The movie Watchmen is out now, and I’m really excited to see it. The comic originally came out as a twelve-issue limited series when I was in high school, and I read every issue many, many times. I even studied it for a class in college. I highly, highly recommend Watchmen.

In some ways, Watchmen is a standard superhero comic, although from a different perspective that ends up deconstructing a lot of superhero clichés. It’s also a pretty straightforward murder mystery. It’s also a good science fiction alternate history tale. All of that together would be great, but then add in an incredibly dense, groundbreaking comic and you’ve got an all-time classic. Watchmen starts with the premise “what if masked vigilantes really started fighting crime in the 1940s?” and then goes from there, to examine a world where police riots force a law to be passed outlawing costumed crimefighters, where Richard Nixon is still President in the 1980s, where one man with superpowers can utterly change the world. Watchmen is thrilling, gritty, dark, disturbing and complex. The words and images play back and forth in a way that comics can but rarely do exploit. From start to finish, it’s an amazingly well-written and illustrated piece of work.

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Scott McCloud, author and illustrator of Understanding Comics, made his name with his comic Zot!, which premiered in 1984. Written, illustrated and owned by McCloud (which was much less common then than it is now), Zot! began as a brightly-colored, quirky and light superhero comic. Zachary T. Paleozogt, also known as Zot, is a teenaged superhero in a parallel dimension where Earth is an Art Deco retrofuturist world with spaceships and flying cars. He accidently pops into our Earth and drags high school student Jenny Weaver and her obnoxious brother, Butch, into his world. Eclipse Comics published ten issues of Zot!, and then McCloud took a hiatus for a year and a half. When Zot! started again, it was in black and white, and McCloud started pushing the stories into new areas, focusing on supporting characters and exploring issues of relationships, heroism, depression and addiction.

The first ten issues are out of print now, but issues 11-36 have been collected in one big book, Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection. I highly recommend it. Zot! is one of my favorite comics. These stories are fun, exciting, thought-provoking and moving, full of great characters and real emotions. There’s a great complexity to Zot!, but also a wonderful innocence. In addition to all of this great art and storytelling, the collection has “liner notes” from McCloud that give real insight into the creator and his comic.

Zot! is all kinds of wonderful. If you like superheroes, adventure, or real teen drama (not the fake drama of most TV shows), read Zot!. Now.

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I want to start my reviews and recommendations off with what I think is the most important book regarding comics ever published: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.

Although I remain a huge fan of superhero and adventure comics, I’ll be the first to nod my head and pump my fist when McCloud starts Understanding Comics off by separating content from form. In other words, just like any art form (novels, poetry, film, painting, etc), comics can be about anything and shouldn’t be dismissed just because the most well-known comics so far have been people in goofy costumes beating each other up. McCloud, a comics writer and artist, has produced a book (in comics form) that completely breaks down what comics are and how they work. And if that sounds boring and intellectual, let me tell you, he does it with loads of charm, humor, excitement and wonder. He makes thinking deeply about comics fun and interesting.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you love comics, this will deepen your love. If you’re one of those people who has a hard time getting into comics, this will help you understand why you can’t go into comics expecting them to be “illustrated novels.” (You may still not like comics, and that’s fine. I’m not really big on ballet. But at least you’ll understand the medium better.) And if anyone tells you comics are just silly cartoons or are inferior to novels, give them Understanding Comics to read.

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Hi there! My name is Josh, and I’ve been reading superhero comics as long as I can remember. Eventually, I wanted to read the stories that influenced superheroes, which led to my discovery of pulp magazines and other thrilling adventure stories. I began reading about characters like Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Scarlet Pimpernel and Captain Future. I began reading writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, E.E. “Doc” Smith and H.P. Lovecraft.

That’s what I’ll be writing about here. I’ll write reviews of graphic novels and adventure stories the Johnson County Library has in its collection. If you want to talk about comics and adventure stories, please leave comments here on the blog. Also, if you have any suggestions or recommendations of your own, leave comments or email me: neffj at jocolibrary.org.

Now…stand by for adventure!

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