by Matt Hershberger
A common thing I hear when I start talking about comics is, "I've never really liked comics."
Look: we don't all need to like the same things, but that is an immense statement. It is like saying, "I don't like music," "I don't like art," or "I don't like TV shows." You're dismissing an entire medium, and chances are, in that medium, that there's something you'd love.
The non-comic reading public tends to think of comics as either being newspaper funnies, superhero comics, or trashy pulp. All three of these have a large place in comics history, but they hardly cover the entire medium. There are also comics that have ended up on Time Magazine's Best 100 Books of the Century list (Alan Moore's Watchmen), that have won Pulitzers (Art Spiegelman's Maus), and that have been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize (Nick Drnaso's Sabrina).
The Red Bank Public Library has been expanding its comics and manga sections, so we figured we'd offer a guide for people who are new to the medium but are interested in diving into the world of comics. All of the comics recommended below are on our shelves. A few quick notes on the terminology though:
Comics vs. Graphic Novels -- You'll sometimes hear comics referred to as "graphic novels." Most comics are released periodically, like magazines. When they're released in book form, they are usually collections of several issues. These are "comic books." A "graphic novel" is something that's originally released in an all-at-once novel format, rather than as a periodical. The difference, to be honest, is usually a pretty superficial one when you've sat down with the book, and not many people are going to blink twice if you use them interchangeably.
Comics vs. Manga -- This is another fairly superficial distinction: "Manga" is just the Japanese word for "comics." Manga are comics created in Japan, and they tend to have a distinct style (many manga, for one thing, are written "backward" to American eyes, as the Japanese read and write as what we'd consider to be back-to-front), but the difference from American-style comics isn't that enormous, and the line between them can get pretty fuzzy.
The Red Bank Public Library has the two genres split up mostly because two different librarians are in charge of each section, so we have a separate guide (written by our manga buyer Jaime Pfisterer) at this link here.
Where to Start
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
If you are nervous you “aren’t going to know how to read” a comic (which, don’t worry — that’s common), and are hesitant to just dive in with a familiar superhero, start with Scott McCloud’s classic Understanding Comics. In it, he explains where comics came from, how they work, and how to enjoy them. It also happens to be a pretty cool comic book in its own right.
The Cream of the Crop
All of the comics on this list are good in their own right, but when you ask people who know comics what the best of the best are, these are the answers they'll give.
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is one of the most popular writers alive, and this is where he got his start. The Sandman ran for seven years, and covers the activities of Dream, an "Endless" semi-deity and ruler over the dream realm. Because of the nature of dreams, Gaiman was able to pull in everything from superheroes, mythological creatures, historical figures, and monsters into this sprawling, beautiful world. The Sandman was one of the first comics to end up on the New York Times Bestseller list, garner a literary reputation, and convince the mainstream that maybe there was something to this whole comics thing.
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Alan Moore is probably the highest-regarded comics writer in the industry (he will appear several more times on this list), and Watchmen is his most acclaimed work. At its core, Watchmen is answering the question, "What would superheroes be like if they were real people?" The answers Moore comes up with are complex and disturbing. The book itself is a beautifully written, terrifying epic that deserved its spot as the only comic book on Time's "100 Greatest Books of the 20th Century" list.
Sabrina by Nick Drnaso
Nick Drnaso made history in 2018 as the first writer to be longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for a graphic novel. Sabrina is a simple, disturbing story about the murder of a young woman, and how fake news and conspiracy theories managed to make a traumatic event even worse for the people who loved her.
If You Like Literary Fiction
Prefer something a bit more realistic, perhaps a bit more literary? Comics can do that, too.
Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
Daytripper follows the life of Brazilian obituary writer Bras de Oliva Domingoes. Each chapter covers an important day in Bras' life, and each chapter ends with his death. The resulting book is a gorgeous meditation on life, death, and appreciating the important things. This is an unusually good book.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Comics are a visual medium, and unlike film, it costs no more to depict wildly fantastic worlds than it does starkly realistic ones. Shaun Tan's The Arrival somehow manages to be both. It's a totally wordless tale of an immigrant arriving in a new country, and through the use of spectacular, surreal imagery, Tan manages to convey the strangeness of arriving in a new place where everything, even the alphabet is alien to you. Like all the best fiction, this book will make you see something you couldn't see before.
