Radiant Comics

I’m writing this during the first week of December 2024 and I’ve got a cold. Just like last December. I also had a summer cold back in the middle of August. I’m getting tired of this. But anyway these are the random thoughts in my head as I recover.

“Why don’t I just sew it?” back in October I wrote about my commuting bag (http://radiantcomics.com/art-writing-everyday-carry-bag/). Just this week I noticed that the strap on it that sewed back on a couple of years ago is looking a little bit shaky. I had a vague plan to replace the bag in January or so but that would mean spending another $75 or so on one. I don’t really want to do that.

So as I was sitting here in my easy chair I looked up and saw the red thread I used at the end of the sew on strap and thought to myself that should do another sewing job on that strap. This time I will re-enforce it with some canvas. I’ve not done anything like that before but I think I can pull it off. Time will tell. (Update: Since I wrote this blog I sewed on some canvas an reinforced the strap so all is good).

Another thing I’ve been contemplating as I’ve been recovering is a small bag I bought last summer. It’s called an everyday carry pouch. It’s about 5×7 inches and has a place for a notebook or sketchbook, a few pens, pencils, or tool slots, and zippered part for other stuff. I bought it because it was only about $7 and I thought it was cool and I could use it for something. Except use it for what?

I already have two larger bags with art supplies in them that I carry in my commuting art bag so why would I need the smaller one? That’s what I was trying to figure out. I could keep my phone in it but why? I’m not much of a phone guy and just keep it in my pocket once I’m out so keeping it in a bag is unnecessary.

I ended up putting a 3.5×5.5 inch sketchbook in the pocket but it barely fits. It takes a bit of effort getting it in and out. And there is no chance of the book fitting in the zippered part. After that I decided to put some of my art card sized paper in the zippered part. They are 2.5×3.5 inches and fit in there fine. That also led me to putting a pencil, black marker, and brush pen into the tool slots. I think I’m set.

I still don’t know why I need that small bag but it started to remind me of a George Carlin routine about how our homes were just places for our stuff. He then goes down the line of ever smaller places for our stuff until he gets to a handbag which was the smallest place for our stuff. I was making smaller and smaller art supply bags for my art supply stuff. Kind of funny in the end.

Another cold thought is that I’m trying zinc lozenges for the first time. According to my calendar last December’s cold lasted nine days and last August’s cold lasted ten days. I’m trying to get this one to be shorter and so far I’m into the nighttime of day five and I’m hopeful that this one will be shorter. My head is still clogged but not as badly as yesterday. I couldn’t have written at all yesterday. (Update: The cold was of shorter duration this time. I’ll call it seven days).

I was on video six times with this cold. That might be my record. On my YouTube channel I’ve been making Walk and Talk videos where I film my commute as I walk from Penn Station down to 14th Street. I usually film one of them a week but since I won’t be making any over the winter break I decided to film a couple of extra ones. So I filmed one Tuesday going in, Tuesday coming back, and Wednesday going in. I was too tired from my cold to do one on Wednesday walking back up to Penn.

Then I filmed my comic book haul video on Thursday morning and posted it. After that I had a Zoom meeting on Thursday afternoon. Finally I wrapped up my week with my usual Friday night live YouTube show with Wilson and Paulo. We got on YouTube and talked about comic books and such from 6PM until nearly 9PM. That was a lot of time I was on video talking with a congested voice. It’s a good thing I never had a sore throat. But that’s a lot of video time with a cold.

Here is another strange thing that has crossed my mind this week. I’m now a puffy vest guy! My mother gave me a green winter down puffy vest this week. I have never had one of those before.

I’ve been a regular vest guy before. A waistcoat. I used to wear fancy vests back in the 1990s at times. The kind that is the third part of a three piece suit. At the height of me being a waistcoat guy I probably had eight of them. I could wear one each day of the week! I also wore them with suspenders which got real inconvenient if I had to sit down on a toilet. That was the downside to being a vest and suspenders guy!

I’m still not sure when one wears a winter vest. When I go outside into the cold I like to be as warm and prepared as possible. That usually includes having sleeves. So when would I go out without sleeves? I ended up wearing it a little bit around the house when I was chilly. It was comfortable.

