A fascinating post from Tom Spurgeon over at the Comics Reporter that I felt deserved a little exposure here as well. 12 comics from the last 12 years worthy of looking at again.
There’s a few favourites on there (Paris, Jar of Fools, New Love) but a lot of very interesting books to hunt down and one completely left field choice in US War Machine. But it made me think about what would be on my list of criminally overlooked books and these two sprang immediately to mind:
Alex by Mark Kalesniko
An utterly miserable, truly depressing tale of an alcoholic lead character. But it’s also incredibly involving and utterly absorbing. Not one for a bad mood day, but a must read nonethelesss.
Ragmop by Rob Walton
The smiley, happy alternative to Alex in a way. Ragmop manages to be two incredibly difficult things; hilarious and deep at the same time. Well, maybe not the same time, but certainly within a couple of pages of each other at least. The story is a Marx Brothers farce or the plot of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but with Time Travel, dimension spanning aliens, talking Dinosaurs all thrown in. Add to the mix a perfect piece of political and social satire and you have one of the best comics I’ve ever read.
Okay, your turn – what makes your most overlooked list? Answers in the comments please.
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June 29th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Three from me. How strange you picked Alex, although it’s old i literally just finished reading it last week. I thought it was pretty good, and supposedly Kalesniko’s next book will be a sort of a follow on from the ending of this book. I thought his animation background shows much more overtly in this earlier work than in his later Mail Order Bride which I personally loved and think should make this list also.
I don’t think many people know Frank Santoro’s Storeyville – but it’s a magnificent comic – decent story, great pacing and a mesmerising, inspiring, evolving art style. Chris Ware did the commentary for the recent PictureBox re-issue – that should just about be eall you need to know – not to be missed.
Miguelanxo Prado’s ‘Streak of Chalk’ got a lot of attention when released – and it’s a terrific book but if anything, for me, the volume of short stories which came after it ‘Tangents’ is even better – I don’t have it to hand – so I can’t remember if the story ‘Crepuscule’ kept it’s french printing title in the NBM book – but it’s possibly one of the top 20 single comics stories ever. The art is magnificent, the story as true to life as can be, the simple mixed up pain, of loss, regret and slight shame almost palpable – if you don’t have this book you should. Really you should own all Prado (not all of it is in English but much is) as he is one of the world’s truly great (a word we all use a little easily) comics artists.