I noticed a lot of discussion on the Blueskies, at least amongst several groups of folks that I follow, regarding the appropriateness of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen graphic novel as an introductory comic for new readers.
Reactions, as you might imagine, are mixed, heavier on the “no you probably shouldn’t” versus “sure, why not.” My own particular contribution to the discussion was that I personally don’t need to handsell the Watchmen to anyone. It feels like anyone already coming into a comic shop looking for comics, Watchmen is already a known quantity, and it sells just find without my intervention.
It had been a while since it was that way…Watchmen sales took a hit around the time its movie was released, at least in my neck of the woods. But as time has passed, sales have slowly built back up again to having to reorder the books on a near-weekly basis. There were blips (or anti-blips, slowing sales down a bit) here and there, with the presence of the HBO series, or the prequel comics, or Doomsday Clock, but Watchmen is back to its bestseller status.
All that said, is Watchmen the right book to give to someone new to comics?
Well, it depends.
If someone comes in and asks “so, what are the classic graphic novels that everyone should read?” then Watchmen is definitely on the list, along with Dark Knight Returns and some others. I have received this question in the past, and these are exactly the kind of comics these people are looking for.
If someone comes in and asks “I’m looking for a comic to start with,” then it’s anyone’s guess. Asking “what are you in the mood for” and “what characters do you like” or “what kind of things do you like to read” and so on and so forth are necessary in pointing folks in the right direction. And not always to the graphic novels (unless they specify they want a longer read), but maybe finding a single issue as well.
It’s single issues that I most have to track down for folks who come in buying comics for other people, usually adults (parents or grandparents and such) looking for something for kids, either present or not. It’s not easy, sometimes, as for example I offered recent issues of Amazing Spider-Man and Superman to a couple of adults for a child, and their response was “these seem awfully dark.”
Many times when I have adults asking on behalf of children, they request “nothing too violent or bloody” which can also be a little tricky because I won’t know what their particular limits are for those sorts of things. Ever since I had a mom complain that the ladies in a reprint of a Steve Ditko Spider-Man comic were “too sexy,” I never try to assume what “too much” of something is going to be. Thus, it takes a moment or two of letting them go through the comics to make sure they match their needs.
We’re a bit off the main topic here, which is “Watchman: Good or Bad” for new readers, and honestly I’m neutral on it. Like I said, it’ll sell on its own anyway, especially now that it’s available in a $9.99 Compact Comics format. In terms of difficulty for new readers, I don’t think it’s too challenging for, y’know, a bright teen or an invested adult to tackle it.
As an alternative for someone looking for a good superhero comic to start with, the All-Star Superman book by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely is a popular favorite, as is Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier. Both have their own challenges for new readers, but honestly any comic book-styled graphic novel may not exactly be smooth sailing for someone unfamiliar with the format.
Of course, this is just in regards to superhero comics, but when people come in for their first comics, it’s superhero stuff they’re looking for. But sometimes the little, little kids are happy with Disney or My Little Pony…I probably wouldn’t hand a 5-year-old Watchmen.
When I was working in a comics shop, I never recommended WATCHMEN as a “starter comic”; it never really occurred to me.
What I DID tell people was that WATCHMEN wasn’t a modern, “decompressed” trade paperback, and they shouldn’t try to rip through it in one sitting. Take your time, pace yourself, just read a chapter or two a day, and DON’T SKIP OVER THE TEXT SECTIONS. (I was surprised by how many regulars admitted that they never bothered to read those bits.)
I’d explain that I first read it when it originally came out, and my friends and I would have four to six weeks to mull over each installment before the next one arrived — and that’s really how the book was meant to be read.
(After getting bitten by the DRACULA DAILY bug a couple of years ago, I feel the same way about Stoker.)
Superhero comics haven’t been all-ages appropriate in a long time, unfortunately. We don’t need every comic to be dark and intense. There are a handful of recent comics that I would feel comfortable handing to a child, however:
Supergirl by Sophie Campbell: It’s charming, beautifully-drawn, and features themes of family and acceptance that some younger readers could relate to. Campbell incorporates obscure continuity without making the reader feel lost, and I’m saying this as someone who has read very few Supergirl comics.
World’s Finest,Justice League Unlimited, and Batman & Robin: Year One by Mark Waid, Dan Mora, Chris Samnee, et al: WF and JLU are big, fun, and generally easy to follow. B&R:YO is darker, but doesn’t wallow in excess violence. The heart of the series is the relationship between the title characters, with Robin acting like a believable child and Batman trying to figure him out. The art is superb, among the best in current Big 2 comics.
