So about two years back a mate of mine was giving me some playful grief about the fact I wasn’t, in his eyes, very experimental with regards the comics I was reading. I always kept in my safety zone of superheroes apparently which made me a BAD COMIC NERD! So I decided to pick up three graphic novels I would otherwise have never bothered with and give them all a full read.

Firstly I went for the “Slice of life/relationships/the one people recommend to girls” comic and read the first Strangers in Paradise pocketbook which was 360 pages of people whining about their feelings while looking longingly at that person they loved, but couldn’t tell, and who didn’t fully appreciate the wonderful human being right in front of them and blah blah fucking blah. Why this book is so popular when you can just watch daytime soaps for free I’ll never know.

My second pick was a true life/autobiographical book and I went for the multi award winning Fun Home which was AWFUL. Well, it was well done technically, but the central character was such a pretentious, self centered tosser that you just wanted her to get hit by a car or get shot all the way through. Knowing of course that it wouldn’t happen as otherwise who would have written the book?

My last pick… Manga.
Now my exposure to manga is very limited. I read the first few volumes of Akira and didn’t love it, though I do like the animated version which is of course much reduced. I’d also read and loved some Hideshi Hino horror books which were amazing. But all these were library borrows, never purchases. Also like a lot of people I was very wary of buying Manga as a lot of it has the deserved reputation of being a bit pervy. Way too many schoolgirls who cant blink hard without their skirts flying up around their necks, that kind of thing.

But as I knew a few people who were into and watching the ongoing cartoon and who assured me it was “people looking over your shoulder safe” I picked up the first volume of Death Note and was immediately hooked.

Follow up:

The basic story is that there are Gods of Death in another dimension each of whom has a Death Note book. If they just write your name in it while thinking of your face you have a heart attack and die in 40 seconds. Or if they want they can get creative and write “John Smith is hit by a car at 11.30pm” etc and if it is possible for that to happen, it will.
One of these Death Gods, Ryuk, is bored and decides to leave his Death Note where a human, Light Yagami, can find it. Upon realising what it is, Light decides to make the world a better place by using the book to kill criminals under the alias Kira. The authorities eventually realise what is happening after Kira goes public with his intentions and they assign the unorthodox detective “L” to track down and capture Kira, despite growing public support for what he is doing.

From there you have the cat and mouse battle of wits between L and Kira while the death god Ryuk looks on and the whole situation twists, turns and escalates at a rapid pace.

Like I said, I LOVED this and from then on was buying two volumes at a time and ordering the next two when I neared the end. There are 12 volumes in total and a thirteenth which is basically like the bonus disk on a dvd… lots of behind the scenes with the creators, that kind of thing. Every time you think you know where it is going it takes a cool twist and it had more genuine “Oh my god, did they REALLY just do that?” moments than any other comic I have read.

To go into it more would mean spoiling plot points past the first books setup which I really don’t want to do. All I will say is that I don’t know anyone who has read the first volume and not immediately wanted the second. This book went straight into my top 5 all time comics/graphic novels and might even have gone straight to the top if not for my love of Garth Ennis’ Preacher.

The only downside? While this has now left me open to trying more Manga I haven’t yet found anything to touch it. All the other stuff has been of the type with the crazy big eyes and people becoming cartoons when agitated. Death Note isn’t like that. The world of Death Note feels real. This is why the presence of the death gods is such a big deal.

I have also watched the complete cartoon series which was also very good and is literally the comic re-done panel by panel. I also have all three of the movies on dvd. Death Note 1 & 2 and the L : Save the World prequel. The first movie pretty much follows vol 1 of the books until its last 20 minutes, then this and the sequel go off on their own alternative version of the story which while very different is also very cool in its own right. I would definitely recommend checking out the movies but as with most things, I’d do the books first.

So yeah. Give it a go. Just don’t blame me when you have to buy all 13 books