TEN
MUST-READ COMICS
By
Matthew Craig
A
paranoid, operatic drama in murder mystery clothes, Watchmen is often blamed for
the darkening of the super hero genre in the late eighties and 1990’s. This is
unfair and unjust: while the story is gripping, violent and often quite
terrifying, Watchmen is ultimately about people trying to work out a way to
change – or just live with – the crappy world before them. A truly mature
work, with cinematic pacing, a layered plot that rewards multiple readings, and
master-level art, Watchmen appeals to hardened comics fans and tremulous virgins
alike. While we at Robot Fist would never recommend that you only read one
comic…if we were, it would be Watchmen.
ESSENTIAL
HOWARD THE DUCK
Steve Gerber and Various Artists
Marvel Comics
A
misanthropic mallard. A curmudgeonly coot. A dour duck. Howard the Duck falls
out of the sky to land in late seventies Cleveland, and is immediately disgusted
by it. The most original twist on the “stranger in a strange land” concept,
Howard the Duck sees the wandersome waterfowl – a master of Quack-Fu and a
connoisseur of Cuban cigars – take on religious hypocrisy, the venal media,
and every other human institution with a personality problem. World-weary and
cynical, Howard (and his human girlfriend, Bev) wander the United States,
encountering cookie monsters, mad bell-headed scientists, people who want to
make him President, and even the author, in the middle of a bad case of
writer’s block. Through it all, Howard maintains the same despairing attitude
towards our failings that he has about his own – proving with great good
humour that, despite the cut of his beak, Howard the Duck is definitely our kind
of guy.
GRANT
MORRISON’S NEWXMEN
Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey et al.
Marvel
Comics
Taking the
X-Men out of their spandex, and putting them in more utilitarian clothes, Grant
Morrison put a novel visual spin on a series of book that took the X-Men back to
their conceptual roots, while at the same time taking the characters forward for
the first time in twenty years. Exploring themes of existential crisis, teenage
angst, education, and social and biological evolution, Grant Morrison’s
NewXmeN (sic), features a cast familiar to fans of the movies – Jean Grey,
Cyclops, and Wolverine – as well as a number of original creations. Perhaps
the best of these is the plucky Beak, a Dutch teenager with feathered arms and a
deformed face who, despite all the odds (and despite regular tankings), manages
to rise to a level of heroic adequacy that makes Manimal look like Captain
America. A truly global story, taking in Mumbai, Manhattan, China and the
Channel Tunnel, NewXmeN is intelligently and energetically written, features
occasionally sublime art, and tells a complete story that does more with the
characters than a conservative comics industry (and fanbase) is used to.
BIZARRO
COMICS Vol. 1
Various Artists
DC Comics
Bizarro is
the imperfect duplicate of Superman, an immensely powerful but utterly brainless
oaf who hits you if he likes you, bids farewell as he enters the room, and lies
on the kitchen table, eating his dinner off a chair. Imagine if he made
comics…
Bizarro
Comics is a thick anthology of stories featuring DC Comics favourites as written
and drawn by independent comics artists. The book reinvents Batgirl as a
squeamish teenager, Wonder Woman as a chubby-faced girl beat poet, and Superman
as a cheeky toddler who drinks milk from the cow, climbs into the microwave oven
and naps on the freeway. Featuring stories of great good humour and poignancy by
Tony Millionaire, Andi Watson, Hunt Emerson, Ariel Bordeaux, James Kolchaka and
others, Bizarro Comics breathes life into some rather stale old stalwarts.
Volume Two, Bizarro World, was released in February 2005.
40oz.
COLLECTED
Jim Mahfood
Image Comics
40oz.
Comics is Jim Mahfood’s line of self-published minicomics, featuring
characters such as the adventurous Smoke Dog, the rambunctious Zombie Kid and
the devilish Grrl Scouts. 40oz. Collected is a
cheap and extremely cheerful showcase of Mahfood’s ebullience, his fantastic
comic timing, and his predilection for drawing hot (but not exploitative)
chicks. 40oz. Collected is a great example of toilet comics – the sort of book
you could happily take to the…well. You know the rest.
