Batman #404
by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

What can you say about Batman Year One that hasn’t already been said ten thousand times by two thousand people? Frank Miller gets pinned with the whole “dark and gritty” thing, but this is the kind of book Batman always should have been. No Robin. No ridiculous arch-villains. Just a slightly crazy dude in a bat suit, and a mostly honest cop, who take on a city packed to the gills with corruption, graft, and bad cops. In Batman #404, the story begins, masterfully following the arc of a young Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon embarking on their two separate careers. Frank Miller not only tells a great crime/adventure story, but a human one, painting an extraordinarily well-conceived portrait these two men and the things that motivate them to stand alone against so many.

While David Mazzucchelli seems to have left comics forever, this is the story that stands as one of the most perfect unions of writer and artist ever in comics. For someone with such a small body of comics work, Mazzucchelli seems born to draw comics, effortlessly playing with time, rhythm, lighting, and the many visual tools of the cartoonist to somehow make these characters seem larger than life, and at the same time somehow frail, fallible, and mortal. For me this will always stand as the greatest comic ever–while Frank Miller swings and misses sometime, when he hits it’s always out of the ballpark. All the others–Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, etc.–sit at the kids’ table whenever Batman Year One comes to dinner.

Amazing Fantasy #15
by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

It takes the front half of a cancelled comic to introduce the most important superhero since Superman. While it is said that the first and last stories are the easiest to write, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man is the textbook example of secret origin perfection. Everything you need to know about the character is packed into 11 scant pages, and is so perfect that it has remained virtually unchanged for over 40 years. Compare this to recent attempts to reinvent the character for modern times, which took ten times the page count. Amazing Fantasy #15 is modern day mythology, a model parable about power and responsibility, and has rightfully been declared the superhero classic of its time, if not all time.

All-Star Superman #1
by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

This comic is the essence of everything that Superman and his world is about, done in 22 pages. And if it’s not the best Superman comic ever than it’s darn close.

The issue starts with the most concise retelling of Superman’s origin ever. After that we dive headlong into the middle of Superman’s most recent adventure. A team of scientists mapping the surface of the sun have fallen prey to sabotage at the hands of Lex Luthor, and there’s only one person who can save them. But this time saving the day comes at a fatal price and now there’s only one thing Superman can do.

Grant Morrison writes every character absolutely perfect. Superman has a quiet dignity, Lois is a motor mouth, Jimmy is relentlessly positive, Luthor delights in his own evil machinations and Clark is clumsy in the best Christopher Reeve way. Frank Quitely’s art is incredible. Recommended to anyone as their first Superman comic.

Heads up! The Levine Museum of the New South, located on Seventh Street here in uptown Charlotte, will be opening its new exhibit “Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look At Southern Stereotypes In Comics” on Saturday, September 8. Shelton and fellow blogger Andy Mansell consulted with the exhibit’s curator, Dr. Tom Hanchett, and helped put the museum in touch with some of our local cartoonists, including Dennis the Menace‘s Marcus Hamilton and Gasoline Alley‘s Jim Scancarelli. The exhibit will cover a host of Southern-inflected cartoons, including Doug Marlette‘s Kudzu, Walt Kelly‘s Pogo, Al Capp‘s Lil Abner, and much more. Marcus will be giving a lecture, there’ll be food and music on hand, and much more–don’t miss it! More information available on the Levine Museum’s website.

Sandman #8, “The Sound of Her Wings”
by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III

August, 1989….My mother had just passed a away 4 months earlier. I was a young man getting on with life but still reeling from the experience when Sandman #8 appeared in my new releases box one pleasant Saturday afternoon. All of fandom was searching for the next Alan Moore to arrive in the comics mainstream–another intellectual British comics writer who was going to turn the comic world upside down once again. Neil Gaiman partially succeeded with the first Sandman story arc, but it was the 8th issue and the introduction of Dream‘s sister Death that left us all in gape-mouthed awe.

The story: Dream is pouting because of the events that took place in the first 7 issues and he meets with his big sister in Greenwich Village. They sit and talk and continue the conversation as Dream follows Death while she goes about her business; managing/witnessing every human death. She is presented as a sympathetic, hip, stylish and pale punk/goth girl in her early 20s. Now through popularity and imitation the ‘adorable’ Death has turned into a cliché; however in 18-odd years ago and in Gaiman’s competent hands the image was new and a blinding stroke of genius. With this single inventive story, the tapestry for the Sandman universe exploded with possibility, a new British writer had ascended the superstar throne; and most importantly to me, Death suddenly didn’t seem so bad and I felt comfort that my mom wasn’t alone after she had left us.

Forlorn Funnies #3
by Paul Hornschemeier

I’m sure you guys are sick of me singing Paul Hornschemeier’s praises, but I’m not! Forlorn Funnies #3 might be better known as the second section of Mother, Come Home. It is a heartbreaking and gut wrenching story of loss. In this issue you really get into the meat of the story and begin to see how the son and the father are dealing with the mother’s death. The mother was the glue holding this family together and without her the family is falling apart. Anyone who has dealt with any sort of loss can relate to the desire to withdraw into a world of your own, a world where you can make everything better. The son begins to have fantasies of bringing his mother back, while the father becomes despondent. One of the most emotional sequences is the father and the son sleeping side by side before the father is sent away. It is so well written and tightly drawn that it will stick with you for weeks after you have read it.