My final thought is about old yearbooks. The Zoom meeting I had on Thursday was helping out the students make a yearbook. Because I’m a eBay maniac I ended up getting a couple of old art school yearbooks off of the auction site. The one that came in this week is from 1938. The one that came in last month is from 1922. It’s amazing to see yearbooks from that long ago. All the people in the yearbook were basically doing all the stuff that I am doing right now. That yearbook was even their “Right Now” at the time. Except they’re all gone. We’ll all be gone. That’s a humbling thought. Certainly a “Not feeling my best thought.” (Update: It’s January 9, 2025 now and I’m feeling better!).

Steve Ditko’s “Shade the Changing Man” was first published back in 1977 and 1978. I was ten and eleven years old back then and I never read it. I was a Marvel Comics kid and Shade was published by DC Comics. I may have overlooked it but there is just a good a chance that I never saw it at all. There were only eight issues of it published and they were only published once every two months so it easily could have slipped by me.

I’m not sure when I learned of Shade’s existence but it was probably not long after it was published. I didn’t have a lot of DC comics but I remember seeing adds for the “DC Explosion” in some of their comics. Those ads showed a lot of new comics that DC was publishing back in 1977-1978. I remember Shade being in those ads.

The only two DC Explosion books that I ever bought were “Firestorm: The Nuclear Man” and “Steel: the Indestructible Man.” There were only a handful of issues for both of those books as DC Comics hit hard times in the late 1970s and cancelled a lot of their line of comics. That event became known as the “DC Implosion” for obvious reasons.

It was also around 1977 that I became a Steve Ditko fan. I didn’t have access to any of the original issues of Spider-Man or Dr. Strange but I was able to get some Pocket Books reprints of Amazing Spider-Man and a Fireside Books reprint of some Dr. Strange stories. I enjoyed these 1960s comics drawn by him.

I don’t remember Steve Ditko drawing many comics in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. I had one “First Issue Special” story that he drew about The Creeper, at least one Hulk annual, some Micronauts, and some Rom, but other than that I can’t remember much of his work from that time period. As I grew older I read some more of and liked Ditko’s 1960s work but not much else. I couldn’t be bothered to track down any of his stuff from DC in the 1970’s.

In the 1980s I did manage to get some of Ditko’s work on “The Creeper” which was more of his 1960s work for DC. It was fine. I enjoyed it but not as much as his Marvel work. In 2010 when an Omnibus was released of Ditko’s “The Creeper” I was finally able to read the whole series. Solid stuff.

This led me to purchase another Ditko Omnibus the following year. This was another Omnibus published by DC and it had various comics by Ditko in it including all eight issues of Shade plus a ninth unpublished issue. I don’t even think I got around to reading it right away. I think it may have sat around for a year or two before I got around to it. I bought it back in September of 2011 and it’s now December of 2024 so my memory isn’t exact.

After finally reading Shade in that Omnibus I really liked it. It was good stuff. Much better than the other Ditko comics from the late 1970s that I read in my youth. Sure it was a product of its time and maybe not as sophisticated as a comic made today but it was still really good. It even made me think about buying the original issues just to have them. But I never did.

I’m writing about Shade and Ditko because this week I picked up the Omnibus and decided to read Shade again. I think it has only grown on me. I liked it even better this time around. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s because Ditko has died since I first read it back in 2011, or maybe it’s just a really good comic.

What I like about Shade is the amount of imagination that Ditko put into it. His art and creativity really shine. In the world of the Changing Man there are three realms. We have Shade’s planet that’s called Meta. It’s a planet that’s in another dimension but is somehow connected to our planet Earth. In order to get from Meta to Earth you have to pass through a dimension called The Zero Zone. That’s not an easy place to get to or through. You need big old machines and stuff to even try. So it’s not like everyone on Meta has access to Earth.

The Zero Zone is kind of like a lot of the magical realms in Ditko’s Dr. Strange. It exists in the same type of visual space that comes from Ditko’s imagination. All sorts of strange creatures live there and there are also people and the empires of said people. Some of those people are bad and you don’t want to cross through their territory. All this is drawn with a lot of imagination.

