comic arena, I’m mostly picking up writers and artists I enjoy like Grant Morrison, Steve McNiven, Andy Diggle, Greg Rucka, Matt Fraction’s Iron Man, Mark Millar’s Wolverine. The Walking Dead is still a great book, [also] Olivier Coipel, Sweet Tooth, and J. Michael Straczynski, among many others.
Larry Marder
Writer/artist, Beanworld The most exciting recent discovery for me has to be Theo Ellsworth’s Capacity. I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t go to comics shops on any sort of regular basis nowadays. I tend to pick up comics and graphic novels at conventions but I will automatically read anything by Jeff Smith, Hope Larsen, Sergio Aragonés, James Kochalka, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Carla Speed McNeil, and Rick Veitch that finds its way into my hands. I’m also very impressed by the Jesse Marsh Tarzan archives. I like Erik Larsen’s stuff, particularly the “Next Issue” series. As far as books go I’ve almost exclusively read nonfiction for the last decade or so. I really enjoy the work of Rich Cohen (Tough Jews, The Avengers), Michael Pollan (Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), and Mark Kurlansky (Cod, Salt, Food of a Younger Land).
China Miéville
Author, The City & the City, Perdido Steet Station I’m a very tardy comics reader—there are just too many good ones—so I’m both late to lots of parties, and I miss a lot. I’ve finally been catching up late in one big gulp with Marvel’s Civil War and its aftermath. I’ve been enjoying it, in particular because it underscores in big thick bloody lines what everyone with any sense has always known: that Iron Man is an utterly despicable little fascist. I took a bit of time to get The Umbrella Academy. I read the first story a while ago and felt a bit meh, but my bad. I tried again, and it totally won me over, and I’m really loving the second volume, art and dialogue. I don’t normally love autobiography or how-to-write guides, but I keep coming back to Lynda Barry’s combination of the two, What It Is, and I think only in part because of its use of an octopus as a metaphor. It’s also a beautiful object, beautifully produced. My favorite comic of the year, and I’m only a little way in, is Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. I love his ongoing project of graphic
Carla Speed McNeil Writer/artist, Finder
These are the things I look forward to: Night School by Svetlana Chmakova. Svet’s best known for Dramacon from Tokyopop, but holy god, Night School is a huge leap forward for her. It’s a supernatural conspiracy that takes place in and around a school for demons and shapeshifters and witches and whatever else happens by. She makes the conventions of manga work for her, rather than just throwing them in because they’re fun to draw. It’s just as engaging as her lighter work, but much more deeply plotted. Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell. Where has this comic been all my life? Tom makes episodic plots look easy. Seriously—telling a big story in small chunks that are satisfying in themselves but build on each other. And he’s a wonderful world-builder, keeps handmade mythology, sociology, architecture, history, all the parts moving at the same time like Cirque du Soleil. His art keeps getting better and better, which is always cool for process junkies like me. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton, who has the best comic timing in the whole wide world. She also draws the hell out of a peevish Wonder Woman on occasion. I’d read Wonder Woman if she drew it. Girl Genius by Phil Foglio. Still more fun than a self-pedaled merry-go-round. What’s not to love about a fantasy world run entirely by mad scientists? Family Man by Dylan Meconis. Beautifully illustrated, intricately plotted. Everybody needs to give Dylan more money for this webcomic so she can update it more than once a week. Freakangels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield, because I always wanted to do my own version of Village of the Damned and Ellis beat me to it, the bastard. The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion by Edward Gorey. Recently returned to print. Incontinently funny. Echo by Terry Moore. I still drool over the way Terry draws hair. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers by Craig Yoe for sheer madness. Boody Rogers’ comics are crazy the way modern webcomics are crazy, and mostly better drawn. The Poetic Edda by Benjamin Thorpe and The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir, because I hated history in school and have been making friends with it ever since. I can only conclude that my light reading must consist entirely of cookbooks at this point, because I can’t think of a thing I’m reading that isn’t heavy as all get-out. I do have a killer recipe for peas with bacon, though.
Winter 2010 • Comic-Con Magazine 31