Graphic Novels
 

Does anyone here read graphic novels? I'm not very familiar with them, but I may be given the chance to write one soon, so I'm doing all of the research that I can. Tell me yr opinions, favorite writers and illustrators, favorite books, etc. I'm all ears.

Not often, but I've got Watchmen, because it's a classic. I've also got the The Prisoner - Shattered Visage because I love the old TV series and Lovecraft because I'm a fan of HP Lovecraft. I enjoy them when I read them though, it's just not a big thing for me. I'll keep an eye on this thread to look for recommendations.

i love
Daniel Clowes

and Adrian Tomine

i looooooovvveeddd akifa at one point.

oooh
 

American Comic/Graphic Novelists that are superrad -

Jeffrey Brown (try Clumsy)
Seth (It's A Good Life If you don't weaken)
Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan...)
Adrian Tomine -as stated above
Art Speigelman (Maus/Raw Magazine)
Charles Burns (Skin Deep/Black Hole)
The Hernandez Bros (Love & Rockets!!)
Craig Thompson (Blankets/Goodbye Chunky Rice)
... and my personal favourite, Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun War!)

also I just finished reading Night Fisher by a Hawaiian guy called R. Kikuo Johnson which was pretty good. basically if you go the Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly websites you will find pretty much all good stuff there.

Also, if yr in Britain (or if you can get yr hands on it) there's an ace comic magazine that comes out twice a year called Sturgeon White Moss, which has so much good stuff in it, Archer Prewitt, Alexander Tucker, Tom Gauld, Daniel Johnston, Jeffrey Lewis, Sophie Crumb, etc etc etc....

Graphic novels

I suggest you read these

MAUS - Art Spiegelman

TO THE HEART OF THE STORM,
NEW YORK : THE BIG CITY,
MINOR MIRACLES,
A CONTRACT WITH GOD - Will Eisner

WATCHMEN,
FROM HELL,
V FOR VENDETTA - Alan Moore

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS - Frank Miller

What, no manga?!

Ghost In The Shell
Neon Genesis Evangelion (based on the anime, but offers more insight into the characters)
Akira (8 volumes)

Also-
Cerebus the Aardvark (series collected over 15 volumes)

I love American Splendour, actually I think i'm turning like him more and more... not sure that's a good thing but hey.

Spawn is also great, better than all that superhero shite.

Art Spiegelman and Daniel Clowes are great.

Has anybody read any Phoebe Gloeckner?

I'm a bigggg fan of Dan Clowes also. I enjoy Steve Niles (Cal Mc Donald), Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl), and others.

Haven't read any, but the Sin City novels seem pretty neat.

And I remeber reading something about one called Cerebus maybe? I think it had references to Oscar Wilde and that's probably what caught my attention.

Akira is amazing! and it's really the only comic I've truly paid attention to so far (although when I was about 15 I read spawn...). They just released the final two parts (9, 10) here, but I haven't purchased them yet.








I borrowed last year a few sin cities from the local library but, even though I love the art, I wasn't too fond of the characters and plot lines. From the sadistic aspect they're cool though.

CAGES by Dave McKean is incredible. The 10 individual magazines were compiled into one hardcover volume a few years back; totally essential.

i don't like what i've seen from dave mckean, i.e. bits for sandman (awful comic) and a quick browse through that arkham asylum one. but people seem to like him so i'm prepared to keep trying.

Yes, Cerebus the Aardvark by Dave Sim...later he employed a background artist named Gerhard.

Oscar Wilde is in it, but only books 5 & 6.

(Hey, I didn't know we could use different fonts...so why are we all using the same font?)

Beacause we're sheep

I've always wanted to read Arkham Asylum, Akira and Sin City but I've just never bothered. Well that tells me what to spend this weeks wages on.

Cages is way different. It's the only one I truly dig, but it really is great.

