Ok, so in response to my earlier list of canon books… this my list of canon comics….
Things of note this list is meant to represent things that one should read to get a good sampling of the American comics medium. It’s comprised of more or less definitive works in medium. Not necessarily the best works (though some of them may be). In particular, Action Comics #1 is not very good, but is very important. By the same token, its meant to give you a sampling of books that would make you well rounded in comics, as such, Fantastic Four #1 and Sandman as a series run are missing. Also, I concentrated on American (or at the very least Western) comics. Manga is a totally different art form.
I suppose I will do movies next.
There are 30 titles listed below. All represent a Trade Paerback, Graphic Novel or Entire series run, unless otherwise noted
—
- Action Comics #1 by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel
- Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
- The Authority by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch
- Bone by Jeff Smith
- Cerebus by Dave Sim
- Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
- The Death of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin
- The Death of Gwen Stacey/The Day the Green Goblin Died by Stan Lee
- Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
- Detective Comics #27 by Bob Kane
- Elfquest: volume 1 by Wendy Pini
- God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont
- Hellboy by Mike Mignola
- History of the DC Universe by George Perez and Marv Wolfman
- The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
- Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid
- LifeDeath: A Love Story by Chris Claremont
- Love and Rockets by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
- Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner
- Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
- Omaha, The Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley
- Preacher by Garth Ennis
- Safe Area: Gorazde by Jos Sacco
- Sin City by Frank Miller
- Tales of Beanworld by Larry Marder
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Jim Laird
- The Ultimates 1-6 by Mark Millar
- Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
- Watchmen, tradepaperback by Alan Moore
- Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow by Alan Moore
So what have you read?
thanx to jameel and Wayne (and others to a lesser extent) for much help with this list.
I haven’t read comics in years, but I remember loving Hellboy. Didn’t Mike Mignolia do that, though?
I was also quite pleased to hear that they’re making a movie of it, that actually sounds like it might not suck.
Yes, he did… my mistake… I did it all from memory… good catch, and I have fixed it.
I don’t disagree with any of your list–although there are a few comics on it that I haven’t read. I was going to ask where on Earth I’d go to find a copy of AC1 to read, but a quick google search resolved answered that question.
I’d just add “Strangers in Paradise” by Terry Moore, and “Desert Peach” by Donna Barr.
Stangers in Paradise was one of the possibles I was thinking about, but it got bumped in favor of Love and Rockets. Much like when I was doing the canon books list, I decided that in order to get a good mix of stuff I couldn’t have both.
Hmm. They are very similar in theme, aren’t they. I never noticed really, because the personalities (of the books and characters) are so different.
My fave, with the possible exception of “God Loves, Man Kills”
Grant Morrison’s THE INVISIBLES (first series)
Re: My fave, with the possible exception of “God Loves, Man Kills”
Hmmm… good favorite, but I don’t know that it mattered enough in the grand scheme of “comics” to be considered canonical. There is a lot of stuff that I liked that i had to bump from the list too. (in favor of things like AC#1, which I actually don’t care for, yet I realize its significance).
That said, if I’d gone to 50 instead of just 30, I probably would have picked Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol.
I have read:
Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Bone by Jeff Smith
Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
Love and Rockets by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
Sin City by Frank Miller
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Watchmen, tradepaperback by Alan Moore
I think I have a somewhat different perspective… As I said elsewhere, I dislike lists, but I’ll play, because I love to rec comics. I think there are missing some really important American comics (your list is definitely not about “Western” comics, it discards continental European and South American comic artists/writers). Number one Krazy Kat by George Herriman, fabulous groundbreaking, surreal, funny, one of the best comics ever. Also I think Little Nemo by Windsor McCay is really important, and fun to read. There are a number of others where I would say that I would never compile any list for somebody starting to read comics that was shorter than to contain all of those:
Disney Comics by Carl Barks, from the period of 1940-1950 mostly. The guy invented Uncle Scrooge and many, many major Disney characters!! He transformed Donald from a short-tempered Duck into a multi-layered complex character. His comics continue to sell in the millions of reprints, especially in Europe. His style and range of expression is amazing. How could any list miss him?! Maybe Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse strip should be mentioned too, because AFAIK he transformed Mickey from gags only to ongoing adventures.
