Thursday, December 14, 2017

What Are you Reading? Top 100 Comics and Graphic Novels

NPR released a list of the 100 Best Comics and Graphic Novels as its annual Reader's Choice Summer Reading list for 2017. I always enjoy reading lists like this, and I love many of the books they selected. As always happens when I look at a 'best-of' list, there were also other books I wish had been included. And it got me to thinking, given the considerable amount of comics that pass through my reading stack on a regular basis, I could probably cobble together a list of my own. So without further ado, here is the heavily subjective Mattathiasing Top 100 Comics and Graphic Novels. Each category begins with some decidedly kid-friendly offerings and then grows increasingly mature in focus and content towards the end of the section. Some are well-known classics, some are obscure gems, all are great reads. Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

What Are You Reading? November 2017 Edition



Comics and Graphic Novels
The Silence of Our Friends    Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, Nate Powell
Castle Waiting    Linda Medley
Rocket Girl: Times Squared    Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder
Moon Knight: Lunatic   Jeff Lemire, Greg Smallwood, Jordan Bellaire
Ultimate Comics: Spider Man, Vol. 1    Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli
Ultimate Comics: Spider Man, Vol. 2    Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Samnee, Sara Pichelli, David Marquez
The Midas Flesh, Vol. 1   Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb
The Midas Flesh, Vol. 2   Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb
Sumo   Thien Pham
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, Vol. 1: Activation   Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hajime Yatate


Thursday, November 16, 2017

What Are You Reading? October 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Vol. 1: BFF    Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos, Tamra Bonvillain
Black Hammer #1    Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, Dave Stewart
Usagi Yojimbo, Vol. 1: The Ronin    Stan Sakai
Giant Days, Vol. 5    John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Whitney Cogar
Last Sons of America    Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Matthew Dow Smith, Doug Garbark
Astro City, Vol. 2: Confession    Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Alex Ross
Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 2    Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, Chris Sprouse
Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 3    Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, Chris Sprouse
Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 1    Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli
Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 2    Brian Michael Bendis, Nico Leon, Sara Pichelli

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

What Are You Reading? September 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
Wolverine: Old Man Logan Mark Millar,  Steve McNiven
Gwenpool Vol. 1: Believe It Christopher Hastings, Danilo Beyruth, Gurihiru
Gwenpool Vol. 2: Head of M.O.D.O.K Christopher Hastings, Irene Strychalski, Gurihiru
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill
Secrets & Sequences Gene Luen Yang, Mike Holmes
Giant Days, Vol. 1 John Allison, Lissa Treiman, Whitney Cogar
Giant Days, Vol. 2 John Allison, Lissa Treiman, Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar
Giant Days, Vol. 3 John Allison, Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar
Giant Days, Vol. 4 John Allison, Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar
Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia Greg Rucka, J.G. Jones, Wade Von Grawbadger, Dave Stewart

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

What Are You Reading? August 2017 Edition


Comics and Graphic Novels
X-Force (1991-2004) #1 Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld
Astonishing X-Men (2004-2013) #1 Joss Whedon, John Cassaday
Domino (2003) #1    Joe Pruett, Brian Stelfreeze
The Infinity Entity (2016) #1   Jim Starlin, Alan Davis
The Stone Heart (The Nameless City, #2) Faith Erin Hicks
Long Walk to Valhalla Adam Smith, Matthew Fox

Thursday, August 3, 2017

What Are You Reading? July 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
One Trick Pony   Nathan Hale
Web Warriors (2015-) #1   Mike Costa, David BaldeĆ³n, Julian Tedesco
Secret Wars #0 (FCBD 2015) Jonathan Hickman, Paul Renaud
All-New, All-Different Avengers #1 (FCBD 2015)   Mark Waid, Mahmud A. Asrar, Frank Martin,  Charles Soule, Brandon Peterson, Justin Ponsor
Marvel Avengers Alliance (2016) #1  Fabian Nicieza, Paco DĆ­az, Sam Wood


Friday, July 7, 2017

What Are You Reading? June 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
FBP: Federal Bureau Of Physics, Vol. 2: Wish You Were Here   Simon Oliver, Robbi Rodriguez
FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics, Vol. 3: Audeamus   Simon Oliver, Robbi Rodriguez, Alberto Ponticelli
Alpha Flight, Vol. 1: You Gotta Be Kiddin' Me!  Scott Lobdell, Clayton Henry
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City  Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez

