Awesome Comics You Should Read: The Video

Oh hey, here's my Ignite Ann Arbor 5 talk from back in February, "Awesome Comics You Should Read":



Presentation notes are here.

Awesome Comics You Shoud Read

These are the notes for my Ignite Ann Arbor 5 talk, "Awesome Comics You Should Read." (When the video becomes available I'll link to it...)

Banana Sunday by Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover is the story of Kirby, the new girl in school with three talking primates in tow. There's a little mystery, a little drama, and a lot of funny. It's a high school comedy with Coover's fantastic art. And monkeys. It's available in a collected edition. Tobin & Coover's latest graphic novel, Gingerbread Girl,  is currently being serialized online.
Available: UM

Star Drop by Mark Oakley is about Ashelle, a warrior princess from an interstellar empire who is tired of all the fighting so runs away to Earth. A Canadian suburb, in fact. The story, currently being serialized online, bounces between Ashelle trying to fit in on Earth and rebuffing attempts by her father's forces to bring her back home. There is a collection of the early installments available in print.

Beanworld by Larry Marder defies a simple summary. Fans of world-building will find a truly unique alternate world inhabited by anthropomorphic beans. It's about ecology (but not in a simplistic way) and the role of the individual within society. First published in the late 80s & early 90s, the original comics have been collected into hardcover editions, and a third volume of all-new material was published in 2009.
Available: UM, AADL (old edition)

The Muppet Show Comic Book by Roger Langridge pulls off the seemingly impossible by capturing the essencse of the original Muppet Show television series and putting it on paper as a highly successful and amusing comic book. All of your favorites sketches return, like Pigs in Space and Veterinarian Hospital; the backstage antics; even Statler & Waldorf. Usually licensed comics are pale imitations of the source material, but this one nails it. There are several trade collections available.
Available: UM, AADL

Bookhunter by Jason Shiga is a hardboiled detective mystery set in the Oakland Public Library ca. 1973. Shiga brings out the humor by having the characters play the situation—a priceless book is stolen from a locked room, and the library police are called in to investigate —absolutely straight. It's full of interrogations, library in-jokes and minutiae, and plenty of action, like a book cart chase through the card catalog room. It is alas out of print, but Shiga has put the entire work online for free reading.

The Marvel Adventures series of comics is Marvel's "All Ages" set of comics, which many interpret as meaning 'kiddie.' But the various comics that fall under that banner have often had some of the most fun super-hero comics of the past several years. The issue highlighted in my talk is Marvel Adventures The Avengers #12 by Jeff Parker & Juan Satacruz, featuring the story "Ego, the Loving Planet," in which the sentient planetoid Ego falls in unrequited love with The Earth. The Avengers have to figure out a way to convince Ego to leave Earth alone. Imagine Ego being voiced by Billy Dee Williams, and you'll get the picture. It's included in the third digest collection of Marvel Adventures Avengers, Bizarre Adventures, which also has the comic in which The Avengers are transformed into M.O.D.O.C. versions of themselves. (Also recommended are the recent Marvel Adventures Spider-Man comics written by the aforementioned Paul Tobin.)

Captain Britain and MI:13 by Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk featured the classic super-hero leading a team that protected the British Isles from various threats. It was way too short lived, but it ended on a bang with its final storyline in which Dracula launched an attack on Europe from his BASE ON THE MOON! Firing VAMPIRES AT THE EARTH via MAGIC CANONS! That, my friends, is pure awesome.

All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely is easily the best super-hero story of the past decade, and possibly the best ever. The creators accomplish the seemingly impossible task of creating an ode to the silver age of the classic super-hero while at the same time being incredibly modern. It is an examination of the myth of Superman and how it can still be relevant to us nearly 75 years after his creation. Issue ten may be my favorite: it hops around in time, Superman fights a giant robot, and there's one scene that causes me to well up with tears every time I read it (in a manly end-of-Toy-Story-3 way). I could easily do an hour on the awesomeness of All-Star Superman. It was collected into two volumes, and there's also an oversized deluxe Absolute single volume edition.
Available: UM, AADL

Xenozoic Tales by Mark Schultz takes place in a far future post-collapse world in which dinosaurs once again roam the Earth. Schultz channels the classic adventure comic strips of the past, bringing us manly men, strong & beautiful women, classic cars, and fearsome dinosaurs. It was recently collected into a single volume edition.
Available: UM