A Contract with God by Will Eisner
The Spirit by Will Eisner
a lot of his other stuff is great also, but for comics as a medium, definitely these two.
Twisted Sisters Anthologies, both of them for a great overview of women comic artists of the more alternative type. And there needs to be some representation of the whole genre of (pseudo-)autobiographic comics, personally I’m partial to Dirty Plotte, by Julie Doucet, but that large subsection needs to be present some way.
There needs to be some representation of EC comics from the 1950s, if I were to pick a favorite from all of those I’ve read, I’d select Impact #1 for Al Feldsteins and Bernie Krigsteins “Master Race” of course. But probably if you want to represent influence on comics as a whole probably also at least one of their horror and science-fiction titles each in such list. (I can’t come up with any outstanding issues at the top of my head.)
Also I’m very partial towards these two comics
Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, by Daniel Clowes
Cages, by Dave McKean
—Rat Creature
I agonized with Wayne for a long time over whether or not to include the Spirit. Ultimately decided against it. Eisner is one of the most influential artists of the medium, and definitely his work can be seen in just about anyone else’s modern work (american or otherwise), he coined the term sequential art. But, the list wasn’t meant to show historical influence so much as to familiarize the reader with aspects of the form. As such, the Eisner got bumped, because everything he brought to the table was shown by someone else in one of the other books… not because he wasn’t innovative, but because he was so innovative that most of the other people copied him. For the same reason, I left off anything by Jack Kirby. Obviously, Kirby is the most influential talent of the form, but he is so copied that he isn’t unique enough one of the must reads, IMO. Does that make sense?
Krazy Kat (and Nancy) got left out for the same reason.
Yeah, like I said, I was concentrating on American comics, because to go beyond that just made the job too big to narrow down. The only reason I renegged slightly to say not quite American is that the most prominent creator on my list was Moore, and he’s a Brit. Granted though, he did all the work I cited here for American comic companies.
Another bump from the list was Marvelman/Miracleman, which would have covered your EC gripe. That was just because I had so many Moore things there already that I wanted to mention someone else. I would have hated to have to get rid of Jeff Smith’s Bone to feature yet another Alan Moore comic. That said, yes I realize the list is very Big Two(Marvel/DC) heavy. I was also very disappointed in not being able to get something from the original Captain Marvel run on the list, or some Dark Horse.
Disney I wanted to mention, as well as Archie just because of the staying power and ubiquity, but there was no definitive work (I almost said “pick any Archie comic, they’re all the same) and I figured people would be familiar enough with them, that they weren’t worth bumping something else. To a lesser extent, that’s why there’s no Sandman on the list. On the other hand, even though everyone is familiar with Superman, Batman and Spiderman, I did put their initial appearances in because they are so entrenched in the medium that to read them brings understanding to any other book that one might read.
Does that make sense?
Not really. You cover the “historical” superhero issues, all that is in them has been used and adapted elsewhere as well. It’s not very consistent. And I while I do think that Krazy Kat had lots of influence, I’d challenge the assessment that everything that is Krazy Kat “was shown by someone else” in comics on your list, except that I haven’t read all and it might be (though I doubt it).
I’ve never even heard of Marvelman (but then I’m about as far from an EC expert as one gets, while still reading comics). Besides the specific Feldstein/Krigstein work, I wanted to see non-superhero genre comics from the 1950s represented through EC, especially horror or SF. Miracleman sounds like a superhero, though I could be wrong about that.
I really think it is quite impossible to “familiarize” someone with comics with only 30, I mean nobody would “familiarize” someone with the concept of “fictional written text” (novels/novellas/short stories/poems all together) with 30 examples. But then I’m not in favor of canonized lists anyway, I could maybe pick the 30 comics most dear to me personally, but then none of your list except for Maus, Bone and maybe High Cost of Living would have made the cut.
