This will be a place for me to blab about shit that I think is cool and perhaps to post rants. Maybe that's how i'll start this off. Eh - I'm too lazy at the moment.
Instead I'll take a moment to sing the praises of Los Bros Hernandez.
I've been into comics since the 3rd grade. This was mostly the result of my teacher telling my mom that it would help me to better socialize with my peers. I'm not exactly sure how that works because a) comics are something you read by yourself and b) comic geeks are commonly social outcasts. Anyhow...for most of my life I've been a comic reader. Sure there have been times where I didn't read very many (college) but in the past year + I've gotten back into comics with a vengeance.
Here are some titles I've followed in the past year and recommend:
Runaways (ongoing series):
Y: The Last Man (completed 60 issue series)
Grendel: Behold the Devil (almost complete 8 issue series)
Madman: Atomic Comics (ongoing series)
Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (ongoing but who knows for how long)
Invincible (ongoing series)
In addition to these I have also been catching up with important works in the history of comics such as:
Reading all of these has been an extremely enriching experience. Sequential Art (as Will Eisner called it) is such a wonderfully diverse medium. It can tell intensely personal stories as well as fantastical stories about heroism. There is endless potential and I feel that nobody explores that better than Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez with their legendary series Love and Rockets.
Jaime and Gilbert are so different yet so similar. People have tried to pidgeonhole them by saying that Gilbert is the better writer and Jaime the better artist but that is not really the case. I'm blown away by Gilbert's art just as often as I am Jaime's. Jaime's stories about Las Locas fascinate me just as much as Gilbert's tales of Palmoar. I love both equally. And I think the reason for that is they take the best elements of so many different genre's and styles and mix them all together very beautifully. There is touching drama, funny gags, thrilling action, experimental storytelling and personal expression all wrapped up together. Fantagraphics Books has recently started publishing chronological collections of all the Love and Rockets stuff. There are three books of Gilbert's Palomar stuff, three books of Jaime's Locas stuff and one book of misc. stuff by the two of them. I highly recommend picking up the first Gilbert book (Heartbreak Soup (blue cover)) as well as the first Jaime book (Maggie the Mechanic (red cover)). Great great stuff in both.
Gilbert Hernandez
Jaime Hernandez
Well I guess I did have enough energy for a rant of sorts. Not bad for a first blog. I guess the moral of this story kids is to go out to your local comic shop and start reading. Try any of the titles suggested in this blog as well as Persepolis 1 & 2 (recently made into an awesome Oscar nominated animated film) and the four currently available volumes of Scott Pilgrim (soon to be major motion picture directed by Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera).
Long Live Sequential Art!!!
See you in the funny papers.
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4 comments:
My boyfriend may rival your comicbook nerdiness -- and finally urged me to read Y. I loved it a lot, but was super let down by the ending. It just jumps forward? Okay fine but... I feel like they were just ready to move onto another project already. I didn't even mind that you-know-who dies. Still. Just felt very incomplete. I haven't read another comic since!
here are some recommendations for you.
1. strangers in paradise, terry moore.
2. blue monday, chynna clugston.
3. scud the disposable assassin, rob schrab.
4-7. wet moon, water baby, mountain girl, the abandoned, ross campbell.
i am a HUGE fan of scud and plan on buying the big ass omnibus of the whole series that's coming out the week of comic con. i'll def check out the other ones you mentioned. i really have been meaning to readin strangers in paradise. everyone praises terry moore to the sky. he's taking over writing duties on runaways and will be working with one of my favorite artists humberto ramos
chynna clugston draws really archie-type stuff that is totally relevant. ross campbell tends to be a little melodramatic or, like, i guess lyrical, but his art is epically good. i can't get enough of the way he draws women: a lot of meat, and adoration.
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