Which Genres Do You Think Comics Are Lacking In The Most?
Alex recently asked people to name their favorite comics from a wide assortment of genres.
It was a good idea, and made me think about which genres I basically had to pick the first comic I could think of that FIT that genre, rather than having a wide choice of comics.
For instance, Alex, for romance comic, picked Hopeless Savages.
I enjoy Hopeless Savages, but to say that it my favorite ANYthing is stretching things a bit.
And that is the state, I believe, of romance comics today.
You basically have one company (Oni) who puts them out...so if you want to pick a favorite romance comic, you're basically stuck with one of their titles, whether you like them or not.
But is romance even the most lacking genre?
Has there been a good comic biography (non-auto)? And I don't mean stuff like telling stories about your dad, or anything like that. I mean a historical narrative about a famous person.
Has there ever been a good one?
So what do you guys think...can you think of a good biography comic, or can you think of a more lacking genre of comics?
It was a good idea, and made me think about which genres I basically had to pick the first comic I could think of that FIT that genre, rather than having a wide choice of comics.
For instance, Alex, for romance comic, picked Hopeless Savages.
I enjoy Hopeless Savages, but to say that it my favorite ANYthing is stretching things a bit.
And that is the state, I believe, of romance comics today.
You basically have one company (Oni) who puts them out...so if you want to pick a favorite romance comic, you're basically stuck with one of their titles, whether you like them or not.
But is romance even the most lacking genre?
Has there been a good comic biography (non-auto)? And I don't mean stuff like telling stories about your dad, or anything like that. I mean a historical narrative about a famous person.
Has there ever been a good one?
So what do you guys think...can you think of a good biography comic, or can you think of a more lacking genre of comics?
posted by Brian Cronin at 12/11/2004 04:17:00 PM
12 Comments:
Louis Riel by Chester Brown. You can argue that since it isn't strict biography (he deviates from reality for narrative purposes), that it doesn't it count, but I think it does. Excellent comic.
However, I think you may be right that historical/biographical is the most lacking genre, since I can't think of any other off the top of my head.
I don't know if this counts as a strictly a biography, but Jim Ottaviani's "Fallout" was pretty good. It tells the story of two of the creators of the Atomic Bomb, Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard
I'll check out both books.
Thanks for the heads up.
Anyone else have any biography selections?
Duh, Brian. You're forgetting about the most obvious bio-comic out there.
X-Statix.
I mean, sure, Milligan stretched a few things. But, my team and I thank him for the mostly honest portrayal of the tough life we had to live. He really helped me work through my girlfriend dying, and helped me better understand what Venus was dealing with.
The end was pure fiction, though. I never got shot in the chest!
-Dan Apodaca
Of course, how foolish of me!
Sorry, Dan!
Um, not to pressure you, Mr. Apadoca, but I haven't received that autographed comic you promised me.
TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD is an Eisner-nominated romance comic.
The Mary Jane and Jubilee had strong romance stuff before Marvel botched their marketing.
As for Bio comics . . .what about those old comics about rock stars? I bet those were great.
I agree with the Lous Reil suggestion. I also think of Crumb's Kafka, and the Famous Murderer series from NBM by that really awesome cartoonist whose name I am forgetting. Let us also give mad props to BUDDHA by Osama Tezuka.
That's it off the top of my small brain.
"The Fixer" by Joe Sacco could be considered a biography and is great.
With all this rock and roll talk, it occurs to me that there are very few musicals in the comic form.
Remembering Mark Waid's dope rhymes in Fantastic Four, that is probably a good thing.
This is stretching it a bit, but I just finished reading From Hell, and that is surprisingly biographical. Obviously there is a lot of stuff that just can't be known and many particular theories come out of one book, but From Hell has like 50 pages of bibliography at the end of it describing the sources of just about everything in the book. Much of it is from biographies of the various people involved. Also, most of the artwork from Campbell is from photographic references. The amount of work put into this thing is crazy.
If we're allowing comics from outside the english-speaking world, then romance certainly isn't an issue, as manga has that well-covered. Mars, Kare Kano, and countless others. Also lots of combinations like Basara is fantasy mixed with romance.
Hopeless Savages seems almost a strange choice based on the first volume (mostly a quirky family adventure), though I'm guessing later volumes must get more into romance?
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