Superhero anthology with great art. Focuses on bringing heroes down to earth while maintaining the wonder and awe of superpowers. Astro City is a reconstruction of the superhero genre instead of a deconstruction. It’s a precursor to comics like Invincible and the Boys.
In Screaming Planet, Jodorowsky collaborates with artists recommended to him by his publisher on short comics with 10 pages or less very loosely related to a flaming planetary object flying through space. The art styles of each short comic are varied as you can imagine, and some are surprisingly good.
Junji Ito’s art combined with Osamu Dazai’s haunting story is a match made in hell. Absolutely brutal read.
Gorgeous art by Dongzi Liu can’t save the horrendous writing by Jodorowsky. The extremely taboo and fucked up premise for this is one thing, but I’ll read a story about anything. It’s just so bad.
I cannot begin to imagine what sort of circumstances would have led to the production of this comic. That’s the story I want to read about.
Jodorowsky and Moebius being horny on main and getting into some Freudian hijinks.
I’ve seen Moebius black and white art appreciated by some, and I can see why after reading Angel Claws.
Two angsty teens having just finished high school don’t know what to do with themselves. They walk around town, being angsty, people watching and talking shit about everyone. Really ugly art. A little surreal.
Whenever he [Moebius] finished a page, he would call me on the telephone. Driven by an irresistible curiosity, I would immediately get in my car to go see him. Every time I saw a new page, I swear on the life of my cat Kazan that I experienced a spiritual pleasure exceeding that of an orgasm. There before my eyes, I had the undeniable proof that comic book art was great art, just as respectable as the paintings hanging on the walls of museums.
— Alejandro Jodorowsky, July 29, 2011
Collection of academic articles in comics studies. Starts with a great comic strip introducing the collection itself followed by comic panels drawn by the authors of the articles themselves. Very cool!
Grant Morrison’s run of Doom Patrol focuses on the misfits, the weird and the broken and how they are fit to fight evils that other more conventional and sane heroes aren’t equipped to deal with.
Juniji Ito’s drawing ability vastly surpasses his writing ability. Reading through Tomie has made that abundantly clear to me.
A cat goes on a journey of self-discovery, teaching and being taught the philosophy of Zen Buddhism.
The art is great, the text is well written. It’s a philosophical picture book for all ages. What’s not to like?
Sandcastle is the french comic book that the recent M. Night Shyamalan’s movie Old was based on. A bunch of different people arrive for a relaxing day at the beach and find themselves aging extremely rapidly, babies become teens and older folk die. Hijinks ensue. I don’t get it.
Junji Ito is cool. Uzumaki is great. A lot of his other work is just OK. I think Remina is also just OK.
The Drifting Classroom is a Japanese horror manga series published from 1972 to 1974 that follows a school (and its students) that is mysteriously transported through time to a post-apocalyptic future.
Junji Ito’s best work. Suffers a bit from the serialized format that most manga is created in (not all chapters are created equally). It’s great overall though.
