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Not much discussion of any Fantagraphics stuff on here, so I’ll start the ball rolling, in a rambling protracted sort of way. ( I’m not trying to sell their books, I just really like them)
As a kid I was a big comics fan, X men, New Mutants, The Micronauts and Power pack were the ones I remember the best. In secondary school I ditched comics for a good few years, but was then tempted back by the age of apocalypse X Men thing, so for the next four years or so I bought nearly every X book out there, but eventually realized that although I loved comics, the ones I was reading were kind of rubbish, extended plots that went nowhere, crappy art, no continuity, and the dawning realization that these were for kids (which at that point I no longer was).
So I cut all super hero comics out, I dallied with Vertigo, but was eventually put off by the whole gothness of it all (I discovered The Invisibles a lot later) and was drawn to a lot of Fantagraphics publications.
Hate : The total antithesis of Marvel, Hate was a comic that centred on one of the authors characters from a previous comic (The Bradleys) Buddy Bradley. What was Hate about I hear you cry? It was about, crap jobs, weird girlfriends, weird friends , and music (much of it was set in Seattle during the Grunge era). Hate ended about 5 years ago (improbably involving a magic whistle), but the Hate annuals keep me going. The author, Pete Bagge has gone a bit shit now, which is annoying.
http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/bagge/bagge.html
Eightball: Once lent my collection of Eight ball comics to a friend who upon returning them said that she found them creepy, and wondered why everyone in it was sweating. I agreed, but wondered why that was a bad thing. The author,Dan Clowes has had 2 stories form eightball turned into movies, Ghostworld and Art School Confidential, which is kind of funny if you have read his strip about the Hollywood interest he was getting from “Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron” . Issues of Eightball have been coming out every now and again, about one a year. They are all very good and are well worth reading, but take a look at the Trade paperbacks “Twentieth Century Eightball” and “Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron” for early Eightball weirdness, or even better read the actual back issues.
http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/clowes/clowes.html
Love and Rockets: Written by Los Bros Hernandez, Jamie Hernandez’ stories center on Maggie and Hopey , a pair of latino punk girls. Originally there was a strong sci-fi element in the books (Maggie was a space rocket mechanic), but he soon ditched the rockets for tales of every day life in the barrio. My favorite characters are Izzy , (Maggies older cousin, a goth with a troubled background who often has creepy stuff happen around her, see Flies on the ceiling and the ending to issue 10) and Ray Dominguez, an ex boyfriend of Maggies and now (I suspect) a double for Jamie Hernandez himself. All of Jamies character have aged along with us which adds a lot to it, Maggie has gone from a skinny cute punk chick to an over weight building supervisor and divorcee. To sum it up, its about punk rock, relationships and wrestling.
Gilberts “heart break soup” stories from Vol 1 of L+R were about a cast of characters living in a fictitious central American village called Palomar, where women pretty much rule the roost. I got a bit lost with all of the stuff about Luba towards the end of Heartbreak soup, but it still comes highly recommended.
Love and Rockets is now well into its second volume, and is published quarterly and is one of my favorite comics. I’ve always been more into Jamie’s stuff, which is getting better and better, Gilberts stories have pretty much turned into pornography these days, which I find a bit off putting for some reason.
http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/losbros/losbros.html
There are other titles I’m keen on, Acme novelty library, Evil Eye, Frank and the Complete Crumb books, all of which deserve a paragraph or two of me wanking on about how good they are, but I'm running out of words.
As for me and super hero comics, Allan Moore’s ABC comics got me back into all of that. Currently enjoying Seven Soldiers, Planetary and Astonishing X men.
So do any of you like (or hate) any of the above comics ? Or do you just want to tell me off for going off super hero’s for a while ? |
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which is highly recommended, it explains Maggies husband ( who cropped up in Penny Century, I think)and has a lot of stuff with Ray in it, as well as the return of Doyle.