Francine
is trapped in a crap relationship with a crap bloke with a crap beard. Her life
is turned upside down by the sudden return of her high school buddy Katina
“Katchoo” Choovanski, and the panoply of dark secrets she keeps close to her
chest…
Strangers
in Paradise is a long-running serial drama examining what it means to love
somebody – as a friend, as a partner, and as a fantasy object. The series puts
the characters – well-defined men and women unlike any in the rest of Comics
– through the wringer, both physically and emotionally. Moore’s writing is
natural and often lyrical. Moving and frequently tragic, the characters wear
their hearts on their sleeves. The art is skilled and quite lovely: Moore’s
women look very much like those one might see in real life, putting every
long-legged Bad Girl artist to shame. I’d hate to classify any book or series
on this list as for one sex or another, but if any comic here is designed to
appeal to women, then it’s Strangers in Paradise.
BATMAN:
THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS
Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley
DC Comics
A
middle-aged Bruce Wayne tries to recapture his youth by coming out of
retirement, but finds that the old moves don’t quite work in a Gotham City
ravaged by disaffected youth, or an America run by a senile, triggerhappy
President with a Man of Steel in his back pocket.
Like
Watchmen, Dark Knight was blamed – wrongly – for the rise in “grim ‘n’
gritty” comics during the late 1980’s. And to be fair, it is quite dark, it
does have a strong sense of sexual self-awareness, and people do get terribly
killed. But beyond that, Dark Knight is the story of Bruce Wayne’s greatest
escape. He starts the book as a near-suicidal ghost, unable to cope with the end
of his crimefighting career. By the end of the book, however, he finds a way to
cope with being Bruce Wayne again, and finds a new reason to live in the
bargain. Dark Knight is about Bruce Wayne saving Gotham City by saving himself.
With Miller’s meaty, media-savvy art, it’s a story of hope in the most
unlikely of places: the heart of the Batman.
GREYSHIRT:
INDIGO SUNSET
Rick Veitch
America’s
Best Comics
A
dapper vigilante patrols the streets of Indigo City. His best friend a fat yogi,
his only defence a chainmail vest, Greyshirt keeps Indigo safe from crime. But
is his mission a purely altruistic one, or does he seek redemption for past
sins?
Rick
Veitch’s story follows Greyshirt (co-created by Alan Moore) from his misspent
youth to the moment when he changed from rascal to rogue. A crime drama across
decades, with a cast of cradle-robbing recidivists, pop art ghosts, sinister
aliens and decadent molls, Indigo Sunset paints The Sopranos across Sheffield
City Centre, a rich tale of Skid Row and the few who escape it.
PLANETARY
Warren
Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Martin
WildStorm Comics
Behind
every curtain, a story. Under every flagstone, a legend. Around every corner, a
miracle. The Planetary Organization are the archaeologists of the extraordinary,
superhuman investigators in a world where ghost cops run alongside radioactive
dinosaurs, and in which seven pulp adventurers gave their lives to save us from
the supermen. Warren Ellis’ story is a reappraisal of a century’s worth of
escapist fiction disguised as a great mystery: if the world is really full of
this stuff, then why does nobody know about it? John Cassaday’s art is
versatile and gorgeous, changing genre every chapter and never skipping a beat.
Ellis’ story grabs the reader from page one with a new surprise on every page.
A travelogue of the fantastic, Planetary is an addictive story with a dual sense
of nostalgia and novelty.
Want
to know what it is about Comics that makes me such an evangelist? Can’t see
why anyone would want to read pictures and words at the same time?
Don’t want to believe that comics began with Superman and ended with Night
Thrasher and the New Warriors? The Understanding Comics is your thing. A
comprehensive history of the medium, and an analysis of how comics creates the
illusion of movement, sound, and the passage of time, Scott McCloud is both
teacher and self-deprecating guide. The use of comics to teach people about comics
is a subversive and terribly effective way to go about things. Don’t believe
that comics have anything to offer you – even after all our passionate
arguments to the contrary? Read Understanding Comics, and prepare to fall in
love all over again.
So there
you have it. Ten Great Comics. Action. Adventure. Romance. Ducks. Comics has
much to offer both the casual reader and the hopeless addict. A portable
universe that you can roll up and put in your pocket. A versatile medium that
you can read at your leisure or take to the toilet for a quickie.
An
unlikely beauty that’s waiting to be discovered.
Pick
a book from this list. Pick a book from the last forty-nine issues. Go into a
store and pick a book off the shelf at random. And be prepared to change your
mind about comics forever.
Review Text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist