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Non-fiction Comics

Started by AlexF, 20 December, 2013, 12:25:54 PM

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AlexF

I've just finished reading the complete, 5-volume set of the most epic of all non-fiction comics, 'The Cartoon History of the Universe'. Amamzing stuff! Larry Gonick is my new hero. (I've read a few of his science guides, which have many moments of brilliance but if I'm honest got rather too difficult rather too quickly for my brain).

I was pretty much a fiction-only reader as a child, but in my old age I'm more and more drawn to non-fiction stuff. Feels crazy to say it, but lately I enjoy reading things like 'Beyond 2000AD' or TPO than actually reading the Prog. With that in mind, I've been getting into non-fiction comics over the last few years, and I'm looking for any recommendations.

Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunleavy have done great things with 'Action Philosphers' and 'the Comic book History of Comics'.
The surprisingly famous/successful Logicomix did a great job of explaining Betrand Russell (and a few others) to me.
Jim Ottaviani seems to have carved out a niche of comicbook science biographies, which I heartily recommend.
And of course I've read Scott McCloud's 'Understanding comics', the ultimate work in the field of comics about comics.
I guess the old 'Beginner's guide / Introducing' series were basically comics. What happened to them??

I'm intrigued to find out if there any non-fiction comics where a) the author doesn't draw him/herself into the narrative, and b) where most of the writing is in speech/thought balloons, rather than text captions.

I guess my dream is to find (nay, to create!) something that is basically Asterix, but slightly more factual. (Although I'm sure I learned as much genuine history/philosophy/sociology from Asterix as I did from 5 years of secondary school history lessons).

So, who's got some tips?