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three comics you should read (if you think you don’t like comics).

By • On • In scott • 3 min read

Health Facts:

  1. Nine out of ten doctors agree that the average American needs more comics and graphic novels in their diet.
  2. Studies show that 74% of Americans are under the misapprehension that they don’t like comics when, in fact, they do.
  3. Research out of the Mayo Clinic points to a dangerous lack of curiosity in adults over the age of 23, making it less likely they try new things, such as reading graphic novels.

I’m glad those numbers are out there, providing verifiable proof that things need to change. Otherwise, you’d have to take my word for it.

An informed populace is our best chance at beating this thing. Too many readers who think they dislike comics just haven’t encountered the right one(s). That’s why I keep using this blog as a way to provide important information by writing about some comics or graphic novels – amazing titles like Saga or Paper Girls – for people who think they don’t like the medium.

Still, this is a national health crisis, and it falls on me to do more.

In that spirit, here are more great comics for the skeptical.

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The Backstagers

James Tyrion IV – Rian Sygh – Walter Baiamonte

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If you like: sweet, laugh-out-loud funny, genuinely heartwarming stories populated by characters you want to spend as much time with as possible.

The Backstagers has it all. Magical hallways of unending, ever changing corridors full of monsters, mysteries, and backstage tech resources? Check. The most endearing, original, and delightfully weird cast of characters you could ask for? Yes. Charm for days and days and days. Got it!

The only downside is that the book’s run was far too short. When I turned the last page, I had no idea it was the last last page. I went on Goodreads to find the next volume’s publication date, only to discover that there would be no next volume. The revelation left me genuinely sad for days. I sure hope we somehow get more graphic novels with these characters someday.

Also, The Backstagers is put out by BOOM! Studios, an seemingly unending resource of amazing comics. They also exclusively put stuff out that would fit into the category of comics for skeptics.

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Gideon Falls

Jeff Lemire – Andrea Torrentino

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If you like: horror (think Stephen King’s more sprawling, epic titles, with some Lovecraftian flavor), or genre-bending fiction that adds up to more than the sum of its parts

Gideon Falls is relentlessly grisly and dark, with an intriguing mystery and – once it gets moving in earnest – a thrilling pace. It’s fuuuucked up in the best possible ways, and as the story progresses, it just keeps getting more and more bonkers. Yet every new twist and revelation totally works within the narrative. Each big, surprising expansion of the world comes off as deft and clever, and not a desperate attempt to keep upping the ante to keep people reading.

With serial storytelling, I get wary when it begins to feel like the writer(s) have no idea what’s next, or worse, keep jumping tracks and retconning entire through lines. With Gideon Falls, it’s clear Lemire is in total control of his narrative. He isn’t throwing out captivating but hollow mysteries with the vague hope that maybe he can figure out what they all mean down the line. [I’m looking at you Lost.]**

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The Weatherman

Jeff LeHeup – Nathan Fox – Moreno Dinisio

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If you like: smart, fun, irreverent, vibrantly colored, hyper-violent sci-fi.

We’re in a bit of a sci-fi golden age in comics, and The Weatherman is a great addition to the trend.

It begins with an immature, wisecracking, food obsessed weatherman in the distant future finding out that nothing in his life is as it seems, as suddenly the entire solar system is trying to kill him.

I’d recommend you learn nothing else about this title before jumping in. I picked it up purely because it was on a staff picks shelf and it looks gorgeous. As soon as I finished reading it, I went online and ordered the next volume.

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** To be fair, my beloved X-Files was also egregiously guilty of this. Fortunately, most of the episodes were Monster of the Week eps, distinct from the series’s ongoing mythology. The good to great MotW eps are some of the greatest hours of television ever created, so, unlike shows like Lost, the X-Files can’t be judged purely on whether or not it had a coherent mythology. Ask huge fans what their favorite episodes are, and you’re usually going to find lists made up entirely of Monsters of the Week.

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i kill giants. [graphic content.]

By • On • In books, graphic content, nerd candy, scott • 1 min read

It’s really hard to explain why you need to read this book, but you do.

It is absolutely stunning. I literally knew nothing about it going into it, I saw it on a list of great graphic novels, the art looked intriguing, so I gave it a try. I am so very glad I did.

This story is heartbreakingly beautiful. It’s officially the first comic or graphic novel I cried reading.

Kelly and Niimura’s story is about a 5th grade girl determined to kill giants. I don’t want to give away any more details than that, but trust me when I say this is powerful storytelling about the real world.

It’s not hyperbole to say that stories like this make the world a better place. You should read this as soon as you can.

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the walking dead. [graphic content.]

By • On • In books, graphic content, nerd candy, scott • 3 min read

Have you read The Walking Dead yet? If not, you are in for a big treat my friend. It’s a fantastic comic series written by Robert Kirkman about life after the zombie apocalypse. The main character is a police officer named Rick Grimes who gets shot in the line of duty, goes into a coma, and wakes up after the proverbial shit has hit the fan (a la 28 Days Later). It is the perfect way to introduce the series, because it’s about life after the zombie apocalypse, so using the coma technique is a clean way of allowing us to adjust to the post zombie world along with our hero.

