ABOUT NICK ABADZIS :

Nick Abadzis is a writer and artist who lives in London. He creates comics, illustrations and children's books for a living. In 1994 he won a UK Comic Art Award for a collection of his rites-of-passage comic strip Hugo Tate: O, America, originally serialised in Deadline magazine. As a writer, his other comic work includes Millennium Fever (DC/Vertigo, 1995) with Duncan Fegredo, and Children Of The Voyager (Marvel, 1993) with Paul Johnson. His most recently published work, You Can't Always Get What You Want, appeared in Project: Superior (AdHouse Books, 2005). His latest graphic novel, Laika, was released in 2007 by First Second Books - read a preview here. Additionally, he works as an editorial consultant devising, developing and writing best-selling children's and specialist magazines for a London publisher. He also develops cartoon web-sites, including Ancient Greece for the BBC Schools site.

For further information and artwork samples visit Nick Abadzis.com.

"You asked me for a list of recommendations for Read Yourself Raw, so here they are. I've tried not to repeat what some of your other contributors have listed, though in some cases that's simply not possible. Also, I've restricted myself to stuff that's available in English (mostly) and in print (mostly). There are two lists - the first is cartoonists I like and the second is just a list of books or comics that I've read and enjoyed reasonably recently. It feels a bit incomplete, as I always buy loads of things in foreign languages, but there you go."
Nick Abadzis
May 2005

Jessica Abel
Artbabe, Jessica's comic published by Fantagraphics is, I believe, largely out of print though there are two collections of much of the material that appeared in it. Mirror, Window or Soundtrack are excellent places to start, but if you haven't read the wonderful and frightening La Perdida yet, start there and work backwards.

Links:
Art Babe.com

Doug Allen
I once read a book by Doug Allen while traveling home on a packed commuter train. It was embarrassing, because I nearly wet myself laughing and everyone was turning to look at the nutter who couldn't stop hooting at the funnybook he held. Doug Allen's character Steven has been published in several books, mostly, I think, by Fantagraphics. He also did a comic called Idiotland (Fantagraphics) with sometime collaborator, the equally wonderful Gary Leib. Seek out their work if you like strange senses of humour.

Links:
Doug Allen Comics.com
Gary Leib.com
Twinkleland.com

Edmond Baudoin
Not too much of Baudoin's work has been translated into English, regrettably. A short story, La Wagram, appeared in last year's arty Rosetta 2 anthology (Alternative Comics, 2004), which is worth tracking down just to get a taste of the French master's awesome comics. If you like reading French, then his books are available. Buy any of them, they're all amazing. Personal favourites are: Le Portrait, Couma Aco, Le Chemin aux Oiseaux and Le Chemin de Saint-Jean.

Links:
Edmond Baudoin
Indy Magazine: The Twenty Best European Graphic Novels You Haven't Read

Leo Baxendale
Baxendale created The Bash Street Kids in The Beano and therefore came up with one of the most enduring ugly characters ever: Plug (see also Ken Reid below). Like Reid, Dudley D. Watkins, Davey Law and R. T. Nixon, his is a comics grammar comprised of schoolyard pranks, gags and visual invention not demonstrated since in British comics with quite the same creativity and verve. These giants were the grandfathers of the kind of humour now taken for granted in titles such as Viz. Baxendale should be knighted, and the creations of all unsung comics creators here in the UK made assigned texts in schools. They are, after all, classics.

Links:
Leo Baxendale

Christophe Blain
Isaac the Pirate is available from NBM books in two English editions that collect the first four French albums in a smaller format that don't really show off Blain's incredible artwork. No format could constrain the man's formidable storytelling talents, however.
Also available from NBM is The Speed Abater. Great stuff.

Links:
Christophe Blain

Chester Brown
Back in the day, when Chester Brown put out a comic called Yummy Fur with alarming regularity, he created two small masterpieces. These were Ed the Happy Clown and I Never Liked You. Both of these are available as collected graphic novels from Drawn & Quarterly.

Links:
Chester Brown Profile

Dan Clowes
Three Clowes favourites of mine: Ghost World, David Boring and 20th Century Eightball (Fantagraphics Books). You can pick almost any Clowes collection and it will be worth reading, but these are just in a class of their own. Outstanding.

Further Clowes reading:
Eightball: A continuing master class in how to be inventive in humankind's most inventive communications medium.

Links:
Dan Clowes Profile

Robert Crumb
The Complete Crumb Comics (Fantagraphics Books)
There are three mountain tops in my personal pantheon of comics Gods. Crumb sits atop one, Schulz and Hergé the others. Everyone else I like sits someway up one of these three peaks, but these are the guys who hit me between the eyes at an early age and injected this cartooning stuff into my blood. This set starts you at the beginning, unfortunately omitting the Yum-Yum book which I believe is only available in a French edition. But never mind. This is, as they say, the shit.

