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ABOUT
ALAN MOORE: |
Alan Moore is widely regarded as the greatest comics writers
the medium has ever seen. He has created a vast body of work including Watchmen, V
For Vendetta, The League Of Extraordinary
Gentlemen, From Hell, A
Small Killing and Lost Girls.
Although he is now retired from 'corporate' comics, he promises
to persue more personal comic work in the future. More
details here.
If you know of any other comic-related reading recommendations
made by Alan Moore in interviews or articles we would love to hear
from you. Please provide a scan and/or link if possible.
Email: recommended
[at] readyourselfraw [dot] com |
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RECOMMENDED READING: |
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by Brain Bolland
"Brian Bolland is a neurological marvel, wired with no transmission
gap between his extraordinary mind and statue-steady drawing hand,
his imagery like perfect rub-down transfers still wet from the
brain, exquisitely imprinted with no detail lost. Here is all the
craft of the great 18th Century engravers brought to bear upon
a vision that is at once timeless and contemporary, by one of the
most striking and compelling illustrators of his day, each piece
of visual banquet to be wolfed down far too quickly by a grateful,
half-starved audience. Reserve your seat now, and enjoy the feast."
From the back-cover blurb |
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by Eddie Campbell
"I
like Eddie's stuff because it's Masculist fiction and it demonstrates that you
don't have to be published by Virago books in order to have any heart, understanding
or human sensitivity. Men feel things too. It just takes them longer. I like
it because it doesn't confuse being realistic with being depressing and
because it is written by someone who obviously finds being alive
an endless source of novelty and conundrum. I like it because
it fills me in on what would have happened to Jack Kerouac and
Neal Cassady if they'd traded in the Lincoln for a Ford Transit
and moved to Southend-On-Sea. On The Pier as
opposed to On The Road."
From the introduction to the Escape edition |
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by John Coulthart
"Coulthart soaks up the cultural heavy metals, will metabolise
them, pass them on in a depleted form as a hatched miasmas, masonries
collapsed in stipple. Wet black viper lines, escaped and slithering,
hissing from the nib… Here in your ungloved hands you
hold a sizzling isotope, a fuel rod of imaginal uranium. Dispose
of it at sea or in deep clay bed shafts as soon as you have read
the thing, if not before. If you must look at it, look through
smoked glass. At its far edge, horror shades into beauty, and
it is far beyond that edge that Coulthart takes us, into terrible
magnificence. Absorb with care. Enjoy with caution."
From the introduction
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by Robert Crumb
"Crumb's
earliest work shows a youthful sense of delight and exuberance, a sense of
glee to be working in the comic medium with access to all its varied icons
and delights. The characters in the early pieces, however weird or macabre
or ridiculous, seem to be purposefully two-dimensional comic characters… His
grotesque pranks are told in the same way that any animated character's
more innocuous japes would be presented, right down to the sense
of a winking camaraderie with the reader in the final panels.
In Crumbs piece, though, turning it into something dark and different,
raising all sorts of new and unsettling questions about the nature
of the form itself… But there was a gradual sense, at
least as I saw it, of Crumb becoming impatient or weary with
simply subverting the cartoon icons of his youth. It looked as
if he felt the need to grow and was looking around for territory
to grow into…In his work for Arcade,
we see Crumb confidently striking out for new pastures with an
assurance that shows in every line… I'd scarcely recovered
from the hard, no-nonsense pessimism of Crumb's look at life
in This Here Modern America when along
came his powerful and affecting portrait of an early backwoods
man, That's Life. This piece, which
manages to chart the rise and fall of a whole section of the
music industry while telling a powerful human story is, I think,
one of the best things that Crumb has ever done. A sad and bitter
indictment, it is nevertheless accomplished with a real human
warmth… Take a look at his sketchbooks and see just how
much he's capable of caring about a stack of firewood or the
light on his wife's forehead or a corner of his backyard, and
if that doesn't make you feel better about the world we live
in, then get a friend to try holding a mirror under your nose."
