good research topic comics

[tommo]

So I'm taking writing 100 as a 5th year senior. We're supposed to do our final research paper on some 'cultural text'. I thought it'd be fun to do this paper on some comic.

I'm not really sure what my subject would be, and I've never read any comics...I'm hoping somebody could tell me some good comics to look into.

[Blarg]

A Cartoon History of the World is pretty fantastic, and often quite funny and inventive.

American Splendor is also great, and its author has a big body of work to comment on.

Charles Burns is another very highly regarded fellow, with a striking style and unsettling topics.

Do you want to do just one comic, or a theme? I'd love to read more jap-horror or whatever they call it. They do a lot of that stuff, and a lot has been picked up in America.

[zyrrth]

Watchmen

[Blarg]

If you do From Hell, you can also compare it to the movie. It supposedly also has a lot of social commentary in it.

[rothko]

calvin & hobbes and it's not even close:

[tommo]

[ QUOTE ]
Watchmen

[/ QUOTE ]

I went to a comic book store and told the guy about my project and he gave me a really horrifically terrible comic about batman and superman that was clearly written for very young people.

He also mentioned watchmen. Can you tell me more about it so I don't waste another $10?

[zyrrth]

I assume he gave you 'The Dark Knight Returns' by Frank Miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

[Kimbell175113]

Watchmen is seriously excellent, BUT the foundation for that excellence is it's riffing on superhero tropes and archetypes. If you don't respect the genre, you won't like Watchmen as much as it deserves.

Just read Maus. or Persepolis. or Ghost World. or one of Blarg's suggestions.

[diebitter]

I would second 'The Dark Knight Returns' or 'Watchmen' as two that had the most impact in the comic world. Their relative sophistication compared to other comics has some mileage about culture, I would think. V for Vendetta contains quite interesting social commentary given the current state of the world.


Another possibility is one which was tired to rapidly evolving culture. Wasn't some comic about hippies and drugs up for obscenity trials in the 60s/70s? Or Mad magazine was a big part of American 'satire' for a short stretch, IIRR.

[tommo]

[ QUOTE ]
I assume he gave you 'The Dark Knight Returns' by Frank Miller?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

[/ QUOTE ]

nope, he gave me something that wasn't frank miller. And I have respect for the genre. I just think that there are probably a lot of bad comics out there.

I'll give watchmen, v for vendetta, and dark night returns a try.

Is the death and return of superman any good? I saw a hardback book for it in the store I visited.