Another person who deserves his own entry in this series is Alan Moore, surely the most award-laden writer in the history of comics, and one of the most influential.
He first came to prominence in the early ’80s in Britain, with two great stori[…]

Well, the old avant-garde anyway – I’m out of touch these days, so apologies for talking about yesterday’s pioneers. Raw was a comic magazine, published in a variety of formats, which specialised in the strange and experimental, str[…]

War is not among my favourite genres, but it has been the subject matter for some great comics over the years. It’s also been the genre for probably the most successful British comics over the years, the apparently endless Commando series, whic[…]

Not exactly a style or genre, but this is one guy who is huge enough to need his own entry. In Japan he was called “the god of comics”, and his output and impact is unrivalled anywhere in the world. He produced over 150,000 pages in his l[…]

While Marvel was going for huge, powerful stories plus soap elements, DC kept on their own way for a while. They aimed at a younger market, and even issue-length stories were an exception, let alone any continuity between issues. They were also a muc[…]

There’s a limited amount of pleasure to be had in the really early superhero comics (1938 onwards), but there was a real leap forwards in the early ’60s, thanks to two people at Marvel comics – and no, I am not including Stan Lee in[…]

There’s nothing in comics of any kind that I love more or regard more highly than two very old newspaper strips.
Krazy Kat
This strip started in 1914 and ran for thirty years, until the death of its creator George Herriman. The Sunday strips st[…]

I routinely review what I read on my LJ blog. After a recent comic review, one friend asked for a dummies’ guide to comics. It’s not the first time I’ve come across someone interested who doesn’t really know where to start. I […]