—Rat Creature
Not really. You cover the “historical” superhero issues, all that is in them has been used and adapted elsewhere as well. It’s not very consistent.
Yeah, I was wondering if anyone would call me on that.
Yes, it is inconsistent. The reason they we chose to leave those 3 on the list is ebcause the orgins of Superman, Batman and Spiderman are as much a part of truly understanding the comic as is the word balloon. You don’t have to like that, in fact, as i said, Action #1 is quite frankly a really really bad example of comics, but its so canonical that it had to be mentioned. The list needed to cover history just like it needed to cover alternative forms. It is popular misconception that comics are about superheroes. This is false. More titles are published about non-superheroes than about superheroes. BUT over 95% of comics sales for any given month in the US are accounted for by superhero books, so if you are familiarizing your self with the form in an attempt to be able to converse intelligently with other people who already are familiar with the form, you simply have to be able to talk about the Spidey, Supes and Bats. Like you said, it would be different if I was talking about meaningful books to me. As Wayne and I discussed earlier… we’d like to say Camelot 3000 is a must read, but you can walk into any comics shop in the world and wait around without talking for the entire 12 hour day, and I bet you not once will you hear “Camelot 3000” mentioned (unless of course, you happen to go to Phantom and hear me and Wayne griping about no one else knowing what it is), but chances are people will make allusions in that 24 hours to at least 20 of the things mentioned on my list.
By the same token, they’re unlikely to mention Krazy Kat. Its just not important to understanding comics. Its important to understanding comics history. As for showing what was done in Krazy Kat in another book on the list, different aspects of Herriman’s influence can be seen in Omaha, Maus, Bone, Cerebus, Hellboy, Preacher, Love and Rockets, and Beanworld.
Marvelman/Miracleman is a superhero of sorts, but its not a superhero book. Its more like a people book. I’d liken it to Preacher or Sandman. I’m surprised that you have never heard of it… its influence is huge. I have lots of non-superhero stuff on the list, really… in fact far more than should really be warranted by the numbers.
See that’s the thing about familiarization. Its not becoming an expert. Its becoming semi-competant. These are 30 books that you can read and you can walk into any comic shop in America from Phantom of the Attic to Jay and Silent Bob’s to Studio 13 to Geppy’s and you’d be able follow what was going on enough that you’d be able to learn more and even have intelligent conversations. You won’t get that having read “A Contract With God”, “Camelot 3000”, “Sandman”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “When Commeth the Commuter.”
I know it sounds like I just picked all these randomly, but I didn’t. Wayne, Jameel and I spoke for a couple of hours to decide on the list, and between the 3 of us, there’s about 80 years or so of comic reading experience. Wayne works in a shop now, and I used to work in one. Like I said, the list would be quite different if it was a list of favorites or a list of historically significant books it would be different. But that’s not the point of a canon. That’s why I *DO* believe in canons. They’re useful… you won’t be an expert, but its a useful way to become exposed.
Well, that I have never heard of Miracleman could be because I’m primarily a fan of European comics (and an some US independent/alternative titles), and here there is almost no superhero in sight, except in parodies and in US imports. Not to shock you or anything, I’ve actually no idea what Camelot 3000 is either, or “When Commeth the Commuter.” I think I might have heard the title “Camelot 3000” once, but I have no idea what it is, who wrote it, or what significance it might have.
When you mention comics to someone here who doesn’t read them, they’ll think of Disney comics and Asterix probably, Tintin maybe. Superheroes here are a somewhat marginal market. Well okay, comics in general have a much harder time in Germany than say in France or Belgium, so they themselves are except for very few titles (like Disney or Asterix) a marginal market, but still.
