Completely Self-absorbed Top 100 Comic Runs You Need to Read

[Fortnight]

The Beatles are are great band, but as much a victim of their own hype as Watchmen seems to have become (going by descriptions here - I haven't read it or got it). They did some great music (Rubber Soul, Revolver as J_C says, lots of Sgt Pepper, plus many other tracks scattered about) but also some stinkers. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. FFS. Dreadful.

It happens when enough people love something that they form their own hype echo chamber where everyone loves em and dissenting voices are excluded (deliberately or not). Happened with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen (who I can't stand) and Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin (who I love). And by the sounds of it, with Watchmen.

They're overrated, literally: rated more highly than they actually deserve even if they do deserve some very high ratings.

And I think that the impression that music hasn't developed as far as comics is probably due to both the newness of the art form - comics are far newer than music, and also the way they are accessed and whether you find them.

There is so much new music being made because it's become a medium that anyone can create, and then get out into the public, even if it's often hard to find unless you're actively searching for new stuff. It's a very widely popular art form so it's inevitable that mechanisms for easy creation and distribution appear - at least more readily than those for comics.

If you go looking you'll find a lot of stuff that's stylistically very far from what you're familiar with. Yet if you mostly hear music when it's pushed at you, it can give the impression that it's not much different now to what it was 60 years ago. Only the stuff that someone thinks will sell is marketed so widely that you'll hear it without trying to find it, and what sells is what the most people like. What most people like is what they already like, and so you get a long stream of just the same stuff with apparently very slow development.

I think I have failed to say exactly what I was trying to say, but hopefully that makes some sort of sense to someone.

[13school]

Its a warning to Alan M fans really... I think my next one will really not go down well with them. I do explain myself and say sorry a lot (in so many words) but who knows if that will be enough?!?

So... American Reaper then?

[Colin YNWA]

If you go looking you'll find a lot of stuff that's stylistically very far from what you're familiar with. Yet if you mostly hear music when it's pushed at you, it can give the impression that it's not much different now to what it was 60 years ago. Only the stuff that someone thinks will sell is marketed so widely that you'll hear it without trying to find it, and what sells is what the most people like. What most people like is what they already like, and so you get a long stream of just the same stuff with apparently very slow development.

That's true, but then always was. The 60s were awash with innovative music and underground comix. But I think the comix and comics have developed far more than music since then. Age could well be a major thing, comics are so new. But in a large part I think its much more to do wioth understanding of potential. As you say music is far more open for folks to understand its scope and range. Comics have been pigeonholed and so each development has much more impact as it rips through its limited audience much quicker than changes on music... oh having typed that I'm just not sure!

[Fortnight]

Comics have been pigeonholed and so each development has much more impact as it rips through its limited audience much quicker than changes on music... oh having typed that I'm just not sure!

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. The development hasn't been more or less within one form compared to the other, particularly, but the impact that the developments have is greater within comics/graphic novels than it is within music, for all the reasons tangentially mentioned so far.

[Barrington Boots]

With respect, if you guys think impqctdul music development and innovation peaked in tbe 60s and 70s you're listening to the wrong stuff.

[Fortnight]

There's no such thing as peak, er, impactful? music, only peak preference. And I don't think anyone actually has said that.

[Barrington Boots]

There's no such thing as peak, er, impactful? music, only peak preference. And I don't think anyone actually has said that.

Yeah sorry, sent on my phone and typing gibberish with my stupid fat fingers!

I disagree with the points made here re.innovation and impact in music vs other art forms.
Could comment more when not on phone!

[Fortnight]

I suppose I was more meaning the changes within comics development compared to previous developments within comics (which are increasing), and comparing that developmental increment with the same for music (which is also increasing, and have certainly not peaked). The impact of the development in comics is greater within its own artform probably because it's travelled less far so far. The comparative increments are larger. Although with music they are more widespread, due to music being a more widely consumed art form, which confuses the picture.

[PsychoGoatee]

Cool stuff! Also, rock and roll is younger than comics are which is something.

[Colin YNWA]

Well this mornings entry is a bit of a cheat. Its a 'Not on the List' entry. The reason I'm doing that in a 'regular' slot is... wel to be honest cos I thought I'd be getting behind as there's a few of these 'Not on the List' entries coming up and while they are much quicker to rattle off then the regular entries I figured I'd be getting behind but have just about been able to keep pace and keep my buffer going.

