BEST OF 2020: GRAPHIC NOVELS

Now, over the last several years I have broadened my graphic novel reading interests.  I have never been much of a superhero genre reader so there will be very little to sometimes no Marvel or DC comic titles on my list.  Over the years I have been more interested in the output of particular creators and titles derived from some of my favorite film and TV characters since most film and TV franchises thrive in the novel and graphic novel forms.

What I can say is that due to the COVID shutdown I read 134 volumes which is a higher-than-normal count than usual.  Most of these titles were Image, Dark Horse, Aftershock, Boom! Studios, Eibon Press, IDW, and Titan. 

 

WILL EISNER.

Over the last couple years, I have discovered the amazing talents of the celebrated graphic novel writer/artist Will Eisner.  I have always known who he was but never read any of his work until 2019 at which I became obsessed with reading everything he ever created.  This year I read Fagin The Jew, The Last Knight: An Introduction to Don Quixote, Life On Another Planet, The Lost Work of Will Eisner: The Earliest Comics of the Legendary Cartoonist, The Name of the Game, The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of Zion, The Princess & The Frog, and Sundiata: A Legend of Africa.  Even though most of these titles were the less known works of Eisner this does not mean that they are not just as good as his most famous works.  Eisner brought his amazing storytelling talent to whatever story he crafted no matter how big or small.  If you have never read an Eisner any one of these books will be a great introduction.

 

OSAMU TEZUKA & SHIGERU MIZUKI.

This year I took a break from reading Osamu Tezuka having only read his Atomcat.  He has plenty of works that I’ve yet to read and normally I try to read as much of his work that I can but this year I decided to catch up on some of my other favorite writers of which Shigeru Mizuki was one of the main ones.  I decided to finish his Showa series (Showa 1939-1944, Showa 1944-1953, and Showa 1953-1989). This is one of the best series ever crafted and its expansion is like something from Tezuka Budha or Adolph series. 

 

FROM COMIC TO ADAPTATION AND VICE VERSA.

There are a lot of titles that I finally got around to because they were adapted as films and TV series.  One of the series was Locke & Key (volumes 3-6), The Crow: Hack/Slash, The Kitchen, I Am Not Okay with This, Outcast (volumes 6-7), October Faction (Volumes 1-5) and Umbrella Academy (volumes 1-3).  I enjoyed all three of these series (and their TV counterparts).

 

Some of the graphic novels that derived from film and TV that I managed to read are the following – Firefly (This Sting, The Unification War Part 1&2), Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, Fight Club 3, Aliens: Rescue, Labyrinth: Coronation (volumes 1-3), Lost in Space: Countdown to Danger (volume 3), Night of the Living Dead (volume 2), Penny Dreadful: The Ongoing Series (volumes 2-3), Plan 9 From Outer Space, Sadako At the End of the World, Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia Part 1, Django/Zorro, Stranger Things (Into the Fire, The Bully, and Zombie Boys), The Walking Dead: Here’s Negan, and Your Name: Another Side: Earthbound (volume 1-2).

I have always been someone that loved to immerse myself into stories beyond just the film or TV series.  Titles like Penny Dreadful, Lost in Space, Stranger Things, and especially Aliens (which I’ve been reading for over thirty years).  The reverse is true of titles that were adaptations.  I love to know how the original creator envisioned his story and then watch how a different created interpreted the material.  I loved Locke & Key, October Faction, and Umbrella Academy and the adaptations (and changes made therein) were also quite good.

 

MIKE MIGNOLA.

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I’m a huge Mignola fan especially his Hellboy universe.  I only read the single Hellboy graphic novel Hellboy & B.P.R.D.: 1956 but I finally got around to reading the entire Joe Golem: Occult Detective series (volume 1-4), Baltimore (volume 6), and Our Encounters with Evil: The Adventures of Professor J.T. Meinhardt & His Assistant Mr. Knox.  2020 was just a light year for Hellboy Universe items but I am sure that 2021 will be the year that I catch up with everything I missed out on.

 

NOVELS TO GRAPHIC NOVELS.

There are a few graphic novels that were adapted from novels.  I read yet another version of one of my favorite stories of all time Beowulf (from Image Comics and Santiago Garcia & David Rubin).  I probably have six or more versions of this story that have been adapted over the years and I am sure I will read more.  I also read Blade Runner 2019 (volume 2), Terry Pratchett’s The Discworld Graphic Novels – The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto, Marvel Illustrated: Moby Dick, and Titan Comics Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest). 

