SPECTATORS - Part 112
Plus, BKV's Top Ten Favorite Comics of 2024 (so far)!
How did you celebrate/ignore/counter-program Father’s Day over the weekend?
Brian here, and I was lucky enough to receive some thoughtful gifts from my brood before being whisked off to scenic Ojai, where I was apparently the only dad not golfing (“a good walk spoiled,” etc.). Instead, we flâneured about and found our way to an incredible Burmese restaurant called The Dutchess, where I ate my favorite meal of the year so far, 48-hour-yogurt-marinated goat. Apologies again to my mostly vegetarian family for disappearing that lovely mammal with so much gusto.
And speaking of my favorite stuff of the year, I finally caught up on (most) of my new comic reading, and will have a full list of my Top Ten picks at the end of this missive.
But first, let’s get to some polychromatic new pages of Spectators from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks, as Sam regales his ghostly companion Val with a memorable event from his corporeal past…
Such gorgeous work from Niko, huh?
I’ve been excited to get to this scene since Sam first hinted at it in a page we released nearly two years ago, so thanks again for your extraordinary patience with this time-consuming process, especially you generous paid subscribers in The Tower who’ve helped make our epic graphic novel possible.
If you haven’t yet joined your fellow giraffes, you missed last week’s scintillating bonus content and ensuing conversation, which veered from Talking Heads to Swamp Thing to the most “rad” films of 1984, a particularly strange year for cinema.
There was a lot of love for timeless classics like Ghostbusters, Karate Kid, and of course Val’s cherished The Terminator, but I’m most interested in weirdo outliers like Repo Man or Blood Simple or even The NeverEnding Story, films that almost feel like they slipped into our reality from some neighboring dimension.
A reader who goes by Slicke was on my frequency, writing:
My better half and I are trying to narrow this down, but the list of 1984 movies is kind of overwhelming in its greatness. We’re also pretty amazed at how many of them we probably saw in 1984. Down to 3 choices - all rad in different ways. Repo Man, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and Buckaroo Banzai. I think I have to go with Buckaroo - it’s a pretty rad idea that you can make me get all misty eyed when [spoiler redacted] dies. I’m still annoyed that we didn’t get eight sequels. Or better yet a prequel all about Emilio Lizardo, and asking Lithgow to do the same thing, just a little more over the top. My wife is calling for a tie between Buckaroo and Nausicaä.
Rosy F. suggested another oddball fave:
I have to go with Top Secret!, that movie is absolutely bonkers! It was the first movie I saw with young scientists and engineers instead of the veritable old professor, so many memorable scenes, the ballet poses, the laser popcorn, the “torture scene”, the cows! It brings a smile to my face, not the best 1984 movie but the one that made me laugh the most.
As always, Reed Beebe went his own way:
SUPERGIRL - for putting together Peter O’Toole, Faye Dunaway, and the best Popeyes Fried Chicken product placement that I’ve ever seen in cinema.
But only one lucky reader could be randomly chosen to win this signed bit of my petrified past…
…and our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe selected Kurt L., who wrote:
Paris, Texas isn’t what I’d call rad, so I’ll go with Streets of Fire. Walter Hill went all out and created the raddest neon drenched rock western biker movie you've ever seen. It’s not as talked about as The Warriors, but it should be.
I’m embarrassed I’ve never seen this one, Kurt! Thanks for the rec, and I hope you enjoy your invaluable prize.
A few of my fellow Yanks have asked when my upcoming short story with artist Chris Burnham in the British anthology Battle Action will be available here in the States, and this interview with Garth Ennis has all your answers.
Launching in the UK this August, Battle Action #1 will be available in the US on October 2nd. But despite the amazing lineup of international creators, I’m not sure how many American comic shops order titles like these, so you may want to ask your friendly neighborhood retailer to set aside a copy for you.
Speaking of Garth (whose new Punisher miniseries Get Fury with Jacen Burrows is as good as anything those two have ever done), I already plugged the incredible work of my friends and colleagues in a recent dispatch…
…but this week, I wanted to celebrate the work of creators I don’t know well/at all, and/or haven’t collaborated with (yet).
