Home > Commentary and Features
Five for Friday #6: Genre
posted December 10, 2004
Name Five Really Good Comics in Largely Neglected Genres
Locas by Jaime Hernandez (Soap Opera)
Lt Blueberry by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud (Western)
Maison Ikokku by Rumiko Takahashi (Situation Comedy)
The Alamo: An Epic Told From Both Sides by Jack Jackson (History)
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (Basic Art Theory)
Other Lists and Responses
*****
Sean T. Collins
I guess I didn't so much name "five really good comics in neglected genres" as "really good comics in five neglected genres," but oh well...
1.
Planetes by Makoto Yukimura (Hard Science Fiction)
2.
Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa (Soap Opera)
3.
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirman & Charlie Adlard;
Uzumaki by Junji Ito;
Black Hole by Charles Burns; "Monday Nightmare" by Jeffrey Brown (Horror)
4.
Justin Green's Music Legends by Justin Green;
Louis Riel by Chester Brown (Biography)
5.
Catwoman by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke, Brad Rader, Cameron Stewart, and Javier Pulido (Non-Half-Naked Female Superhero)
I think it's revealing (regarding the English-language comics industry) how well-represented manga is in this diversity-centric list, particularly since I've actually read very little manga.
*****
Colin Blanchette
Through the Habitrails by Jeff Nicholson (horror)
Hugo Tate: O, America by Nick Abadzis (coming of age)
Peanut Butter and Jeremy's Best Book Ever by James Kochalka (funny animals)
Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower (literary adaptation)
Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai (historical adventure)
*****
Steve Block
My thoughts, which are in addition to yours, rather than to replace, as yours are well judged, lead me to romantic comedy and Andi Watson's
Slow News Day, and reportage, with Sacco and
Palestine/
Safe Area Goradze, and mythology,
Age Of Bronze by Shanower and Sienkiewicz's
Moby Dick in adaptation. Looking for a fith, I'm stumped. If you'll accept autobiographical as overlooked then I'd whack Eddie Campbell's
Alec in, but I doubt that's a neglected genre, so I'll have to think of something like Debbie Dreschler's
Summer of Love, which could slot into a high school angst/John Hughes film category.
*****
T. Fraga
XIII, by Jean Van Hamme & William Vance ("
fairly preposterous but compelling paranoid thriller series that is the equivalent of a Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson movie (or TV maxi-series)" in the definition of Kim Thompson).
XXX (Triple X) by Arnold & Jacob Pander (Futuristic pseudo-political thriller)
Jeremiah, by Hermann ("beautifully drawn and insidiously addicting post-apocalypse Road Warrior-type mayhem", again in the words of Kim Thompson)
Iron Empires by Christopher Moeller (Sci-Fi Hard - Space Opera)
Torpedo 1936 by Enrique Sánchez AbulÃ, Jordi Bernet & Alex Toth (tongue-in-cheek noir gangsters story)
*****