From an article in The Life & Times Of
Robert Crumb |
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by Al Davison
"Beautifully drawn and written, expertly told, the story
contained within these pages manages to talk about the things
that many people still find difficult to talk or think about,
and do so in a way that is at once accessible, entertaining and
elevating. By addressing the world upon the level of the all-to-human
rather than that of the unreachably superhuman it manages to
say something for all of us, able and otherwise, seemingly within
our own bodies and circumstances; apparently locked forever within
the inescapable spiral cage of our own DNA. Within the discipline
of his craft and the patience of his work within these pages,
Al Davison seems to have found the key to the lock of his own
cage. Try it. Who knows? Maybe it'll fit you too."
From the introduction
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by Samuel R Delany & Mia Wolff
"Bread & Wine affirms
the central truths of all Delany's writings with conviction that
is absolute, a light unscattered by the necessary mirror-surfaces
of fiction: that love will transfigure and redeem. That the profane
can only be the sacred. That the scum of all the earth and salt
of all the earth are of the same coin. This is wisdom. This is
necessary radiance to drive the shadows from the underpass, the
ghosts from needle park, to blow the fogs away from culture's
edge, it's coastline, and revel the widening ocean of the dispossessed
beyond as objects not of fear, but of desire, of love. This is
a marvelous book, filthy with feeling, with discovery. I recommend
it utterly, and without reservation."
From the introduction
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by Will Eisner
"I find it difficult to argue that Eisner is not the single
person most responsible for giving comics their brains. I can
think of no one who has explored the possibilities of this infant
medium so tirelessly and rewardingly, nor anyone who has so successfully
managed to evolve a working vocabulary for the parts and functions
of the comic strip and the fascinating way in which it can all
be fitted together… There is no one quite like Will Eisner.
There never has been, and on my more pessimistic days I doubt
there ever will be."
From the foreword to Volume 1 of The Spirit Archives
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by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
"This is an exemplary turn of the century
mainstream comic book. During a period when many comics seem to have lapsed
into an exhausted mire or else go blundering on ahead without the
merest shred of a coherent plan, the work in Planetary has
a glow and freshness that is all its own, a signature eruption
of the neurons into novel, interesting patterns at the turn of
each new page. It is at once concerned with everything that comics
were and everything that comics could be, all condensed into
a perfect jeweled and fractal snowflake. Read on and enjoy the
remarkable comic book product of a remarkable comic book moment.
And think Planetary."
From the introduction
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by Phil Elliott
"Phil Elliott is superbly accomplished, both as an artist and
as a writer, and never more so than when he's handling both these
tasks himself. This is not to dismiss his many collaborations with
other writers, but simply to state that in my opinion, Phil's work
finds its purest expression when he's in control of both words
and pictures. The charm of his insight and observation as a writer
so perfectly complement the sensibilities of his drawing that I
miss it when it isn't there, however talented his collaborator
might be... It is in the Bringing Up Father of
George McManus, of Frank King's breathtaking Gasoline
Alley that we find the real
forebears of The Suttons; strips that
would rather evoke a quiet, whimsical smile than surrender themselves
to the somewhat desperate pursuit of a daily belly-laugh... In
the collected Suttons, Phil
Elliott has given us what might yet prove to be his most enduring
and endearing work. He has also relieved us of the need to move
to Maidstone, for which we should remain properly grateful."
From the introduction |
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adapted by Hunt Emerson
"Might
I observe that this is not only the best Hunt Emerson that I've ever seen,
it's also the best D H Lawrence? Turning his deranged sensibilities to a work
of this length and stature has bought a sustained sense of tightness and structure
to Hunt's work that is normally eschewed in favour of his distinctive surreal
and spontaneous narrative flow…The pictures here have
all the EC-like attention to background detail that has characterized
in his work for so long... What sounded initially like the
most unlikely paring of the century has turned out to be something
very, very good indeed…Highly recommended."
From a review in Escape #10
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by Hunt Emerson
"How do you solve a problem like Hunt Emerson? How do you
keep a wave on the sand? How do you catch a cloud and pin it
down? How do you catch a moon bean in your hand? How do you get
unwanted nasal debris off of a suede jacket? The answer to all
these questions is that nobody knows. Not you. Not me. Not my
mum. Physically it must be noted that he has an economic, compact
structure. You could stand him in a corner of your kitchen, next
to the Chest Freezer, and he wouldn't be any trouble at all.
