No Love Lost

I feel like I’ve read enough that I can recommend some good stuff at this point… presented in no particular order of “liking”.

Because I don’t know who from my RL is reading this, a disclaimer: Some have adult themes and/or images. This is more common in the physical books (particularly nonfiction/memoir) than in the webcomics. Most of it is probably tamer than most streaming material, but read to your comfort level.

Webcomics (links are accurate/safe to 10/2023. If the page errors out/is suspicious, try googling instead. As many of these are completed, changes may occur):

• Thistil Mistil Kistil (ongoing webcomic)
• The Pale (ongoing webcomic, on hiatus)
• Lost Scent (ongoing webcomic)
• Tiger Tiger (ongoing webcomic)
• Finding Darwin (ongoing webcomic)
• Jet and Harley (ongoing webcomic)
• Journey Upstream (ongoing webcomic)
• Digger (completed webcomic, also in book form)
• A Redtail’s Dream (completed webcomic)
• A Meandering Line (completed webcomic, also in book form) – nonfiction/memoir
• The Wellington Division (completed webcomic)
• Snarlbear (completed webcomic, also in book form)
• Stand Still Stay Silent (completed webcomic, also in book form)

Book form graphic novels, probably available at your local comic shop or bookstore:

Fiction:

• Bone (completed) – Jeff Smith.
• Broodhollow (2 volumes, indefinite hiatus but worth reading anyway) – Kris Straub
• Blacksad (3 volumes, haven’t read the 4th yet) – Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
• Fables (completed serialized comic) – Bill Willingham
• Daredevil – Mark Waid/Chris Samnee’s run. You don’t need any prerequisites about Daredevil, this was my jumping on point and still the best I’ve read.
• Hawkeye – Matt Fraction/David Aja’s run. You don’t need any prerequisites about Hawkeye, this was my jumping on point and still the best I’ve read.
• Black Widow – Nathan Edmonson/Phil Noto’s run and Mark Waid/Chris Samnee’s run. You may recognize some visuals/costuming on the Noto run that made into the film.
• The Golden Age (2 volumes, I’ve only read the first) – Roxanne Moreil and Cyril Pedrosa.
• The Property – Rutu Modan
• Through a Life – Tom Haugomat

Nonfiction/Memoir:

• The Photographer – Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemercier
• Arab of the Future (5* volumes, 4 in English) – Riad Sattouf
• Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands – Kate Beaton
• Lucy Kinsley’s work (recipes, cats, babies/parenting/pregnancy, aging)
• Sarah Glidden’s work (traveling in Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Syria)
• Monet: Illustrator of Light – Richard Efa. Possibly the most beautifully illustrated graphic novel I’ve read

Resources on Making Comics:

• “Making Comics” and “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud.
• “Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers” by Marcos Mateu-Mestre. (I stumbled on this laaaate in NLL’s development and dang, I wish I’d found it sooner)
• This fantastic article on camera conventions in comics
• The “step by step of a page” by Richard Efa, which I just really found helpful
• “Color with Kurt” on coloring in Clip Studio Paint.
• “Making webcomics dilemmas – the dilemma between quality and speed” from Pencils and Stories
• The wealth of free (animation-oriented) training from Aaron Blaise at Creature Art Teacher, big portions of which he also puts for free on youtube.
• The “Sequential Artist Workshop” community, which can be found on Youtube and elsewhere. They have LOADS of content about making comics in all genres.
• What is a forever project?! – everywhere, you hear “start with short projects” but I love that this artist went through his experience and why forever projects can be a rough start.
• Circle Line Art School – the first time perspective and horizon points ever started making sense to me.
• Paolo Rivera (yeah, that’s where the name came from, I really liked him) runs a blog called ‘The Self -Absorbing Man” with “Wacky Reference Wednesdays”, showing his process. I admire/respect his art, and it’s good to know that the professionals are also having people take silly pictures of them in Very Necessary Dramatic Poses for Art.
• Art specific: “Understanding Every Type of Clothing Fold” by Marco Bucci on Youtube.
• Writing specific: I had the good fortune to hear “Maxwell Alexander Drake” give several panels on Theme in storytelling at SDCC (somewhere around 2018? I doubt they’re online, but they might be). They completely changed how I thought about using theme. So, I HAVEN’T read his books, fiction or nonfiction, but he has written several books on writing stories and that collection of panels was very helpful to me, so I recommend him.