Also fueling the imagination of Ditko is the M-Vest. This is the all purpose weapon that Shade wears that gives him super powers. Strength, force fields, and the such. One side effect of the M-Vest is that it distorts the way Shade looks as he’s fighting. He looks monstrous as he fights and that makes people afraid of him. Their fear, in turn, makes him look more monstrous. This gives Ditko a lot of fun stuff to draw and he does so with style and imagination.

I like the plot and characters of Shade too. Ditko is famous for his philosophy that heroes should be excellent examples of human beings and good should be good and bad should be bad with no grey in there. But in this comic he has a lot of people with a lot of different motivations. The good people are still good in general but often they have bad information.

For example Shade was framed as a traitor to Meta. He was under a death sentence but escaped. As a consequence he is under a “Shot on sight” order and all security officers are duty bound to shoot him. This includes his ex-fiancé who is a security officer. She also thinks Shade betrayed her and permanently injured her parents so she really hates Shade despite the fact that we know he is innocent.

There are numerous characters in Shade with a lot of different motivations. Some are bad guys but even the bad guys have shifting alliances and motivations. The good guys also have shifting motivations as they get new information. There is a lot of imagination and constantly moving parts to the plot and characters. It’s good stuff.

One of the things I’ve come to a conclusion about with Shade is that it might be the last great example of Steve Ditko as a creator in mainstream comics. He did work for Marvel and DC for a couple of decades more but I would say most of that stuff was as an artist. He was drawing a lot of other people’s ideas. I don’t think it has the same level of creativity as his previous work.

Ditko also did a lot of work on his own for many years and that is creative stuff but not in the mainstream the way that Shade is. The creator owned comics he made were more personal and less universal than Shade, Dr. Strange, and Spider-Man. This may have been his last hurrah trying to give his all to make a popular comic book for the world of corporate comic books.

After rereading Shade in the Omnibus this time I did go to eBay and ordered the original series. I got some mid-grade copies for about three dollars a piece. The paper is yellowed and the colors not as pleasingly bright as they could be (or are in the Omnibus) but I still want to give them a read. You should too.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the 5×7 inch cartoon art cards that I was doing for my Gatsby project. I was making the art cards and then doing something new with them. I was pasting down paper on top of the drawing and making new drawings on that paper. The funny thing is that after working up that new technique and liking it I went back to my old technique this week to draw six new superhero cartoon art cards.

The paste up technique was a way to make some boring drawings interesting. I didn’t have to do that with these new 5×7 cartoon art cards because I was drawing masks and marks on their faces. Since those things make the face drawings inherently more interesting to me than my regular face drawings there was not need to paste stuff down on them.

Here is another new thing about those new art cards. I drew them digitally on my iPad in Procreate. Usually I would draw a face on a 5×7 inch piece of paper, ink that face, write something in the balloon above the characters head, and the marker color it to have a finished piece. This was my tried and true method but I’ve been looking to speed it up a little bit.

Earlier this year I drew a basic face with just the basic features that I could use as a starting point. I scanned that face in and then printed the face out onto a 5×7 inch piece of paper. That way I didn’t have to draw out the basic features over and over again for each face. I could start with the basic drawing on every page in blue line and draw right over that in pencil. It saved some time and worked okay but I wasn’t really into it. So I decided to try doing the same thing but digitally.

I took the 5×7 inch file with the face drawn in it and brought that into Procreate on my iPad. One of the cool things Procreate has is a mirror drawing feature. Whatever I draw on one side of the page is mirrored on the other side. This means I can draw the right eye and it automatically draw the left eye exactly the same. There is no need for me to even cut and paste.

I found this saved me a lot of time. I only had to draw half a face to have a whole face. And with the blue line drawing underneath as a guide I didn’t have to worry about getting my proportions correct over and over. Overall I had fun drawing that way.

Perfect symmetry isn’t always called for but I can always turn it off if I want some asymmetrical stuff in there. As a matter of fact perfect symmetry can look a bit disconcerting after a while. But so can having one eye on a face a quarter inch higher than the other eye. That has happened to me more times than I can count.