Before they were TV Shows and Movies
These days, it seems like half of the popular shows and movies were comic books first. Most of these are superhero comics (which we'll get into in the next section), but some of your other favorites were comics first as well. Such as:
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman
The Walking Dead has spawned its own media empire, so it’s kind of amazing that it started with such humble comic book origins. The story follows Rick Grimes, a cop who wakes up in a hospital to a world overrun by zombies. Kirkman started writing this series in 2003, and has not stopped since. There are now nearly 200 issues (we have most of them and will get more as they are released in book form), as well as two acclaimed TV shows, several webseries’, video games, and novels.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
There is nothing more Generation X than this comic book — it features two young, cynical girls who spend most of their days mocking other people while dealing with their own deep insecurities about what they’re going to do with their lives. Imagine Kevin Smith’s Clerks, but darker. This was made into an acclaimed movie in 2003 starring Thora Birch and a young Scarlett Johanssen.
300 by Frank Miller
Frank Miller is another of comic books’ grand high wizards. He is perhaps best known for his Sin City books, or for being the man who transformed Batman from the goofy Adam West to something much darker and grittier (both Sin City and his Dark Knight Returns are on our shelves), but 300 is about as Frank Miller as it gets. It’s a violent, fictionalized, politicized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans fended off a million Persian invaders.
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
V for Vendetta is one of those strange instances of fiction becoming reality — Moore’s comic, released in the 80’s, was intended as a comment on Thatcher’s England, and on the fight between fascism and anarchism. Moore disowned the movie adaptation (he always disowns movie adaptations of his books), but it became wildly popular anyway, and the mask of the main character, V, a stylized Guy Fawkes mask, was later adopted by the hacktivist group Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street movement more broadly. The book, for the record, is better than the movie: Moore has a more nuanced view of his villains, and is less enthusiastic about his hero’s acts of terrorism than the movie is, but either way, his creation made it from the page to the real world in a mere 25 years.
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of the better movie adaptations of a comic book. Edgar Wright’s 2010 movie about a slacker who falls in love with a girl and then must defeat her seven evil exes is one of those rare comic book movies that honors the source material without copying it. Both are great and are worth the time.
If You Like Superheroes
Comics as we know them today exist in large part because of the superhero industry. There are two major superhero comics publishers (though dozens of others dabble): DC Comics, and Marvel. The best way to remember the difference is by the characters: DC is the Justice League (Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman), while Marvel is the Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-man, Black Panther). Here are a few of the highlights on our shelves.
Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson
When teenager Kamala Khan was unveiled as the new Ms. Marvel, it made a splash for being both the first major Muslim and immigrant superhero. Less publicized was that she was the first major superhero to fight crime here in New Jersey. Khan lives in Jersey City, and has to deal with being a teenager raised by a devout family, and, you know, also having shapeshifting capabilities. We keep this full series up-to-date.
Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The movie Black Panther was the first superhero movie to be nominated for "Best Picture" at the Academy Awards, but before it came out, the Superhero-King of Wakanda made headlines when acclaimed journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates was brought on as an author.
Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
Everyone knows Superman's backstory: escaping from the destruction of his home planet of Krypton, an infant Superman crash lands on a farm in Kansas, grows up, discovers his powers, works for The Daily Planet, and fights for "Truth, Justice, and the American way." Mark Millar's 2003 spin off instead imagines that he crashed landed on a collective farm in the Soviet Union, works as a reporter at Pravda, and fights instead for "Stalin, Socialism, and the Warsaw Pact." It is, needless to say, a very different take on the Man of Steel.
Infinity by Jonathan Hickman
Infinity (along with The Infinity Gauntlet, which we also have) is what the epic Avengers: Infinity Wars and Avengers: Endgame movies are based on. In it, the supervillain Thanos launches an attack on earth, catching the Avengers team of superheroes off-guard.
Spider-Verse by Dan Slott
Spider-Verse was the inspiration for the Academy-Award winning animated movie, Into the Spider-Verse. Superhero comics are known for constantly rebooting and spinning off characters as people with different identities or powers in a parallel universe, and with Spider-Verse, Marvel asked: What if we brought all of those parallel universes together?
