New Comics for New Readers – May 1, 2013

Photo by Christopher Butcher

Want to try reading comics? Don’t know where to start? Want to try something different?

Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer spotlights up to three (sometimes a little more on really good weeks) brand new releases worthy of your consideration. All of these have been carefully selected as best bets for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before. They each highlight the variety and creativity being produced today. These are also great for those that haven’t read comics in awhile or regular readers looking to try something new.

While we can’t guarantee you’ll like what we’ve picked, we truly believe there’s a comic for everyone. If you like the images and descriptions below, click the links to see previews and learn more about them. You can often buy straight from the publishers or creators. If not, head over to your local comic book store, check out online retailers like Things From Another World and Amazon, or download a copy at comiXology, or the comics and graphic novels sections of the Kindle Store or NOOK store. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook.

For a full list of this week’s new releases, see comiXology, ComicList.com and PREVIEWSworld.

(Please note these aren’t reviews. Recommendations are based on pre-release buzz, previews, and The Comics Observer‘s patented crystal ball. Product descriptions provided by publisher.)

Great Pacific by Joe Harris and Martin Morazzo

Great Pacific Vol. 1: Trashed!
Written by Joe Harris
Illustrated by Martin Morazzo
Published by Image Comics
Genre: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction
Ages: 12+
144 pages
$9.99

When fugitive oil heir Chas Worthington settles the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plants a flag, and declares it his own sovereign nation, the reality of the environmental catastrophe is only the beginning of his odyssey.

From acclaimed writer Joe Harris (Ghost Projekt, Spontaneous) and artist Martin Morazzo (Absolute Magnitude) comes a sprawling adventure across earth’s newest, strangest frontier!

This volume collects the first arc of this breakout hit series – a sprawling adventure across earth’s newest, strangest frontier!

 

Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff

Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff
Written and illustrated by Peter Bagge and others
Published by Fantagraphics Books
Genre: Humor
Ages: 12+
144 pages
$19.99

Peter Bagge’s one-offs, with an all-star cast of cartoonist collaborators such as Alan Moore, Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, and Adrian Tomine.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Peter Bagge worked mostly on his “Buddy Bradley” stories in Hate and a series of standalone graphic novels (Apocalypse Nerd), but in-between these major projects this ever-energetic cartoonist also cranked out dozens of shorter stories, which are now finally being collected in this riotously anarchic book.

Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl “Lovey” and the aging bobo “Shut-Ins” — not to mention the self-explanatory “Rock ‘N’ Roll Dad” starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like “So Much Comedy, So Little Time” (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien!

Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge-written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including “Life in these United States” with Daniel Clowes, “Shamrock Squid” with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of “Caffy” (with art by R. Crumb) and “Dildobert” (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)… plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of “Kool-Aid Man” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.)

Bagge is one of the funniest cartoonists of the century (20th or 21st), and this collection shows him at his most free-wheeling and craziest… 50 times over.

The Grey Museum by Lorenz Peter

The Grey Museum
Written and illustrated by Lorenz Peter
Published by Conundrum Press
Genre: Science Fiction
Ages: 16+
216 pages
$20.00

Set in the future, The Grey Museum is a galactic romp, following a small group of survivors as they fend with mystic beings, interstellar parasites and themselves. Everything here is decided by narcissistic gods and goddesses, disturbed spirits, and bored aliens. Our clueless captives are left to wander, meandering their way among ruins, souvenirs, and impossible trails, and the 300-year-old television station attempts to capture it all. The Greys, a cloned race of coffee-drinking pseudo-humanity, have created a machine to “contemplate” things from a distance and annihilate them by turning them into “Awht”. We experience death, rebirth and everything in between. The fate of all Earthly life is up to these eight hairy humans preserved in jelly, they just don’t know it yet.

3 New Comics for New Readers – May 30, 2012

A silly story about revenge starring a cowboy who’s actually a boy, a strange story (mixing prose with comics) of two sisters and the monster of jealousy, and literature’s greatest stories adapted into comics by some of the greatest artists.

Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer picks three brand new releases worth checking out that should be suitable for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before. These three books are out today!

If you like what you see here, click the links to see previews and learn more about them. Then head to your local comic book store, or check out online retailers like Things From Another World and Amazon. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook.

For a full list of this week’s new releases, see comiXology and ComicList.com.

Cow Boy by Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos

Cow Boy, Volume 1: A Boy and His Horse
Written by Nate Cosby
Illustrated by Chris Eliopoulos
Published by Archaia Entertainment
Genre: Western, Humor
Ages: All
96 pages
$19.95

“Justice ain’t got no age.”

Nate Cosby (Pigs, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller) and Chris Eliopoulos (Franklin Richards, Misery Loves Sherman) present Cow Boy, the story of a young bounty hunter determined to send his entire outlaw family to jail. He travels the Old West on a horse that ain’t his, and won’t stop ’til every one’a his kin’s in the clink.