The other reason however is I thought the Watchmen entry would bring the chat and it has and I think this one might as well. So I decided to give them both room to breathe, rather than just crank this one in a corner somewhere. Let's see if this one leads to fascinating chat about music too!

Regular entry on Thursday I promise!

[Colin YNWA]

Oh weird for some reason I can't post the entry. its certainly not longer than one's I've done before and has nothing I've not been able to add before , so just images and embedded URLS.

As I've already dragged this out I'll add a URL for the Google Doc for this one here and see if I can add it properly in a bit???

https://docs.google.com/document/d/106G-isLZb4OPgsKyShJ5_2qnhCTqn74b-ktGyiuCsUY/edit?usp=sharing

[Colin YNWA]

Oh weird for some reason I can't post the entry. its certainly not longer than one's I've done before and has nothing I've not been able to add before , so just images and embedded URLS.

As I've already dragged this out I'll add a URL for the Google Doc for this one here and see if I can add it properly in a bit???

https://docs.google.com/document/d/106G-isLZb4OPgsKyShJ5_2qnhCTqn74b-ktGyiuCsUY/edit?usp=sharing

Its for From Hell - Not on the List by the way.

The Comic gods clearly don't like me saying such things!

[Vector14]

From Hell is my favorite Alan Moore comic! At least it was when I read it about 15 years ago. That's despite having no interest in Jack the Ripper stuff. I really liked that magic architecture tour around London actually, and Eddie Campbell's art is fantastic.

I don't want to read it again though. In recent years I have developed a real distaste for any media  glorifying serial killers and murders. Can't stand those Making a Murderer style documentaries either.

[AlexF]

I think I like From Hell more than you, Colin, but I will agree it very much felt like homework to read. But the good kind of homework, that you're glad at the end of it you were forced to read. (I feel the same way about David Copperfield, an asbolute tome of a book I'd never have dared attempt as a schoolboy except our English teacher was a Dickens nut; it took most of the year but it was wirth the effort).

But for sure it's a book that does no favours to anyone by being held up as some great work of comics, because it is first and foremost a book for people who are interested in serial killers, Victorian London, and occult/class shit. I'm more into superheroes than any of those things, so for sure I'll turn to Watchmen more readily than From Hell. But I'm still glad to have read it, I totally think it explores those themes in interesting and intellectually stimulating ways. (Don't tell anyone, but I feel the same way about Eddie Campbell's 'Alec' comics. Intellectually interesting, but emotionally just not my cuppatea.)

[Colin YNWA]

Possibly Part 1... possibly not...



Not on the list - From Hell

I think it's becoming an increasingly held view that good as Watchmen is, Alan Moore's best work is


Copyright - Them what created it

For me neither is, but that's for much later in this thread, I think I just look for different things from Moore's work than many of his fans. Very often when I wrote these 'Not on the list' entries I do have some fondness for the comics I'm discussing. To be honest however highly it's regarded in the case of From Hell I actually don't really like it that much and the main reason can be summed up as:

Comics shouldn't feel like homework.

Okay, okay that's a draft simplification of why I don't get on with it, but to be frank it could be boiled down to that. So why do I feel reading From Hell felt like homework. Well in part I think it comes from its reputation, the high regard with which it's held. So when I approached it I did so with anticipation and really expecting to enjoy it, despite the subject matter, to which I will return in a bit. All I got from it was a sense of appreciation for what it was doing, its ambition, elements of the craft on display, but very little actual enjoyment.

Now it's fair to say that I really can't hold how well a comic is received by others against that comic, but I can't deny that I felt really disappointed as I read it that I just couldn't get on with it. It was as if I was failing as a comics fan. I had that niggling doubt in my ability as a reader. Why couldn't I find any joy in this tale that so many rave about? So doubt crept in and I almost resented the process of reading it, having to drag my way through it, in a vain hope that something would eventually click and I'd realise what a silly billy I was for not enjoying it. I got through it almost purely out of a stubborn determination to not be beaten by it, or at least be able to say I'd read it, to make sure I had a valid opinion about this significant comic. There was a sense this is the sort of work that I should like and should read, so I did... boy oh boy I found it such a drag.

