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I’m having trouble reading lately.
Global pandemics can do that to a person. I need mental and emotional space to fall into a story, and the constant, low-level buzz of worry prickling and poking around in my brain is getting in the way. I’m definitely not alone. To complicated things, the kind of stories I like to read involve life’s complexity – death, birth, love, tragedy, and loss. Frankly, real life is too full of drama for me. I read Wanderers and loved it. But now we’re living it and it’s not as much fun.
I know a lot of us are in the same boat reading-wise, and feeling a bit sea sick. I also know that the best antidote to anxiety is laughter. And the best way to conquer a reading slump is to read something easy, funny, and entertaining. So I have compiled a list of 11 Delightful, Entertaining, Hilarious, Funny Reads to get us through these wild and scary times. This list (in no particular order) includes all levels of reading, some comics, some graphic novels, some traditional books. If you have recommendations, please share!
Battlepug by Mike Norton. What’s that? Battle-what? Yes, PUG. As in a small, arguably adorable, snuffly, chubby, mild mannered companion. This comic (vol. 1 available) is an adventure story that features a large, half-naked, Conan-eque hero who can communicate with animals telepathically, including an over-sized pug. He fights homicidal elves with his band of companions, whom he mostly deserts because he’s that dude. And there are horse thieves (they’re thieves but they are also HORSES!). If you want the full Battlepug experience, start with the Compugdium, which includes all the background you need for the new issues of the comic. But you can skip that if you want; you’ll catch up pretty quickly. Reading level: This is for adult or older teenage readers. There is blood, profanity and nudity.
Knights vs. Dinosaurs [also Knights vs. Monsters & Knights vs. The End (of Everything)] by Matt Phelan. King Arthur’s knights are fond of telling tall tales, especially regarding their alleged prowess in battling dragons. Merlin decides it’s time to give the knights a chance to prove themselves and so he sends them back in time to fight dinosaurs. Sir Erec, Sir Bors, Sir Hector, Squire Mel and the mysterious Black Knight join forces in an endearing, awkward, bumbling and, in the end, very lucky adventure. When they work together, they conquer their foes. Reading level: This is a middle grade book series with lots of great pictures. A great read-along book for younger readers.
Phoebe and her Unicorn by Dana Simpson. This series of graphics novels follows Phoebe, a girl who accidentally finds a unicorn who grants her a wish. Phoebe wishes for the unicorn to be her best friend. And so Marigold Heavenly Nostrils becomes her BFF and helps Phoebe navigate school and parents and bullies with a little bit of magic and a WHOLE lot of sarcasm. These books are both obviously and subtly funny and adults will find as much to love as kids will. They do not need to be read in order. Reading level: This is a middle grade graphic novel series sprinkled with gems of adult humor.
The Adventurer’s Guide to Successful Escapes by Wade Albert White. Anne, the hero of this story, is an orphan who lives at Saint Lupin’s Institute for Perpetually Wicked and Hideously Unattractive Children. This rollicky, hilarious series (There is a Guide to Dragons and a Guide to Treasures) is nonstop adventure and laughter. This series is engaging for both the young readers it’s written for and also any parents who might want to read along (or read alone!). Reading level: Middle grade novel series with occasional illustrations.
I Hate Fairyland by Skottie Young (Vol. 1-4 available). Gert is a 40 year old woman stuck in a 6 year old’s body. She stumbled into Fairyland and was told if she found the key, she could go home. But that was almost 30 years ago. Cynical, tired, ruthlessly homicidal and still endearingly cute, Gert is both accidentally and intentionally chaotic in her quest for revenge on Fairyland. Her Fairyland guide and friend (?) is a cigar smoking fly named Larrigon Wentsworth III who can’t seem to contain Gert or her rage. Reading level: Adults only. Lots of violence, and swearing.