Extraordinary X-Men: I’d recommend this comic to YA readers. It’s light on action and heavier on relationship drama. I think of it as a “hang out” series, in which we want to see how the characters navigate their lives now that they’re mutants. It wasn’t bogged down by recent crossovers, either, making it a smoother read that its sister titles. The art is appealing, too.
as i noted in my own rather extensive thread on bluesky, i feel it might be a mistake to offer new comics readers who aren’t yet knowledgeable enough to have narrowed down what they like, the absolute best things available in the industry. my view being, if you start at the top, you can only go down.
Comics is a very large pyramid with watchmen at the very tip, and other widely regarded works coming rapidly after, but a long term reader is very soon going to run out of the stuff that is most acclaimed and might be disappointed by stopping at the base of the pyramid with, say, SAMUREE.
For lack of a better term, i can see people getting spoiled by super high quality works rather quickly, and start questioning their continued engagement with the form. I know that after 40 years (next month!), after being exposed to all the best things the best creators can muster, i still read things every month that i put down afterwards and think, “well, i guess it was ok” and have an actual internal debate about whether i want it taking up space in my house. I mean, there’s a reason we have dollar boxes.
You can say I’m jaded and that’s fine, i won’t take exception to such judgments, but if it can be said about me, someone who’s loved the form intensely enough to have had podcasts, tabled at conventions, and has 90% of his shirt wardrobe dedicated to comics notice that not every book is Bone, it just begs a question of how long a casual person will last when “the good stuff” runs out.
So maybe build people up to the pinnacle of the form, rather than starting a downward journey risking disaffected results. SOLID stories are always satisfying and leave you wanting more.
I find that “what’s your favorite movie” is a good starting point for recommendations. Sometimes it’s a fun thought exercise…I still have no idea what I’d suggest of the reply was a musical!
If I may be so bold, there is an essay in this collection, with the somewhat cumbersome title “Reassembling the Components in the Correct Sequence: Why You Shouldn’t Read Watchmen First”, that addresses this precise issue at length, written by someone you might know.
http://sequart.org/books/6/minutes-to-midnight-twelve-essays-on-watchmen/
I think there’s enough quality comic work that has been published over the years that there really isn’t a fear of running out of quality comics for a new-to-comics reader. Unless they decide that they only want to read superhero comics. However, I’ve found that comic fans who only read superhero comics tend to gravitate to certain characters and become the type of fans who get addicted (for lack of a better term) to the comic book medium and will continue to follow their favourite characters no matter how poor the quality of the comic.
It also depends on what the person is interested in reading about. Do they want to sample reading comic books or do they want to read superhero comics? I have often recommended Sandman as a good place to start reading comics and have gotten good responses to that series.
There are two reasons:
1.) I think that people who are going to be fans of superheroes have already discovered the medium as children (although, someone like Mike who works as a retailer in the industry will come across children wanting to start reading comics, but that’s not the type of person that I will find myself making a recommendation),
2.)Superheroes are somewhat of a niche genre, even with the popularity of superhero movies. It’s an easier task to get someone to sit through a two-hour spectacle on a screen than asking them to commit to reading about characters doing the same. So, easing a new reader slowly into superhero comic books by exposing them to something which may be closer to a subject they may be familiar with from reading prose fiction seems like the better way to show them the range of comic books.
I think the idea of giving people Watchmen as a “first comic” comes from the time when the main objection people had to reading comics was that they didn’t have the depth and complexity of print literature – so a dense, allusive, intricately structured work with lots of Adult Themes made a good counter-argument.
Side note – Am I reading you correctly that sales actually went _down_ when the movie adaptation came out? If so, you’d think that would have made Warner’s think twice about giving Snyder the keys to the DC universe… (Well, assuming that Warner’s even cares about the comics beyond their ability to spawn movies, which is unlikely.)
I have little opinion about Watchmen as a starter comic, since I was years into reading them when I finally read it as a bright teen, but I’d definitely hand it to someone over All-Star Superman, which I cannot conceive of handing to someone as their first comic, or New Frontier, where the stupidity of Hal Jordan being in the military refusing to shoot down enemy fighters might turn them away from the medium.
(Cooke is a brilliant artist, but that bit…)
‘I had a mom complain that the ladies in a reprint of a Steve Ditko Spider-Man comic were “too sexy.”’
Ah yes, the Comics Code Authority in 1962, that famously permissive body!
Reminds me of the lady whose letter to The Flash in the pre-Crisis 80s complained of the comic’s bad language.
And the example she gave of such foul and unacceptable language in the pages of Bates & Infantino’s Flash?
“Holy cripes!”
I was wondering if Mike handed the woman some Jack Chick tracts and said, “Enjoy.”
Even Archie Comics of the time had “sexier women” compared to Ditko’s Amazing Spider-Man, so I don’t know where else you’d go except Jack Chick at that point.
