Back in 2016, I wrote about mak­ing my way back to comics. Then last week, I read this cool post from Jason Det­tbarn where he talks about how he start­ed read­ing com­ic books. I was inspired to share a lit­tle of my sto­ry, and just like Jason, offer you some rec­om­men­da­tions of where to get started.

A Little History

Like a lot of kids, super­heroes were a big part of my upbring­ing. Geek­ery in gen­er­al has always been part of me whether I under­stood it or not. The orig­i­nal Star Wars tril­o­gy were my favorite movies as a kid. I remem­ber being so excit­ed by the pre­quels and thank­ful­ly not under­stand­ing how ter­ri­ble they were until many years later.

Super­man was my favorite super­hero back then, and I remem­ber hav­ing at least a few of his action fig­ures. That is until my Mom threw them away. My mom has always been a bit of a clean freak, and she nev­er let me col­lect any­thing. As opposed to a lot of par­ents” who keep their kids stuff in their old room, I’m almost pos­i­tive my par­ents have noth­ing of mine except a few ran­dom things I might’ve left in their garage. But, I digress. This is stuff I should talk to my ther­a­pist about.

Grow­ing up, I felt that read­ing was­n’t for me. I painful­ly read books we were assigned in class (except To Kill a Mock­ing­bird and Of Mice and Men. I liked those). Now I under­stand it’s all about find­ing the read­ing mate­r­i­al that appeals to you.

That brings us to 2012. I was in Char­lotte, NC for a work con­fer­ence when I decid­ed to go into a com­ic book store next to a cof­fee shop I’d found on Yelp. Lin­ing the shelves were hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent books, and for a new read­er like me, no clear place to start. As luck would have it, DC’s ​“New 52” event had just begun, so I bought Super­man #1, and Bat­man #1. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I was­n’t impressed and went on with my life.

Then in 2016, in antic­i­pa­tion of Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: Civ­il War, my curios­i­ty of the sto­ry that inspired the film com­pelled me to buy the col­lect­ed edi­tion hard­cov­er. ==I was hooked==. The sto­ry was engag­ing, the char­ac­ters cap­ti­vat­ing, and the way the plot tore through the rela­tion­ship between char­ac­ters was heartbreaking.

And that brings us to today. I’ve got a shelf with my grow­ing list of trade paper­backs, and a plas­tic short box from BCW that’s run­ning out of space.

Comics I recommend

The fol­low­ing are some all time rec­om­men­da­tions. Some of these are still going, oth­er have fin­ished up.

Analog

This is an enjoy­able read, and I believe is being made into a movie. Ana­log takes place in a world where the inter­net isn’t safe so secrets are trans­port­ed by peo­ple. It’s a spy thriller that has some very point­ed crit­i­cism at our society.

• By: Ger­ry Dug­gan & David O’Sullivan
• Start here: Ana­log Vol. 1: Death by Algo­rithm TP

Cover

The premise of this ongo­ing series is so meta. It’s about a com­ic artist who… get’s roped into being a spy? You’ll have to read and find out. As of writ­ing, this title is only on issue #2, so you’ll have to look for it at your local com­ic book shop.

• By: Bri­an Michael Bendis & David Mack

Oblivion Song

300,000 peo­ple from Philidel­phia are lost in Obliv­ion. What the heck is Obliv­ion? How did this hap­pen? How come only one per­son still cares? Just some of the ques­tions I remem­ber ask­ing myself when I dis­cov­ered this gem thanks to my local com­ic shop co-own­er, Tony. One of my favorite books right now.

• By: Robert Kirk­man & Loren­zo De Felici
• Start here: Obliv­ion Song Vol. 1 TP

Paper Girls

A group of teenage girls in the 1980s cross paths with time trav­el­ers, and their curios­i­ty takes them to places they’d nev­er imag­ined. This com­ic is beau­ti­ful­ly drawn and Matt Wilson’s col­ors are stunning.

• By: Bri­an K. Vaugh­an & Cliff Chiang
• Start here: Paper Girls Vol. 1 TP

Saga

I don’t want to give too much away, but this is for­bid­den love mixed with the best of sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy. This is def­i­nite­ly for mature read­ers, so if you offend eas­i­ly, keep it moving.

• By: Bri­an K. Vaugh­an & Fiona Staples
• Start here: Saga Vol. 1 TP

Sex Criminals

Again, if you offend eas­i­ly, you may want to skip to the next one. This is the sto­ry of a woman who real­izes that times stops when she orgasms. I mean, just take a sec­ond and think about that type of pow­er. But is she the only one? This com­ic tack­les a lot of human issues, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the way we view sex, men­tal health, rela­tion­ships, and more.

• By: Matt Frac­tion & Chip Zdarsky
• Start here: Sex Crim­i­nals Vol. 1: One Weird Trick TP

The Amazing Spider-Man

Many have writ­ten Spidey, but in my lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence, Nick Spencer real­ly gets the char­ac­ter. His run is clas­sic Spi­der-Man, filled with great humor, a messy life, and a sur­pris­ing­ly uncom­pli­cat­ed love life.

• By: Nick Spencer
• Start here: The Amaz­ing Spi­der-Man Vol. 1: Back to Basics TP

All-New Wolverine

Back in 2015, a new per­son took the man­tle of Wolver­ine, and her name was Lau­ra Kin­ney aka X‑23. This series was a touch­ing sto­ry of a per­son who had been tor­tured, exper­i­ment­ed on, and cre­at­ed to be a killing machine who decid­ed not to be defined by those experiences.

• By: Tom Taylor
• Start here: All-New Wolver­ine Vol. 1: The Four Sis­ters TP

Parting thoughts

I was twen­ty-four when I start­ed read­ing comics reg­u­lar­ly. Jason—who inspired this post—was thir­ty-six. Com­ic books are for peo­ple of all ages; the sto­ries with­in are for all genders.

As you can tell from my rec­om­men­da­tions, I’m read­ing a lot more than just super­heroes. Don’t get me wrong, super­pow­ered peo­ple are great, but comics are so much more than them. No mat­ter who you are, what genre you love, what style art you like, there’s a com­ic book for you.