Cartoonists you haven't clicked with.. yet

[mamalips]

There's at least a few cartoonists where I don't connect to their work at all, but that makes me want to give it a try even more. I thought it would be a fun thread where you mention a cartoonist you haven't clicked with and then the next person recommends a book from that cartoonist that is a good place to start, along with a cartoonist they haven't clicked with yet.

Mine is Johnny Ryan

Please don't use this as a place to bad mouth a cartoonist's work, the goal is to get you to see something in a cartoonist's work that you didn't see before

[MilleniumDibber]

I'd recommend drinking a big coffee, or maybe ingesting anything that alters your state, and reading all of Prison Pit. I think it's the first thing I read of his and it's still my favourite. Raw, bloody and immediate. It's "pure comics"... if I can say that. Most of Johnny's work has the feeling I loved as a teen of "woah I shouldn't be reading this" and his instagram paintings do too. Here are few nice ones:

HERE HERE and HERE


Who haven't I clicked with yet... well I've had the first volume of Lone Wolf and Cub on my shelf for almost two years and still haven't felt moved to pick it up. Would love to have someone convince me! 

[dominocorp]

I've always flipped through Cathy Malkasian books at stores and thought they looked intriguing, but for some reason never wanted to actually read them...even though they looked more interesting than a lot of contemporary bookstore style cartooning. Hard to explain...they brought out some kind of respect from me just from how they're drawn, but somehow still repelled me. Anyway...finally got one of her books, excited to give it a shot.

There's so many cartoonists from when I was young and didn't have money to take a chance on stuff that always felt intriguing, like Sarah Dyer, Mark Crilley, etc. that, when I read them now, I can't enter into it at all, but I bet I'd understand if I'd read them when I was younger. I read Tintin now, and I still love it, but understand why someone reading it for the first time as an adult wouldn't be able to get it at all. 

[grubcubman]

Nov 28, 2021 4:15:23 GMT MilleniumDibber said:

I'd recommend drinking a big coffee, or maybe ingesting anything that alters your state, and reading all of Prison Pit. I think it's the first thing I read of his and it's still my favourite. Raw, bloody and immediate. It's "pure comics"... if I can say that. Most of Johnny's work has the feeling I loved as a teen of "woah I shouldn't be reading this" and his instagram paintings do too. Here are few nice ones:

HERE HERE and HERE


Who haven't I clicked with yet... well I've had the first volume of Lone Wolf and Cub on my shelf for almost two years and still haven't felt moved to pick it up. Would love to have someone convince me! 

Not quite on topic, but if anyone has been wanting to read basically this entire thing, the Humble Bundle seems like a good way to do it: www.humblebundle.com/books/lone-wolf-cub-koike-from-dark-horse-books.

[fatherspukashells]

Joe Sacco for me right now. I was reading 'Palestine' this week and that guy can draw the hell out of a page, but partway through it seemed to become big illustrations of the text instead of comic panels and I got lost. My copy was also way overdue to the library, so that definitely contributed to me dropping it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cross-hatching God though.

[bayls171]

Porcellino. I only have King-Cat Classix (apparently a bad place to start?) and didn't enjoy it very much, gave up after about 150 pages. I like some of his drawings a lot but I found it pretty uninteresting writing-wise. I do plan to try another one of his books eventually (or at the very least try this one again after some time has passed.. its on my shelf, I might as well). His comics sound up my alley I just didn't like this at all

[BubblesZine]

Dec 13, 2021 1:42:21 GMT bayls171 said:

Porcellino. I only have King-Cat Classix (apparently a bad place to start?) and didn't enjoy it very much, gave up after about 150 pages. I like some of his drawings a lot but I found it pretty uninteresting writing-wise. I do plan to try another one of his books eventually (or at the very least try this one again after some time has passed.. its on my shelf, I might as well). His comics sound up my alley I just didn't like this at all

Maybe get Map of my Heart, or any recent issue of King Cat. In King Cat Classix you can see his development in his simplified drawing and writing, but he hits a real stride in later issues.

[mamalips]

Map is a great one but for me, Perfect Example is the place to start.

[Ian M]

Yoshiharu Tsuge's The Man Without Talent. It was so hyped up in from so many different sources, and I just didn't get it. I felt like I got the book though, iin the end it just felt like an extended metaphor. It's rare a book with such universal praise doesn't do anything for me, so I want to try it again.

[manoopuesta]

Jan 5, 2022 0:14:24 GMT Ian M said:

Yoshiharu Tsuge's The Man Without Talent. It was so hyped up in from so many different sources, and I just didn't get it. I felt like I got the book though, iin the end it just felt like an extended metaphor. It's rare a book with such universal praise doesn't do anything for me, so I want to try it again.

I feel actually similar to this but the other way around, meaning: I read it 7 or 8 years ago (the Spanish edition) right before traveling to Japan for an extended period, and it depressed me so much... that is the only thing that the book did for me. After that somehow I was not prepared anymore to go to Japan. Then reading all this praise once the English edition came, I was very confused.

Well, now I read way more gekiga and my taste I am sure has changed after all these years. I have to give it a try again (though after reading The Swamp last year, even though I quite liked it, I am still inclined to prefer Tadao Tsuge's comics. I shouldn't compare but I do)

[teemcgee]

The Swamp is mostly rehashing of his early genre work (personally it didn't do much for me), while Man Without Talent was one of, if not his final comics work, maybe the dourness of that book isn't helped by its mostly true to life telling (although for me it works).

The best piece of his I've read in English (or French) is Screw Style, which you can find on the web easily enough while waiting for it to appear in the next volume of the D&Q series (it was also in a TCJ issue years back). I think the dream logic of that story leavens Tsuge's pessimism, and makes for something really special.

[bayls171]

Maybe its only because it was the first of the gekiga books I read but I absolutely loved The Swamp. I found a lot of the stories to be really enjoyable both as genre stories and as a sort of transition to more serious work. its good, although its obviously different from why I love Red Flowers

I also didn't really enjoy The Man Without Talent on my first reading. Loved it on the second go though

[manoopuesta]

I read last night Red Flowers and wow, it is just stunning. Most of the stories are up right there with my favourite Tadao Tsuge's stories.

[junkflower]

My personal take is that "getting" Man Without Talent is akin to "getting" Steely Dan- you might have to be of a certain age (or level of self-loathing) for it to really click.

I don't think I would have really gotten it when I was 20; as a 30-something burnout milling about without any defined purpose, it really hits close to home

[Ian M]

In my 40s, had well over a decade wandering aimlessly... I get the book (selling rocks is as pointless and sad as could be, the rock sales event a pinnacle of that), I just don't get the hyperbole for that book specifically. I'm certain I am the target market for it (depressive, uncompetitive, comics reader).

I'm not going to sell my copy though, I'm not hostile to it at all.