instead to create literary comics, then a decidedly oxymoronic term.”

Throughout their history, comics have had a standard constricting format. Most comics have a limited amount of pages, around 20 per issue, and are therefore organized in panels to maximize the amount of action per page. They look a little like this:

Graphic novels, having a longer format, have a lot more freedom in how they organize words and pictures. Eisner, in fact, doesn’t even feel the need to use panels on certain pages:

The graphic novel introduced the idea that the comic medium could go above and beyond the structure of a typical comic book. In the years following the “invention” of the graphic novel, comics began loosening their structure and taking ideas about placement of words and pictures from graphic novels. Today, if you only look at the inside pages you may be unable to tell the difference between the two.

The term graphic novel adds a sense of prestige to the comic medium. As Eisner said, he created “literary comics.” The problem with this statement is that is assumes that other types of comics are not literary. Some comic writers, notably Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, two of the most notable writers in the business, dislike the term in reference to their own work, preferring the generic term comic. To them, even though their work may be innovative and literary it is still part of the comic medium and should be treated as such.  Comics have come a long way. Some of the formatting differences once used only by graphic novels are appearing in the monthly magazine comics as well. Which is why any comic bound like a book is a “graphic novel” regardless of the structure on the inside.

In his book Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence.” This defines a comic book, a graphic novel, manga, etc. They are all comics. And regardless of what you call them they all have the potential to be literary and as important as any other medium.