Whenever I’m drawing a face without these time saving shortcuts it can take me a remarkably long time. Or not. It’s inconsistent. To do a basic drawing of a full face first I drew an egg shape for the head and then I bisect the egg with a line for the eyes, bisect the lower part to place the nose, and finally a third bisection under the nose for the mouth placement. Plus I have to place the ears and the hair line.

Even after all my years of drawing any of these placements can be off. I can’t tell you how many times I got the nose to low or the mouth too high. Even more often I draw the two eyed and then notice one of them is a fraction of an inch too high or wide. I have to erase it and start over.

This is all fine if I’m doing one single drawing. It’s all part of the process. But when I’m doing a series, such as the Super Hero Cartoon Art Cards, that can get very frustrating. The basic drawing phase can take anywhere from two to fifteen minutes. That’s a big variation. If I expect the drawing to take half an hour but instead it takes forty five minutes to an hour over six drawings then that’s a lot of unexpected time and can get annoying.

I found that when drawing these faces in Procreate with the mirror function on I didn’t have to think about the basic drawing so much. I could concentrate on the design of the face. It was very freeing and I had fun doing it. That’s key. There is no such thing as cheating in drawing. If you can find a way to make it a little bit easier on yourself then you can get more done. That was my goal.

I also did the writing and lettering digitally. My face template has a blue line word balloon in it along with literal blue lines, like notebook paper, for me to write in between. So after drawing the super hero face I would figure out what I wanted them to say and letter it in blue between the lines.

After drawing the face and writing the Superhero Cartoon Art Card I would print it out on a 5×7 inch piece of paper and ink it. First I would ink it with a thin marker and then ink it with a brusk and ink. I would also use a marker to letter it in ink on top of the blue line. This gives me the hand lettered look that I want.

The final step is to color it. I’ve been starting with the backgrounds and using two or three colored markers to scumble in some basic background colors. I like to keep it simple but I don’t want just one solid color. So I break the color up into a couple of mixed up values. The final step is to color the face itself.

I got six new faces done over two days. That’s not a bad pace. It’s not super fast but it’s a little bit faster than before. And that’s good.

This is week two since I was asked to come up with a list of my favorite comics. It’s a tough list to make since I’ve read a lot of great comics over the decades. I broke it down categories. This week is long running series that are still going. Except a couple of them have stopped. It’s tough to categorize things.

Long running series to check out:

All of these series are good and I’ve been buying them for a long time. You can find many trade paperback collections of them and start with any of them. Sure it’s fun to start with volume one but if you get volume three of anything then give it a read.

“Savage Dragon” by Erik Larsen. Ongoing.

271 issues and counting. This is a superhero story so expect superhero stuff to go on. Except that it’s a story that takes place in real time so everybody ages just like we do. The original Dragon isn’t even the star of the book anymore and for the last five years or so it’s his son who the book is about.
“Invincible” by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley

This one ran for 144 issues, It can be found in 12 oversized hardcovers or 24 trade paperbacks. Read whatever you can find.

“Invincible” is the name and story of a teenage superhero. But that is too simple an explanation. A lot of characters are introduced and a lot of plot happens. Plus bloody and violent fights.

It’s a series that keeps evolving and stays entertaining. It’s also another fast paced read. They made this into an Amazon animated series that people really like. From what I read the violence of the cartoon takes many people by surprise.

“Usagi Yojimbo” by Stan Sakai. Ongoing.

I cannot praise Sakai and Usagi enough. I’ve been reading this comic since 1986 or so and it’s closing in on 300 issues across various publishers.

Usage Yojimbo takes place in feudal Japan and Usagi is a rabbit and all the other characters are also animals. Other than that it’s a super well done straight forward action/adventure samurai story.

Sakai is a master of his craft and a cartoonist of the highest order. I’m fond of saying that all Usage Yojimbo stories are “A’s” there is only whether they are A-, A, or A+. There is never a stinker. Or even a B.

There are a ton of Usagi collected editions and you can start with any one of them. Someone recommended stating with “The Dragon Bellows Conspiracy” and I can’t see why not so start there.

