If you were to teach a course on comics...

[gloomly]

If you were to teach a course on comics and had to choose ten comics for students to read for them to get a good introduction into the world of comics, what would you have them read and why? I'm just curious to know what comic fans and makers think are the essential books.

[Dan 3000]

To name just some, the Flight Series, The Pride of Baghdad, Watchman; The Dark Knight Returns; Maus; A Contract with God;

[NickRocks]

oh look this thread again

[Spidey]

I don't know if I would chose Watchmen for an intro to comics, the Black Freighter stuff alone may turn some people off, but I agree with Dan's other choices. I would include an Invincible trade or two just because the book is so much fun. The Corpse Hellboy story. Marvels by Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek.

[cbikle]

I don't think I'd give them a reading list. To writers, I'd probably recommend reading actual books, stage & movie scripts and for artists, I think I'd tell them to practice their sequential art (maybe drawing out a couple of pages from a movie or stage script ?).

I'd also tell both groups to hang out in public places to sketch and/or listen in on conversations to get an ear for dialogue.

[Beastie]

It'd depend on what aspect of comics you were looking to talk about.

[gloomly]

It'd depend on what aspect of comics you were looking to talk about.

Just general stuff. I'm not actually teaching anything, just trying to come up with a reading list for myself. I keep getting the same answers though - Watchmen, Maus, Contract with god, frank miller, akira, stuff I've already got. I'm looking for something more to give me a better feel for what's out there.

[NickRocks]

i should start copy pasting this for the next time this thread arises

Non-Superhero: Asterios Polyp
Superhero: DKR
Noir: Sin City
Sci-fi: World War Robot
Historical: Nat Turner
Erotic: Lost Girls
Sports: PENG!
Horror: Uzumaki
Romance: LOL ROMANCE IS FOR GIRLS

[Trama]

I agree with cbikle, but I'd suggest the following books to anyone trying to get a hold on graphic storytelling:

The Killer, Vol 1.
Torso
Asterios Polyp
Acme Novelty Library Vol 20 (Lint)
Batman: The Long Halloween
The Pride of Bagdad
Marvels
Any of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy IDW books
Essential Fastastic Four Vol 1
Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling

[gloomly]

Thanks for the answers. Sorry nickguy if this was asked before :P

[hadesillustrations]

Add Amazing Spider-Man 267 to the list. It's my favorite comic of all time and it's a great read. There are no super villains in the book and the story is rather mundane, but that's one of the things that makes it so great. There's some of the greatest story telling ever and beautiful artwork in general by Bob McLeod (well known for inking, but a marvelous penciler as well). It was written by Peter David, I believe. It's great. Every comic book student/fan/artist/writer should read it.

[Orphangrinder]

No manga on the list? Come on, guys. The majority of comics in the whole world are manga!

Anything by Naoki Urasawa is awesome, but I'll recommend Pluto, because it's super awesome, and it's only eight volumes, which is pretty short for a manga. It's also pretty far from most of the stuff that's been mentioned so far, being a robot murder mystery.

[Selkirk]

yo larry! check out badger from first comics :D. actually most of those first comics were good-some good elric/corum miniseries...nexus...but badger is a must read.

[Dann]

If you want an extremely good story along with some of the finest artwork that'll ever grace a comic book page....there's a comic made by DC that came out in the '80's and everyone will laugh and all that good stuff when they see the title, but I promise, give it a chance and you'll love it!
It's good solid science fiction from a book called....
wait for it.......

ATARI FORCE!
Most of the art is done by Jose Louis Garcia Lopez and it's freakin' amazing!

Seriously!

[ajkarp]

How about We3 by Morrison for a twist on the traditional anthropomorphic "funny animal" story. Crazy Kat and Ignatz for kinetic action. Dan Clowes' Snow Haven for an example of juggling multiple narrative threads.

[gloomly]

No manga on the list? Come on, guys. The majority of comics in the whole world are manga!

Anything by Naoki Urasawa is awesome, but I'll recommend Pluto, because it's super awesome, and it's only eight volumes, which is pretty short for a manga. It's also pretty far from most of the stuff that's been mentioned so far, being a robot murder mystery.

