Friday, June 10, 2016

Comics by Genre: Action/Adventure, and miscellany

Some of you are thinking, wait, miscellany? What about superhero books? Fantasy books? Science Fiction? Those will be the next three installments, as they are the largest ones. There will be some adaptations, and some nonfiction in here, as well as the adventure books.

Prince Valiant- Hal Foster's magnificent creation of an Arthurian Knight, exploring and fighting throughout the world. Beautiful, detailed art, and  well written story that takes goodness seriously.

Will Eisner's City books- Life in the Big City, The Dreamer, and Life on Another Planet. Slices of New York life in a realistic neighborhood, with good stories to boot. Really, I recommend anything he did.

Tarzan/Lord of the Jungle- There are some really good adaptations of Tarzan out there. Russ Manning did some good stuff, and the Dynamite series was a good adaptation of the first books, with some understandable changes to the Burroughs books.

Understanding Comics- If you don't have experience with comics, or want a better understanding of how they work, this is the work for you. An excellent intro to the mechanics of comics, in comics format.

Corto Maltese- Great tales of a naval adventurer in the South Seas.

Cardboard- Doug TenNapel has an interesting fiction(fantastic, not fantasy) story about a single dad, his son, and a neighbor kid, and the magic of cardboard.

Frankenstein- In particular, the Bernie Wrightson adaptation. Not really a comic, but an illustrated novel by a genius.

Athena Voltaire- A clean adventure book that's evocative of Tomb Raider, but actually dressed for archeological expeditions.

Maus- Spiegelman's telling of his father's experience in Nazi Germany. Some librarians act like Persepolis is a worthy replacement. It's not. No gender politics, mostly just history.

Rough Riders- It's almost steampunk(not quite). With Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Calamity Jane, and others.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- I don't recommend this for all, Alan Moore likes sex jokes and references. I do enjoy the story, though.

P. Craig Russel also has some great fairy tale and opera adaptations.


When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

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