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

[yhlee]

CS Pacat's Fence if you like fencing with some queer teenage boys and a mastermind Black lady coach

[octahedrite]

Tillie Walden's work is really good! I would suggest starting with On a Sunbeam if your local store has it.

[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.

[cmdonovann]

if you're open to webcomics, i really enjoy superpose! it starts here: https://superpose.superposecomic.com/comic/arc-i-prologue-01/

[catsidhe]

If you're into comics and don't mind being suggested obvious things...

Gaiman's Sandman

Ellis and Robertson's Transmetropolitan

Mignola's Hellboy

[fred_mouse]

Paper Girls - I think this is in five or six volumes, there might be an omnibus, finished story.

Ubby's Underdogs - no idea whether this will be available outside Australia. Three volumes, finished story. Set in Broome, Western Australia, when it was a pearling town, the Underdogs is a very mixed 'gang' of teenagers. Author is Indigenous.

Persepolis - lots of people love this, I struggle with the art work. Graphic memoir, Iranian revolution. Another difficult read is Maus which is the story of the author's parents surviving Jewish death camps in WWII Germany.

Stars In Their Eyes - another 'might only be in Australia' - this is a coming of age story with a teenager being taken to their first fan convention by their rather fannish parent. I think this is the only book by the author.

Check, Please! - also available as a webcomic. ?College? ice hockey team, mostly from the perspective of their one out queer character, who used to be a figure skater. Complete story collected in two volumes.

Fables - many collected volumes. The author has just put them all in the public domain, so you might be able to find electronic copies.

[psocoptera]

None of these are a longer arc with multiple volumes, so, so much for my reading comprehension, but I would like to recommend:

Queen of the Sea, Dylan Meconis. Alternate history coming of age, set in a convent on a small island, involving alt-history equivalents of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. A lot of really rich detail.

The Legend of Auntie Po, Shing Yin Khor. Historical fantasy set in a logging camp in CA in 1885.

The Magic Fish, Trung Le Nguyen. Emigration, family, and fairy tales.

The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor, Shaenon Garrity and Christopher Baldwin. SFF action-adventure comedy.

These are all middlegrade or YA, from the past five years. Going back further in time and not YA, Ursula Vernon's Digger is a neat fantasy-adventure, although I don't know whether a comic shop would have that. Ben Wilgus's Chronin, writing as Alison Wilgus, for time-traveling cross-dressing samurai - that's actually a duology. Delilah Dirk, swashbuckling historical fantasy, there's like three of those - my favorite was the first one. Hereville, about an 11-year-old troll-fighting Orthodox Jewish girl, there's also three of those. (Now we're back in middlegrade.) No idea whether any of these are in print/in stores.