Also in this volume:

Short stories by the likes of Roger Langridge (The Muppet Show Comic Book), Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener (Atomic Robo), and Mike Maihack (Cleopatra in Space) & Colleen Coover (Jim Henson’s The Storyteller).

The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci and Nate Powell

The Year of the Beasts
Written by Cecil Castellucci
Illustrated by Nate Powell
Published by Roaring Brook Press
Genre: Fantasy, Drama
Age: 12+ / Grade: 7+
192 pages
$16.99

There’s a beast in all of us.

Every summer the trucks roll in, bringing the carnival and its infinite possibilities to town. This year Tessa and her younger sister Lulu are un-chaperoned and want to be first in line to experience the rides, the food… and the boys. Except this summer, jealousy will invade their relationship for the first time, setting in motion a course of events that can only end in tragedy, putting everyone’s love and friendship to the test.

Alternating chapters of prose and comics are interwoven in this extraordinary novel that will break your heart and crack it wide open at the same time.

The Graphic Canon Vol. 1, edited by Russ Kick

The Graphic Canon, Volume 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons
Written and illustrated by various
Edited by Russ Kick
Published by Seven Stories Press
Genre: Anthology
Ages: 18+
512 pages
$34.95

The classic literary canon of Western civilization meets the comics artists, illustrators, and other artists who have remade reading in the last years of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century in Russ Kick’s magisterial, full-color The Graphic Canon.

Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we’re treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race’s greatest epics: Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey (in watercolors by Gareth Hinds), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D’Arthur. Two of ancient Greece’s greatest plays are adapted — the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag’s uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb’s rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell’s London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery.

Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary’s awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poetry, Hinduism’s Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The Tale of Genji (the world’s first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China’s golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia.

Two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato’s Symposium, Gulliver’s Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.

Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho’s poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly
Crabapple.

And much, much more.

Comics College reveals Essential Reading of Comic Book Masters

One of my favorite regular columns is the monthly Comics College by Chris Mautner at Robot 6, hosted by Comic Book Resources. Each entry is a great introductory overview of what’s best to read from the great comic book masters and why they are so good, making this a fantastic source for newcomers or people who’ve always wanted to expand their reading. It also covers their lesser known work and stuff that maybe should be avoided.

The great part of the column is that it is looking at masters from all over the art form of comics. It’s not just superhero creators, or just alternative comics creators. It’s both those, as well as manga, newspaper strips, underground comics, euro-comics, comics journalism and more.

This month’s subject is the Norwegian cartoonist simply known as Jason. This prolific creator tells funny genre mash-ups with a deadpan economy of dialogue and understated emotion with characters struggling over love and guilt. Next month, George Herriman will be featured. His classic comic strip Krazy Kat is among the most highly regarded in the history of comics.

The Comics College column debuted in August 2009 and has covered the following comics masters past and present (click on the link to be taken to the column):

1. Los Bros. Hernandez (Love and Rockets)
2. Jack Kirby (The Fantastic Four, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World)
3. Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Phoenix)
4. R. Crumb (Zap Comix, Book of Genesis)
5. Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Mr. Punch)
6. Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Acme Novelty Library)
7. Lewis Trondheim (Dungeon, Little Nothings)
8. Harvey Kurtzman (Mad Magazine, Frontline Combat)
9. art spiegelman (Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers)
10. Eddie Campbell (Alec: The Years Have Pants, The Fate of the Artist)
11. Harvey Pekar (American Splendor, Our Cancer Year)
12. Kim Deitch (The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Shadowland)
13. Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Curses)
14. Hergé (Tintin)
15. Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts)
16. John Stanley (Little Lulu, Melvin Monster)
17. Seth (George Sprott: 1894-1975, Wimbledon Green, It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken)
18. Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City)
19. Joe Sacco (Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine)
20. Jason (I Killed Adolf Hitler, Hey Wait…)
21. George Herriman (Krazy Kat)
22. Jack Cole (Plastic Man, Betsy and Me)
23. Adrian Tomine (Summer Blonde, Scenes from an Impending Marriage)
24. Grant Morrison (All-Star Superman, We3)
25. Jessica Abel (La Perdida, Artbabe)
26. Gabrielle Bell (Cecil and Jordan in New York, Lucky)
27. Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, Zot!)
28. Charles Burns (Black Hole, Big Baby, X’ed Out)
29. Jacques Tardi (It Was the War of the Trenches, West Coast Blues)
30. Phoebe Gloeckner (A Child’s Life, The Diary of a Teenage Girl)
31. Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis, Chicken with Plums)
32. David B (Epileptic, Babel)

UPDATE: I’ll keep updating the list as new entries get posted.