1001 Comics Challenge Progress Update
So, I've been working through the book "1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die" by Paul Gravett, reading different comics intermittently to give myself a better understanding of comics and the comic medium, which was partially what my own comic is about.
Basically, my goal is to get through as many of the entries in that book as possible and deciding whether I could recommend the comics to someone going on a similar journey to myself, wanting to understand comics more.
So, how far am I in this challenge? 50 entries. That is actually a good thing I think, because if I have gotten to 50 now, then next year I can aim for more, and hopefully it won't be such a turbulent year for me so I can achieve more. Of course, the year isn't over yet, so I am definitely able to scratch one or two more comics off my list in December, but my goal for the year has been to reach 50.
There has been some changes I had to make to my plans for sake of time, I mean the book is pretty vague on some things, like if they want us to read every Batman comic from the 1940 series, and they also didn't give us any kind of limit for the comic strip entries, so in those cases I had to give myself a cut off.
So, I've been going through each comic, or as much of each entry as I can, and forming my own opinion. My main question is, "Is this something I would consider essential to a complete comics experience?" which is a really bad question, because, what does a "Complete Comics Experience" mean? Hopefully, I'll have an answer by the end of this.
To answer the question I ask through this challenge, I have devised four answers; No, Maybe, To a Point, and Yes.
No basically means that my experience with comic books is largely unchanged or made worse from these comics, or I just don't think they're essential reading. There were some comics I did enjoy that I don't think I'd really say are necessary reads, like Tintin in Tibet or The Tomb of Dracula.
Maybe is for comics that I'm not entirely sure about, maybe I don't like them but they're historically significant, like Buck Rogers or MAD, maybe I do like them but wouldn't really recommend them for one reason or another, like American Born Chinese or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
To a Point is when I think that a comic is worth reading, but when you get to a certain point you can put it down, this one is mostly reserved for comic strips or comic book series, though exceptions can and have been made,
And yes is pretty self explanatory.
So far, I've given the "Yes" rating to 31 different entries, 2 entries have gotten "To A Point", 9 have been given "Maybe" ratings, and 8 have been given a "No".
So, how good has my understanding of comics gotten? Truthfully, I think I've come to learn more about comics from reading other comics, not just ones from the book, and also making my own comics has been an interesting experience.
So what was the point of this? I dunno, there's only so many people in my physical life that are interested in comics (at least on the same level that I am) so I guess I'm just kind of talking out into the void, the void of online personalities. I dunno, maybe this will find someone.