Bloodlust and Bonnets by Emily McGovern. Lucy is a British gentlewoman, a gentle lady, until she unleashes her bloodlust on what turns out to be a bevy of vampires. “How did you know they were vampires?” she is asked after she dispatches the lot of them (reader, the answer is she didn’t know they were vampires! Girlfriend is just ragey). This incident sets her on the hunt for Lady Violet Travesty, during which she accidentally assembles a team of wayward companions including the arrogant, blustery Lord Byron and the mysterious and confusing Sham, a bounty hunter. The art in this graphic novel is half the hilarity, but the puns and mayhem are the other half. Reading level: Hard to say, there is violence and some nudity, but the drawings are so cartoony, it’s hard to take seriously. My 10 year old read it and LOVED it.
The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters by Kara LaReau. This series (there are currently three: The Jolly Regina, The Uncanny Express and the Flight of the Bluebird) follows sisters Kale and Jaundice, who like their monotony thankyouverymuch. They have order, they have predictability, and they have a schedule. They liked cheese sandwiches and that which is familiar. But their oddly missing parents have other plans for them, and they keep sending the sisters on adventures, which the girls would rather not participate in. Reading level: Middle grade, and a great read-along for parents, who will chuckle at all the little things the kids miss.
Folklords by Matt Kindt and Matt Smith (Issues #1-5 available). Ansel lives in a world populated with ogres and trolls and elves and dwarves. He’s at the age when he has to choose his Quest, but he has these elaborate dreams of a world so unlike his own, with technology he doesn’t understand. He seeks the Folklords as his Quest, in the hopes they can explain his dreams, and why he doesn’t fit in. But he is denied and told the information he seeks is forbidden. Which of course only makes him sneak off to find his Quest anyway. Reading level: Teen and adult, there is some violence.
Pretty Violent (with lots of swears) by Derek Hunter (vol. 1 available). Based on the covers alone, it should be no surprise that this comic is brought to us by one of the creators of I Hate Fairyland. The premise and images are similar. In this case, an adorable young girl has named herself Gamma Rae and is trying her damned best to be a superhero but just keeps messing it up. Like really badly. EPICALLY badly. Her family of supervillains tries to keep her from what seems to be a fruitless endeavor, but she is undaunted. She will be the best damn superhero there is if she has to kill everyone trying. Reading level: Adult. Violence and swears are right in the title.
Sparks! By Ian Boothby. Two cats, dressed in a dog suit, fighting an evil alien named Princess, who basically looks like a adorable toddler. I mean, what else do you need?
Loki (2019) by Daniel Kibblesmith. This comic got cancelled and that’s a damn shame. Brought to us by the man who wrote Santa’s Husband, the Loki presented here is funny and arrogant and laugh out loud funny. If you’ve ever wondering “What would Loki be like as a cowboy?” this is your series. The ending of this run is masterful, especially considering it was done the last minute. If you enjoy Marvel and Loki then check this out, it’s a mere 5 issues, but it should have been more. Mr. Kibblesmith is also the author of Marvel’s Lockjaw which is, oddly, about an extra large pug, so we have come full circle.
When I was a girl, growing up in the 1980’s, I was definitely not encouraged to read comics. To be fair, even many boys (then, as now) were often discouraged from reading them. It wasn’t considered “real” reading (spoiler alert: it is ). Thankfully that idea is finally changing (however slowly). It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s, at the insistence of our very own Jesse, that I went to a comic book shop for the first time. Even with the moral support, it was hard not to be overwhelmed. Without a lifetime of comic reading under my belt, I felt like they were speaking a language I couldn’t decipher. And even in the early aughts, there wasn’t a crowd of women in the shop. I latched onto the Origin limited series, since I was a huge fan of Wolverine, but nothing else ever stuck with me.
It wasn’t until my daughter was old enough to read that it finally clicked for me. Again, thanks to Jesse, who, when asked for recommendations, sent me graphic novels for both my kids from his bookstore. They loved them. I loved them. We wanted more. Fortunately, our new interest coincided with what would turn out to be the advent of a surge in middle-grade graphic novel publishing. It was a veritable explosion.