I feel like every edition of Watchmen sold to new readers needs Tom Spurgeon’s guide included:
https://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/reading_the_watchmen_various_entrance_points_into_the_esteemed_graphic_nove/
Otherwise, unless someone is already familiar with the other adaptations I can’t see making this (or any Alan Moore comic) someone’s first comic work to read since so much of his work is a critique of the form and characters on display.
I could see giving someone From Hell as their first comic work, although it depends on if they enjoy postmodern literature. Rather than Watchmen, I consider From Hell to be the height of comics as literature and Moore’s absolute masterpiece.
From Hell is definitelyt he best comic I’ve ever read, but for someone’s first comic? I think a slicker, easier to read style like Gibbons’s would work better than Campbell’s.
“Under the Trees Where Nobody Sees”?
No?
Re: the quibble over Ditko’s women in Spider-Man, it could quite possibly be a case where Ditko faced a deadline crunch and Eric Stanton (Google his artwork) either drew the women or inked over Ditko’s pencils of the women in that particular Spider-Man story. Ditko and Stanton did share a studio space for awhile during the ’60s, and legend has it that they would occasionally help each other out with art chores.
As far as a “starter comic,” it depends on what the reader is interested in. Personally, I would suggest a Love and Rockets compendium of the first twenty-five issues or so of that classic magazine–when Los Bros were really cooking! Or else maybe Will Eisner’s “A Contract With God,” “A Signal From Space,” or one of his other graphic novels. Jim Starlin’s “The Death of Captain Marvel” graphic novel remains poignant. A Dave Stevens’ “The Rocketeer” compendium would be fun reading and gorgeous to look at. Or how about “The Killing Joke” by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland? Or “Camelot 3000” by Mike. W. Barr and Bolland?
I think DC should be taking the Scooby Doo Team-Up comics template and try marketing three kid-friendly titles in a similar style: Brave and the Bold (featuring Batman and rotating co-stars), DC Comics Presents (featuring Superman and rotating co-stars), and Sensation Comics (featuring Wonder Woman and rotating co-stars). All of these would be done in a positive, early Bronze Age DC style, with one-and-done stories; nothing should be grim and gritty and there should be no over the top gratuitous violence. Who wouldn’t want to see Batman and Space Ranger, Superman and Brother Power the Geek, or Wonder Woman and Bulletman & Bulletgirl girl team up?
Re: Your Bluesky posting, The Cure/”The Placebo”–there actually was a ’90s band called Placebo.
“Undead Kennedys” would actually be a great name for a DK cover band that dresses up as zombies…
“Watchmen” seems to me like almost the precise opposite of what you would recommend to a new reader. It’s a deconstruction of classic superhero comics, their tropes, and their character archetypes. Its efficacy isn’t entirely dependent on being familiar with them, but people who are familiar with them are definitely the intended audience. It’s not a “first” read, it’s a “ultimate” read.
I was thinking the same thing (trad superhero comics first, deconstructed superhero comics later), but do the last 15-20 years of superhero movies change that equation?
The general population has quite a lot more familiarity with superheroes and their tropes now than they did when Watchmen was first published.
If someone has never seen a Marvel or DC movie, then that’s a different story. But the number of people who don’t watch superhero movies but do want to read superhero comics has to be pretty small, right?
I’m making all this up, so I’m happy to be wrong. I’m sure Mike (and other comic book retailers) know better than I do.
Here’s a slightly different perspective on the question: As a high school Humanities teacher at an arts school, we incorporate graphic novels into our curriculum regularly. With a focus on literary elements/devices, world history, and the elements of art. Our four main novels are:
V for Vendetta by Moore and Lloyd (Allusion, irony, characterization, and setting as well as how citizens can change government)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Symbolism, metaphor as well as the immigration experience)
Maus by Spiegelman (Narrative, plot, conflict as well as events leading up to WWII)
Persepolis by Satrapi (Theme and voice as well as post-colonial conflicts)
Having said that, we had a vigorous debate about whether to use Watchmen in the course and ultimately, decided against it. It has relevance to the Cold War era certainly but we felt it might be too dense for some of the students. I would say about 30% of the high schoolers taking the class later read it and really enjoyed it.
I kind of think Mad Love may be the actual best starter comic, at least for the superhero inclined. Short, great, and features two other super-popular characters.
Squirrel Girl for young readers. In the same vein, Ryan North’s Fantastic Four may be the rare good Marvel jumping-on point.
For non-superhero comics, how about the first trade of Criminal? Quick read, lots of follow-up for afterwards, and has a TV show coming that may draw people to come looking for it. Really, almost anything from Brubaker’s Image years should be a solid rec.