I'm mostly into:
Ivan Brunetti
Chris Ware
Julie Doucet
Peter Bagge
Dan Clowes
Jim Blanchard
Dennis Worden
Dame Darcy

That kind of scene. I was pretty voracious in the early and mid 90s with that stuff. Stickboy, Schizo, Hate, Meat Cake, Loose Teeth, a bunch of others.

The sandman comics are FUCKING GREAT!

McKean is a great artist too

The SIN CITY comics are fucking genius NOIR

read them!!!!

for me its all about jimmy corrigan, smartest boy in the world. its an amazingly beautiful book written by chris ware.

sandman is the all round worst comic ever made. EVER! even worse than anything i've ever seen from Image comics

Now that I think about it, the worst comic I've read is definitely witchblade. It was about tits.

but I was fifteen...

oh, "jimmy corrigan, the smartest kid on earth" is wonderful, i really loved that book... i bought "quimby the mouse" recently, i believe it's a compilation of chris ware's early drawings when he was a student... jimmy corrigan also shows up sometimes...

but i don't know much about graphic novels... i read "david boring" and loved it too...

and i really like also marjane satrapi's books... the persepolis series was really nice...

These are indeed wonderful.

The graphic adaptation of City Of Glass (original novel by P. Auster) is splendid as well. As is Blackhole by Charles Burns: beautiful ode to sexual exploration; and that woman with her tail, and when it snaps off… gives me the chills.

i have that city of glass adaptation and it was pretty good but i love the book more, perhaps because i read it first that way...

anyone here ever read PERSEPOLIS? awesome...

I'm not all too fond of the Persepolis visual exploration, but I came to enjoy the storyline nonetheless. I hear what you're saying about CoG; read the book first too. And nothing beats an original P. Auster situation, but I thought the adaptation was in itself very succesful. Superb visual associating one frame to another; thought it was very close to the way of Auster's writing. And I loved the Auster cameo in the adaptation, i.e.



(that's him on the right).

One time when I was at the county fair, this guy, who I assume was from some sort of cult, gave me a book done in the style of a graphic novel. Except it was all about how I was going to go to hell if I didn't join his church. I was six.

ha ha yes i remember when he goes to paul auster the writer. it was a pretty good adaptation for sure. and you're right the pictures in persepolis get a bit tiring (though there is much to be made of that uniformity/monotony in that context)-- but the story-- i had never read much about the iranian revolution until then. so this is my only source in a way...

luxy: that's an atrocious story, but i'm glad you didn't suffer any permanent damage.

I remember one page showed the main character of the book burning in hell. The text said, "JOE IS IN HELL!!!" He also looked to be around six years old.

When I worked at one of the local libraries last year, I saw few of these fundamentalist christian propaganda booklets/comics. They were blatantly judgemental and therefore hilarious, but also sickening.
I can't remember what organization was publishing them though.

They are so interesting though, as long as you are in the right mind to not be affected by them.

now that's creepy

i thought persepolis was a great book, and coincidentally, when i was in the library today i got out her new book "embroideries" which i look forward to reading

Has anyone read 'Hey Wait' by Jason? I read it out of the blue at our local libray a few years ago when I was a bum. After reading I had to sit down cos. It was as if God said "oi dickhead, what the hell are you gonna do with your life?"

just finished reading Black Hole. What a trip!

I also like Clowes a lot. Ghost World's a classic. But the Caricature things are fun, too.

does anyone here know craig thompson? i thought 'blankets' was rather amazing :) i like his style very much




(from 'carnet de voyage')




(blankets)

today i bought '20th centuary Eightball' by Daniel Clowes and 'RoadStrips' by a ton of different artists, it looks great!

i forgot to say, you are one of my favorite new people around here, well informed & insighful; thanks for the good reading. (& that picture in pictures of hot girls was hot too, subtle, very good). repped.


oh that's good to know; i've been looking for the 2nd volume of persepolis actually so i might score both actually...