You'd hardly notice him. He has a modest, self effacing air about
him, and looks like the sort of person who can do funny voices.
Whether or not this is in fact the case I do not know. I have
certainly never heard him do one, nor have I met anyone who professes
to have done so. Like so many things about this enigmatic merchant
of mirth, it remains a mystery. His work, however, speaks for
him in a deep and masculine baritone."
From the introduction
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by Garth Ennis & Warren Pleece
"Garth Ennis is perhaps the most interesting
new writer to emerge in the last ten years and Warren Pleece perhaps the
most interesting artist. In True Faith,
their talents combine to create a fresh and original work, the
power and charm of which last long after one closes its pages."
From the back cover blurb
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by Neil Gaiman & Dave
McKean
"The textures and subtleties of meaning that the prose
and artwork bring forth from their conjunction make this a work
of rich complexity that rewards repeated examination and elicits
responses that a short story in its unillustrated form would
clearly be incapable of. This is something new. Its stylistic
nuances defy classification as easily as does its genre. Part
childhood memory, part reconstruction of a violent past, part
comment on the magic to be gleaned from remembered events, Violent
Cases evokes unfamiliar feelings in an unfamiliar way.
In doing so it promises much for the future output of its creators,
whether singly or together, and promises more for the future
of the medium as a whole."
From the introduction
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by Rick Geary
"From his subject matter to the stretched elastic of his rapidograph
line, from his wonky Box-Brownie panel composition to his snapshot
album method of story-telling, there is nothing that Rick Geary
does that anyone else does in quite the same way. He's an original.
More than simply a new angle on his chosen craft of cartooning,
between these covers Geary provides a fresh and individual slant
upon the world and how we see it, surely the only accomplishment
worth a damn in any field of the arts... At
Home With Rick Geary is at once an education,
a compendium of magic and a lot of laughs. I genuinely can't think
of a reason why everyone shouldn't want one of these."
From a review in Escape #8 |
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by Dave Gibbons
"Sharp as the lapels on his mohair, revved up on Lambrettas and doobs, The
Originals is Dave Gibbons at the very top of his considerable game, dripping
style and soul like dance floor sweat, delivering a narrative that's young, good-looking
and up for a ruck. Buy this immediately, and smell the oil, the blood, the seaside...
I don't care where you've been; you ain't been nowhere 'til you've been in."
From the advertising blurb |
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edited by Bill
Griffith & Art
Spiegelman
"During its brief lifespan Arcade published
some of the only truly worthwhile material produced during the
1970s, and for a short time seemed almost capable of revitalising
the near extinct genus of the Underground Comic. This dream was
truncated suddenly when Bill Griffiths woke up one morning to find Zippy
The Pinhead's pointed, severed head in bed with him, or
whatever way it was that those ruthless pinstripes Sicilians put
the frighteners on him. The fact that Arcade folded
is a shame; the fact that it has been pointedly ignored ever since
is a tragedy... at least on the effete scale with which we aesthetes
evaluate tragedies."
From the article 'Too Avant Garde For The Mafia?' Read
the full article here. |
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by Jamie Hernandez & Gilbert
Hernandez
"Anyone out there who hasn't yet bothered to check out
the Hernandez Brother's work… should stop being such gutless
and ineffectual wimps and go and do so immediately."
Letter to Infinity #6
"Jamie's art balances big white and black spaces to create
a world of nuance in between, just as his writing balances our
big human feelings and our small human trivias to generate its
incredible emotional power. Quite simply, this is one of the
20th century's most significant comic creators at the peak of
his form, with every line a wedding of classicism and cool. He
has never been better."
From the back cover blurb to Locas In Love |
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by Sam Keith
"Sam Keith's work, for many years, has occupied a curious,
perhaps unique position in the modern comics landscape. It stands
in that ambiguous territory that may either be the more experimental
margins of comics mainstream, or may be in the more moderate
reaches of the avant-garde. Almost a country to itself, with
its own postage stamps, traditional dress, and language, Keith's
oeuvre stands alone. The style and content and concerns of his
creations, always marvelously idiosyncratic, owe no obvious debt
to any of the medium's louder voices, nor has his work thus far
flung up an obfuscating cloud of imitators, masking its originality.
