Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2012-05-14 06:50 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-05-14 06:50 pm
[ SECRET POST #1959 ]
⌈ Secret Post #1959 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 085 secrets from Secret Submission Post #280.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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See, I don't like melodrama. And I don't like multiple universes. And I don't like people with uberpowers, usually. Leads to too much soap opera storytelling and looping, resurrected cat plots. I'm just not interested. I did enjoy X-men as a little kid, but I got tired of the way nothing ever really went anywhere. I read Watchmen as an adult, and it was okay. It had a concrete story it wanted to tell, themes it wanted to address, and it came to an actual end when it ended. When it comes to the superhero movies they too must have a discrete end and a limited cast and so are more enjoyable. Just because I watched the hell out of the movies doesn't mean I'll pick up the comics, though.
I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people like me out there, though. Comics could gain a wider following if they appealed to the joyless, sepia-grey-brown crowd.
If there are any comic fans still out there reading this: are there any comic series with no superheroes, no superpowers, definite endings, and, hopefully, more sedate character designs? By that I mean zero spandex and humanly possible physiques. The last one like that I read was Crecy, and it was fantastic.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-05-15 10:10 am (UTC)(link)If there are any comic fans still out there reading this: are there any comic series with no superheroes, no superpowers, definite endings, and, hopefully, more sedate character designs? By that I mean zero spandex and humanly possible physiques. The last one like that I read was Crecy, and it was fantastic.
Indie comics. Can't really give recommendations, I'm mostly into manga myself (manga hos serious stuff as well, since it has a separate genres for grown men and women). But if you Google "Top 10 indie comics" or something, it should get you started.
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-15 12:13 pm (UTC)(link)Also, clarification if that's ok: Does "no superpowers" preclude any fantastic or sci-fi elements?
Definite endings = finished already? What about stories that are stand-alone but take place with overlapping characters in an established universe?
Does "humanly possible physiques" mean realistic art only, or are simplified/stylized cartoons ok? Non-human characters?
In the meantime, maybe: Will Eisner's non-Spirit work (A Contract with God and To the Heart of the Storm, among many others -- though his stories often have a wrenching or dark undertone, even the lighter ones); Jason Lutes (Jar of Fools, the ongoing Berlin)... There are others, potentially with caveats depending on answers to the above, though I have to go to work now :)
no subject
Nah, fantastic or sci-fi elements are fine, I just mean traditional crime-fighting superheroes in spandex are out.
I'd prefer finished already or likely to be finished, or, if possible, one-offs.
Cartoonish or stylized art is fine, I'm just tired of shameless fanservice, of both varieties. I've seen so many hulking refrigerator dudes and busty women with impossibly tiny waists that if I never see another one it'll be too soon.
Thanks so much for this by the way! I've always felt a little left out when it came to comics. F!S was really helpful when I wanted manga recs - I'm sure yours will be amazing too. I'll check those out!
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-05-16 01:57 am (UTC)(link)I've only read a couple of his short stories, but Joe Kubert (a Korean vet himself) is pretty much synonymous with US "war comics" from about the '50s onwards, from the POV of soldiers, and may be worth looking up for you. He did a work called Fax from Sarajevo recently, but I don't know much about it.
Will Eisner's non-Spirit work is largely based in early-to-mid-20th century New York (To the Heart of the Storm is semi-autobiographical, recounting his life just up to, but not including, WWII; it also covers part of his father's life in Vienna as well, iirc).
Jason Lutes: Berlin sounds like a good match -- it follows a group of people in Germany from 1928-33, all with varying awareness of the changes in political climate around them.
Art Spiegelman's Maus: first comic to win a Pulitzer; flashes between the author's father's recollections of surviving the Holocaust and the contentious father-son relationship the two have in the current day (while autobiographical, there's a lot of breaking the 4th wall and the visual cat-and-mouse metaphor that's set up. Meta Maus, a companion book, just came out recently).
In more recent history, maybe Joe Sacco's Middle East journalism comics that started in the '90s (Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde, Footnotes in Gaza). I remember Palestine being very, very self-aware in a way that might not work for some people. Footnotes in Gaza is the most recent -- only read an excerpt, but it felt a lot more polished than his earlier work and it stuck with me.
Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis -- again, semi-autobiographical, set largely in Iran during the First Persian Gulf War. There was a recent movie based off of it.
Possibly also Guy Delisle: Shenzhen, Pyongyang, Burma Chronicles. Much more recent travel memoirs of a French-Canadian animator, with varying degrees of political commentary between the three. Tends towards a dry sarcasm.
For historical ha-ha, many of Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant strips (available both online and in print) might amuse you.
Less historical but still realistic: Alex Robinson: Box Office Poison (although this is obviously '90s), Too Cool to be Forgotten, Tricked! -- very "cartoony" style, but some of the most variety in body types and faces I've seen in comics, and the dialogue and personalities feel very true-to-life. BOP and T! follow different groups of people in NY, TCTBF a middle-aged man who ends up reliving part of his high school experience. Relationships do form the dramatic backbone of his work, but they are not all romantic (and those that are are definitely not idealized). (His other work, Lower Regions, was an over-the-top D&D comedy, complete with mild cheesecake, so maybe not so much that.)
A couple other things with a variety of reasonably-proportioned people:
Fun Home (Alison Bechdel): autobiographical, largely about the relationship between the author and her father as she grew up in his funeral home business, with emphasis on how they each approached their homosexuality (she came out while he was closeted)
The Finder series (Carla Speed McNeil): sci-fi, set in a universe somewhat similar but definitely divergent from ours -- Voice (the most recent one and probably easiest to find), Talisman, or Dream Sequence are imo the stronger and probably easiest-to-jump-into standalone stories.
...So, uh, hope this helps!
< /blahblahblah >
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-05-17 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)I'd like to add: Jerusalem Chronicles (Guy Delisle's latest), Kaboul Disco (Nicolas Wild - his work resembles Guy Delisle's a bit), and Lewis Trondheim's Approximate Continuum Comics (not historical, but oh so good).
Realistic: Dupuy & Berberian (as a kid, I looooved Henriette, but their other titles are also awesome), Manu Larcenet, Penelope Bagieu (although her style tends to be a bit too 'girlish' to my tastes).
Historical: I heard some very good things about "De Cape et de Crocs" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_cape_et_de_crocs) but I haven't read it yet. I think the conclusion is to be released in the next few days.
no subject
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(Anonymous) 2012-05-15 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)And also the entire rest of the Top Shelf catalog. Comics that are awesome and also sometimes seriously depressing!
And if you want something sort of fantasyish but not superheroes, Bone by Jeff Smith is really amazing.
no subject
One book I can recall is a one-shot graphic novel named Skim; it's by a duo of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki with fantastic art. There's also The Sandman series. It started off as a reboot of an extremely old DC hero, I think, but Neil Gaiman transformed it into a completely different beast (more fantastical rather than superpowers) and it's all finished in about ten trade books. The Goon by Eric Powell is not for everyone: while the art is nice, the humor is pretty crude but I recommend maybe the first two volumes to see whether it's worth reading.
Also, a sneak-in manga recommendation if you haven't read it already: Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano.