SDCC: NerdSpan’s Favorite Comic Stories Day 3
San Diego Comic-Con is upon us.
NerdSpan comic contributors are sharing their favorite comic stories to help celebrate the biggest weekend on the nerd calendar.
Up next is Leo Johnson with a list steeped in indie goodness. Share your own list of favorites in the comments.
10. Wild Children by Ales Kot and Riley Rossmo
Wild Children is completely unlike any other comic. Though Ales Kot was basically unknown when the book was published, he quickly became known for his intelligent and unique style of writing that, when coupled with Riley Rossmo’s art, made for a book that was much deeper than anything I’d ever read. There are themes and lessons in the book that even Kot didn’t mean to write, and with each reading another becomes apparent. Even after reading it 6+ times, I still don’t think I fully understand all the book is trying to say.
9. Maus by Art Spiegelman
History often doesn’t get too much time in comics, but Maus did it in a way that transcended a simple telling of historical events. As a history buff, I immediately loved the concept and storytelling. As someone who had family members in concentration camps during WWII, it helped to make the stories told to me by parents, aunts, and uncles a bit more real. Because of the content, it went beyond the label of “comic book” more than almost any other work, especially evidenced to me when my 60 year old AP economics teacher kept a copy on her bookshelf, along with history and economics texts.
8. The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire
A work by Lemire that seems to be deeply personal, dealing with a man’s anxiety of becoming a father and how his own father failed him. Even with the somewhat simple premise, Lemire uses his fantastic storytelling to make it into the best Twilight Zone episode never recorded.
7. Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
While Preacher had a few ridiculous characters and concepts, Arseface for instance, the story used them in such ways that it didn’t feel ridiculous. Jesse Custer and his powers and his quest to find God, quite literally, were a story that was groundbreaking when it was first published. Over a decade later when I first read it, it’s still every bit as good.
6. Shazam: The Power of Hope by Alex Ross and Paul Dini
A Shazam comic was the first comic I ever read, the one where Mr. Mind traps Captain Marvel in the Marvellium trap. Needless to say, Captain Marvel has a very special place in my heart. Because Billy Batson turns into the powerful Captain Marvel, it’s often easy to forget that Billy is a lonely and fragile child. Power of Hope was great as it showed not only how Billy uses Captain Marvel to do great things, but that sometimes a friendly game of catch and a few nice gestures can do a lot more than the wisdom of Solomon or the strength of Hercules.
5. Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee
While Hush isn’t the best Batman story, or even the best looking, it was a special one to me. Hush was the comic that I picked up on a whim at the library when I was 16. I’d not read a comic in at least five years, but for some reason I decided to read that one. A new villain, a Batman that isn’t completely omniscient, and even a bit of a Batman vs Superman showdown all made this comic one that reignited my love for comics. Several years later, my love for comics is even stronger and it’s all likely thanks to Hush.
4. Atomic Robo, Vol. 1 by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener
Atomic Robo is just plain fun. He’s a robot built by Nikola Tesla and he hits giant monsters with cars. He invents new fields of math and discovers a fifth cardinal direction to solve some problems. He writes Stephen Hawking an angry letter with rocks on Mars. If Robo’s story isn’t the greatest story ever told, then I don’t know what is. Atomic Robo is probably the best comic that most of the people I know have never heard of. It’s a bit alternate history and a bit scifi and a whole lot of humor and wit, all things that need a bit more space in comics.
3. Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross
One of the few superhero-centric comics on this list, Kingdom Come was something special. It did away with the usual portrayals of the DC heroes and instead had them older and often more bitter. It helped to really show my younger self that superhero comics didn’t have to a standard formula, but could do daring, wonderful things. The last few pages in particular, where both Clark and Bruce come full circle and become like their fathers, Clark a farmer and Bruce a doctor, was a great moment.
2. DMZ by Brian Wood and Ricardo Burchielli
This was one of the first comics I began reading when I got back into comics late in high school. As I slowly became caught up in the story of Matty Roth, I realized more clearly than before that comics are so much more than superheroes. The story is one that could easily be imagined in the current state of the US, with warring parts of the country vying for power in a ravaged New York City. This, along with Matty Roth being a character you couldn’t help but love, made DMZ an experience more than a simple comic. The world of DMZ was vast and added new dimensions with each story arc, until eventually this story was almost as real as the actual New York City. It was only after I had read the next to last issue that I realized DMZ was ending, since I had to wait an entire month for the last issue. In that month, I reread the whole series, soaking in the world that was about to end.
1. Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire (especially the last issue)
Sweet Tooth was a story of an antlered boy all alone in the world and the big, scary man who betrayed and eventually protected him. On the surface, it’s a post-apocalyptic scifi adventure tale, but it’s really so much more. It’s a story of hope and despair, of life and death, anger and peace, of father and sons, and much more. Last issues are usually something that readers hate to see, but the last issue of Sweet Tooth did the series such justice that it seemed almost heresy to wish it to keep going. It, perhaps as none of Lemire’s other work, showed what he was truly capable of. It was such a personal story, that Lemire even has a son named Gus, just as the central character of Sweet Tooth is, though it’s hard to say which Gus came first.
Bio: Leo is a biology/secondary education major from Mississippi. He first read a comic when he was five and stopped reading when he was about ten. After he picked them back up in high school, it’s been nothing but a growing love of the medium. His reviews for Nerdspan deal mostly with webcomics and creator-owned or indie comics, things that he has begun to love since he feel they’re often more inventive and free than “corporate comics”. Follow him on Twitter: @LFLJ.