I’m surprised that the movie/streaming superhero offerings don’t include suggested comic book follow-ups. Couldn’t they add something to the credits or as part of the trailer?
I’m too out of touch with what’s being published these days to have a solid recommendation.
I got my closest friend, someone who doesn’t really care for comics to read Watchmen before the movie came out. He enjoyed it overall. Recently he returned a stack of non superhero comics and graphic novels I thought he might care for – Hellboy, Black Science, and Understanding Comics didn’t do anything for him – he’s a tough sell!
As far as classic stuff goes, I can see Love and Rockets, Eightball, Hellboy or the previously mentioned New Frontier and Mad Love as good ones to lure people in depending on their genres of choice.
My wife read the New Frontier, mostly because she enjoyed the animated movie so much. I really enjoyed reading NF as well, but I have to imagine part of its charm is rooted in having a knowledge and appreciation for silver age DC.
@William O’Brien – As I said, I’m way out of the loop, but you are the third person in a week I’ve heard praise Ryan North’s FF. I’m going to have to pick some of those up!
Probably for superhero comics I think the top recommendation would still be Uncanny X-Men no. 94-143, along with Giant Size X-Men no. 1, reprinted in trades. It’s pretty difficult to top Claremont, Cockrum, Byrne, and Austin at their collective zenith.
I have noticed that more and more of the Claremont/Byrne/Austin issues are getting dribbled out in facsimile editions, but I think Marvel should straight up release facsimile editions of all of the Uncanny X-Men issues from 94 through 143.
“I have noticed that more and more of the Claremont/Byrne/Austin issues are getting dribbled out in facsimile editions, but I think Marvel should straight up release facsimile editions of all of the Uncanny X-Men issues from 94 through 143.”
Facsimile editions are slop crowding the shelves. It’s one thing to do them for important issues, it’s another to do something this nuts. If people want to read them, buy the Epics. Or Masterworks. Or some other trade edition.
I also think your recommendation is kind of nuts. Those early issues are kind of rough though at least the end of the Warhawk issue.
@ Joe Gualtieri
They would probably sell better than a lot of the current Marvel books, and when you consider over the last few years they have already released facsimile editions for around ten issues from that classic Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne/Austin run, they might as well release the other 41 issues too.
If they did one each week, they could have them all out over the course of one year. And based on how prohibitively expensive most of those X-Men comics are on the secondary market, I think they would sell reasonably well at $4.99 a pop. And there are still a lot of “keys” in that run: first Vindicator, first Alpha Flight, first Imperial Guard, first Star Jammers, etc. Besides, not everyon wants to buy trade editions, some prefer the stories in a facsimile of their original form, ads and all.
Also, I believe Marvel is currently releasing facsimiles of the first ten issues of Fantastic Four, beyond the Silver Surfer/Galactus first three appearances in FF facsimiles which just dropped.
Hell, I see a good argument for printing facsimiles of the Frank Miller’s complete Daredevil run, and Steve Ditko’s complete Spider-Man run as well.
Ten years back (?) they did reprint the Ditko run of Spider-man, but with new covers and current ads inside, which spoilt them for me. They didn’t reach the end of his run before the reprints were cancelled.
Do the facsimiles retain the old-style printing? I don’t want fancy paper or enhanced coloring thank you very much :)
“Ever since I had a mom complain that the ladies in a reprint of a Steve Ditko Spider-Man comic were “too sexy,”
WHAT, NOW.
“Even Archie Comics of the time had “sexier women” compared to Ditko’s Amazing Spider-Man”
Betty in a bikini? OH YEAH!
“SAMUREE.”
I just looked that up on ebay, and MY lots of tits n’ ass shots on the covers!
“I mean, there’s a reason we have dollar boxes”
So I can buy worn copies of back issues of GI JOE?
“I find that “what’s your favorite movie” is a good starting point for recommendations”
That would probably work for most people, but My favorite movies are Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and STAR WARS. I’m not sure what that would tell about my comic interests!
““Undead Kennedys” would actually be a great name for a DK cover band that dresses up as zombies”
And they should also cover the Mifits!!!
“Ten years back (?) they did reprint the Ditko run of Spider-man, but with new covers and current ads inside”
BLASPHEMY!!
I could see X-Men Fascimile editions selling, the Marvel Masterworks HC books are expensive.
OK, a comic that’s not too “adult” or too childish, how about SWORD OF THE ATOM? I dunno if it’s still in TPB, but I bought the back issues and loved `em!
Hellboy, mentioned above is another possibility. and Justice League International, if they (customer) likes superheroes with some comedy added.
Non-superhero stuff, I would think Love & Rockets, Bone, Hate,
…and there’s probably some other indie books that might be of interest. I’m a lot less familiar with that stuff.