Yeah I really liked Pluto. But then I was a fan of Astroboy back in the day. Mostly when people recommend manga it's Osamu Tezuka, Dragonball, Akira and maybe Ghost in the Shell and Battle Angel. Naoki Urasawa deserves more credit. Junji Ito is good too.
I guess I'm looking for things a little less well know, but still worth checking out.

[Ugga Bugga]

Bone
Maus
tencharacters

[Selkirk]

ok updating my list just a bit-
badger, witchblade takeru manga(vastly vastly superior to american witchblade), and ambush bug(pretty much of all of it but the first issues really are choice)

[gloomly]

ok updating my list just a bit-
badger, witchblade takeru manga(vastly vastly superior to american witchblade), and ambush bug(pretty much of all of it but the first issues really are choice)

I actually really like the art of the witchblade manga and want to pick it up. Plus it's short. I'm worried that it is all, "mature" content though.

[Selkirk]

ummm its pretty mature-i mean its fan service(crotch shots galore) with fantastic art....pretty much equals great comic to me. the story is boilerplate manga-girl turns into demon and fights everything(even aircraft carriers) but compared to american witchblade(girl turns into demon then acts like a suburbanite-and is typically badly drawn) its light years ahead. and the art in takeru-just excellent throughout...her costume is handled superbly(not much there but what there is i like :D ).

[Zippy]

I would add Daytripper to the list. Not sure how to categorize it, which is probably why I love it and think it's so special.

[Orphangrinder]

Daytripper is the perfect example of a comic I bought because everyone was saying how good it was. Now, to sit down and actually read it...
EDIT: Oops, I thought this was the "why do you buy a comic" thread. Gotta stop opening so many tabs at once.

[VicM]

How about We3 by Morrison for a twist on the traditional anthropomorphic "funny animal" story. Crazy Kat and Ignatz for kinetic action. Dan Clowes' Snow Haven for an example of juggling multiple narrative threads.

I thought WE3 would be a good idea too. My GF likes cats (and drawings of them) and it's a heartfelt story (albiet violent as eff)... It wasn't a good idea. Too violent... but thinking about it now, she does read comics now, so maybe it did actually work! hmmm

[Emperorsteele]

I dunno about using DKR as an intro to comics. DKR works because it takes 40-50 years of being a campy doofus in a bat costume, tosses it out and made him cool. The aspects of deconstruction are lost on someone who's never read dozens of stories of Batman being tied to a giant type-writer.

For a class on Comics, I'd stick with Scott McCloud's books.

[Bevan]

This is something I've thought about for a well as I took an English lit class on comics a couple of years ago, and disagreed with various choices.

I'd definetly want a list that promotes both quality and variety, no more than one graphic novel per author, and would avoid on-going series and have instead self-contained books.

It's a difficult choice, but my list of the ten books to be taught in a comics lit course might end-up being as follows:

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman (often considered to be the greatest graphic novel)

2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

3. From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (definitely his most powerful work)

4. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (a superb overview of the medium)

5. Louis Riel by Chester Brown (a superb example of an historical comic)

6. Complete All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly (as it would be good to have one of the books exploring iconic comic superheroes, and ASS is probably the best of that genre)

7. Contract with God by Will Eisner (one of the first attempts to make American comics powerful literature)

8. A graphic novel by Osamu Tezuka (the grandfather of manga, sadly I'm not yet familiar enough with his stuff to know which one to recommend)

9. The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius (powerful science fiction, and a strong insight into French comics)

10. Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (an emotional story with highly innovative art)

I could also see strong arguments for replacing one of these with a Joe Sacco graphic novel (his comic book journalism is incredibly innovative), Alison Bechdel Fun Home (an powerful story and exploration of sexuality), and including more examples of manga.

[malachimanson]

You really need to break it down. Great writing and great art that has great story telling. Big name history and going over their importance to the comic genre. Picking a book from each decade comics have been around. Exploring why they were popular at the time. Breaking down a list is actually really hard because each person will have a different view.

