A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
Dave and Zack have a wide-ranging discussion about the best Spider-Man stories, sports podcasts, beat-em-up arcade games, the joys of powerwashing, and Zack’s gamer shame.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
[Read more…] about My Marvelous Year 2012 Variant D: Best Spider-Man stories & Gamer Shame
Never in my life did I anticipate Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate would become one of the best-selling series of kids graphic novels, and a personal favorite of my son throughout first, second and third grade! As a young strapping lad, I churned the butter, kindled the fire, and used the outhouse while reading Big Nate as a comic strip alongside Peanuts, Pickles and Dilbert (I’m still trying to untangle how Dilbert became preposterously popular among my 5th grade friends in the late 90s, but that’s a story for another time). This isn’t a knock on Peirce or Big Nate – I just never guessed the strip would re-enter my life 20+ years later as an absolute comics juggernaut!
The Big Nate comic strip debuted in 1991 and enjoyed plenty of success before really exploding to another level when Peirce released the first Big Nate novelization in 2010. This means new readers effectively have the choice to start with the classic comic strips, or with a series of illustrated chapter books, a la the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. While I’m loathe to recommend literally anything over comics, the 8 book novel series (which, let’s be real, is also full of comics broken up by slightly longer blocks of text) is a more focused narrative with a clearer sense of building off the previous volume. The comic strips are very easily accessible, but more in the model of Calvin and Hobbes where virtually any strip could be your first because that was the daily newspaper environment they were working in (newspapers, kids, are like TikToks that we printed out and then used to wrap Christmas presents). For most kids, whether they start with the novels or comics, once they get a taste of Big Nate’s world, they’re going to want to hop between formats to laugh at more.
Regardless of your approach, Nate Wright’s 6th grade antics are a highly entertaining way to encourage a 6 to 11 year old audience to read more. Plus, there are now animated TV series and a musical. Below you’ll find a complete guide to the world of Big Nate, from novels to graphic novels to comic strips to Lincoln Peirce written fantasy comics! [Read more…] about Big Nate Reading Order
Dave schools Zack so completely, with the full aid of Charlotte’s backing, that Zack apologizes profusely for every questioning him! What a good episode! Listen with your friends and family to fully understand the healing power of forgiveness (Dave’s for Zack slandering Hawkeye but ultimate admitting full guilt before a jury of his peers).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
[Read more…] about My Marvelous Year 2012 Pt. 7: MMY Finale (Hawkeye Drama)
Not to brag (warning: impending nerd brag incoming!), but I’ve been really up to speed on the latest and greatest in graphic novels of the 2020s. In fact, I keep tabs on my favorites every month right here on CBH and in the CBH monthly newsletter. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that keeping up to date with all the best new graphic novels and collected editions is a LOT of reading. Which of course means the 2020s are full of LOTS of great graphic novels to explore. For this exercise, I tried to pick the 25 personal favorites I’d most highly recommend.
As far as list rules and rationale, the big one here is I made myself stick to self-contained works that fit neatly in a graphic novel. So my favorite ongoing runs of the decade – Ice Cream Man, Bitter Root, Immortal Hulk, The Department of Truth, Chainsaw Man, Kaguya-sama … hey, maybe this should be its own list? – are not included below. Otherwise, a collected work published anytime after 2020 is fair game, including the collected House of X / Powers of X (even though single issues started releasing in 2019). As always, the list is limited to graphic novels I’ve read and that have been translated into English!
There are definitely plenty of critical darlings that do not make my personal top 25. I expect to hear the most about Barry Windsor-Smith’s Monsters, Daniel Clowes’ Monica, and Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters Pt. 2 (if you’re starting to think that releasing a Monster-themed long graphic novel from Fantagraphics is the key to success, I can see why!). Those are interesting comics from incredible talents. They aren’t on my list! Deal with it! Or don’t! I hate conflict!
As a final note, I have no idea why I limited this to 25 graphic novels, it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done to myself. There are so many good comics I wanted to include here, but you can find them all on the list of my favorite comics of all time, or of course, each list of my favorites for each year since 2020! I have no idea what I’m going to do when I need to update this list for the full decade, aside from probably include 100 graphic novels to save myself the stress! [Read more…] about 25 Best Graphic Novels of the 2020s Decade (2020 to 2025)
Dave and Zack eat a double-sized helping of Hickman Fantastic Four! And Marjorie Liu’s underrated X-Men run begins!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
[Read more…] about My Marvelous Year 2012 Pt. 6: Marjorie Liu’s X-Men! And more Hickman FF??? wtf