Ten Comics for People who don't like Comics

There are a lot of lists of the best comics ever out there.  This isn't one of those, although many of the comics included here are among the best comics ever, at least for what they are trying to do.

This is a list of comics for people who don't like comics.  It might be considered as an introduction--books to recommend to your friends to convince them to read comics--or as a few possible starting points for people who want to read comics but don't know where to start.  But I'm hoping that there's something here for people who actually dislike comics--depending on what it is they dislike.

10. Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes:
For a complete comic novice, who has somehow avoided reading any comics at all, I think a comic strip is a good place to start.  It's a simple and easy way to familiarize yourself with some of the conventions of the medium, and to get used to how comics look and feel, in bite-sized pieces.  And among comic strips, Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes is hard to beat.  It's intelligent and thoughtful but still accessible and funny, it's very sharply written, the art is among the best comic strips have to offer, and in the collections he always includes a multi-page story or two that reads more like a comic book than like a conventional strip.  Waterson also likes to play with the medium, but does so in ways that will not alienate a complete newcomer to comics.  Any of the books or collections is highly recommended.

9.  Jeff Smith's Bone:
If what you don't like about comics is the violence, or the sexuality, then Jeff Smith's Bone is the perfect thing.  This is a comic that Fredric Wertham could not have objected to, yet at the same time it is creative, funny, and smart enough to make anyone happy.  It's all-ages appropriate without being juvenile, and silly without being dumb.  I would recommend Bone with equal enthusiasm to a 10 year old or to a 40 year old.  It is, however, very much a comic book fantasy epic, clearly influenced by Mickey Mouse, which is why it's so far down on this list.  It's a great comic book, but people who hate comics might hate this just as much.

8.   Brian K. Vaughn's Y the Last Man
If what you don't like about comics is the superheroes, Y the Last Man is a great choice.  A ten volume self-contained story, it takes some commitment, but no preparation.  You can pick up the first volume having never read a comic book before, and be perfectly informed.  The story is a dystopian fable about a world in which all male mammals are suddenly killed by a mysterious virus--all except the story's protagonist and his pet monkey.  The book ranges from social critique and satire to magical realism, and it's a nice read, at turns thought-provoking and simply entertaining.  Like Bone, it might be slightly less appealing to people who dislike comics, and especially people who have trouble with the mix of sci-fi and fantasy that is so common in comic books.


7. Neil Gaiman's Dream Hunters
If what you don't like about comics is all those pesky word-balloons, Neil Gaiman's Dream Hunters is a fantastic choice.  Neil Gaiman is one of the big names of comics, and his epic Sandman is, with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen, one of the comics credited with revolutionizing the comics industry in the 1980s.  Dream Hunters features the protagonist of Sandman, but is a self-contained story that requires no previous knowledge of Gaiman or his work.  It is beautifully illustrated, with a single image each page, fully separated from the text, which means that it is not a comic according to everyone's definition.  If it had no other virtues to recommend it--and it does--that alone would be enough to earn it a place on this list.


6.  Mo Willems's You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons
 Mo Willems' You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons is another book that might not fit everyone's definition of a comic.  The book consists of 365 individual cartoons, one-per-page, chronicling Willems' year long trip around the world.  Full of humour, wit, and pathos, it's simply a great non-fiction travel narrative that also happens to be a comic.  After writing this book,Willems went on to be a writer for Sesame Street, and is now a successful and popular children's book writer.  You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons showcases the humour that would later serve Willems in good stead, but is a great read for grown-ups.


5.  Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City
 I debated including this book on this list.  Astro City is in its way such a loving tribute to superhero comics that I worried it might not be a good choice in this context.  But although the "tribute" dimension makes Astro City a great recommendation for people who love comics already, it is also a great introduction to superheroes for people who've never seen what all the fuss is about.  Astro City is a self-contained "universe", which means that no prior knowledge of superheroes is required to make sense of the plots.  The book I'm particularly recommending, Life in the Big City contains some foreshadowing, that doesn't get resolved within the book itself, but you never feel like you're not in the in crowd.  Astro City is about why superhero comics are good, and it manages to be iconic and heroic and emotionally resonant even without all the history of Superman or Batman to back that up.  If Astro City doesn't turn you on to superheroes, I doubt anything will.


4. Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is, among other things, an exercise in comics evangelism.  A theoretical examination of the medium of comics, produced in the form it advocates, Understanding Comics brought comics theory to the mainstream in a whole new way.  If what you don't like about comics is that you feel that fiction is not intellectually rigourous enough, Understanding Comics is a great choice, both for its argument about what comics can be, and as an example of that.


3. Craig Thompson's Blankets
 A beautifully drawn, intricately plotted story of coming of age and of lost love, Craig Thompson's Blankets is simply a great graphic novel.  Though Thompson classifies it as a "novel", it has the feel of a thematically tight and imaginatively rich  memoir.  It has nothing to do with superheroes or fantasy or science fiction, and is one of the best examples of indivisibility words and art I know of--by which I mean that the words would not be comprehensible without the pictures, and the pictures would not be comprehensible without the words.  As such, it showcases the medium of comics wonderfully.


2. Will Eisner's Contract with God
 Will Eisner's Contract with God is the book the popularized the term "graphic novel".  The book is a collection of four short stories, connected by theme and by the fact that they are all set in the same New York tenements.  Sometimes flippant, sometimes grotesque, A Contract with God is a work worth reading by anyone's standards.




1. Art Spiegelman's Maus
In his Pulitzer Prize winning Maus: A Survivor's Tale,  Art Spiegelman retells his father's experience as a holocaust survivor.  Maus is deceptively simple in its illustration--Jews are depicted as mice, Nazis as cats, and Americans are dogs--it is both mythically resonant and deeply personal, both specific and generalizable.  Maus is one of the great works of holocaust narrative, and a masterful comic book.



Do you object to things on this list?  Do you think I've made an unforgivable omission?  I haven't included anything by Alan Moore, who is regarded by many as the world's foremost comics creator.  If you think I should have, or if you have other works you'd add or take away, please say so in the comments.