Deadpool by Gerry Duggan
For a long time, Deadpool was on Marvel’s B-list of comic book heroes. He’s foul-mouthed, violent, and likes to break the fourth wall, which meant he was often a bit too adult and meta for the kid audience comics often target. But then someone made the connection: Deadpool is basically a comic version of actor Ryan Reynolds. Reynold’s two R-rated movies as Deadpool have been among the most popular in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The most iconic run of Deadpool comics is the one on our shelves, written by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn.
If You Like Memoirs
Some of the best comics writing is done in memoirs -- chances are, if someone has suggested a comic to you, it's been one of the following.
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is a living legend beyond the comics field — if you’ve ever heard of the “Bechdel test,” it’s named after a comic from her long running underground series Dykes to Watch Out For (also on our shelves). She broke through to the mainstream with Fun Home. It focuses on her relationship with her father, a closeted gay man who committed suicide when Bechdel was in her early 20s. Bechdel, gay herself, struggles with her father, her relationship with him, and her sexuality, in this deeply affecting memoir. It even became a Tony Award-winning musical in 2015.
March by John Lewis
Civil rights leader (and later U.S. Representative) John Lewis is one of the most respected elder statesmen in the country. March also made him into the only member of Congress to write a graphic novel. It covers his life from the March on Selma to the inauguration of Barack Obama. It’s an incredible account of an incredible life.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman had a complicated relationship with his father, a Holocaust survivor. Spiegelman was born after his father’s liberation from a Nazi concentration camp, but lived with his father’s past his entire life — Spiegelman’s mother, also a Holocaust survivor, killed herself when he was 20, and his father always did what he could to not tell Spiegelman what happened, going as far as destroying his dead wife’s written accounts of her experiences. Maus is put together from interviews with Spiegelman’s father, who finally opened up toward the end of his life. Interestingly, Spiegelman portrays the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats — a choice that ends up being less simplistic than it sounds.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi came of age during the Iranian Revolution. Her parents, activists who protested the shah, were first jubilant when he was toppled and then dismayed with what took his place. So they sent their daughter to live in France. Satrapi’s story is incredible, and the art is beautiful. The movie, animated in Satrapi’s style, is worth your time, too.
If You Like Spooky Stuff
Comics are extremely well-suited to the horror genre. Here's what we've got:
Hellboy by Mike Mignola
People will keep trying to adapt him into a movie, but Hellboy is a creature of the comics. A solitary demon, summoned to earth by Rasputin and Nazi scientists, rebels against his proclaimed fate of destroying the world, and instead goes around the world helping people. His stories are taken from the mythology of dozens of different cultures, and Mike Mignola’s art is breathtakingly beautiful and haunting.
My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Emil Ferris worked as an illustrator until she was bitten by a bad mosquito. She contracted the West Nile Virus and was paralyzed from the waist down (and partially in her hand). She had to teach herself to draw again, and in doing so, she created one of the best comic books of recent years. The story is about a young girl in 1960’s Chicago who sees herself as a werewolf and decides to try and solve the murder of a neighbor. It is a beautiful, surreal book, and we will be following Volume 2 as soon as it comes out.
Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
Alan Moore is who people go to if they need to either rehabilitate or destroy a character. Swamp Thing is one of the highlights of Moore’s extremely impressive career, and also one of the better comics out there. If you want to see the Creature from the Black Lagoon battle werewolves and punk rock vampires while also waxing poetic about the nature of evil, this is your series.
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
Emily Carroll got her start doing short horror comics online — this is her first collection of them. They are beautiful — her art is primarily black and white with occasional splashes of red. And wow, are they spooky.
Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain
Shortly before he died, Anthony Bourdain collaborated on this collection of food-based horror stories. It’s based off of an old ritual, where people sit at a table and try to scare each other with spookier and spookier stories. But this time, the story tellers are chefs. This collection is not for those with weak stomachs.
If You Like Crime and Suspense
The comics format lends itself particularly well to artists with noir sensibilities. One of comics most famous early heroes, Batman, got his start in the popular Detective Comics magazine. Ever since, comics writers have been churning out gritty, pulpy crime stories. Here are some of the best on our shelves.
