Page 45 Review by Stephen
Frankly, the best book on comics ever compiled by the medium's greatest authority. And it pains me to say that of someone else!
Attractively accessible, lavishly illustrated and perfectly composed, there are whole pages of sequential art here for each graphic novel so you can see how the individual creators actually tell their stories, with notes in the margin helping to give a little history or context to each piece. As an enhanced companion to our website, it serves not only as the ideal introduction to comics for complete novices, but also for those wishing to broaden their comicbook horizons towards more of the genuinely best graphic novels out there.
It is, I'm pleased to say, going to make any reader desperate to buy a whole slab of new works. It'll also be the perfect book for students to plagiarise for their dissertations, so that we no longer have to write them for them.
Books focussed upon include:
BLACK HOLE, IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN, GHOST WORLD, PALESTINE, GEMMA BOVERY, CEREBUS, BAREFOOT GEN, SIN CITY, JIMMY CORRIGAN, SANDMAN, LOCAS, LOST GIRLS, WATCHMEN, SCENE OF THE CRIME, A CONTRACT WITH GOD, FROM HELL, WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, MAUS, PALOMAR, AMERICAN SPLENDOR, THE NIKOPOL TRILOGY, COMPLETE FRANK, MY TROUBLES WITH WOMEN, STRANGE EMBRACE, BUDDHA, EPILEPTIC, with lots more in the introductions to each chapter.
And spinning out from those include:
LOST GIRL, SUMMER OF LOVE, MOTHER COME HOME, TALE OF ONE BAD RAT, SPIRAL CAGE, ALEC, JULIUS KNIPL, PAUL HAS A SUMMER JOB, MY NEW YORK DIARY, HICKSVILLE, THE WALKING MAN, NAUSICAA, PROMETHEA, PLANETARY, IT'S A BIRD, FINDER, AKIRA, PREACHER, STRANGEHAVEN, THROUGH THE HABITRAILS, PEDRO & ME, ETHEL & ERNEST, LOUIS RIEL, UNLIKELY, RIPPLE, BERLIN, PERSEPOLIS, LA PERDIDA...
Basically everything that Mark, Tom, Dominique and I have been recommending for years.
You'll learn loads just as I learned loads from this (and then pretended I knew it all along!).