Some US comics have a huge creative influence here, and get mentioned and referred to a lot, but from my experience Miracleman isn’t mentioned first among them when people talk about that (and though my experience isn’t 80 years by any stretch of the imagination, I’ve collected and bought comics in comic shops and gone to conventions and collectors bourses since my early teens, and I never had a problem chatting with people about comics, say while waiting in line for an autograph or something, despite knowing almost nothing about any superhero comics).
People who are well known in the US often don’t have that much of an audience here. Recently (this June) I attended the largest German comic convention (which again isn’t that large, 20,000 people maybe? and definitely not that important when compared to say Angoulême) , and there was this panel/chat thing with Darick Robertson. I had never heard of this guy, nor of Transmetropolitan, but I had seen some Transmetropolitan artwork at one of the con’s exhibitions. So I went, and okay the time slot definitely wasn’t the best, but there were only four people besides me in the audience. For comparison purposes, the lecture about architecture in Carl Barks’ Duckburgh compared to architectural styles in Gottfredson’s Mouseville must have had an audience of over 80, because I came a bit too late and I couldn’t get into the room.
The talk with Robertson turned out to be a very fun conversation, and quite interesting, but I came away from it with the impression that he was better known in the US.
—Rat Creature
Action Comics #1 by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel
* Amazing Fantasy #15 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
* The Authority by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch
* Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
* The Death of Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin
* The Death of Gwen Stacey/The Day the Green Goblin Died by Stan Lee
* Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
* Detective Comics #27 by Bob Kane
* God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont
* Hellboy by Mike Mignola
* History of the DC Universe by George Perez and Marv Wolfman
* The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
* Kingdom Come by Alex Ross and Mark Waid
* LifeDeath: A Love Story by Chris Claremont
* Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner
* Preacher by Garth Ennis
* Sin City by Frank Miller
* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Jim Laird
* The Ultimates 1-6 by Mark Millar
* Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
* Watchmen, tradepaperback by Alan Moore
* Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow by Alan Moore
I don’t quite get the inclusion of The Ultimates. Its an entertaining read, but not particularly invovative and some what derivative of The Authority (which is also listed). Also, I love The Killing Joke as much as the next guy, but as far as cultural impact goes, I wouldv’e gone with either “A Death in the Family” (death of a cultural icon) or even “Ten nights of The Beast”(the first “series within a series” format book) . As a series which erased almost every sterotype about “funnybooks” and its target audience during the late 80’s to mid-90’s, The Sandman definately warrants inclusion ( I know you tried to cover that with the Death series but they were two distinct series; one was about life, the other about the art of storytelling).
Oh, EC comics! That didn’t even occur to me until just now…
Oddly (well not so oddly) the ones you picked to talk about are some of the ones that we spent the most time debating over.
I don’t quite get the inclusion of The Ultimates. Its an entertaining read, but not particularly invovative and some what derivative of The Authority (which is also listed).
Actually, I would have bumped the Authority if I hadn’t gone to 30. Its too hard to understand if you aren’t already familiar with comics lore and conventions. Planetery even more so (which is why it doesn’t show up). Ultimates is included for 4 reasons. 1) its readable as a standalone and engaging. 2) Its a fine example of the innovative direction that the Authority has taken the industry lately. 3) It came out recently, more recently than anything else I mentioned in fact, and I wanted something very modern… this is the same thing that helped Have A Nice Day make the other list 4) Its still being published (the only superhero series I recommended that was).
Also, I love The Killing Joke as much as the next guy, but as far as cultural impact goes, I wouldv’e gone with either “A Death in the Family” (death of a cultural icon) or even “Ten nights of The Beast”(the first “series within a series” format book)
The Sandman definately warrants inclusion
Sandman is most notable for getting people into comic book stores than for defining the industry. It defined a niche, true… but IMO, Death: the High Cost of Living was a better read in that niche, and the niche simply isn’t big enough to be worth taking up two spots (and to the extent that it is, Preacher more than adequately fills that gap… and Preacher is so much more). Much of Sandman was good and much of it was bad, so i didn’t think I could recommend the entire run, like I did with Preacher or the Authority and there is no single arc that I can point to as an excellent self-contained read the way I can point to as definitive of comics the way I can to say “The Death of Gwen Stacey” or Detective #27. Given all that, and the fact that it is no longer being published, I couldn’t forgive its faults to give it a recommendation the way I did Cerebus. If this were a defining books in comics history list, things would have definitely been different. Much like the Spirit.