I have noticed that there is a new trend to adapt into graphic novel form all the major classic novels as well as some of the more popular modern novels and I for one am okay with this.  I would love to see more of Stephen King, Ira Levin, Clive Barker, and others adapted.

 

EIBON PRESS.

I include Eibon Press despite most of there output being single issues, but they craft some of the very best comic books that can be considered graphic novels if not for the low page count.  Their VHS box style comics are some of the most visually stunning on the market and will appeal to everyone.  The thing that might turn readers away is the graphic nature of their books since they freely adapt movies from infamous director Lucio Fulci.  This includes The Beyond (issue #1-3) and House by the Cemetery (issue #1-3).  I also read their original series Wasteland:1989 (issue #1-2).  I have pretty much read everything they’ve produced and will continue to do so since they are unique to the industry.

 

MY ONGOING SERIES.

There are a few ongoing series that I would like to mention!  Since I do not read individual issues of any comic (except for the Eibon Press titles) there are many that I read and have been reading for years!  One of the longest running titles I’ve been reading is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of which it was light for me this year (Volume 23, The Ultimate Collection Vol 6, and Batman/TMNT II and III).  I plan on catching up with my TMNT reading soon!

Other titles include Beyond the Clouds: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (volume 1-2), Ascender (volume 2), The Beauty (volume 5), Black Science (volume 8-9), Blood on the Tracks (volume 1-3), Dark Ark (volume 2-3), Ghost (volume 3-4), Happiness (volume 10), Manor Black (volume 1), Pretty Deadly (volume 3), Sandman (volume 6), Tales From Harrow County (volume 1), Trinity Seven: The Seven Magicians (volume 13-15.5), and Vampirella (Dejah Thoris and Hollywood Horror).

 

THE OTHERS.

There are a lot of others that I would like to take mention of especially since I have a love of blind buys and reads simply because the back cover blurb is interesting.  I am always interested in reading something I was not expecting.  For this reason alone, I enjoy just walking into a bookstore and seeing what gen I can find.

Some of the titles that fall in this list are Berlin (from Jason Lutes), Dissolving Classroom (from Junji Ito), Downfall (from Inio Asano), Eleanor & The Egret (from Sam Keith), A Fire Story (from Brian Fies), Grass (from Keum Suk Gendry Kim), High Crimes, Hot Lunch, Knights Temporal, The Last Space Race, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (from Daniel Clowes), The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs (from Celine Loup), Mary Shelley Monsterhunter, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, No Ivy League (from Hazel Newlevant), Poe, Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D, Shipwreck, The Story of My Tits (from Jennifer Hayden), Transparent Light Blue, Venus in the Blind Spot (from Junji Ito), The Wonderful World of Perfecto (from Paul Oakenfold), and Zombie Tales Omnibus: Undead.  This is probably one of the most diverse years I have ever had with me taking a chance on so many different creators.

One of the real surprises is just how much I loved the titles from Aftershock Comics.  I was seeking out many of the above titles just because they had been published through them.  This does not dismiss the fact that I still had time to read titles from Kitchen Sink Press, Drawn & Quarterly, Viz Media, Dynamite Comics, Kondansha Comics, and Vertical Comics.  I ended up reading only a single Marvel title (Moby Dick) and it was an adaptation.  For DC I only read four titles. 

 

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For 2021 I’m looking forward to expanding my reading list especially since I’m hoping to end some of my long-term reading titles.  There are a lot of titles that I still need to catch up with since I did not read anything from them this year which includes Animosity, The Woods, Ultraman, and more.  I did not mention every title that I had read but I hope this is a good year to catch up and to add a few new titles to my read list.

I hope you enjoyed this list and I look forward to letting you all know what I ended up reading in 2021!

 

2015 YEAR IN REVIEW: “GRAPHIC NOVELS”

Despite not reading a lot of novels and books in 2015, I read over 150 graphic novels from the mainstream companies of Marvel and DC to the more independent Image, Dark Horse and Boom! Studios.  What may surprise many of you is that I didn’t read a single superhero comic in all of 2015.  I don’t really like superhero comics and haven’t really read one in almost twenty years (no lie) and even though most of what I was reading in the ‘00s was manga I read very little of that this year as well.  Most of tastes in reading material was more serious or avant garde or surreal. 

First I’ll break down just what I was reading in 2015 by company and then get into the real interest of what you probably want to know which is just what I was reading.  Dark Horse was the clear winner this year with a whopping 47 graphic novels read, almost twice as many as any other company.  A lot of this you can thank Mike Mignola for as I read all of his work from Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Abe Sapien , Lobster Johnson, Baltimore, and Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder, which all had several new graphic novels published last year.  Another huge contributor is the Aliens franchise which had the 4-part “Fire & Stone” saga with Aliens/Predator/Alien V. Predator/Prometheus all with parts.  Going to some order titles that I missed I read the entire 3-volume saga of “Mail” as well as several volumes of Astro Boy (Volumes 12-14) and two massive Omnibus collections of Ghost (Vol. 4-5), which is the closest to a superhero comic that I’ll get.  Another huge oldie-but-goodie is Sergio Aragones’ Groo of which I read seven volumes; I was really interested in reading something I hadn’t read since I was a kid and none of these volumes I had ever read before including the most recent release of “Groo Vs. Conan.”  I caught up with Bryan Talbot’s Sherlock Holmes homage Grandville (with 3 volumes I hadn’t read before) as well as a surprise to me, three volumes of the video game adaptation Halo (which took over the property from Marvel). I’ve never played the game nor seen the animated film so this was a complete gamble on my part that I actually really enjoyed.  Dark Horse also finished up one of my all-time favorite series “The Massive” (2-volumes read), which I highly recommend to everyone.  There are some other stand alone titles that I read but as you can see, I really enjoy the vast variety that this company has to offer.

 

IDW is up next with twenty-six graphic novels that I read.  The big winner here is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since I read twelve volumes from this series.  I’m a huge fan of the turtles and IDW has done an amazing job with reprinting the old comics as well as the new ones; 80% of these included reprints of the classics while the rest was made up of the new series and spin-offs.  The other major contributor was Godzilla with the “Cataclysm” and “Rulers of the Earth” series (4-volumes in all).  I tried out a couple new titles with Sam Kieth & Chris Ryall’s “The Hollows” and the first volume of “Edward Scissorhands”  but most of what I also read had me catching up with various volumes of “The Crow” and “Deadworld.”  IDW also happens to have brought back new iterations of “Winterworld” and “The X-Files” Season 10.”

Image has the luck of having most of the ongoing series that I read (with 18 volumes overall).  Here is where I read the latest from “Black Science” (2-volumes), “Hack/Slash” (“Son of Samhain” story), “Intersect” (1-volume), “Low” (2-volumes), “The Manhattan Projects” (2-volumes), “Outcasts” (2-volumes), “Pretty Deadly” (1-volume), “Revival” (1-volume), “Trees” (1-volume), “Chew” (1-volume, “Wytches” (1-volume), and everyone’s favorite “The Walking Dead” (2-volumes).  The only Image volume I picked up not associated with an ongoing series was the third volume of Joseph Michal Linsner’s “Dawn” (the story “Three Tiers”), which I original had in single issue form but now have it on my shelf with the others (plus it gave me a chance to reread the story all at once).

Boom! Studios doesn’t have many series that I continuously read but they do produce a lot of great one-offs (10 volumes read).   Of the series that I do read “John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China” (1-volume), “Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: The Death Watch” (1-volume), “Clive Barker’s Nightbreed” (1-volume), “The Woods” (1-volume), and “Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm” (3-volumes).  The special one-offs I read (that are note worthy) are “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials – Official Graphic Novel Prelude”, “The Calling: Cthulhu Chronicles”, and “Tag: Deluxe Edition.”  As you can see, the only books I read from this company are properties licensed from films.  I’m not even sure if they publish that many original properties.

Down further on the list we come to Viz Media (8 volumes read).   They had a big year (for me any ways) with the release of the five-volume “Resident Evil: The Marhawa Desire”.  I love the Resident Evil franchise and even though I thought this was only a mediocre series it kept me entertained throughout the year.  The other monumental releases for the company (in my opinion) were Inio Asano’s “Solanin” and the Battle Royale prequel “Battle Royale: Angels’ Border.”  I also read the first volume in Kazuo Umezu’s “Cat Eyed Boy.”

Now we get down to Marvel, which I only read eight volumes for the whole year three of which belong to “George A. Romero’s Empire of the Dead.”  I read more zombies with “Marvel Zombies Christmas Carol” and had a great time Down Under with “Dexter Down Under” based on the novels and television series.  I also read the last volume of “Halo: The Fall of Reach – Invasion” (before that series moved to Dark Horse) and the first volume in the “Kick-Ass” saga (so I will at least have to finish that series in 2016) but the one volume I truly loved was reading Mark Millar & Terry Dodson’s “Trouble,” which I recommend to everyone.

