Two by Robert Kirkman

.

Okay. Robert Kirkman. How awesome is he?

I was already a bit familiar with Invincible before reading Invincible: The Ultimate Collection, Vol. 1, having read the first, shorter collection, and so I was already primed to be impressed by more nonrejectional reinvention of the superhero genre. And impressed I was. Lex Luthor seems even more rational and reasonable now than he did in February.

Anyway, brilliant, but I want to talk more about another first volume in a Kirkman book, The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye. Once again he's matched himself up with the perfect artist[s] and reinvented a genre while sticking completely within its understood rules. Some lines from the intro:

I'm not trying to scare anybody. If that somehow happens as a result of reading this comic, that's great, but really... that's not what this book is about....

...the best zombie movies aren't the splatter fests of gore and violence.... Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are....there's always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.

....

With THE WALKING DEAD I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them. I'm in this for the long haul. You guys are going to get to see Rick change and mature to the point that when you look back on this book you won't even recognize him.....

....

So, if anything scares you... great, but this is not a horror book. And by that I do not mean we think we're above the genre. Far from it, we're just setting out on a different path here. This book is more about watching Rick survive than it is about watching zombies pop around the corner and scare you....

....

The idea behind The Walking Dead is to stay with the character, in this case, Rick Grimes for as long as is humanly possible. I want the Walking Dead to be a chronicle of year of Rick's life. We will NEVER wonder what happens to Rick next, we will see it....

He's succeeding.

Both these books are about characters and if there's one bias I have in this life, it's toward character-based fiction.

I recommend starting both these series at the beginning. Give them a chance. You're apt to be pleased.

(Although be wary of guts and gore if that ain't you're thing. No one draws splatter like Ryan Ottley, and Tony Moore's job is to draw zombies. You get what you pay for.)