Oh, EC comics! That didn’t even occur to me until just now…
Yep… I talked about the why of that in my reply to Rat.
sandman, death, preacher
i found high cost of living pretty boring, actually, and in no way lacking the general flaws of sandman (the main one being neil gaiman’s beating us over the head with his philosophy). if you need to pick a gaiman book (and i would think you do, but i’m no comics expert) you needn’t pick the whole sandman run…fables and reflections would do nicely.
i don’t think preacher and sandman fill the same niche at all.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
I think I liked High Cost of Living better because Gaiman does less hammering there. I don’t think I HAD to have a Gaiman. Afterall, he’s just one author, and while being the best known of the alternative authors, he’s ultimately less important to comics as a whole than say Stan Lee or even John Byrne (who didn’t make my list). That said, I did want to have his type of story represented, and I think the Death story is very accessible. Keep in mind, my goal was to give people 30 books that they could just read and understand comics enough to have a basic eduaction. Preacher I think is easier to read than Sandman. Cerebus is hard to read, but I gave it some leway because its still going on, and because there is nothing else exactly like it. Preacher was consistently good enough that I wouldn’t feel bad about telling anyone “read the whole damn thing.” Sandman I can’t say any of those things with. I debated dropping Death:HCoL in favor of a more traditional Sandman tradepaperback, but ended up not doing so because after a long discussions on it with both Wayne and Jameel, decided that none of them would allow you to jump in and just read 1 edition as a stand-alone work. You;d either be left with too many questions at the end, or lost because you didn’t understand enough at the beginning or both. Nothing else on my list has that problem. Elfquest vol. 1 for instance, you can read and never read any of the other volumes and not know you missed out on anything.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
I could barely get through Preacher — I wouldn’t say it’s easier to read that Sandman at all.
Then again, I really like Sandman, and half of why I read comics is the art (which I couldn’t get into at all in Preacher but I could most of the time in Sandman). And I will be the first to admit that I am not a serious comics fan; I love certain series passionately and have very little desire to seek out anything else. So feel free to ignore me.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
This was my exact point. If I were making a list of books that enhanced comics from a business point of view, I would have picked Sandman. Sandman got people into the comic book shop who never stepped in ever before. Some of them stuck around and read some other stuff (“Fantastic Four? Hmmm… I wonder what that’s about?”). But the vast majority of them bought the last issue and never, ever came back. That’s the simple truth. Although Sandman directly inspired the entire Vertigo line, and several other copycats in the industry, in the grand scheme of comics, its just not important enough to read in order to get other stuff. Its also very heavy. Gaiman likes to hit you in the head with the philosophy hammer, like said. that was actually most of the charm of the book. If you are into that sort of writing, he’s very pleasurable, but otherwise it becomes kind of a cumbersome read. For the same reasons, I had some misgivings about including Cerebus, but I gave it more leway because its still being published and because Dave Sim really is doing something different that fewer people are copying and that actual comic fans (as opposed to just his fans, like with Gaiman) are still talking about in comic shops every day.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
Well, it wasn’t Sandman that got me into comics shops (or the library, since I’m cheap) — it was Elfquest.
My exposure to comics (again because I’m cheap) generally started with what I could find in my library. And because I’m a very visual person, I have trouble getting into any comics that don’t attract me visually.
