I Read Comic Books discussion

This month we’re trying something new! Instead of everyone reading the same book, we’ll all pick a book we want to read that fits the month’s prompt. The IRCB crew will be picking from your selections for the episode.

If you like this new format for Book of the Month, we may end up trying it for the rest of the year, so please let us know your thoughts!

For February we’ll be looking at comics with unconventional art styles! Hard to define, but you know it when you see it - that could mean a medium rarely seen in comics (photography, oil painting, etc.) or an abstract way of drawing.

Part of the fun of picking your own book is interpreting the prompt in your own way, so there are no hard and fast rules. If you’re stuck, some ideas we love are under the spoiler tag!

(view spoiler)[Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (photography/collage)


Marvel Knights: Spider-Man: Fight Night by Matt Kindt


Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars by Jeff Lemire (watercolor)
(hide spoiler)]

Also the IRCB Reading Challenge for 2022 is now live! Check it out here: 2022 Reading Challenge

The BotM episode will be recorded on February 27, and released March 2, wherever you get your podcasts!

I'll go first! I'm super excited about the pick-your-own prompts...though I might be a little biased! :)

For this month I'm planning to read Skip by Molly Mendoza - the art looks SO COOL!

What do you folks think: does Coda (by Simon Spurrier with art by Matias Bergara) count as having nontraditional art? It looks pretty cool but I don’t wanna sneak in something that doesn’t count.

Also wondering about Ether from Matt Kindt and David Rubin as a possibility

Both Matias Bergara and David Rubin have unique styles. I think they'd probably count. It you are up in the air, I liked Ether more than Coda.

Agreed with Chad!

'Stunt' by Michael DeForge

I’m not certain this is completely consistent with the stated theme, but I was thinking about re-visiting one or more of the “wordless novels” of Lynd Ward. For those not familiar with Ward, from 1929-1937 he wrote six of these. The stories are told as a series of captionless woodcuts, the art style often expressionistic. Ward has been cited as a major influence by a number of later graphic novelists including Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Robert Crumb. There is an annual Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, sponsored by Penn State University Libraries. Here is an illustration from 1932’s Wild Pilgrimage: A Novel in Woodcuts .

In the Pines: Five Murder Ballads by Erik Kriek- the art is in duotone, with a different color for each tale. Reminiscent of scratch art or wood reliefs, Kriek’s black inks were evocative of Appalachian landscapes and times gone by.

I’ve long been a fan of narrative songs that tell a story, with Appalachian-inspired murder ballads being particularly appealing to me. Author and illustrator Erik Kriek is actually Danish, but took an American type of ballad, and turned it into a new type of art. He didn’t just adapt the song straight into comic form, instead he interpreted the lyrics to tell a fresh story, sometimes to my liking and sometimes not. So not only did I enjoy the art, but I got to go on a musical journey as I looked up YouTube videos of these songs by various performers.

If people need a suggestion, Charles Burns's Black Hole would be a good option for those looking for something off the beaten path.

Ether it is; thanks for the feedback and suggestions

I'm thinking about reading ODY-C, Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward. I read Black Blot with Christian Ward before and he has some of the craziest colors and art and while I remember very little else about that series his art is definitely what I would consider unconventional so I'm excited to check out another series he's done.

Matt wrote: "I'm thinking about reading ODY-C, Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward. I read Black Blot with Christian Ward before and he has some of the craziest colors..."

I absolutely hated ODY-C. Fraction's writing is terrible on this one. I recommend Invisible Kingdom instead if you haven't read it.

I’d like to choose The Department of Truth, if that counts.

Whitney wrote: "I’d like to choose The Department of Truth, if that counts."

I would definitely count that!

Some great picks here so far :)

Having a bit of an internal debate. First instinct is to look for something by Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack, or Dave McKean. Or maybe re-reading Here or Through a Life, but I’m currently leaning toward Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth which I have never actually read yet.

Intrigued by some of the other books in this thread, so still considering.

Paul wrote: "Having a bit of an internal debate. First instinct is to look for something by Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack, or Dave McKean. Or maybe re-reading Here or [book:Through a Life|4207351..."

These are killer options, though!

Lots of choices! Lots of ways to interpret "unconventional art style".

It made me think of Dinosaur Comics, which has been re-using the same art over and over for years. I just checked to see whether it is still making new content, and, yes! Just had it's 19th birthday.

https://www.qwantz.com/

Although it is only in French, and probably out-of-print, I can't help mentioning AK Misère.

The art is all photographs, which isn't completely unusual, but these are photographs of stuffed toys.

That reminds me of John Byrne's Star Trek: New Visions comic where he used screen grabs of the TV show.

Last month I read Parallel Lives by Olivier Schrauwen.

That has some extremely odd color choices.

Ed wrote: "Last month I read Parallel Lives by Olivier Schrauwen.

That has some extremely odd color choices."

Ha! Pretty much everything Fantagraphics publishes could fit in this month's category.

Whitney wrote: "I’d like to choose The Department of Truth, if that counts."

I was thinking exactly this, too, Whitney! I've only read issue 1, and I have needed a reason to get my act together and read more of it.

I may need to read The Department of Truth, Vol 1: The End of the World for this challenge. That or maybe Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn!

Geoff wrote: "Whitney wrote: "I’d like to choose The Department of Truth, if that counts."

I was thinking exactly this, too, Whitney! I've only read issue 1, and I have needed a reason to get my act together an..."

Haha, I've been procrastinating on it too! I'm using this as my reason too.

I would like to read Behind You: One-Shot Horror Stories if it fits in this category.