Within a comic field where signals seem increasingly repetitive
and scrambled, the sheer individuality of Keith's performance
lends his work almost a beacon clarity... Here in Zero
Girl, Sam Keith serves up the wonderful, superbly balanced
meal his work has always promised; whetting the appetite for
banquets yet to come. Enjoy, with relish."
From the introduction
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edited by George Khoury
"George Khoury's True Brit is at
once a passport and the perfect travel-guide to the marvellous
lost continent of the British comic. For both those who didn't
realise that they did comics on this side of the Atlantic, and
those seasoned know-alls who can already tell their Dudley Watkins
from their Paddy Brennan, this book is a treasure-trove of rare
art, interviews and information, illuminating a hidden and unsuspected
world of wonders."
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by Peter Kuper
"Given that Peter Kuper's work is usually wordless
and silent, it is all the more extraordinary that he should be
one of the strongest and truest radical voices to emerge from contemporary
America. In Sticks & Stones, Kuper
crafts a Bush-era parable so beautiful, simple and lucid that
it could be understood and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of nationality.
This is a powerful, angry and compassionate document, and in
its perfectly measured silence there reside a profound human
eloquence. Highly recommended."
From the back cover blurb
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by Harvey Kurtzman
"The
first time I encountered Harvey Kurtzman, I was around ten years old. The encounter
took place between the covers of The
Bedside MAD, a paperback collection; strange, American,
the cover painting possibly by Kelly Freas, the edges of the
pages dyed a bright, almost fluorescent yellow. To this day,
it burns inside my head. The stories in that volume and the Kurtzman
stories I discovered later brandished satire like a monkey-wrench:
a wrench to throw against pop-culture's gears or else employed
to wrench our perceptions just a quarter-twist towards the left,
no icon left unturned."
From a tribute to Harvey Kurtzman, The Comics Journal
#157
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by Carol Lay
"I don't know why I find Carol
Lay's stuff so wonderful and fascinating, but there's something
about it that really tickles me. It might just be the quirky
sensibilities of the stories, or the fact that her style is so
reminiscent of traditional romance comics in places that the
oddness of it looks all the more appealing in context. There's
something about it which I find very, very charming."
From Amazing Heroes #145, July 15, 1988
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by Scott McCloud
"Understanding Comics is
quite simply the best analysis of the medium that I have encountered.
With this book Scott McCloud has taken breathtaking leaps towards
establishing a critical language that the comic art form can
work with and build upon in future. Lucid and accessible, it
is an astonishing feat of perception. Highly recommended."
From the back cover blurb
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by Mike Mignola
"Hellboy is a gem, one of considerable
size and a surprising luster. While it is obviously a gem that
has been mined from that immeasurably rich seam first excavated
by the late Jack Kirby, it is in the skillful cutting and the
setting of the stone that we can see Mignola's sharp contemporary
sensibilities at work... The collection in your hands distills
all that is best about the comic book into a dark, intoxicating
ruby wine. Sit down and knock it back in one, then wait for your
reading experience to undergo a mystifying and alarming transformation. Hellboy is
a passport to a corner of funny-book heaven you may never want
to leave. Enter and enjoy."
From the introduction
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by Pat Mills & Kevin O'Neill
"If Watchmen did
in any way kill off the superhero – which is a dubious proposition – then Marshal
Law has taken it further with this wonderful act of necrophilia,
where it has degraded the corpse in a really amusing way. I really
think that's great... Pat and Kevin do it so well, with
such style and with such obvious malice; that's the fun thing
about Marshal Law. They're not just
kidding, they really hate superheroes."
From an interview, The Comics Journal #138
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including Roger The Dodger & Jonah in The
Beano; Frankie Stein & The
Nervs in Wham!; Faceache in Buster
"More than just a great comic creator, Ken Reid was a great
English fantasist, with a drawing style as accomplished as that
of a Carl Barks or a Wally Wood. Reid created a fantasy world
in his comic strips that had its own unique asylum atmosphere,
where hilarity was dragged out to the point of gibbering dementia
and the humour flirted shamelessly with the disturbing and the
repulsive. In all the rich history of British children's comics
I can think of few artists who can equal Reid in the technical
skill, and none who match him for sheer inventiveness or originality
of vision. British comics have lost one of their greatest and
most seriously overlooked craftsmen. I regret never having penned
this tribute while he was alive to read it."