What I have read and liked–
Elfquest
Sandman
Astro City
Kabuki (purely for the art, as I never read enough to even attempt to follow the story)
What I have read–
Preacher (and I never quite figured out why I didn’t like it, other than the art — it was exactly the sort of thing I should have liked)
Various X-Men, Generation X, Wonder Woman, etc. that I found in the library — never enough to follow the stories
Various Buffy/Star Wars spinoffs (which I’m not sure actually count)
I’ve never felt as though I’m being hit over the head with the philosophy hammer with Gaiman, although I’ve noticed many people do. There seems to be a rather sharp split, and I don’t think it’s fair to say that all Gaiman fans are Gaiman fans and not “actual comics fans.” Usually I’m very sensitive to the philosophy hammer, so I don’t know why I don’t feel that way.
Then again, I read Sandman for everything but Dream, so I may be looking at it from a different angle than most people.
My problem with comics is that in ideal I love the medium, but I rarely find things that combine art I like, subjects I’m interested in, and good writing (by my entirely subjective definitions). I think the art is probably the biggest nix for me — I intensely dislike both traditional superhero art and the stylized ugliness of many modern comics.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
There seems to be a rather sharp split, and I don’t think it’s fair to say that all Gaiman fans are Gaiman fans and not “actual comics fans.”
Hmmm… i guess I did imply that, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to… let me try again…
I’m a comic fan, and I read Sandman. A lot of people who were already comic fans read Sandman. But, Sandman did something no other comic had done in like 50 years (since early Captain Marvel). It brought people to comics just to read Sandman. A lot of people. Some people went on and picked up other Vertigo Stuff (Shade, Animal Man, Preacher, Hellblazer) others went to some alternatives (Beanworld, Twisted Sister, Milk and Cheese) and a few even got into mainstream superhero stuff. But the vast, vast, vast majority only read Sandman (and maybe the related titles like Death and Theater) and when it was over, they all left never to return. That’s simply true. There are sales figures to support it. Go ask anybody who’s been working in a shop for the last decade. There was some trickle in permanent business, but most people were just fans of the one book. With Cerebus, that didn’t really happen as much. It doesn’t really happen as much Spiderman. It does happen with Archie, and that’s why Archie ultimately didn’t make my list either.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
Didn’t Elfquest also do that? (Or am I totally off, not having looked at sales figures?)
I can understand the purist’s outrage at that sort of thing — I feel that way about certain things — but then I look from the outside and it all seems silly. I suppose it’s one of those things that depends strongly on perspective.
Archie always struck me as being a grocery store comic more than a comic store comic. It feels totally different to me from anything else (except the other comics in the Archieverse), and I’m not sure why. It’s not just the subject matter….
Re: sandman, death, preacher
Didn’t Elfquest also do that? (Or am I totally off, not having looked at sales figures?)
A little bit… not nearly as much. I mean, any comic has people who are fans of just that comic and nothing else. Anytime there is a new movie for instance, there’s always this sudden in flux of fans for that book (it happened with Batman and X-men and now its happening with Spiderman). But even that phenomenon isn’t as big or as long lasting as it was with Sandman.
I can understand the purist’s outrage at that sort of thing — I feel that way about certain things — but then I look from the outside and it all seems silly. I suppose it’s one of those things that depends strongly on perspective.
Oh, it doesn’t really bother me. I think anything that gets people into comics at all is good. If 1 person out of every 500 who read Sandman stick around, that’s good. Its just as far as comics as a whole go, Sandman is one book that isn’t around anymore and that doesn’t come up as commonly as some of the other classics. On the other hand it comes up more than say the old Mobius stuff that was really big at the time (among alternative comics).
Archie always struck me as being a grocery store comic more than a comic store comic. It feels totally different to me from anything else (except the other comics in the Archieverse), and I’m not sure why. It’s not just the subject matter….
Exactly. Its in the comics shop though, and almost anyone who picks up an archie comic or 3, picks up nothing else. That’s how it was with Sandman. Sure, there is the occasional person who will read “Bettie and Veronica” and “Spawn” and “Strangers in Paradise”, but its really rare.