“Love and Rockets” by Jaime Hernandez and Gilbert Hernandez. Ongoing.

This one you’ll find on a lot of people’s “Best Of” lists. “Love and Rockets” has been published since the early 1980s and there are tons of collected editions to choose from. Pick any one of them.

The brothers each have their own stories and don’t collaborate. Each tells the story of a group of people over time. Jaime has his cast of Los Angeles and are Mexican American characters who have all grow up over time. Gilbert tells a lot of stories set in the fictional small Mexican town of Palomar.
If you really want to jump in the deep end pick up the giant volume called “Luba” by Gilbert and the other giant volume called “Locas” by Jaime (pronounced High-Me and not Jame-Me).

“Stray Bullets” by David Lapham Ongoing. Maybe.

Another long time favorite this one has three volumes with about 90 issues in total. You can find it in various collections including the “Uber Alles Edition” that collects all 41 issues of volume one.

“Stray Bullets” is a crime comic that I usually describe a, “A regular person gets involved with something or someone criminal and then things go wrong.” Very wrong.

Lapham is an excellent storyteller and he uses an eight panel grid for most of the comic and it works well.

The story has a lot of regular characters in it but also a lot of people who come and go. I think volume two has the most regular characters in it but it also takes place before volume one. That’s a little weird but I really didn’t notice it after a while.

“Uber” and “Uber: Invasion” by Kieren Gillen, Canaan White, and David Getes. Almost finished but in limbo.

Two volumes of 27 and 17 issues but the story is unfinished.

This comic is an alternate history story in which super powered people are invented near the end of World War Two. First the Germans get a head start and then the British and Americans get in the game.

How can you realistically use super heroes in a war and how would they change the outcome? They are not easy or cheap to create nor is their outcome guaranteed.

This series is a lot of fun. It’s about war so it’s pretty violent and bloody but the characters and strategies are interesting. I could read this one again right now.

“Birthright” by Joshua Williamson and Andrei Bressan. Finished. Fifty issues.

This one is a fantasy series set in our world and another. It starts with a young teenager who goes missing and is missing for years. It wrecks his mother, father, and brother but then a full grown man who looks like Conan shows up claiming to be him. A couple of years have gone by for the family but more years have passed for the missing brother.

It turns out he stumbled into a magical world where time moved faster. Now a villain from that world of magic wants to take over ours. It’s a fun ride full of twists and good visuals.

One thing I really liked about this series was the ending. Not only did they end the big war story but then they had an epilogue that was a few issues long that wrapped up all the characters’ individual stories. I thought that second ending was well done and something we rarely get. Good stuff.

“Strangers in Paradise” by Terry Moore. Finished. Maybe. 110 issues.

This was the first series by Terry Moore and it comes in four volumes with volume three being the big one of ninety issues. It’s a story that’s about relationships with a little bit of fantasy thrown in.

Francine and Katchoo are best friends and Katchoo is madly in love with Francine but Francine likes men. It’s about their lives, loves, and friendships with a good cast of characters. Katchoo also has a past as a secret agent. That’s where the fantasy creeps in.

This series isn’t really about plots but is about characters and what happens between them. Lots of love and heartache. Terry Moore’s art is terrific and he is excellent at drawing emotions and expressions. I’d say his art is in the tradition of Milton Caniff cartoon realism. I really like it.

Moore has a lot of other stuff to check out too like “Rachel Rising,” Five Years,” “Echo,” “Paradise Too,” and there might be more Strangers in Paradise in his future too. You can find it all collected into trade paperbacks and hardcovers.

“The Walking Dead” by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard. Finished. One hundred and ninety three issues.

I thought this one would just keep going forever but it ended suddenly in 2019. Everyone knows the TV show since it was such a big hit but I’m a fan of the comic. It kept me guessing for sixteen years.

For those who don’t know this comic takes place after the zombie apocalypse but it’s not really about the zombies. We never find out the story behind the apocalypse. This comic is about the survivors and the zombies are really there to represent sudden death. What is it like to live in a world where sudden death is all around?