In searching for feminist stories for my daughters (and honestly, I didn’t have to search too long), I easily found a swath of diverse characters, LBGTQ representation, protagonists of color, subverted gender stereotypes, and fairy tale tropes turned on their heads. I was looking for stories written by women, for women, with female heroes and female-centric story arcs. And they were EVERYWHERE. More important, they were NEW. No one else had the advantage of history. I didn’t feel behind the times. I felt, for once in my life, on the cutting edge. I could go into the comic book shop and ask for the new release. And I did, with such regularity that the shop guys now know me by name (full disclosure: at first I was ‘that women who’s always in here buying comics for herself and graphic novels for her kids’). I’m still one of only a handful of women who frequent the shop.
So ladies, girls, fellow feminists, if you are curious and don’t know where to start, I’ve compiled a list of recommendations below. The list could be longer, but these are my absolute favorites. I am inclined toward the fantasy genre as you will see. I’ve left off superheroes, even though I’m a huge fan, because their backstories and history can be intimidating. I’ve noted the trade paperback volumes, which have past issues compiled, though some of these are ongoing and you can get in new issue form once you’ve caught up. Others are limited release and all the issues are out (and compiled in a trade paperback) already.
I avoided 1602 for years for no good reason. One of my biggest problems with the big serial mess of the superhero genre today is the “in crowd” exclusivity it seems to revel in, making for a literature of fandom rather than one of universal questions and challenges. Gaiman’s purpose to writing 1602 seemed, at first glance, to be nothing more than this; a “wouldn’t it be cool if” scenario where he gets to put familiar superhero characters in the unfamiliar setting of Elizabethan England and thereby allow himself to reference two of his favorite geeknesses: 1960s low art and 1600s high art. So I passed.
My prejudice wasn’t completely meritless. The first couple chapters are full of groaners, especially with the name-plays. See, in 1602 his name is Peter Parquagh – get it? It’s like Parker but archaic! And why does this boy have such an odd fascination with . . . spiders?! Hooo, I get that reference! Then there’s the muscled-up stranger from the New World who’s an unusually blonde and white captain-like Native American named Rogers . . . oops, I mean “Rohjaz.”
The rest of the set-up pages follow suit as we’re introduced to the cast and settings. Nick Fury is instead Sir Nicholas, and instead of a techy super spy he’s the Queen’s most trusted intelligence aide and protector. Dr. Strange, who normally lives in New York’s Greenwich Village, awkwardly states that he lives in “the village of Greenwich” to someone who already knows where he lives. The Fantastic Four are still a band of friends led by a scientist who gain powers in a freak accident, but here they travel to the New World in a ship called The Fantastick and are never heard from again except in legends of super-powered transformations and do-goodery. The “a-ha!” and “oh yeah!” moments are many and frequently grating.
But then I surprisingly found myself buried knee-deep in the middle of the book without pausing to take a note or breathe or eat a sandwich and I realized that the story is good despite itself. Or is it actually just good despite my knee-jerk presumptions of hokeyness?
Someone smash me! I’m a year late to the biggest summer comic book blockbuster of the century! Nothing will ever be the same! Wait, it’s a year later and everything’s the same. Oh well, so much for Marvel’s 2007 summer fracas World War Hulk. At least I didn’t pay $300 for all the issues and crossover tie-ins while it was coming out.
Maybe catching up on World War Hulk now is better since it allows me to read it as I like to read everything (a contained literary work) rather than how it must be read when it’s being published (a fan community social event). I’m still halfway through the Greg Pak-written main series and I love it so far. The gist of it is brilliantly simple: a group of superheroes blast the unstable monster of green destruction into space but when he lands in a far-off barbarian planet and starts a new life the spaceship in which he arrived self-destructs, killing his family. What happens next? You guessed it! But I took a sidestep to read Paul Jenkins’s tie-in story, World War Hulk: Front Line, mainly because I needed a respite from hardcore violence but also because Jenkins writes consistently satisfying superhero stories and I suspected I would like this even more.