Gon by Masashi Tanaka is a wordless manga series about a small but tough Tyranosaur that someone survives extintiction and exists in the current epoch. He interacts with modern fauna with a keen sense of justice, protecting the meek and dishing it out against predators. There are seven volumes of his collected adventures available in the tankōbon format.
Available: UM

The Middleman by Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Les McClaine is about two operatives of a secret organization that protects the Earth from aliens, Lovecraftian horrors, man-sharks, evil monkeys, evil ninjas, evil robots, etc. It began life as an unproduced television pilot, which Grillo-Marxuach turned into a comic book, which was then subsequently picked up as a short-lived but also awesome televsion series. It was equal doses of action and humor, with a touch of pathos thrown in. There is an omnibus edition of the three comic series available.
Available: AADL

Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks is a zombie story in which the characters have actually seen zombie movies. The main protagonist Joss is a big horror movie fan, and when a zombie outbreak hits her Canadian college campus she uses her knowledge (and suddenly-developing zombie-ass-kicking ninja skills) to survive. It was released as an original graphic novel.



Slide four features comics you likely already know about, but for completeness, they are:

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Promethea by Alan Moore & J. H. Williams III
Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and various artists
Fables by Bill Willingham and various artists
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Love & Rockets by The Hernandez Bros.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman and various artists
Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris
Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Y, the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Persepolis by Mariane Satrapi
Peanuts by Charles Schulz
Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore and Charles Adlard

Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke


Slide nineteen features more awesome comics I didn't have time to cover in the five-minute presentation. They are:

The Immortal Iron Fist by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction & David Aja
Concrete by Paul Chadwick
2 Sisters by Matt Kindt
Ganges by Kevin Huizenga
Peculia by Richard Sala
Axe Cop by Malachai & Ethan Nicolle
The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá
Global Frequency by Warren Ellis and various artists
Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison and various artists
Liō by Mark Tatulli
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man by Paul Tobin and various artists
Chew by John Layman & Rob Guillory
Simone & Ajax by Andrew Pepoy
Little White Mouse by Paul Sizer
Love and Capes by Thom Zahler
Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson
Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson
Age of Reptiles by Ricardo Delgado
Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma
A Drunken Dream and Other Stores by Moto Hagio
Tiempos Finales by Sam Hiti
We3 by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Uzumaki by Junji Ito
Keif Llama: Xeno-Tech by Matt Howarth


Slide image credits:


Slide 3:
Sky Ape © Phil Amara, Mike Russo, Richard Jenkins and Tim McCarney
Kobra (Vulcan) © Fleetway Publications


Slide 4:
Watchmen © DC Comics Inc.
Promethea © America's Best Comics
Swamp Thing © DC Comics
Fables © Bill Willingham & DC Comics
Maus © Art Spiegelman
Asterios Polyp © David Mazzucchelli
Love & Rockets © Gilbert, Jamie and Mario Hernandez
Sandman © DC Comics
Ex Machina © Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris
Calvin & Hobbes © Bill Watterson
Y, the Last Man © Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra
Understanding Comics © Scott McCloud
Persepolis © Mariane Satrapi
Peanuts © United Feaures Syndicate, Inc.
Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns © DC Comics
Jimmy Corrigan © Chris Ware
The Walking Dead © Robert Kirkman
Scott Pilgrim © Bryan Lee O'Malley
Parker: The Hunter © The Estate of Donald E. Westlake; artwork © Darwyn Cooke


Slide 5:
Banana Sunday © Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover


Slide 6:
Star Drop © Mark Oakley


Slide 7:
Larry Marder's Beanworld © Larry Marder


Slide 8:
The Muppet Show Comic Book © The Muppets Studio, LLC.


Slide 9:
Bookhunter © Jason Shiga


Slide 10:
Strange Adventures © DC Comics


Slide 11:
Marvel Adventures The Avengers © Marvel Characters, Inc


Slide 12:
Captain Britain and MI:13 © Marvel Characters, Inc.