With DC/Vertigo I decided to catch up with everything I had missed (6 volumes read) starting off with the original “Sandman” (1-volume) and “American Vampire” (2-volumes).  “American Vampire” was suggested to me and I overlooked at first because I really don’t care for vampire stories (hence why I wasn’t a big fan of Romero’s “Empire of the Dead”), but I must say that this is an excellent series that I will continue to read all the way through.  I also read both the “Prelude to the Blockbuster Film” and the “Inspired Artists” graphic novels for Mad Max: Fury Road but the true stand-out was the adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire: A Graphic Novel.”  This was truly an amazing read and overall book and I can’t wait to read the final book in the trilogy.

There are twenty-six more graphic novels that I read from a variety of companies but I’ll just highlight the major ones worth reading.  At the top of the list “March: Book Two” (Top Shelf Publishing), which is one of my favorite graphic novels of the year.  This series should be at the top of everyone’s reading list.  Another great read is “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel” (Yen Press), Osamu Tezuka’s “Barbara” (Platnum Manga), “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths Vol. III” (Archaia), “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” (Self Made Hero), Grant Calof’s “H20: Graphic Novel” (Liquid Comics), Max Brooks & Caanan White’s “The Harlem Hellfighters” (Broadway Books), “Killing Geronimo: The Hunt for Osama Bin Laden” (Gallery Books), Inio Asano’s “Nuigahara Holograph” (Fantagraphics Books), “Trick ‘R Treat: Days of the Dead” (Legendary), Jeff Lemire’s “The Underwater Welder” (Top Shelf Publishing) and Anne Rice’s “The Wolf Gift: The Graphic Novel” (Yen Press).

As you can see, I was very busy reading a lot of graphic novels in 2015 and I didn’t even mention all the ones I didn’t really care for.  The reason why the list is so massive this year compared to previous years is the fact that I’m able to read so many more on my Nook.  I would say that a good 60-70% of these books are on my Nook which I find makes it faster for me to read and more often (I’ve managed to read all of Mike Mignola’s series on my Nook).  As for my favorites, I will just list them below.  These are all titles I highly recommend to everyone:

 

*”Fire & Stone” Saga – Alien/Predator/AVP/Prometheus

*”Barbara” by Osamu Tezuka

*”The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths”

*”The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”

*”The Harlem Hellfighters”

*”March” (Book One and Two)

*”The Massive”

*”Chew”

*”The Hollows” by Sam Kieth & Chris Ryall

*”Killing Geronimo: The Hunt for Osama Bin Laden”

*”Low”

*”Nuigahara Holograph” and “Solanin” by Inio Asano

*”Trees”

*”Wytches”

*”The Underwater Welder” by Jeff Lemire

*”Trouble” by Mark Millar & Terry Dodson

Book Review: “The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies” by John Scalzi

If you are a fan of sci-fi (or at least someone who likes it even a little) than John Scalzi’s book “The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies” is a massive collection of info dedicated to the history and current state of the genre through film from all across the globe.  I’ve seen a lot of sci-fi films but this book educated me on the genre and informed me of tons of films I either had never seen or heard of.  The “Rough Guides” book series (which also includes books on the horror, comedy, and gangster film genres) are books that provide readers with not only an overview of the genre and its start but also lists hundreds of films in the genre from all over the world and provide hundreds of pictures and posters and media for many of the films discussed.

Scalzi’s book starts with a chapter entitled “The Origins: Science Fiction Literature” before delving into sci-fi films in their infancy (i.e. Le voyage dans la lune -1902) to films of the modern age (i.e. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – 2004) and everything in between.  The book is not just a discussion on films but icons of the genre from director George Lucas and James Cameron to animator and writer Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy, among many others) and composer John Williams (Star Wars and E.T.).  This book manages to cram a lot of info into its lean 325 pages

One of my favorite parts of the book comes towards the end when Scalzi spends many pages delving into the contributions of sci-fi from other countries all over the world which informed me of films I wasn’t familiar with.  There is also a major section which includes sc-fi’s contribution to other mediums such as television, video games, magazines and websites.

The book is very easy to navigate as it is broken into easy to find chapters and there is even an expansive index for those just looking to know about a particular film.  This is a book that every sci-fi fan should include in their library as it will always be an invaluable resource.