Off the top of my head I have to go with TDK, Kingdom Come, The Spirit, Captain America, Batman's first adventures including the introduction of Robin the controversy it had ect, Superman, Spider-man, the list can go on.

[Comrade Hero]

I don't know if these are classified as comics but I would include Astérix by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, and The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé.

Along with what has already been listed, I would add any of the volume collections of Commando War Stories in Pictures by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, and the collection Judge Dredd: America by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil, considered the best storyline of Judge Dredd.

Histoire de M. Vieux Bois or The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck by Rodolphe Töpffer is interesting from a historical perspective as it is one of the earliest examples of sequential art, and considered one of the first modern comic books (1842)

[Diesel]

Bevan gives a great list. I have a few changes that I would make though:
I'd include:
Maus
Understanding Comics
From Hell (If this were a class for very intellectual students I'd swap in Watchmen here)
Contract with God
Bone
Fun Home
Blankets
Feynman
The Complete Concrete
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

There are sooooo many more good ones... this list is a bit heavy on biographies and auto-biographies (I'd love to add Chester Brown's Paying For It), but they have such different voices and directions that I think they bring a wide range of types of stories to the table. I'd love to add an iconic super-team book to the list, but what? These are the ones that spring to mind as great: Squadron Supreme, Identity Crisis, Marvels, Kingdom Come, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Ultimates, Inhumans....

[Deth]

no X-force liefeld run?

[cbikle]

no X-force liefeld run?

Maybe as an example of what not to do.

[SPINE]

I did teach a course on making comics. Everyone loves superheroes, so I decided to force kids to read other stuff. Everyone already knows superman, batman etc. They were also highschoolers, so I tried to avoid anything to crazy like R. Crumb - although, I think they'd love it.

But it's a school.

I started with European influence - Herge with his Tintin and Casterman with his Asterix. This was a nice innocent start to the works of comics. The stories are full of adventure and exotic locations.

Throughout the class, we studied a contract with God, because that book is a turning point in American comics history.

I then jumped to Palestine - because it's a documentary. Most people thought all comics are fiction. So, that was an eye opener for most kids.

Then finished the class withunderstanding comics. This was a great experience and then I gave them my recommended, outside school reading:

Black Hole
Velvet glove cast in iron
Summer blonde.
Watchmen and maus.

[pell]

Maus should be part of their history curriculum.

[Commantis24]

For an intro to comics class I'd probably go with:

1. Invincible (easy read, modern origins story, class get's to see the progression without reading any terrible Stan Lee stories)
2. Scott Pilgrm (not REALLY manga, but still fun easy, somewhat introduces the manga format)
3. Y: The Last Man (doesn't read like a comic, no ridiculous superpowered storytelling)
4. Life in Pictures (to not include Will Eisner would be pretty ludicrous)
5. Superman for All Seasons (Loeb and Sale are masters of the medium, and this story is subtle and emotional, something a lot of superman stories lack)
6. Batman: Year One (more origins)
7. DC: The New Frontier (deals with the origin of some second class DC superheroes. Good to show depth of the universes, I think)
8. Ultimate Spiderman (another modern take on a classic, which doesn't involve trudging up some out of context comics)
9.Maus (.... Is there an explanation really needed?)
10.Understanding Comics

But if this was indeed just for an expanded reading list, a few I'd definitely suggest are:

The Starman Omnibus' (James Robinson)
Infinite Kung-Fu
The Dark Tower series (at least the first 5. Just stunning art)
Chew
Sandman (pretty out there, and some of the stories are just terrible, but with such an eclectic mix there's some greatness there)
Tom Strong (Sort of a superman meets Suicide Squad, but with Invincible's unashamed attitude)
Daredevil: Born Again (I personally think this is the best DD story Frank Miller churned out)
Astonishing X-Men (pretty much just a blockbuster of a comic, but sometimes that's all you need)
Naoki Urasawa's Monster (still one of the shorter Manga out there at a dainty 18 volumes)
Planetary (Maybe not Warren Ellis' BEST work, but my favorite)
Preacher (doubt most avid comics fan haven't read the series, but it's just so damned good)