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.

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