Slide 13:
All-Star Superman © DC Comics


Slide 14:
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen © DC Comics


Slide 15:
Xenozoic Tales © Mark Schultz


Slide 16:
Gon © Masashi Tanaka


Slide 17:
The Middleman © Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Viper Comics


Slide 18:
Zombies Calling © Faith Erin Hicks


Slide 19:
The Immortal Iron Fist © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Concrete © Paul Chadwick
2 Sisters © Matt Kindt
Ganges © Kevin Huizenga
Peculia © Richard Sala
Axe Cop © Malachai & Ethan Nicolle
The Umbrella Academy © Gerard Way & Dark Horse Books
Global Frequency © Warren Ellis & DC Comics
Doom Patrol © DC Comics
Liō © Mark Tatulli
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Chew © John Layman
Simone & Ajax © Andrew Pepoy
Little White Mouse © Paul S. Sizer
Love and Capes © Thomas F. Zahler
Cul de Sac © Richard Thompson
Beasts of Burden © Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson
Age of Reptiles © Ricardo Delgado
Yotsuba&! © Kiyohiko Azuma/Yotuba Sutazio
A Drunken Dream and Other Stores © Moto Hagio
Tiempos Finales © Samuel Hiti
We3 © Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Uzumaki © Junji Ito/Shogakukan
Keif Llama: Xeno-Tech © Matt Howarth

Visions of The B-Team

You may recall that back during our 24 Hour Comics Day event at the library, I did an awesome little comic called The B-Team Returns.

In the wee hours of the morning, the talented Adam Buttrick took time out from drawing his own comic to draw a few scenes from mine! Here then are a few images from my comic drawn by Adam:

(Some of the scenes seems a bit more violent when not drawn as stick figures...)

Finally, here's a group shot of some of the characters the comic that Adam drew:

Go visit Adam's blog, where you can see more of his drawings, including his own 24 Hour Comics Day comic: Tim Tadabrucki and the Stealing Trick.

24 Pages of Awesome

As promised, here is the comic that I created for 24 Hour Comics Day at the Dude this past weekend. But first, a word or two of explanation:

Back in junior high, I used to create one-page comics based on The A-Team and show them to friends. The rub was that I had never seen an episode of The A-Team. Not a one. So everything I knew was based on second-hand knowledge; or I would just make things up! I pretty sure that the comics I did exhibited very little relation to the actual show.

I haven't really drawn anything resembling a comic since junior high, which was over twenty-five years ago. So when I decided to do a comic for 24 Hour Comics Day, I decided to go back to those comics I did in my youth for inspiration. Sadly the copies of those comics are long gone, so this new comic is based on the no doubt mis-remembered comics that were based on a TV show I had never seen. Which is to say that any resemblance to any actual A-Team is purely coincidental.

It should go without saying that this comic is a parody, and in that spirit I've renamed them to be The B-Team. Hopefully anyone who appears in the comic will take it in the spirit in which it is intended.

Sadly, Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of The A-Team, passed away on September 30, right before 24 Hour Comics Day. This comic is dedicated to his memory; I'm sure that he would have put a dinosaur in his version had only the budget allowed.

And please recall that as with all 24 Hour Comics Day comics, this was created in under 24 hours. Not that having any longer would have improved it much... I did the scans on my el-cheapo home scanner, so please excuse the quality.

Here then is the link to the first full-length comic I've ever created: The B-Team Returns.

Edit: Here's a picture of me (taken by Phoebe Gloeckner), hard at work staring at a blank page:

Edit 2: The Web interface to DropBox has inconveniently gone down. I've moved the file over to my personal Webspace, so hopefully the link should work again...

YACB Best Comics of 2009

Let's see, I'm probably going to forget something... Here are my twenty favorite comics from the past year, in no particular order:

Yotsuba&! vols. 6-7 - Nothing gives me greater joy than a new volume of Yotsuba&!, and in 2009 we got two, thanks to Yen Press's resurrection of the title. I actually preferred ADV's less-literal translations, and I'm not a fan of the mess of fonts that Yen is using, but those are minor quibbles. When I was telling people that the new volume 6 was out, I simply said "Yotsuba gets a bike"; those who were familiar with the comic would instantly light up, knowing that Azuma is able to wring much hilarity out of such simple everyday premises.


Batman & Robin #1-3 - Grant Morrison is a good comic writer. Frank Quitely is a good comic artist. But put the two together, and you always get something greater than the sum of its parts. They kick off the era of the new Dick Grayson Batman with a three-part story that is full of action, plot and character. Every time Quitely draws a comic, he shows me something new.


Detective Comics #854-860: "Batwoman" - Like Morrison & Quitely, Greg Rucka & J.H. Williams III make for a great team. Their new Batwoman headlining feature in 'Tec is a visual tour de force, but always in service to the story. Most of today's comics waste their high production values on mediocrity, but here the bold colors jump off the shiny pages and the contrasts between the chaotic action and the sedate in-between sections work in ways to stretch the narrative.