Just a heads up, Kara, Kait, and I have decided to read In the Pines: 5 Murder Ballads for the show! Look forward to the episode on March 2nd!

I'm reading Shade, the Changing Woman. I didn't pick it because it fits the theme, but it does fit. The characters have lots of "visions" and those are drawn in a "trippy" way.

The story, unfortunately, interests me less than in the previous volumes Shade, the Changing Girl, Volume 1: Earth Girl Made Easy and Shade, the Changing Girl Vol. 2: Little Runaway.

I read the stunningly illustrated The Little Red Wolf by Amélie Fléchais (author and artist). The art hooked me from the very first page, and the story/fable was well done too.

I'd like to read Tillie Walden's collection Alone in Space, if that is a good fit for this category.

[Not sure whether your looking for reviews as usual, or intend to discuss them on episode—Okay to air, if so—but I have opinions to share on this book.]

I picked Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth as my “non-traditional art” read. My first instinct was to choose a “messy” book for this criteria, but I decided on “Jimmy” because it is pretty notoriously known for its experimental layouts, even if it is meticulously clean-lined, and simply because I haven’t read it before.

Wow, reading this book was a *chore*. Let’s get the character/plot out of the way: Jimmy Corrigan is a meek, mopey bald 36-year old shuffling through life. He is reunited with his absentee father (also named Jimmy) whose childhood we end up spending much of the book in, after being confused whether it’s another flight of younger Jimmy’s imagination or dreams. Abusive and negligent parenting permeate the book, making for an oppressive read that never has an uplift. Useful therapy for the author, but unenjoyable for the reader.

The art is impressive, something that awes in its apparent simplicity and sometimes obsessive detail. The layouts are regular grids of rectilinear panels subdivided into smaller grids as desired to show detail or flow between. Unfortunately, they are arranged in such a way that my comics-trained brain will read the flow incorrectly about half the time, requiring a re-read of the page to have it make some sense—in a book of almost 400 pages, that’s a lot of re-reading. Ware occasionally adds arrows to try helping that, but it’s just a sign that he knows the layout is problematic yet remains a slave to it.

So many of the panels are tiny squares, where ironically most of the “action” happens between the larger usually-static panels. It started to feel like he just didn’t want to draw character expressions since the tiny panels tend to be all text with a couple-line outline of a speaker’s head.

The text throughout is way too small for anyone without perfect eyesight to read comfortably, and there are font and poor-contrast choices that made it a *literal* effort to read. This book needs to be in a larger-than-normal print size, and is published in a half-size; it’s also unavailable digitally where one could pinch and zoom (which I absentmindedly attempted a few times) or benefit from Comixology’s “Guided View”.

This book dares you to continue reading it at every page and panel, and it’s a sucker’s bet. Not worth it.

I feel the same about Chris Ware. Very talented. I can appreciated it from a distance, but the effort to read the small panels on big pages is not worth it.

Erin wrote: "I'll go first! I'm super excited about the pick-your-own prompts...though I might be a little biased! :)

For this month I'm planning to read Skip by Molly Mendoza - the art looks S..."

Thank you for this post, which led to me checking the book out from my library. I usually dislike storylines like this, or books where "random trippy art" is such a driver, but the combination in this book really worked for me. I doubt it would ever have even shown up on my radar without your post. ❤️

Mike wrote: "Just a heads up, Kara, Kait, and I have decided to read In the Pines: 5 Murder Ballads for the show! Look forward to the episode on March 2nd!"

I'm thrilled you are reading my suggestion!

I read Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars for this month's challenge and loved it!

This month I read My Favorite Thing is Monsters vol. 1 by Emil Ferris, I read it through Hoopla and kept forgetting to lock my screen orientation so tilting it this way and that was a little annoying on some pages. The wordiness was a bit rough in parts but I enjoyed the ballpoint pen on paper look and thought it added a lot to the feel of the book. Got totally sucked in by the end.

Ben wrote: "This month I read My Favorite Thing is Monsters vol. 1 by Emil Ferris, I read it through Hoopla and kept forgetting to lock my screen orientation so tilting it this way and that was..."

I loved that comic, the ballpoint pen art was amazing.

This was basically an excuse to check out more Fantagraphics books sitting on my to-read list so I grabbed Heads or Tails. It's a neat little anthology collection of short stories, all by the same creator but with her experimenting using different styles for each one. Some stuff play with the form a bit, some are just sort of funny, some are plain weird. But it's a good one! Definitely great for anyone looking to try something new.

Ben wrote: "This month I read My Favorite Thing is Monsters vol. 1 by Emil Ferris..."

I've been waiting so long for part 2! According to my notes, I pre-ordered it in May 2017.

But that was probably on Comixology, and that app no longer works on my devices.

I read "In the pines". I enjoyed the art. I only know one of the songs related to the book, and it works much better as a song. The comic adds nothing to it for me. For the other four, the stories are OK, but I still suspect I'd like the songs better.

Ed wrote: "But that was probably on Comixology, and that app no longer works on my devices.."

Yes, Amazon really screwed the pooch with their "upgrade" of Comixology.

Yep! I don't want to de-rail this conversation to talk about Comixology. But we should have a thread somewhere to discuss that situation.

Paul wrote: "Erin wrote: "I'll go first! I'm super excited about the pick-your-own prompts...though I might be a little biased! :)

For this month I'm planning to read Skip by Molly Mendoza - th..."

So glad you checked it out! I got a little behind on my GR catching up this month, the art was just too pretty to resist for me!