And I’m still loving ongoing series I’ve recommended in the past like Usagi Yojimbo, Ice Cream Man and Love and Rockets (those new sketchbooks from The Brothers Hernandez are must-haves), but I wanted to spread the love around with my latest wholly arbitrary Top Ten list.
Same goes with the work of Patreon creators I’ve already mentioned supporting, including Gabrielle Bell, Jim Rugg and Chester Brown, all of whom continue to amaze. Recently, Chester even mailed out some cool mini-comics (truly mini!) to his subscribers:
Anyway, I’m most curious about YOU: What are the best comics you’ve read so far this year?
Doesn’t have to have been released in 2024, could be something you just discovered in the last few months.
Either way, one randomly selected commenter will receive a copy (complete with a signed bookplate from the The Museum of Contemporary Art) of what was easily my favorite comic/graphic novel/whatever of 2023, Daniel Clowes’ Monica:
You can see all the selections from my second Top Ten Faves of 2023 list below, and if you’re really bored, you can zipper-merge it together with that earlier Best of 2023 (so far) list to discover all TWENTY of my most highly recommended comics from last year:
Okay, enough homework, let’s get to the new shit!
BKV’S TOP TEN FAVORITE COMICS OF 2024 (SO FAR!)
Same caveats as always: these are just what comics/graphic novels/picture books/whatever I happened to have picked up, finished in the last six months, and somehow still remember today.
10) HOMICIDE: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
David Simon’s Homicide is one of my all-time favorite books (later adapted into one of my all-time favorite shows), but I wasn’t sure how nonfiction reportage from the 1980s would translate to a contemporary graphic novel. Nevertheless, cartoonist Philippe Squarzoni yanked me right back into this world with his careful pacing and clear storytelling.
9) ULTIMATE X-MEN
I have it on good authority that Ultimate X-Men is an extremely challenging title to write, one that’s ostensibly meant to introduce a new audience to classic Marvel concepts, without alienating existing readers who want to see exactly the correct ratio of familiar stuff they love to unexpected surprises.
But it seems like superstar writer/artist Peach Momoko wisely decided to ignore all that noise and instead just tell a great story, and so far, I think it’s the best run of UXM yet. And not just because of how brilliantly she’s utilizing the Runaways’ Nico Minoru!
(PS - It’s heartening to see that Marvel editorial now rightly credits Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as the X-Men’s creators at the start of each issue, and I remain hopeful that they might someday do the same for more of Marvel’s past artists and writers, including Nico Minoru’s co-creators Adrian Alphona and some other guy.)
8) THE SMELL OF STARVING BOYS
Bold title, huh?
If you’ve been digging Spectators, I think this unsettling/appealing supernatural erotic western (!) will be right up your alley. Impressive work from co-authors Loo Hui Phang and Frederik Peeters.
7) NIGHTWING
I have to admit that I’m fairly out of the loop when it comes to modern superhero books, but on the WGA picket line last year, multiple writers I trust yelled at me for not having read Nightwing from the truly dynamic duo of writer Tom Taylor and artist Bruno Redondo.
They were right. It’s really fun, and very much its own distinct book, but the series reminds me a little of that classic Matt Fraction and David Aja run on Hawkeye, in that it feels like the perfect combination of writer, artist, character and story, all working in harmony at exactly the moment the audience needed them most.
6) THE HARD SWITCH
I wasn’t familiar with cartoonist Owen D. Pomery, but picked this up because of that striking ligne claire cover. The interiors are just as pretty, and they accompany a surprisingly “hard” sci-fi story about inter-system space travel and talking octopi, all of which I greatly enjoyed.
Five more bangers after the jump, including another book starring Batman (but not published by DC?!), as well as my favorite graphic novel since Monica.
Everyone else, stay well this week, and Niko and I will see you next Monday evening for more free Spectators…