I know a few of you are graphic novel buffs on here. So here's a fun question.
I'm doing a class on graphic novels this fall and am currently thinking about the syllabus. Any suggestions? I think Maus is a must, and probably something by Eisner. Maybe Joe Sacco. I'm leaning against Moore and Miller just due to overexposure, but I might change my mind about that. I've done Persepolis a few times in other classes, and love it, but kind of want to mix it up.
I'm planning on mostly avoiding manga, since I'm clueless on it, but I might offer it up as a topic for their individual research papers, so if there's anything key that I need to know there...
10 comments:
King-dom Come! King-dom Come!
It's my favorite of all time (by Alex Ross and Mark Waid). Had I been a fan of Watchmen for 20 years, I'd be hard-pressed to pick which one is better, but KC blew me away when I read it in the late 90s.
They've both got equal amounts of deep storytelling, religious symbology, and incredible visual impact. You WON'T be disappointed...
And I don't do manga either.
I second Kingdom Come. I'd also recommend Astro City by Busiek and Ross. It's a deconstructionist take on superhero life. What would life be like for the Fantastic Four's secretary? What if Superman and Wonderwoman tried to go on a date?
A class on funny books? Now I've heard of everything!
Please post the syllabus once you're done Landshark! I pretty much stopped collecting comics once they became intelligent so this would suit me well..
I second the motion on Astro City. Forgot about that one!
Moore's Anatomy Lesson is excellent and of corse Miracleman is genius (way out of print). The Dark Knight is fantastic. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is great. Damnit, I have Moore and Miller on my mind! I'm a big fan of Chadwick's Concrete. I also love Marvels.
I'm repeating some of everybody's stuff here...
While Kingdom Come is fantastic, I think it works much better for the reader if they have some knowledge of the DC universe beforehand (this might be worth debating).
Also painted by Alex Ross is Marvels, written by Kurt "Astro City" Busiek and featuring a regular-person's perspective on Marvel history. Again, maybe better for people who know that history.
Astro City has the advantage of being a wholly new universe. Plus, the universe is presented to you in progress, you don't have vast dossiers of info on the origins of the heroes, they're just there. The first six issues are collected in a single graphic novel, and each of those six has a self-contained story.
And if I can slightly augment what our esteemed Puffinslayer said, Astro City is less deconstructionist as it is post-deconstructionist, which is kind of what Busiek says in the introduction (and I'm paraphrasing): "Okay, we've had Watchmen and the eighties and taken apart the superhero engine and seen what's inside, now let's reassemble it and take it for a spin."
Alan Moore's latest crop of books is doing the same thing. I know you've read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen since I gave it to you for Xmas, he does a similar genre-mash in his book Top Ten, about a city in which every man, woman and child is a superhero. Both are pretty damn interesting and would likely spark good chatter.
Moore and Miller are overexposed, but if you're getting at a history of the genre it's kind of hard to skip them. The Daredevil saga Born Again might be a good Miller, since it hasn't been made into a movie. I'd also recommend Silent Night, a Sin City one-shot with exactly one line of dialogue. It's an excellent example of Miller's graphic skills. As a one-shot, though, I'm sure it's only available as part of a larger collection, so never mind.
I'd recommend Love and Rockets too, since it's great and important historically, but I have no idea where to tell you to start. It's rather vast. Perhaps the collection titled The Death of Speedy Ortiz.
Cool: Kingdom Come, Love and Rockets, Astro City, Anatomy Lesson, Top Ten...great great great.
And let me rephrase my Miller/Moore comment--I am planning on suggesting some of their titles as individual research projects--just wasn't planning on including them in the required texts.
Which might hint that I'm not going for anything close to a full history of the genre. It's a writing class for Honors students, primarily, with a special topic on graphic novels. So it's kind of a skill course blended with a content course.
And actually, one of the main skills will be to blend secondary sources into their own arguments, so I'm also looking for good essays/books ABOUT graphic novels. I've got a good list already, but if any of you have one in mind...but who reads lit crit when they don't HAVE TO, right?
Sandman!
Sandman for sure! Sandman covers a ton of different topics. All kinds of cultural, religous, political topics and themes are woven into it. As a matter of fact I can think of nothing more interesting for a college lit course than to have to read Sandman, Watchmen, and Maus and then have to pick out the themes and topics they all share and how they deal with them. Wow, what a course!
You might also consider Y The Last Man, Fables, and for sure Cerebus. Kingdom come is great but you do have to be a comic fan to understand who everyone is in it. The same for Marvel Zombies. Fantastic book if you are a comic fan. If not you don't understand how horrifying the ending really is.
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