Further Crumb reading:
The Crumb Sketchbooks: Free your mind and your ass will follow.
Weirdo: If you are forming a taste for underground comics, then it might also be worth tracking down Weirdo which lasted, I think, for about 28 issues between 1980 and sometime in the early nineties. My favourite anthology comic of all time, originally edited by Crumb himself, and later by other half Aline. My favourite period though is the one where Peter Bagge, himself justly famous for Hate edited the mag. It was a virtuoso balancing act of bringing together the most twisted minds populating comics' landscape at that time and presenting them all in an intoxicating sandwich together with a garnish and a smile.

Links:
Robert Crumb Profile

Glenn Dakin
Abe: Right For All The Wrong Reasons (Top Shelf)
This is as near to poetry as comics gets. Small, personal comics that talk about big subjects. Temptation, a collection of Dakin's philosophical funnies from the pages of Escape and Deadline has also been reprinted recently by Active Images.

Links:
Glenn Dakin Profile

Hergé
The Adventures of Tintin
Boy reporter. Captain Haddock. Snowy. Professor Calculus. Moon rockets. Mystery. Political intrigue. UFOs. Sharks. Incas. Opera singers with voices that shatter glass. The best.
Further Hergé reading: The Adventures of Jo, Zette et Jocko.

Links:
Hergé Profile

Los Bros Hernandez
A short hop down the peak from Crumb are Los Bros. They were a big influence on me when I was starting out, but the new reader might not know where to start. If you've never read any of their work, best place to begin would probably be the big, hardback collections of Palomar by Gilbert and Locas by Jaime. (Published by Fantagraphics Books.)

Further Los Bros reading: Love and Rockets Vols 1 & 2

Links:
Gilbert Hernandez Profile
Jamie Hernandez Profile

Dylan Horrocks
That Hicksville (Drawn & Quarterly) is not remarked upon more often as one of the landmark graphic novels of our times is unjust and wrong. A celebration of sorts of the medium itself and the power of storytelling, Hicksville is magic realism in comics. More people should read this book. Horrocks is now working on a comic called Atlas (Drawn & Quarterly), which comes out too occasionally.

Links:
Hicksville.co.nz
Dylan Horrocks at Drawn & Quarterly

Otto Messmer
Messmer created Felix the Cat, one of the very first and in this writer's opinion, finest cartoon characters ever created. Nine Lives To Live is a collection of Messmer's Felix newspaper strips and I love it. Available from Fantagraphics Books.

Links:
Otto Messmer

Peter Milligan & Brendan McCarthy
Milligan is quite rightly well known for his contributions to the US mainstream, but two of his early collaborations with the UK's own Moebius, Brendan McCarthy are shamefully out of print. Skin (coloured by Carol Swain) and Rogan Gosh are two of the best comics ever to be produced upon the fair British Isles and, as usual, Blighty never noticed what was going on in her own navel; just picked 'em out and blew 'em away like so much fluff. Unsurpassed, and long overdue for new editions.

Links:
Brendan McCarthy
Peter Milligan at Sequential Tart

Tony Millionaire
Maakies (Fantagraphics Books)
Track down the first, larger format collection from Fantagraphics, one of the funniest collections of a comic strip ever.

Sock Monkey (Dark Horse)
A different take on sort-of-the-same characters. Hallucinogenic, naval-gazing beauty. And lots of boats.

Links:
Tony Millionaire

Alan Moore
With Steve Parkhouse: The Bojeffries Saga
Back in the early eighties, Dez Skinn published a comic called Warrior. This was one of two highlights of that mag, both scripted by Moore. The incredibly versatile Parkhouse is never better as Moore's foil, creating a comedic masterpiece populated by the funniest family since Mr. Addams'.

With David Lloyd: V For Vendetta (DC Comics)
In this writer's opinion, still Moore's best, harshest and most haunting work.

Links:
Alan Moore Profile

Muñoz & Sampayo
José Muñoz in his collaborations with fellow Argentine, writer Carlos Sampayo created Alack Sinner for the European comics market back in the seventies. Together they tell stories of life in the underbelly of the big city. Muñoz has an extraordinary ability to embed within his characters' bodies and faces their distinguishing idiosyncrasies and mannerisms. In this way, he begins to draw a reader into a character's life and often claustrophobic worlds, into their innermost fears and feelings. He invents new visual grammar in much of his work and his use of black and white is both incredibly subtle and utterly expressive. Sinner was available from Fantagraphics in the eighties and nineties as a black-and-white reprint magazine, and both Joe's Bar (Titan Books), a Sinner spin-off and Billie Holliday (Fantagraphics) have been published in English. Seek them out.

Links:
José Muñoz
Carlos Sampayo

Gary Panter
Gary Panter created Jimbo which made a big impression on me when I stole it from the comic book store I worked in when I was a kid. Shaky lines and scribblings with layers of meaning, he proved that "comics" was a way of thinking, not just of storytelling. His sketchbook, Satiro-Plastic is available from Drawn & Quarterly and a whole heap of mini-comics are available to buy from his shop at his website.