The comic book/graphic novel medium is perfect for exploring this subject matter, because the story goes on and on, and thus it can take us so much deeper into the questions and metaphors inherent in the zombie genre.

There are tons of reasons why zombie stuff is great, but one of the more important reasons is that it is rife with metaphor at the heart of American culture. It wasn’t an accident that Romero set the sequel to Night of the Living Dead at a shopping mall.

At the moment, our culture is in the midst of this bizarre war where a huge portion of the population refuses to let go of American mythology from the 50’s. We have these ideas of what it means to be American, of what “real America” looks like, and while that ideal never existed, it is even more dangerous now because it should have died a long time ago, it’s alive and kicking even though it shouldn’t be, it is undead now. Actually, Bill Willingham used this as a tiny portion of his Fables storyline, and it was utterly brilliant, but Fables must be left for another post.

Zombies represent something terrifying because they are us. They are our fear of death, our fear of our appetites, our fear of the nagging thought in the back of our minds that we are our own worst enemy, that we will bring about our own destruction.

Yet, what are we left with on the other side of that? We play with the zombie genre, and lets say we make it to the other side of the cataclysm, doing our best to survive long term in a world overrun with a horde of the undead. Then what? Well, that’s what The Walking Dead offers a potential answer to. It’s a band of survivors trying to make life work, trying to keep their children safe, trying to fall in love and find a reason to wake up each day. If everything that we think makes up our world is taken from us, where do we go from there?

Kirkman’s writing is fantastic; tense, well paced, and constantly engaging. I almost always buy what characters are doing, how they are treating each other, etc. That’s rare.

Also, it just may be the best panel work I’ve seen. The art is all black and white, and the way Kirkman and Tony Moore, followed by Charlie Adlard, lay out the panels is perfect. It’s sparse, often with very little going on within each page, creating a great relationship between the story and the art. Also, they avoid the common pitfall of accidently giving away a big moment by placing a full panel event on the right page. What I mean is that so often I accidently learn something I don’t want to know when I turn the page, because as your turn a page you see page 35 on your right before you look back to 34 on your left. If there is this huge, full color death scene (or whatever) before my eyes as I turn the page, I can’t help but see it, so even though I haven’t read the stuff on the left, I know what happens on the next page. In The Walking Dead I am consistently impressed that they build up the big moment, and then make you turn the page to see what happened. It seems like it would be a simple, obvious thing to make work, but it is rare in my experience. They take the medium seriously, and realize what the reading experience will be like.

I really love this series. In the coming world, post Z-Day, the undead won’t be our only enemies. Other humans in the world, people in our own group of survivors, even our own sanity and grip on reality becomes tenuous and dangerous. Kirkman engages the potential for story in this realm with great attention to detail, honesty, impressive character psychologies, and gifted artistic help. You should read these! (And watch the show on AMC when it finally arrives in October).

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runaways, vol. 1-3. [graphic content.]

By • On • In books, graphic content, nerd candy, scott • 2 min read

Six teens find out their parents are super-villains, then go on the run to thwart their ‘rents evil plan to destroy the world. That’s about the gist of what gets things rolling in Runaways.

I just finished the initial story arc, written by Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina) which is covered in the first three volumes of the graphic novel form of the comics.

These books are really fun and original. It all takes place in the main Marvel universe, but does so with entirely new characters. Among other things, this makes it more exciting than normal when characters from the main universe cross over into the Runaways title, because we get to slowly see these kids become part of the fabric of the rest of this world of superheroes and villains.

Having only read the first three volumes, I’m not sure exactly how often this happens, but the first characters to show up in their book are Cloak and Dagger, so I wonder if writers continue to use the title as a place to play with fun B-List characters.

If the initial arc is any indication, they aren’t afraid to kill off major characters, but who knows if it will be the typical comic book/soap opera ‘no one is ever really dead,’ sort of thing.

The initial arc was great, but I’m curious to see what happened when other writers took over. Brian K. Vaughan is kind of a big deal, so he could probably make anything good. Vaughan wrote the first seven volumes, then #8 was written by none other than JOSS WHEDON!!!! After that, I’ll be interested to see how the series holds up when it transitioned from writer to writer. Either way, I am damned sure looking forward to what is in store for me over the next four volumes.

For those interested in a quick intro to the team, you’ve got Alex Rider, a tactical prodigy who leads the group; Nico (a.k.a. Sister Grimm), she has a staff which gives her magical powers; Chase (a.k.a. Talkback), he is a dumb jock, and he has x-ray goggles and gauntlets that manipulate fire; Gert (a.k.a. Arsenic), she has a telepathic velociraptor named Old Lace, Karolina (a.k.a. Lucy in the Sky), she is an alien and she has all sorts of powers; and Molly, (a.k.a Bruiser, a.k.a., Princess Powerful), she is a super-strong mutant who is also, well, an eleven-year-old girl.

If you’re in the market for a graphic novel to read, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this one. Fun times!

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