I wonder sometimes if the critical acclaim some comics receive does more harm to the medium than good. If a comic gets lots of attention and it turns out that it’s inaccessible or badly written or just plain pedestrian yet illustrated, can that be good for a medium seeking acceptance? I sometimes wish we would stop holding up genre potboiler page-turners like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns as the highest mark of artistic merit we can achieve. Fans are so quick to show off anything that even tries to be “smart” which validates the invalid feeling among the literati that comics naturally aren’t intelligent and therefore must try to transcend themselves. And how long before the literati catch on that what we’re showing off is sub-par anyway?
Halfway through The Golden Age I thought it was “fine enough.” An interesting plot, unpredictable characters, good solid Saturday-afternoon-in-the-park reading much like The Dark Knight Returns. A few more pages in and I realized it wasn’t even that. It’s just a bad comic — amateurish writing from James Robinson that any first-year fiction workshop would whip into shape and art from a normally brilliant penciler (Paul Smith) who tries so hard to change his style that he comes up with a mix of ugly and anatomically incorrect. So why bother writing about it at all here? Because this is one of the most critically acclaimed “graphic novels” of all time, a post-modern superhero genre critique that supposedly takes apart all of the things that make it work and exposes its dark underbelly, and it’s not at all. It’s a comic that forces its characters like so many chess pieces into a strategy that resembles something like an intelligent genre critique, leaving all relatable human feeling at the door.
In my opinion superstrength should not be considered a true super power. What good is it against all the other guys who have it too? I’ve decided instead that superstrength is a given (or should be) and is only really a super power if partnered with say, super speed, force fields or lazers, X ray vision, mind control or flying capabilities.
As a young girl my first infatuation was, not surprisingly, with superstrength. Because really, what power does a small female child have less of in today’s (or -I guess – yesterday’s) world? My childhood heroes were Hefty Smurf (was he really endowed with special powers or did he just work out a lot? Either way he could perform super Smurfian feats) and Popeye (my mother could only convince me to eat spinach – which I still hate – by telling me my biceps would grow that big. Sadly, they didn’t).
Over the years, I’ve moved past the mere consideration of super strength. Super genius now tops the list. I’m also a bit obsessed with telekinesis. In general I flatter myself in thinking that my super power philosophies have evolved a bit since I was five years old, when I was impressed if someone merely lifted a stationwagon.
Of course that assumes that the discussion of super powers can be considered mature. I believe it can be, as I’m sure Jesse and Devin would agree. The desire for super powers is, I think, one of the few things that most people can agree on. We all want to be greater than we are and it’s fun (and not to mention revealing) to imagine what powers would enhance us. We may want to be smarter, stronger, or more beautiful. Or maybe we just want to be able to walk through walls or move metal with our minds (another of my personal favorites).
I’ve been reading superhero comics since I knew how to read, but it’s only recently that I’ve started to wonder why. For the most part they’re garbage. Today’s more literary-minded super-books are as junky and disposable as they were when the genre was invented in the late 1930s, only today’s stories lack the ridiculous fun and surprise that made the older ones so enjoyable. Yet I keep going back to that comic book store every week or so.
It might be nostalgia, or habit, but I think it’s mostly hope — hope for an immersive reading experience as awesome as Runaways, the ongoing super-book created by Brian K. Vaughan and mostly drawn by Adrian Alphona (NB: Brian recently handed over the writing reins to my personal hero Joss Whedon but I’m not up to those issues yet!)
Whenever a new volume of Runaways comes out (and by that I mean the paperback collections — you can’t beat that “6 Issues for 8 Bucks” bargain, kids!) I’m totally gonzo giddy until I get it home and start ripping through it. I just noticed this for the first time last week when I picked up “Parental Guidance” (Volume 6), and I also noticed how little I look forward to any other superhero comic by contrast. It set my mind to wondering what happened to those days of my youth when every comic brought that same feeling.