Nonfiction

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States    Sarah Vowell
But Where is the Lamb?: Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac    James Goodman

Friday, June 2, 2017

What Are You Reading? May 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
Superman, Volume 1: Son of Superman     Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Doug Mahnke, Jorge Jiminez, Mick Gray
Green Arrow, Volume 1: The Death and Life of Oliver Queen   Benjamin Percy, Otto Schmidt, Juan Ferreyra
Batman, Volume 1: I Am Gotham    Tom King, David Finch
Hostage (FCBD 2017) Guy Delisle, Brigitte Findakly, Lewis Trondheim
Extraordinary X-Men, Volume 1: X-Haven   Jeff Lemire, Humberto Ramos
Extraordinary X-Men, Volume 2: Apocalypse Wars Jeff Lemire, Humberto Ramos, Victor IbaƱez
The Vision, Volume 1: Little Worse Than A Man  Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Thursday, May 4, 2017

What Are You Reading? April 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
Bad Machinery Volume 7: The Case of the Forked Road  John Allison
Bad Machinery Volume 6: The Case of the Unwelcome Visitor   John Allison
El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel   Ilan Stavans, Steve Sheinkin
Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (Atomic Robo, #1) Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
Templar  Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, Alex Puvilland
Tetris: The Games People Play  Box Brown

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

What Are You Reading? March 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Volume 1: Squirrel Power  Ryan North, Erica Henderson
Showa, 1939-1944: A History of Japan  Shigeru Mizuki
March: Book One (March, #1)  John Robert Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
Mooncop  Tom Gauld
Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

Friday, March 3, 2017

What Are You Reading? February 2017 Edition

Comics and Graphic Novels
SuperMutant Magic Academy  Jillian Tamaki
Get a Life  Philippe Dupuy, Charles Berberian, translated by Helge Dascher
The Sword of Laban and the Tree of Life    Mike Allred, Laura Allred
Captain America: Winter Soldier, Volume 1   Ed Brubaker,  Michael Lark, Steve Epting, John Paul Leon

Friday, February 3, 2017

What Are You Reading? January 2017 Edition

Based on my year end review, I'm making a few changes to how I list books here.  First of all, I was lazy for most of last year and just copied the title and primary author from Goodreads, which means last year's monthly lists didn't give credit to a lot of great co-authors, illustrators, pencillers, inkers, etc.  I corrected that on my top 40 list, but putting a whole bunch of authors in last name-first name order was awkward, so this year I'm going further on re-formatting.

Also, following up on my post with graphs from last year, I've been thinking about how the organization of my posts before preferenced certain formats above others.  I don't want to do that, so this year I'll be putting them in alphabetical order by format, which means comics (the format I read most this month) comes first.  I'm also adding a category-- visual work-- for primarily visual books that don't fall into the categories of comics or picture books, so that at the end of the year I can get a more accurate breakdown of text-based work compared to visual work. (Yes, I know I could go through last years books and recategorize, but I'm looking forward now, not back.)

Saturday, January 14, 2017

2016 Books by Numbers



I'm a sucker for a good graph, so I've decided to create some simple data visualizations for my reading over the past year.

First, here's a chart showing how many books I read each month, where you can see my monthly totals drop sharply during the summer and then rise dramatically again afterwards.  Since my wife and I spent June hunting for a house and July moving in, that makes a lot of sense.



Thursday, January 12, 2017

2016 Reading Wrap-Up

I read a lot of books last year. Here's my favorite forty. Many of these have already been reviewed in my monthly reading round-ups, but I want to do a little more to spotlight them.  So here are the forty best books I read in 2016, over all categories.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

What Are You Reading? December 2016 Edition

December Total: 25
2017 Total: 400

Nonfiction
H is for Hawk Macdonald, Helen
Star Wars Character Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Beecroft, Simon
F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers Benson, Richard

Comics
Saga, Volume 3 Vaughan, Brian K.
Saga, Volume 4 Vaughan, Brian K.
Saga, Volume 5 Vaughan, Brian K.
Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo Olsen, Brittany Long
Watchmen Moore, Alan
The Courageous Princess: Beyond the Hundred Kingdoms    Espinosa, Rod
The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln Van Sciver, Noah