3 Story - Matt Kindt's OGN about a man who never stops growing. Kindt takes a fantastic narrative and makes it compellingly ordinary. Craig Pressgang is a character both compelling and enigmatic, as his story is told from the viewpoints of three women in his life.


Ganges #3 - Kevin Huizenga's ode to insomnia. If 3 Stories makes the fantastic ordinary, Kindt pulls off the opposite with his Glenn Ganges stories, making the ordinary compelling.


Incredible Hercules - The perfect example of how to do a myth-based super-hero comic. This past year saw Herc and his pal Amadeus Cho journey to the afterlife, have a falling out, and then come together to take on the Olympians outpost on Earth. Along the way, Hercules impersonates Thor. Fun from beginning to end.


The Muppet Show - There may not be a better pairing of artist & commercial subject matter than Roger Langridge and the Muppet Show. Langridge distills the essence of what makes the Muppets work and filters it through his own sensibilities. With so many mediocre licensed comics out there, Langridge & Boom! show that it can be done right.


Jonah Hex #50 - An epic western tale in one (oversized) issue, with art by the always reliable Darwyn Cooke. Brutal, violent and heartbreaking. In other words, everything you want in a Jonah Hex comic.


Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #53-58 - Paul Tobin's reboot of the Marvel Adventures line finds us with a Peter Parker in high school, and a perfect cast of supporting characters to round things out. Every story is done-in-one, but with enough continuing subplots to keep things going from issue to issue. It looks like Marvel is canceling this soon, which is a shame.


Batman: The Brave and the Bold #4 - Mainly the first two pages, which may be the best comics I've read all year. Batman teams up with Sugar & Spike to take on Felix Faust. Really. It's awesome. Thank you, Matt Wayne & Andy Suriano!


Beasts of Burden #1-4 - Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson take their stories of animals who protect their neighborhood to their own series. Thompson's painted artwork is perfect. The ending of issue #2 is one of the saddest, most brutally heartbreaking things I've read in a long while.


Captain Britain and MI13 #10-15: "Vampire State" - DRACULA shoots VAMPIRES at EARTH from a CANNON on the FReAKIN' MOON! Sometimes I just love comics!


Love & Capes #9-12 - Thom Zahler end the first 'season' of his romantic comedy super-hero story with the lead-up to Mark & Abby's wedding. Both the drama and the gags work well, and Zahler's art keeps things zipping along.


The Cartoon History of the Modern World pt 2 - Larry Gonick finishes his 30-years-in-the-making History of the Universe, and it's worth the wait. Gonick is the measuring stick against which all other non-fiction comics should be measured.


Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness - Reinhard Kleist's German OGN about the original Man in Black is translated into English. Kleist captures the essense of Cash's life with his appropriately moody artwork, and does an excellent job interweaving some of Cash's songs into the narrative as visual reveries. A good example of how to do a comic book biography.


The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Did we really need another comic book adaptation of Baum's Oz? Yes, when done with great skill by Eric Shanower & Skottie Young. By giving the story proper room to breathe, Shanower is able to bring to the front parts of the story that are usually glossed over or missing from other adaptations (I'm looking at you, well-loved MGM movie!) And rarely have the denizens of Oz looked better than when drawn by Young.


Cat Burglar Black - Richard Sala's fun-goth sensibilities are filtered though an all-ages story, but never lose their essence.


"Supergirl" in Wednesday Comics - In a comic full of all-star talent, Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner more than hold their own. Krypto & Streaky go nuts, and Supergirl must get them under control. Out-cutes just about anything else published this year.


Parker: The Hunter - Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of Richard Starking's first Parker novel is dripping with mood. It's comic book noir done right.


Beanworld Book 3: Remember Here When You Are There! - Larry Marder finishes the 'spring' cycle of Beanworld in an all-new hardcover. A great reminder of just how far the simple comic format can go. Funny how I'd never before caught on to the Gnostic undertones of the Beanworld narrative...



I'm sure there are plenty of good comics published last year that I sadly haven't yet got around to reading, so don't fret if your favorites aren't listed here.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

The cover to Kobra #3 (1978) features a giant cyborg gorilla with a jet pack. You may ask why after such a cover they even bothered to make comics any more, since there is nothing that can possibly match a giant cyborg gorilla with a jet pack for sheer awesomeness; I would not be able to give you a satisfactory answer.

(Standard disclaimer about giant cyborg gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.