Now all of that is on me, none of that has anything to do with the comic, or the comic's problem. That's me and my daft decision making and self doubt. I've read enough comics and have enough comics still to read to know better than that. If I'm not enjoying something, if something is too much of a challenge I should have enough faith in myself as a reader to put it aside and move on, no hard feelings. But From Hell I just couldn't, I felt an obligation to get through it, to at least have read it 'cos it's the type of comic you should have read.

That's why I say reading it felt like homework, it's that sense of obligation, not pleasure that got me through it... at least in school me and over half the class had the sense to get the 'Brodie's Notes' when we had to read Great Expectations over the Christmas Holidays one year - I know, I know I'm not a Dickens fan either...

Anyway, so enough of my experience of reading this, and my failings in doing that, let's see what it is about, you know, the actual comic that I didn't enjoy. Well there's a few things.
First and foremost I really don't understand the fetishism that surrounds the Whitechapel Murders. I find it a sad and baffling obsession deep rooted across society to fascinate on these mysterious and horrific murders. People seem obsessed with 'who done it' and spend so little time reflecting on the victims of this brutal killer and the society that allowed these events to happen. So while I don't enjoy the subject at all, it bores me rigid in fact, when it should be terrifying me. I do respect that Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell spent more time with the victims and exploring their lives, more than most other works on the subject I'm aware of.

This doesn't give the subject a pass however. So elevated are these hideous crimes in the minds of so many they escalate into these vast conspiracy theories of high society covering its crimes. Of those that have abused their privilege to get away with horrendous crimes against the most vulnerable in society. Endlessly elaborate theories, weaving all sorts of ideas into things, ideas long since impossible to prove, continue to spin around events that we will never understand. The enigma that is 'Jack the Ripper' is therefore sustained and given status far above what it should. That is a frightening being capable of the most horrifyingly brute acts. We really need to move on from them and stop giving it more prominence than they deserve.

I have no idea who the killer was and accepting the victims will get no answer or justice, have no concern. Let's move on shall we.

This story however makes matters worse by draping the brutality in a world of magic and wonder. Laying more and more on the crimes about geomancy or whatever it was. The conspiracy theories are given even more status by wrapping them in this stuff. Status I see no reason to entertain.

So from the off the premise leaves me cold and a little detached. I then got a little more put off by the elevation of the things this story focuses on. Add to that much like I've said about Watchmen I find it a little soulless, in fact much more so than Watchmen. Watchmen at least has a technical, craft reason to allow that to be a thing. From Hell I just found a little empty of things to care about. Which when you think about the subject is quite something. I find so many of the characters unengaging and dry. Now this may be fuelled by my disinterest in the subject, but regardless it's there.

I found whole sections indulgent. The tour of mystical sites of London Gull takes Netley on, so lauded by many, I found dull and ponderous. I got none of the sense of majesty and awe others seem to and it just bounces off me as I had to push through. There were other chunks that had a similar lack of impact on me. 

You know what at times this story bored me. Don't like saying it, but struggle to deny it.

All of the above added to the sense that reading this felt like homework. I'll openly admit that part of that feeling is down to me and my issues. I really do think part of it is down to what the tale gives me, or more to the point doesn't give me. If story is so important to me, as detailed in my previous post about Watchmen, From Hell just doesn't give me a story I'm interested in, or characters to pull me along into what story there is. The story there is also feels pulled paper thin across the many, many papers this covers and for me that story is stretched beyond the point of breaking and so I don't like it very much at all...

... damn that didn't go well did it! Okay let's end on three positives after all that shall we.

1. Having said all that, I bet I give this another go in years to come for all the reasons I laid out at the start of this. As things catch up with me and I decide I really should like From Hell and try again.

2. I LOVE the art. Eddie Campbell is a rare talent, and I love his art, as you'll see if you aren't so disgusted with what I've said here and carry on reading my list. He's absolutely perfect for this tale - which given what I've said doesn't seem like a compliment - but is genuinely meant to be. His dark, slashed inks, his perfect storytelling make this comic work about as well as it possibly can.

3. Much smarter and lovelier folks than me adore this story. To demonstrate this I've got two folks you might know, both smarter and lovelier than me discussing it on Mega City Book Club so you really can ignore this guff I've typed and read this as most people think it's brilliant and so they should, the craft is on display.

If you do read it and don't like it however, come find me and we'll slip off to the dark corner of a grim and lifeless pub so we can talk about it behind folks backs!