From a tribute to Ken Reid in Escape #11 |
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by Joe Sacco
"In
Joe Sacco's Palestine, the
autobiographical comic book reaches beyond everyday trivia to
embrace the travel documentary. Utilizing a masterful array of
visual devices and employing consummate draftsmanship, Sacco
details life in the Occupied Territories with sensitivity, insight,
and a fine eye for moral ambiguities. Highly recommended."
From the back cover blurb
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by Dave Sim & Gerhard
"Cerebus,
as if I need to say so, is still to comic books what Hydrogen is to the Periodic
Table, and is one of the only comics that I still read and enjoy
regularly every month."
From Correspondence : From Hell, Cerebus #220
"Cerebus is one of the comics
that I like best in the world at the moment... It's always
possible to learn from Dave... Comics in Dave's hands come
the closet to music in some respects. And he's also got – like
I say, the thing that's very important to me – the desire
to push forward and experiment and move into untested ground… There's
not a lot of people who you can learn from in terms of storytelling,
but Dave's always one of them."
From an Interview, The Comics Journal #138 |
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by Posy Simmonds
"She's
an extraordinary cartoonist. In the collected volumes that I've got there are
places where she does some ingenious things with storytelling and characterization.
The pity of it is that the vast majority of people who like to think of themselves
as comic fans…will never do themselves the favour of picking
it up and getting a decent education in graphic narrative."
Letter to Infinity #8
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by Gary Spencer Millidge
"A
darkly glittering example of the soap opera noir, Gary Spencer Millidge's Strangehaven is
an occasionally-opening portal into a beautifully realised otherworld,
a plane all the more intriguing and sinister for its resemblance
to our own mundane territories. Perfectly controlled and naturalistic
storytelling creates a wraparound illusion of the everyday in
which surreal and threatening incidents are studdied like unnerving
little jewels. Gary Millidge is a consummate craftsman, a watchmaker
patiently constructing his own unique universe. For a passport
to a planet of unsettling delights that writhe beneath the surface
of the ordinary, I strongly recommend that you attempt to be
there when the portal next opens."
From the back cover blurb, Strangehaven #14
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by Art Spiegelman
"Since
discovering his work in the mid 70's, I have been convinced that Art Spiegelman
is perhaps the single most important comic creator working within the field
and in my opinion Maus represents
his most accomplished work to date…Intensely subjective,
it manages to encompass subjects as sensitive and diverse as
the holocaust on one hand and the yawning emotional gulf between
parents and children on the other, all in a fashion that is at
once revealing, moving and innovatory. Maus surely
marks one of the high points of the comic medium to date. It
is perhaps the first genuine graphic novel in recent times, and
as such its significance cannot be overstated. Please read it."
From a review in Escape #10
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by Carol Swain
"Against the starkly realized backdrop of overcast mid-Wales
with its rock-ruptured slopes, its immense Victorian dams and
drowned villages, Carol Swain tells the story of Gary, the Foodboy,
and his painful friendship with the heroic, tragic Ross, a feral
outsider living by choice or necessity upon his world's most
frayed, precarious margins. This is a fierce and touching human
story, and for all its finely-observed contemporary backdrop
of post-Thatcher Wales where fragile, vestigial communities cling
doggedly to life around the closed pits in the heartbroken valleys,
the emotions and loyalties here could be Paleolithic, as old
as the weather-chewed landscape itself. Dark and full of life,
like soil, Foodboy is a little masterpiece,
a perfect example of what modern comics are capable of if they
only try."
From the back cover blurb
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by Curt Swan
"...Curt Swan to me was the essential Superman artist. Whether
he was working on Superboy or Superman or
any of the other books, there was something special about Curt's
line, the actual line itself... There was something about Curt's Superman that
was exactly right. The line was so clean; the three dimensional
figures were so perfectly placed. They had weight, they had solidity.