Re: sandman, death, preacher
I think Archie is either a kid thing or a nostalgia thing, and the people who read them as kids weren’t necessarily the same as the ones who read other comics (and in the early days of Archie, they were also more accessible to most girls, I think, than the rest of comics at the time).
Re: sandman, death, preacher
maybe mostly, but you’d be surprised… Archie has lots of fans. Of all ages. And they can be fanatic too… It’s way freaky!
Re: sandman, death, preacher
Oh, I know. But I don’t imagine there’s much overlap with other comics fans. Although I could be wrong…
Re: sandman, death, preacher
oh… no, you’re correct… there isn’t.
Preacher I think is easier to read than Sandman. Cerebus is hard to read, but I gave it some le(e)way
i think i mostly object to your idea that a canonical list should only (or mainly) include things that are easy to read.
I didn’t say they had to be. I said it was a plus.
The entire point of a canon list is to get people exposed and get people an understanding of the basic form. So, ease of reading is a big plus. If you’re tripping over language or artwork or form too much, then you are losing.
But that wasn’t my main reason for DQ’ing Sandman. I said it wasn’t accessible enough to be canonical book for the Vertigo style, and it wasn’t important enough to warrant mention outside of that (like say Cerebus was). By important I mean…. well look at the other fork of this thread… by accessible I mean, that it wasn’t good enough to recommend the entire series (parts of it have been quite panned in fact, as opposed to say Preacher, Omaha or Authority, which are generally well received as a whole), and to just pick any single arc doesn’t work because coming in with no background knowledge whatsoever, you can’t just read the first issue and feel like you had read an entire story and are without any questions of what will happen in the future (like with Elfquest) and you can’t just read any other random story arc and not have questions about the past (like with “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” or Dark Knight). Any of those things alone would be enough to knock it out of the “definite” inclusion on the list category (which very few things were) and all of them together bump it entirely.
however, there are many individual issues of sandman that are stand-alone stories, and in my opinion are much better reads than high cost of living. and several of them are included in fables & reflections, hence my feeling that that would be a better pick.
well… which one is better or not may very well be a matter of opinion, but I really do feel like even the standalone issues of sandman assume prior knowledge of the sandman mythos, or at the very least raise questions about it. Death:HCoL doesn’t assume any prior knowledge, and in fact, the entire Endless mythos is completely irrelevant to the entire series. On the other hand I didn’t choose Death: The Time of Your Life, because it has the same problem. Too much backstory.
Aside from that, I don’t see any reason to include Fable & Reflections other than just to have had some Sandman on the list (which I don’t think is necessarry for reasons that I have said elsewhere), and I felt side-stepping the issue altogether was a much better way of handling it. Perhaps I should have stepped even farther to the side and chosen Swamp Thing as my Vertigo title, but part of me was also probably kind of looped into “I must choose some gaiman-verse book.”
Screw it, I hereby remove Death:HCoL and instead I say everyone should read “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #98”
Hmmm… just suggested the first “Books of Magic” as a canonical Vertigo title. That also would have been a good choice.
I’ll save some space and just list the issues that I haven’t read:
hmm…more than I had thought…
….but not that many:
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
Omaha, The Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley
Preacher by Garth Ennis
of course, I’ve avoided Neil Gaiman just on general principle (too may groupies), but that may soon change.
figured i should play
I have read:
# The Authority by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch
# Bone by Jeff Smith (some of it)
# Cerebus by Dave Sim (some of it)
# Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
# Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
# Elfquest: volume 1 by Wendy Pini
# Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman (and Maus II, which wasn’t as good)
# Preacher by Garth Ennis (some of it)
# Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Jim Laird
# Watchmen, tradepaperback by Alan Moore
* Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
* Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
* Elfquest: volume 1 by Wendy Pini
* Omaha, The Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley
* Tales of Beanworld by Larry Marder
* Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
* Watchmen, tradepaperback by Alan Moore
i don’t know Love and Rockets but it’s hard for me to believe it’s a better example of the form (whatever that form is) than Strangers in Paradise.