Tony Moore is the co-creator of The Walking Dead but he only drew the first six issues. Charles Adlard drew the next 187 issues and he doesn’t get nearly the praise that he should. He got better and better as the series went on and his storytelling is excellent. It’s a lot of work to draw that many issues of a comic and not a lot of people have done it. He did it and he did it well.

Of course all of “The Waking Dead” is available in collected editions. And even though the series was originally in black and white they are in the process of coloring it now. I think they’re up to issue 110 in the coloring process.

“Astro City” by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson. Ongoing.

This is a long running series that’s been published since the mid-1990s in at least four volumes. I think it’s around a hundred issues. It’s a series of stories, set in Astro City, about super heroes and it tries to make them as believable as possible. It does that by trying to make them as human as possible. Sometimes the stories are even told from the POV of a normal human.

The art and writing in this one really come together to make the reader feel things. We can feel the awe of seeing superheroes, the sometimes sad motivations that drive some people to crime, the exhaustion of trying to save as many people as possible, and lots of other feelings.

I must admit that I’ve lost track of this series over the last ten years. I started buying it in collected editions but I have to do an inventory of what I have and what I need. So pick up some of the TPBs and catch up with me.

I’ve been asked to come up with a list of my favorite comics. That’s a tough list to make since I’ve read a lot of great comics over the decades. I broke it down categories. This week is single volume stuff. Some of it has more than one volume but it’s mostly finished stuff or graphic novels. Next week will be long running series.

Single Volume Stuff (Almost)

“It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken” by Seth

One of my all-time favorites by the one names cartoonist Seth. It’s an semi-autobiographical comic about him living live as a cartoonist, contemplating what that means, and trying to track down an obscure old “New Yorker” cartoonist who’s work reminds him of himself. The “semi” is in autobiographical because the cartoonist his is tracking down is fictional so who knows how much of the rest of it is fictional too? But that doesn’t matter. It still resonates with me.

I also love his other works: “Clyde Fans,” “Wimbledon Green,” “George Sprott,” and anything else you might find by him.

“Hate”by Peter Bagge

The first volume of “Hate” is “Buddy Does Seattle” and this is considered “The Funny One” and at the time it come out in the early 1990’s it became considered the unofficial comic of Grunge Music and that young generation.

I love all three volumes and to me they add up to the Great American Novel. They are the story of Buddy Bradley’s life from a teen to a man pushing fifty. I find them funny and insightful.

There are three volumes. “Buddy Does Seattle,” “Buddy Does New Jersey,” and “Buddy Buys a Dump.” Plus you can find the earliest Buddy Bradley stories in a volume called “The Bradleys” which is about Buddy and his family when he was a teenager. Plus there was just a new volume called “Hate: Revisited” that is also really good.

“Peepshow” Joe Matt

Another late 1980s to early 1990s favorite. It’s a warts and all autobiography comic about Joe Matt and how he lives his life. Weirdly I must say. The volume just named “Peepshow” is a collection of his earliest strips and is quite good. Then he did 15 issues of a comic named “Peepshow” and those stories were collected into volumes with names. “Spent” and “The Playboys” were two of them.

“Finder” by Carla Speed McNeil

One of my all time favorite series “Finder” is collected in various volumes with various titles. There are two huge collections called “Finder: Library Edition (One and Two) from Dark Horse that collect most of the material.

It’s hard to describe “Finder” except to say that McNeil creates whole cultures to set her stories in. Lots of different families and clans that act within lots of different traditions. I find it all really interesting.

One favorite volume is named “Talisman” and is all about a young girl’s love for books. Anyone with a love for books will probably like this one.

“Berlin” by Jason Lutes

Though it came out in individual issues over 20 years you can find this one in a single volume called “Berlin.” Make sure it’s the 580 page volume if you want all of it because it’s also available in three 200 page volumes. I actually have and prefer the three volumes because the pages are a little larger and they are easier to handle.

“Berlin” is the story of a bunch of people living in Berlin in about 1930 during the fall of the Weimar republic. It’s historical fiction and I find it fascinating stuff. Jason Lutes is an excellent cartoonist. He’s also done “Jar of Fools.”

“The Death-Ray” by Daniel Clowes

Picking out a Daniel Clowes book to put on this list is tough. I tried to pick one that I thought would be the best for a first time reader of Clowes. I could have also picked “Ghost World.”

