Although it will seem long ago by the time you read this, I only recently returned from Comic-Con. The yearly festival of pop culture, creativity, long lines and corporate marketing opportunities is a great time to reflect on the origin of the event: comics. Here are some of the best I’ve read this year.
Every year, Comic-Con gives out the Eisner Awards, the comic world’s equivalent of an Oscar. One of this year’s winners was The Department of Truth by James Tynion and Martin Simonds. This mind-bending work follows a mild-mannered FBI agent who discovers a secret government agency determined to stamp out conspiracy theories. Why? Because it knows that if enough people believe that something is real, it can reshape reality itself. The thought-provoking series links up the paranoia of the Cold War, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and modern political battles to control the narrative in the online world.
Although decades old, Marjane Satrapi’s classic Persepolis showed the world that comics aren’t just about lasagna-loving cats and superheroes punching each other. Persepolis is a hand-drawn memoir about Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It’s a very personal tale about her life, family, teenage rebellion, and the frightening day-to-day experience of living in a theocracy. Sadly, Satrapi passed away earlier this year, but her tale showed millions that a country many were told to fear was filled with real people like themselves.
Big time comic publisher DC Comics has recently introduced the Absolute Universe, re-imaginings of popular characters like Wonder Woman and Batman in new contexts. My favorite has been Absolute Martian Manhunter by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez. The lesser-known character Martian Manhunter, a shape-changing alien with psychic powers, is re-cast as a human FBI agent discovering that a psychic alien consciousness is now living in his brain. The artwork and dialogue of this comic wonderfully depict a normal man seeing the world through completely foreign senses while conversing with a secret presence struggling to learn human culture.
I was also very impressed with Big Jim and the White Boy by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson. This graphic novel looks at the American classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through many new lenses. Primarily, it retells it from the point of view of Jim, a resilient and intelligent man fighting to reclaim his family from slavery. It also shares the perspectives of elderly Jim and Huck talking to their grandchildren, a college literature professor teaching a course on the original novel, and the possible future journeys of the original Huck and Jim. It’s well worth the read.
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