And the whole world, there was a coziness to it, a warmth, a softness...
I loved the man's work! With someone like Curt, you could probably
talk all day and not really scratch the essence of what made him
such a great artist. His stuff had such a powerful effect on me
at such an impressionable age, and I don't really know how to
measure that. Still, looking back over my career, those last two
issues of Superman... They're on the
very, very brief short list of stories of mine that I'm proudest
of."
From a tribute to Curt Swan, from Curt Swan:
A Life In Comics |
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by Bryan Talbot
"For
me, the heart of the strip's appeal lies in its relentless experimentation.
While remaining lucid, it explores as wide a range of graphic storytelling
techniques as you're likely to find between soft covers these days. That it
accomplishes this with such visual power and charm is an added bonus. A superb
illustrator, Bryan Talbot firmly anchors his complex and shifting
metaphysical fantasy in a solid bedrock of beautifully rendered
Victorian architecture and meticulously researched period backdrops.
The combined effect is stunning. As a crucial stepping stone
between where comics were and where they are now, Bryan deserves
our gratitude, and Luther Arkwright deserves
to be read. More than this, it demands our attention as an intricate
and fascinating graphic accomplishment in its own right."
From the introduction to the Valkyrie Press edition
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by Bryan Talbot
"Other
than the obvious delights that Heart
Of Empire offers in terms of your art and storytelling,
it's a wonderful, compelling narrative. The mad, socio-historical
satire that has always formed the backbone of your Arkwright work
has never been more pointed or accurate."
From a letter to Bryan Talbot printed in Heart Of
Empire #1
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by Bryan Talbot
"Bryan
Talbot's The Tale Of One Bad
Rat is an ingenious, intertextual narrative the interweaves
the charming, whimsical, and above all, English vision of Beatrix
Potter with a vision of England as it has become; the soft
juxtaposed with the savage; Peter Rabbit lost in Cardboard
City. Thoroughly excellent."
From the back cover blurb of The Tale Of One Bad
Rat Book 1
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by Craig Thompson
"Both funny and genuinely touching in turn, Craig Thompson's Good-bye
Chunky Rice is an affecting meditation upon friendship,
loneliness and loss, all delivered with a real feel for the
musicality of the comic strip form. This work sings and dances,
and you could do a lot worse than to sing and dance along with
it. Highly recommended."
From the back cover blurb
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by Rick Veitch
"Rick Veitch is one of the most genuinely innovative talents
ever to grace mainstream comics, and in Greyshirt:
Indigo Sunset he treats his fans to a two-fisted burning-rubber trawl through
the banned, beloved and just plain bad neighborhoods of funnybook
felony. Now get in the back seat and keep that smart mouth buttoned,
pal. You too, sister. You're going for a ride."
From the introduction
"Rick... is a superb writer as well as fantastic artist...
That Indigo Sunset story was wonderful, one
of my favourite comics of last year, just because of the way Rick
has taken all of these insignificant trailing threads from the
continuity of the regular
Greyshirt series in Tomorrow
Stories and woven them into this coherent
narrative that had all these wonderful, bizarre pulp touches
in it, and where he was roping in people like John Severin
and people like that on the back up stories. I thought that
was a wonderful little package."
From an interview in Comic Book Artist Vol 1 #25 |
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by Rick Vietch
"Whatever it is that the comics of the 1980's turn out
to be remembered for, The One was
right there in the thick of it, carving out a niche in the mainstream
for dangerous ideas long before dangerous ideas became box office
certainties. If you're looking for a long distance talent, a
marathon man who can cover the ground and still be creatively
fresh at the other end, then you're looking for Rick Vietch.
If you're in search of a graphic story that captures in freeze
frame a turbulent period for both funny-books and the world at
large, look no further. This is the one."
From the introduction
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by Jim Woodring
"Jim
Woodring's stories manage, by some occult means, to be at once unsettlingly
alien and intimately familiar. The effect is not unlike opening a new book
to find the illustrated account of a dream you had when you were five and told
no one about. Cryptic and haunting, Woodring's work evokes a sense of something
important and forgotten. Easily the most hypnotic talent to enter
the field in years."
From the back cover blurb
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