“The Death Ray” is the story of a guy who fins a death ray and how that impacts his life. He just points it at someone, pulls the trigger, and that someone disappears forever. As with all Clowes stuff it’s a weird story but relatable. A superhero reader might want to start here with Clowes.

I think “David Boring” might be my favorite of his but I also love “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.” I also really liked his latest that’s called “Monica.” Anything by Clowes is good comics!

“Asterios Polyp” by David Mazzucchelli

Most of the comic world loves Mazzucchelli for his art on “Batman: Year One” and “Daredevil: Born Again” and both of those deserve all the praise they’ve gotten but I’m an Asterios guy. This is the story of a middle aged “Paper Architect” (he’s never had any of his buildings actually built) who has spent his career teaching and now has lost his way.

The art in this one is terrific and inventive and the story has really grown on me over the years. The main character is fifty years old. I was younger than him when the book first came out but when I reread the book a few years ago I was then older than him. I think I related to him more when I was older. That was a little odd but good.

“Mister X: The Archives (Volume One)” by Dean Motter and a lot of people.

This is the most up and down book on this list because a lot of different people had their hands on trying Mister X stories. This first volume is a collection of stories from the 1980s.

Mister X is the architect of the city called Somnopolis and he was a practitioner of “Psychotecture” which tried to use architecture to make people’s minds more healthy. Except he was kicked off the project and his ideas were subverted. Now it’s years later and he’s back trying to fix things.

Though the comic is often uneven what I love about it was that the creators were always trying to make something different and stylish. That can’t be said about almost all comics.

Volume Two which is called “The Brides of Mister X” is also good. Volume two has really grown on me over the years. There are even more Mister X volumes that are smaller and from the 21st Century. Give any of them a try.

“Bone” by Jeff Smith

This can be found all in big 1360 page volume or broken up into a nine volume series. Either way it’s great comics.

“Bone” is a classic adventure story done in an all ages style. Maybe a PG13 style. It’s drawn in a classic Pogo Possum or Disney cartoon style and the characters are drawn simply but with a lot of expression. It’s top shelf cartooning.

“Phone Bone” is the name of the lead character and he has two traveling companions that are also “Bones.” The name goes with their cartoon racial/ethnic identity. Sort of like a Hobbit, elf, or dwarf.

The three of them having had to flee their home town end up on a grand adventure and in the middle of a war between good people and the forces of evil. It’s a beloved classic and well deserved.

“The Original’s” by Dave Gibbons

You’ll find “Watchmen” by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore on most people’s “Best Of” lists but I’ve never been a hug fan of that one. For good Gibbons work I much prefer “The Originals” especially the oversized version that came out a few years ago.

The story of “The Originals” is a “Mods versus Rockers” story taken from the 1960s and placed in the future. It’s a coming of age story and you’ve probably read something like it before but not with such great art.

I really like the storytelling and visualizations in this one. The drawing and design is terrific and I revisit this one every so often even if to just look at it for a while.

“The Fade Out” by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Here is another creative team I had trouble picking out just one comic from. Brubaker and Phillips have been collaborating for about 20 years and they have put out a lot of books. The “Reckless” series, “Criminal” the series, “Incognito,” “Fatale,” and a few more that I’m forgetting.

These two do a lot of crime stories. They are all good. This one was a 1940s noir story set in Hollywood. I’d start here but you can really start anywhere with any one of Brubaker and Phillips’ books.

One thing that really stood out for me about the art in this one was Phillips’ ability to differentiate between drawing a normal pretty woman and a Hollywood beauty. That’s hard to pull off and something I never really thought about before reading this but Phillips pulled it off and made me think about it.

“Sin City – Volume One” by Frank Miller

Frank Miller is an all time great in the comic book world and there is a lot to choose from. Other people would probably pick his “Daredevil” issues or “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” but I would rather read the first volume of “Sin City.” I could read this volume over and over.