Chew by John Layman
Tony Chu has a superpower. He can see the past of anything that he eats. So, naturally, he is enlisted by the FDA to take bites out of dead bodies so he can see who killed them. This is one of the wackiest, most inventive comic books out there, featuring alien plant invasions, a world where eating chickens has been outlawed, and where the most powerful living creature is a rooster named Poyo.
Whiteout by Greg Rucka
Being a detective is rough, but it’s especially rough if you’re a US Marshal investigating a string of murders at the McMurdo Research Base in Antarctica. Sometimes the bad guy is the murderer, sometimes it’s the weather.
From Hell by Alan Moore
Okay, last Alan Moore. We promise. Moore, tired of hearing speculation as to who the serial killer Jack the Ripper may have been, asks a much more interesting question in this book: what kind of society could produce this type of person? Moore’s gritty whydunit is one of the strangest and most entrancing pieces of crime fiction you’ll ever read.
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
We all have that one friend in high school — the one who is a little off, who does things that don’t sit entirely well with us. For John Backderf, that friend turned out to be serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Derf (as he’s known professionally) does a deep dive into Dahmer’s life as revealed later in FBI interviews, and mixes it with his personal experience of the man. How much did they know? And, if someone had intervened, could lives have been saved?
If You Like Fantasy
Movies are great, but it costs a lot of money to build a totally new world out of CGI. This is not the case with comics — you can do almost anything with them. So it’s no surprise that comics have produced some spectacular fantasy.
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
Brian K. Vaughan is one of the most highly-regarded comic writers in recent years (he’s also behind Y: The Last Man and Paper Girls, but this comic, his collaboration with artist Fiona Staples, is one of the most sweeping, beautiful, epic comic books to ever be released. It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but set in a technicolor Star Wars universe.
The Hedge Knight by George R. R. Martin
George R.R. Martin has written several novellas set in his Westeros world of Game of Thrones fame. The Hedge Knight, set a few hundred years before Game of Thrones, is perfect for anyone who is feeling withdrawal waiting for the next book to come out.
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
Noelle Stevenson is a mere 27 years old, but is already highly regarded in the comics world for her work on Nimona and Lumberjanes, and for running the TV show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Nimona was her first big hit — she started it on her Tumblr blog. It’s about a young shapeshifter who decides to help a supervillain battle his nemesis. It’s a fun, thoughtful story that turns normal fantasy stories on their head.
If You Like Sci-Fi
Comics is an ideal medium for sci-fi, simply because of how much you can do with it. We’ve got some great ones on our shelves.
Descender by Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemire’s acclaimed Descender series tells the story of a tiny boy robot who has survived the systematic destruction of all robots after a robot attack on the human race. It’s like Battlestar Galactica if things had gone the other way.
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
Like Noelle Stephenson, Tillie Walden is insanely young — she’s 23 years old — but she is one of the rising stars of the comics world. On a Sunbeam is the story of a young woman crossing through space to find a lost love. It’s noted for being one of the most prominent of a new crop of comics featuring queer protagonists.
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan
Before Saga, Brian K. Vaughan got famous with Y, the tale of Yorick, the only man to survive the sudden death of every other mammal on the planet with a Y chromosome. As women deal with the fallout of the sudden disappearance of every male on the planet, Y and his few allies try to keep him safe while keeping the hope of a future civilization alive.
Punk Rock Jesus by Sean Murphy
Pretty standard stuff: An entertainment company extracts Jesus’s DNA from the Shroud of Turin and clones the Messiah so they can put him on a reality show. The teenage Jesus rebels and becomes a punk rocker, throwing all of Christendom into disarray.
If You Like Nonfiction
Memoirs aside, comics are not as frequently thought of as a nonfiction medium. But lately, there have been more and more excellent nonfiction comics. Here are just a few on our shelves:
Berlin by Jason Lutes
The core story of Berlin is fictitious, but the people and the city around it are not. It follows the people of the capital city of Germany as the Weimar Republic is slowly taken over by the Nazis. The sheer scope of this book is magnificent — it took writer and artist Jason Lutes 22 years to complete it — and the mixture of real and fictional characters makes the city come alive.
Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor
Ed Piskor is a big fan of hip hop, and it shows: his Hip Hop Family Tree series is a thorough history of the early days of the genre. He’s released four volumes (we have them all) stretching from 1970 to the mid-80s.
Inhuman Traffick by Rafe Blaufarb
Inhuman Traffick is an extremely unusual comic — it is, in one sense, a visual recounting of an story from the era of the slave trade, when the British Navy seized a slave ship and caused an international incident. It also reads at times like an academic historical work, and at others, an explanation of how history is researched and uncovered.
March by John Lewis
John Lewis is one of the most iconic living Americans — the Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner, Civil Rights hero, and long-serving US Representative is the closest thing we have to a living legend. His graphic memoir March is yet another groundbreaker, making him the first member of Congress to dip his toes into the world of comics. It is a three-volume comic on Lewis’s experiences in the Civil Rights movement, covering everything from his participation in the infamous March on Selma to his presence at the inauguration of Barack Obama.
If You Like Newspaper Funnies
Before superhero comics, there were newspaper comics, or "funnies." Today, with the decline of the newspaper industry, this style of comic has moved to the web, where it has more flexibility and versatility (if less funding). Here's some of our collection:
Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Calvin & Hobbes is widely regarded as one of the best comics of all time. Six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes (who is alive to only Calvin), navigate school, bullies, loneliness, and exhausted parents with humor and sheer imagination. The comic strip ended 25 years ago, so we’re able to have every single strip ever made on our shelves.
Asterix by Rene Goscinny
Asterix is one of those international cartoon icons, like Peanuts and Tintin. The French strip ran for nearly 20 years, and remains popular today throughout the world. It follows a village of Gaulish (French Celts) who are resisting the invading Romans, and focuses on the warrior Asterix and his friend Obelix. The comic was followed by animated and live-action movies as well as a theme park.
The Adventures of Tintin by Herge
If you’ve heard of comics, you’ve heard of Tintin. Created by Belgian cartoonist Herge in the late 1920’s, it has since become one of the most successful adventure comics in history, featuring its intrepid eponymous reporter, his pet dog, and a cast of recurring characters. Some of the storylines have not aged well, but Tintin remains an icon nonetheless.
Hark! A Vagrant! by Kate Beaton
Kate Beaton’s webcomic, “Hark! A Vagrant!” was one of those little gems that made the early days of social media so delightful. Beaton is a history and literature nerd, so her comics tend to focus on lampooning famous real or fictional people. Topics include: How everyone in The Great Gatsby is just terrible, how John Adams was a bit annoying, and how Dracula’s real crime was being too sexy.
Herding Cats by Sarah Anderson
Sarah Anderson’s popular “Sarah’s Scribbles” webcomic is the ultimate millennial cartoon. It deals with issues of mental health, friendship, loving cats, and being terrified of the internet. This book, the third collection of her webcomics, won Goodreads’ “Best Graphic Novel” in 2018.
If You Like Pulp
Finally, we can't exclude the trashy stuff from the list, because, well, sometimes trashy stuff is delightful. Here are some of the pulpier items on our shelves:
Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick
Kelly Sue DeConnick's Bitch Planet is set in a dystopian future where the women who can't learn to behave and conform are sent to a prison planet. The series is inspired by 1970's exploitation movies, but the message underneath is a crash course in feminism. It is spectacularly campy, and incredibly pulpy. It is definitely worth a look.
Sin City by Frank Miller
There is maybe no comic book series with as distinctive a style as Frank Miller's Sin City series. It uses almost exclusively high-contrast black and white (with very rare and very striking splashes of color), and the stories themselves are, along the same lines, either about sex or violence. Usually both. It's about as noir as you can get, and it inspired one excellent and one very bad movie adaptation.
Preacher by Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis's Preacher is not for the faint of heart. It follows Jesse Custer, a preacher who has been possessed by something otherworldly, as he travels around the country with his ex-girlfriend and a vampire while being stalked by a cowboy from Hell. It is spectacularly violent, incredibly weird, and deeply subversive. It's about as pulpy as you can get.
