What Novels are to Traditional Comics, Poetry is to... X?

David A

Thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em coming!

If you can make it to a comic store (GOSH in London esp.), the periodical Sturgeon White Moss has some excellent, er, "non-traditional" stuff -- the fifth issue is just out, it looks great (Check out www.whitemosspress.com).

I should also be predictable and reccomend Persepolis and In the Shadow of No Towers and, um, Essential Howard the Duck.

I really enjoyed Persepolis - that was quite a narrative story, actually, but it was such an unexpected viewpoint that it made it seem surreal, because the events it depicted were quite surreal - and experiential (is that a word?) rather than straightforward.

I should just go to GOSH but every time I go there, I get overwhelmed by the sheer profusion and how out of touch I am. Hence why I'm looking for some guidance and advice about the sorts of things I might like!

The Invisibles is a romp through Gnostic texts, secret societies and time travel.

Cerebus is a dense work on religion, feminism and personal relationships. I've got an entire thread on it somewhere where I summarise the plot per book. It's very heavy going in places. Dave rewrites the Pentateuch at one point.

I'm assuming you've read From Hell, but if not then imagine a cross between White Chapel, Scarlet Tracings, Lud Heat and Hawksmoor.

Promethea deals at length with magical thought, the relationship between the magic and writing through history, and several folk myths. Actually, some of it probably falls into the category of what you were looking for in the first place.

Hellboy = Lovecraft vs Nazis FITE!

Definitely something I would like and will check out again. Though probably not exactly what I started the thread about...

ILC rarely stays on topic.

Actually, the out-this-week Best of Negative Burn sounds a lot like what you're looking for, Kate.

There is the point to be made, though, that you don't get a lot of imagery in comics because we have actual images instead.

GET ONE KRAMER'S ERGOT #4

(possibly the new #5 as well but I haven't seen it)

http://members.aol.com/maburrier/ke4a.html
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,482376,00.html
http://www.gingkopress.com/_cata/_grap/kramer4.htm
http://www.gingkopress.com/_cata/ima1/kramer-0.htm
http://www.forager23.com/archives/000111.html

http://www.buenaventurapress.com/books/

Untranslated comics in any unfamiliar language.

And an excellent point it is.

Ha! Absolutely.

Oh, and Hugo Pratt, especialy his Corto maltese stories.
David A

about all-out imagery assualt rather than narrative.

This is kind of exactly what I'm looking for.

(Note: is it the Rockism of comic books to care more about plot than images or vice versa?)

I had a long talk with my comic book geek friend Catty yesterday and she is going to lend me some things, and I'm going to check out some of the suggestions on this thread.

Back when I read comics... erm, like most girls my age the thing that got me into comics in the first place was Love and Rockets. Which was much more character-driven than narrative driven. It's upsetting me because that got me into a whole world of underground comics which seemed to start where L&R left off, with even moreso of the more internal aspects and stream of consciousness type stuff - there was a compliation of female artists (was it called Angry Women? or something like that) which I thought was fantastic but I can't remember any of the names of it. (It was 15 years ago, after all.) Some of it was like reading people's diaries, but with images as well as words. I wish I could remember what it was called.

You might also be interested in a semi-comics anthology called The Ganzfeld.

Meat Cake by Dame Darcy? You might well have read that, I'm not sure how good it is, it's been years since I looked at it, but it fits your description I think.

He also persuaded me to buy something called Mind Riot, which is a very un-new item, but quite interesting.

And thanks to MartinS hyping them to hell, I'm almost tempted by Morrison's stuff. How anti-mainstream am I? I've just been reading old ('70s) Spider-Man stories. They're actually kinda rubbish, but mostly in a fun way.

Token hype for my own stuff: page one and two of my current effort. More of a narrative thing than my previous two, though not necessarily any plot to speak of. ;-)