“Sin City – Volume One” is a simple story. A beautiful woman in danger shacks up with the biggest, meanest, tough guy she can find. It doesn’t help. She still gets killed with the tough guy, Marv, sleeping beside her. Now Marv wants revenge and doesn’t care if he has to die to get it. From then on in it’s noir action drawn in a high contrast style with visuals and storyteller that are pure Frank Miller. I want to read it right now!

“Grendel: Devil by the Deed – Master Edition” by Matt Wagner

There is a lot of “Grendel” to choose from but I would start here. I’ve always been a huge fan of the original “Grendel: Devil by The Deed.” It came out in the 1980s but this version is all new.

Matt Wagner decided to revisit, rewrite, and redraw this original Grendel story and now it’s about 120 pages long instead of the original 40. It’s really well done. I had my doubts since I love the original so much but this is a much better version to introduce Grendel to new readers.

Grendel is a crime lord. Yes, the main character is the villain of the piece and that’s not the only convention Wagner turns on its head. This is the story of Grendel’s rise and fall. Or does he really fall? That’s a question for many other Grendel series.

The story is mostly told in captions and illustrations with is a style I’m not always fond of. But it works well here. I 100% love it.

“Planetary” by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday

This one is a favorite from the late 1990s. Planetary is the name of an organization that investigates strange phenomenon. The comic is filled with geek culture references as it attempts to unite them all. It’s also got a lot of superhero stuff but different from the usual stories. It’s fun and mysterious.

My one criticism of “Planetary” is that I wasn’t overly fond of how the story concluded. But I love it anyway.

The original seres ran 27 issues but they can all be found in “The Planetary Omnibus.” Or there are a series of smaller volumes of it.

“Velvet” By Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting

Here is one that you won’t find on a lot of favorite lists but anyone who has read it loves it.

“Velvet” takes place in the late 1960s and is about a female spy who was once a top agent but now has retired to a spy office job. Then things go wrong and she’s on the run and has to avoid capture and clear her name. It’s sort of like if Miss Moneypenny from a James Bond novel was an agent.

This one is fast paced and exciting. Epting does a terrific job on the art and it has a level of realism that makes me believe everything. A fun spy action comic that is a great read.

“Jupiter’s Legacy” by Mark Millar and Frank Quietly

Here is another that you won’t find on a lot of lists but to read it is to have a lot of fun. It’s a story of a long time super hero group and family and how they are betrayed. Lots of classic super hero action.

I often call Mark Millar: “The Master of the Expected” because he rarely puts twists in his plots and he likes to telegraph his moves. Most of the time you can see everything coming but then he and Quietly pull it off and it’s a rush. I’m a big fan of Quietly’s art and storytelling and he’s got it going on in this one. It’s a fast paced and easy to read series.

There are two five issue volumes of “Jupiter’s Legacy” collected into two paperbacks. There was also a boring Netflix series made from this but don’t bother with that.

“Negation” by Tony Bedard and Paul Pelltier

You’ll probably not find this one on anyone’s list but mine. To me it’s a classic. It was published by Crossgen in the early 2000s and ran 27 issues but the story was not finished before Crossgen went out of business. Most of it can be found in old paperback collections.

Negation starts as the story of a jailbreak and then the people have to find their way off planet and try to find safe haven in a universe ruled by an all powerful dude named Charon.

The rest of it is a super hero sci-fi type story as our band of escapees travel from planet to planet in their space ship and try to figure out what to do. It’s faced paced and full of action. One of my favorites.

As an aside Marvel Comics now owns the rights to Negation and all of Crossgen’s comics so maybe one day they can collect this all in a nice volume and even finish the story. I can dream.

“Karmen” by Guilliem March

Here is a recent graphic novel that I really liked. It’s not even a type of story I’m interested in. It’s the story of a recently deceased woman and the angel (maybe) who has to guide her to the afterlife. Of course that involves lots of contemplation about the recently deceased woman’s life (is her name Karmen or is that the angel? I can’t remember).

What I love most about this comic is the art. March takes us on a visual journey that’s rich and satisfying. The people and the city he draws are spectacular and I was glad I was along for the ride. It’s really good stuff.

That’s the stuff I thought off as I sat here. I’m sure I left things out plus next week I’ll have a list of long running series that I like.