Here's ten things to be thankful for in comics, on this day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully you have the day off and can kick back and think about all the great things there are to love about comics and graphic novels...
#10. Daredevil by
Frank Miller and Klaus Janson. Of all the superhero comics I have read
in the nearly 30+ years I have been reading comics, no run of any title was
ever more visceral or exciting than Daredevil #158-191. As
Frank Miller expanded his creative abilities, my comprehension of what
was possible within the boundaries of a superhero comic expanded right
alongside. The apotheosis of Miller and Janson's run was #181, which proved to me that when creators are given free reign, nearly
anything could happen. Unfortunately, the nature of the industry is
such that the events of the issue were later exploited and reversed,
but, at the time, and at the impressionable age of 16 years, I had never seen anything like it.
It blew my mind. The entire Miller/Janson run is available in Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Volumes 1-3,
or The Daredevil by Frank Miller (and Co.) Omnibus Editions (two giant collections, plus a third dedicated to Elektra). If you want a real sense of what an exciting time the early '80s
were in monthly superhero comics, you could do far worse than reading
them.
#9. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
Most Alan Moore runs on every title he has worked on are noteworthy in
some way, with very few of them anything less than excellent
entertainment (Deathblow: Byblows is the exception that proves the rule). But his Swamp Thing changed comics (there'd have been no Vertigo without it), and caused an entire
generation of creators to rethink the way they approached their craft.
Few have come anywhere near living up to the standards set in this
series, thankfully in print in a series of trade paperbacks from DC Comics and soon to be reissued in slightly more upscale hardcovers.
The TPBs don't include Moore's actual
first issue because it was a wrap-up of a previous Martin Pasko
story, bu
t, the hardcover will remedy that error.
#8. Sleeper by
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (the team behind Criminal, the best thing Marvel currently publishes). I would include with this not only the 24 actual issues (spread between two "seasons"), but also the five issue mini-series Point Blank
(with Colin Wilson on art rather than Phillips) that preceded it. Brubaker and Phillips created here a paranoid and razor-sharp story of super-powered espionage and betrayal, a fantastic and satisfying series that is available in a series of trade paperbacks and is also set for reissue soon, due to a movie being talked about in Hollywood. Sleeper is filled with double-dealing, shocks and surprises. And man, Phillips can
draw the hell out of anything.
#7. Origins of Marvel Comics.
Up until Christmas of 1977 (I'm guessing on the year, but it was no
earlier than '76 and '78 seems too late), the only Marvel Comics I had
read were the monthly floppies. This thick collection from Fireside Books (this was many years before Marvel or DC really knew how to do their own graphic novels) surveyed the
length and breadth of the Marvel Universe, packed with stories by Stan
Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and others. For the first time, at a key
moment in my transition from child to adolescent, reading it by the
light of the Christmas tree while the rest of my family slept that
Christmas day, I saw just how much history there was to comics. Of
course, the true history of the medium wasn't even hinted at in this
Marvel-centric volume, but this was my first glimpse that a far greater
canvas existed and needed to be investigated. Tragically, I loaned my
original copy to a friend who took it with him when he moved out of
town, but a few years back I acquired a copy in really nice
condition, and I snapped it up instantly, delighted to finally have at
least a facsimile of one of the most important books of my life back in
my hands. All the stories in Origins are available in other reprints, but there's something very special about this book and its Stan Lee-written introductions to each tale.
#6. Daniel G. Clowes. The creator of Eightball is probably the cartoonist whose best work most viscerally impacts on my consciousness. From Ghost World to Ice Haven
and beyond, I am awestruck and speechless in trying to beging to
explain how deeply his best work affects me. Clowes just kind of reduces me to a slack-jawed nitwit, unable to explain his devotion to the comics of this genius cartoonist. Check out any of his collected works and see if you don't agree.
#5. Harvey
Pekar. The debt comics owes this pioneer of
underground/alternative/autobiographical comics cannot even truly be
estimated. Buy any of his American Splendor books and find out why his personal, idiosyncratic comics work has the respect and admiration of so many students of the comics artform. The earliest collected works include lots of great collaborations with underground master R. Crumb, but anything with American Splendor in the title is worth recommending.
#4. E-Man by
Cuti and Staton. The original Charlton-published issues were a
formative reading experience for me in the early 1970s. I recently
re-read them and realized that the satire and energetic artwork hold up
remarkably well, justifying my long-held feeling that the series was
one of the best superhero moments of its time. I would really love to
see these re-issued for today's readers, and a little bird tells me
that Image Comics will be releasing a couple of collections in 2009. Thank God.
#3. Giant-Size X-Men #1 and Uncanny X-Men #94-143.
Probably the best run of any Marvel Comics title ever. For one brief,
shining moment Chris Claremont was able to craft comprehensible,
entertaining stories while John Byrne put solid, energetic storytelling before his
monumental arrogance (which eventually, ironically, got him pretty much blacklisted from corporate comics). These X-Men comics are a comic run so great, you can forget
while reading it that its two prime movers never again did anything
anywhere near as entertaining. Special mention should be made of inker
Terry Austin, whose precise, exacting embellishment was so valuable
that if he hadn't been part of the creative team, I'm quite convinced
this run would be no better remembered, say, than Claremont and Byrne's
Marvel Team-Up run (which is also pretty awesome and should be collected).
#2. Earth Two. As best visualized by Paul Levitz, Wallace Wood and Joe Staton in the
1970s revival of All-Star Comics, I was swept away by the idea of a
middle-aged Superman and Co. carrying on adventures on an alternate
earth. DC has in recent years reissued these somewhat awkward, terrifically charming comics in a two-book set of TPBs titled Justice Society of America.
#1. Free Comic Book Day. Our
national holiday. The yearly post-game analysis frustrates with its
shortsightedness -- the event will take a decade or more to fully
infiltrate into the mind of the public at large and begin to actually pay for itself. If
they keep doing it right, though -- and a lot of comic shops do -- eventually it will all be worth it. Stop by any comic shop on the first Saturday in May and see what it's all about.
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I'm Alan David Doane, husband and father of two. I've been a radio broadcaster since 1985 and a writer about comics and graphic novels since the mid-1990s. I created and maintain the website Comic Book Galaxy, which first debuted 1 September 2000, and I have written The ADD Blog for Comic Book Galaxy since 2002. I am also a contributing writer for The Comics Journal, and the former reviews editor for Silver Bullet Comic Books (now Comics Bulletin).
I've also contributed editorial material for Alan Moore's Yuggoth Cultures collection from Avatar Press and consulted with other creators and publishers on a number of projects.
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