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Anyone else here like graphic novels?

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I am currently reading the Transmetropolitan series by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Darkly humourous s-f graphic novels compiled from a comic series that ran from 1997-2002. Definitely not your usual comic book fare as it tells the story of an eccentric gonzo journalist living in a weird future. Lots of cyberpunk and transhumanist elements. Also very much not for kiddies or sensitive folks. A faithful movie version would get a hard R for sure, probably an NC-17.

And I find those are sometimes the best graphic novels for me. Not the superheroes, but the fantasy, sf, and other genres. A couple other faves are Neil Gaiman's fantasy series Sandman (which had various artists over the original comic books run) and Jeff Smith's excellent (as in better than a lot of straight literary fantasy) fantasy series Bone.

Anyone else into non-superhero comics and graphic novels? Or even high quality superhero material?

Halloween looms and my annual story is here. Is it a trick? Or a treat? Let me know.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

Been reading the first volume of Love & Rockets. The original comics came out about 40 years ago and were part of an early wave of indie comics and graphic novels (ie. not from big publishers like Marvel and DC) that told stories very much not about superheroes. While L&R is told in a odd, magic realist version of our world at the time, the stories are about fairly ordinary people living their lives, having relationships, and so on. There's weird stuff there, for sure, but the characters are fairly ordinary and relatable. The brains behind the series were brothers Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. This arc is by Jaime (IIRC). As I understand it, Gilbert had another whole arc of his own about a fictitious Latin American town which is covered in other volumes of the collection.

Also, the series is fairly LGBTQ friendly (the lead in the early issues is a bi woman and one of her friends is a lesbian who is also sometimes her lover). It gets sexy, but softcore. So some nudity and sexuality, but nothing horribly explicit. Could probably go on here as an 18+ for the most part.

FYI, I am getting my graphic novels from Hoopla. it's a library e-lending service that my local public library subscribes to. We get to borrow 6 items per month and they have e-books, audiobooks, videos (divided into TV and Movies), and comics/graphic novels.

Halloween looms and my annual story is here. Is it a trick? Or a treat? Let me know.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

Trivia: I first heard of Love & Rockets in the early nineties from a TV show called Prisoners of Gravity. The show was on TV Ontario (though I think it got some distribution internationally, too) and covered s-f and comics with interviews and commentary from "Commander Rick", who was supposedly broadcasting from a space station where he lived. They even opened with a short comic story about how he got there. Commander Rick was actually Rick Green of the Canadian comedy troupe The Frantics. The producer was Daniel Richler, whose late father Mordecai is a legend in CanLit (Canadian Literature).

Halloween looms and my annual story is here. Is it a trick? Or a treat? Let me know.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

I am a big fan of graphic novels. Titles such as 'Maus,' 'Deadpool: Bad Blood,' 'The Watchmen,' 'V: for Vendita,' and 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns' are just the tip of some of the best. I once collected comic books and graphic novels from the late 1970s till the mid 1990s and still have most of them. A magazine I read, 'Heavy Metal,' is very similar to the graphic novel format.
You can't get there from here, because when you get there you're still here and here is now there.

I may have a new favorite comics writer, or at least someone who is up there with Neil Gaiman, my old favorite. Kieron Gillen is, like Gaiman, English. He has done everything from creator-owned indie comics to writing for some major Marvel titles (Star Wars, X-men). I discovered him through Once & Future, a fantasy series about the return of King Arthur ... as an undead villain. After that, I started looking up what else Hoopla had by him.


I am now reading an older series of his called Phonogram (he owns the rights and Image Comics is the distributor). It is set in the early noughties music scene in the UK (Bristol, I think) and has people capable of music-based magic called phonomancers. A lot of the action takes place in clubs. In fact, the second series, collected into the graphic novel The Singles Club, has seven parallel stories, each about a different character, taking place on a single night in the same club. Very well-written and I am quite enjoying it, even if a lot of the music references require visits to Google (e.g. I had never heard of The Pippettes or Long Blondes before). Gillen was a music and gaming writer before he started doing comic books and it shows.

Halloween looms and my annual story is here. Is it a trick? Or a treat? Let me know.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

Finished Phonogram. The final series, The Immaterial Girl (yes, it's a Madonna reference), explores the character of Emily Aster. She has been a player right through, but now we learn about how she and her alter ego Claire, who was introduced in an issue of the previous series, got separated as Emily races to end the Faustian bargain that caused the split and Claire races to mess up everything Emily has accomplished since the split. Music videos play a big role, as does the death of Michael Jackson. The musical references are more mainstream, too, and the magic is bigger and more blatant. Still, it is a good story and a good ending to the series (at least, the final few panels make it seem like Kieron Gillen meant this as a swansong for the characters). Most of the character arcs are either tied up or at least on at a point where we aren't left hanging.

Halloween looms and my annual story is here. Is it a trick? Or a treat? Let me know.

Grace of Bigelow Street | Stories Space

In my classroom, we are reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Since this is a SPED class, we are reading the graphic novel version. It's easier for them and even though there are certain pieces cut short, it still gets the story across.