Some more suggested reading

My second suggest reading post also comes from Image Comics, an important independent publisher. If you’re not familiar with the Image Comics story, let me shed some light. In the 1990s, some very talented artists created some really cool characters for the big two publishers Marvel and DC, but they didn’t retain ownership over their creations and felt they were getting screwed over by the publishers. Comic book history is filled with exploited creators. Anyway a gang of these artists started Image Comics as a publisher for creator-owned comics and start publishing characters that largely resembled the same superhero stories they had been doing over at Marvel and DC. Some recognizable characters from this period include Spawn, Savage Dragon, the Maxx, and the superhero team WildCATS. Despite their enthusiastic start, they began publishing a bunch of rubbish. Image Comics didn’t start to shine again until they started publishing books outside of the superhero genre- most famously, The Walking Dead and my last suggested reading Saga.

Today I would like to introduce The Manhattan Projects, which tells an alternate history of science during the Cold War, featuring an Albert Einstein from a parallel universe, Robert Oppenheimer’s cannibal twin, FDR artifical intelligence, a talking Laika the dog, and Harry S. Truman engaging in some seriously perverted Illuminati orgies. The main character is Richard Feynman, for whom a much more accurate graphic biography exists. To enjoy this book responsibly, you should familiarize yourself with the actual history first.

The book is written by Jonathan Hickman. He is known for his work on Fantastic Four, but I find his work on The Manhattan Projects and The Nightly News much more engaging. His writing is extremely clever, satirical, and distrustful of any powerful institution. The art and design of the book are something really special, a grand divergence from typical comic fare. Color, particularly in telling the story of Joseph and Robert Oppenheimer, is employed in ways I’ve never seen in a comic- truly innovative stuff.