Editor’s Note: [Heh — fooled ya! I bet you thought there would be a note from an editor here. Alas, it’s just me. But I wanted to explain the following post. This week I have to read a bunch of comics for my lovely job, including manga (Japanese comics). And I’ve never read any manga before in my life. Ever. Just thought you should know.]
Naruto had to be the first manga I read in my effort to learn about Japanese comics, since it’s absolutely hands-down the champion high king bestselling comic book throughout the entire known universe at the moment. Naruto kicks sales ass in ways we haven’t seen in the comics industry since the 1940s, if ever. I had to see what it was all about.
What I want to say before I get too deep into it is that Naruto is a very poorly done comic. The figure drawing and linework is fine enough, but the storytelling — that all-important sequential clarity that all comics require — is sorely lacking. I spent a lot of my time doubling back a page or two trying to figure out what had just happened only to learn that there was no way to tell other than to read ahead and hope I got it in context or expository dialogue later on. The writing is equally bad, by necessity, since there is indeed a lot of expository dialogue needed to explain very simple plot points that I could have gotten on my own if the drawing was better.
With that out of the way, I also want to say that I really liked Naruto, I want to find out what happens next, and I completely understand why kids are gobbling this up like cookies all around the world.
We all have our essential qualities that drive us forward or trip us up, that make everything in life work or break down, but we don’t notice them because we’re too busy worrying about the price of gas or whether or not someone likes us back. It takes life starting over — something that rarely, if ever, happens — to make us look inside without the usual mundane distractions.
But when you die, return from the afterlife, save the universe a couple times, and finally come back to where you were at the start of it all — that’s a grand opportunity. Only in the funny books!
At the start of Green Lantern: No Fear, Hal Jordan has returned to his former life, but nothing is the same (the details of his previous life chapter aren’t important for the purposes of this story — ain’t that nice? — and there’s a recap at the beginning of the book if you must know). Coast City, his hometown, was destroyed by a super bad guy and is only partway through a troubled, halting reconstruction. His brothers and their families hardly know him. He has to earn his way back to the top of his former career as a test pilot. We’re reading about a rebirth, a starting back from Square One, so we get to see his essentials, and see ourselves in them as well. Of course, since this is a Green Lantern comic book, fear is the biggest player in Hal Jordan’s psyche. Writer Geoff Johns knows that this is, conveniently, the biggest player in our collective real world psyche as well.
Against my better judgment, I recently bought a copy of Green Lantern: No Fear. It’s a collection of the current monthly Green Lantern comic book series, and the chuckle you just allowed yourself at my expense is exactly why I at first thought it would be a waste of my time. It just sounds geeky and useless.
This isn’t an unfair assumption when you consider the state of superhero comics these days. Comics as an overall art form is very healthy — graphic novels, newspaper strips, and self-published comics ‘zines are all doing well commercially and critically. But those monthly superhero tales are such awful loads of crap. And this is coming from a die-hard superhero fan.
My overall complaint is simple: truly great literature is universal, and there is nothing universal about this stuff. Superhero comic book publishers cater to a relatively small group of fans who are thrilled by the fact that their beloved characters are treated respectfully and seriously. It’s apparently enough for these readers to read periodic updates on the ups and downs of each hero’s love life or drug addiction or family situation. Superhero comics today are, for the most part, akin to soap operas or reality shows; there to excite readers who have an encyclopedic knowledge of each character’s history with references and in-jokes. That’s not a literary experience but a feeling of clubhouse belonging.
Green Lantern might be the comics outsider’s easiest example of this. Other superheroes have successfully nestled themselves in the greater public consciousness. Batman has his dark, brooding cool factor. Superman’s sense of moral certainty and optimism has always resonated far outside the comics community. Spider-Man is the everyman outsider – an outcast with a heart of gold. Wonder Woman appeals to a mainstream American mindset of feminism and the strength of the individual.
But Green Lantern? Isn’t he the guy with the magic ring?
What We're Reading Now 