what comics should I be reading?

[ursula]

My more ambitious weekend plans were derailed by a stronger-than-anticipated reaction to the updated Moderna vaccine (nothing major, I just wasn't anticipating anything more than a sore arm), so instead of cooking a complicated layered thing with polenta and eggplant, I ordered sushi and read the final volume of The Wicked + the Divine on the back deck, watching a combination of sunset and stormclouds illuminate the neighbor's fluffy pine.

This means I am out of comic! And--rare and fortunate in the present day--I have a really good local comic store on my walk home from work. What should I read next?

Some parameters:

• I'm finding I really like reading a longer arc one collected volume at a time.
  
• I haven't historically been a comics reader, so you can suggest obvious things.
  
• I'm not really into superheroes, and don't intend to start.
  

Comments

[shadaras]

Nimona! Everyone's talking about the movie right now, but it's super cool to read the original comic too.

+1 to On a Sunbeam; it's such a good story.

Check, Please! is a complete story about college hockey players, queerness, community, and coming out. If you're at all into either sports narratives or queer narratives, it's a good time!

The Tea Dragon Society comics are really lovely. They're not particularly long, but they're beautiful and I love the fantasy world they describe.

I haven't read it myself, but I hear so many people talking positively about Saga that I want to mention it.

[yhlee]

I haven't seen the movie but I also loved Nimona!

Older and ZOMG ALL THE CONTENT NOTES for violence/noncon/pretty much everything one could possibly warn for but I loved Preacher, which is a black comedy/drama take on a man who gains the power of compulsion, his girlfriend, and his best friend the vampire. It is often hilarious but also EXTREMELY DARK. It does involve a magical power but isn't IIRC a superhero/spandex take.

(more later)

[yhlee]

oh - let me know if you're open to completed webcomics, because in that case I think I know a couple that would be up your alley (I realize this isn't a comics store experience though)

[ursula]

I actually read & enjoyed the first couple of volumes of Preacher back in high school! (Aside from My Boyfriend is a Bear, I guess my limited graphic novel experience leans decidedly edgy?)

[yhlee]

Preacher completely shocked me because I was only a year or two out of high school. XD But I read it anyway because a friend had it.

[ursula]

Lol, I guess we know which of us was the bad kid :)

[yhlee]

I was a goody two-shoes in high school. I might have perched up on that one ledge and thought about how it made a perfect hideout for a sniper, but when almost everyone else in the class got busted for our senior year trip for (gasp) alcohol & smoking, I was one of the few people asleep in my room not carousing. XD

...I am trying to make up for it in my old age?! XD