Links:
Gary Panter.com
Gary Panter at Drawn & Quarterly

Ken Reid
Grotesquery incarnate in Faceache and Frankie Stein, the British psyche explored in Roger the Dodger, Reid was one of Britain's greatest cartoonists. I have a whole load of old comic annuals featuring his work and they are precious, precious items. Find, read, enjoy.

Links:
Ken Reid Tribute Site

Charles M. Schulz
Peanuts. 'Nuff said. The Complete Peanuts volumes 1 to 3 are out now from Fantagraphics Books. Start at the beginning and learn why this man enthralled people the world over with his marvelous doodles and philosophical insights for fifty years non-stop.

Links:
Schulz Museum
Peanuts at Fantagraphics Books

Posy Simmonds
There wasn't much in the way of actual comics in British newspapers when I was growing up, bar Posy and Steve Bell. Bell is a great political cartoonist, but I always got the impression that Posy was a storyteller first and was attracted to her stuff more for that reason. Her many collections of The Silent Three strip from The Guardian are out of print but worth tracking down. All her children's comic books are very fine indeed, and Gemma Bovery is a full-on graphic novel for the chattering classes. But don't be put off by that, it's a carefully-plotted, beautifully drawn and absorbing piece of work and one of the few genuinely worthwhile full-length graphic narratives to come out of Blighty for too long a year.

Links:
Posy Simmonds Profile

Lewis Trondheim & Friends
Like Blain's work, US publisher NBM once again publishes small editions of much of Trondheim 's best-known work. With euro-stars Joann Sfar there is Dungeon Vol. 1: Duck Heart and Dungeon Vol. 2: The Barbarian Princess, with Manu Larcenet there is Astronauts of the Future. If you read French (or even if you don't), seek out the original large-format editions. But each of these excellent and prolific European cartoonists are worth seeking out for more than just their popular collaborations with each other.

Links:
Lewis Trondheim.com
Manu Larcenet.com
Joann Sfar

Dudley D. Watkins
The first comic I ever bought with my own money was The Dandy, which went a good way to teaching me to read. I think Watkins drew or created half of the characters in there. His work turned up in The Beano, The Topper, The Beezer, Sparky, anything produced by DC Thompson, although Oor Wullie and The Broons appeared in The Sunday Post. I was envious of the Scots when I was a kid because they had these marvellous characters appearing every Sunday in a newspaper. We had to wait 'til the Christmas annuals came out - my brother always got The Broons and I got Oor Wullie and The Dandy Book. Wullie featured the exploits of a good-hearted spiky-haired boy whose favourite possession was a bucket. He owned a mouse called Jeemy and had friends with names like Soapy and Fat Bob. I didn't know it then, but Watkins was Britain's Hergé - some of his comedy reminds me of the scrapes Captain Haddock gets into and his linework and ability to communicate character is as masterful as Monsieur Remi's. He was also adroit at combining everyday mundanity with the surreal - Dan's world was a combination of modern Britain and Wild West elements. As immortal as the comedy of Laurel and Hardy, Watkins' humour still makes me laugh. Timeless. No, "braw".

There are several collections of both The Broons and Oor Wullie, Lord Snooty and many other DC Thompson characters available. Often they're remaindered, so it's worth checking those cut-price bookshops for these gems.

Links:
That's Braw

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Jonathan Cape)
Shrimpy & Paul by Marc Bell (Highwater Books)
Mother, Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier (Dark Horse)
Shutterbug Follies by Jason Little (Pantheon)
Blankets by Craig Thompson (Top Shelf)
Mish Mash by Blutch (Editions Cornelius) - OK, sorry, this one's French but I couldn't resist.
Hey, Wait... by Jason (Fantagraphics)
Sshhhh! by Jason (Fantagraphics)
Odds Off by Matt Madden (Highwater Books)
Palestine by Joe Sacco (Jonathan Cape)
Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco (Jonathan Cape)
Lost Girl by Nabiel Kanan (NBM)
Skidmarks: The Complete Bic Cycle by Ilya (Active Images)
When I'm Old & Other Stories by Gabrielle Bell (Alternative Comics)
Fantastic Firsts by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Friends (Marvel)
Black Hole by Charles Burns (Fantagraphics)
Hey, Mister by Pete Sickman-Garner (Top Shelf)
Rubber Necker by Nick Bertozzi (Alternative Comics)
The Metamorphosis by Peter Kuper adapted from Kafka (Crown)
Sweaterweather by Sara Varon (Alternative Comics)
Catch As Catch Can by Greg Cook (Highwater Books)
Crumple by Dave Cooper (Fantagraphics)
My Little Funny by Kaz (Fantagraphics)

Anthologies:
Project: Superior by Various (Adhouse Books)
Kramer's Ergot edited by Sammy Harkham (Avodah Books)
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 13 edited by Chris Ware (Hamish Hamilton)