#20- Comic Stories, Pre-1900 and beyond
COMICS FROM ERAS PRIOR
By Alex Ness
May 5, 2024
Help from Erik Larsen and a couple other friends in comics compiling this list.
From a Letter to my Poplitiko blog, from a regular reader in the UP of Michigan...
Hey Alex
My wife and daughter have begun reading my comics, but find them all to be too heavy into superheros. And my wife said, the writing of these seem to be absent knowledge or the roots of heroic tales. She teaches creative writing, and doesn't hate the works, but finds them to be insular and rather naive. Are there comics that tell tales in a time prior to 1900, and not necessarily without heroes but perhaps, without heroic masks and that motif? My daughter wants more fantasy comics, but I told her about a couple columns you did on poplitiko about that subject.
Thanks in Advance
Thanks for the letter, and giving me a subject to write about. And I do love fantasy and fantasy comics, so I am glad you showed your daughter and wife both of my efforts there to share comics without capes, and non male dominated fantasies.
I found a few series and comics that might tell classic stories but in comic form, and original tales told in the comic medium from times Victorian and earlier. Every comic isn't the same, obviously there are readers from vastly different realms of taste, and also, writers and artists who work well for some, but not others.
The comics found in this image are mostly Victorian in era, and not every one of them features heroes. Jack the Ripper, Dracula, Lizzie Borden, vigilantes and horror stories fill this collection. Interestingly to me, the themes of solving crime in a dark but curious world seems to be the aim. That is, no matter how intriguing, the problem solvers have to use intelligence or violence to solve the problem, rather different than in the present.
The above image features a lot more heroics, but also dark tales. Sebastian O is a wonderful work that uses missed opportunities in technology as a stepping stone to create a future minded protagonist who has a computer and forms of travel that are fully anachronistic, by design. He is no master of combat, but has fencing skills, and tricks up his sleeve. This group of covers and series has other ideas too. Time travel in the Victorian series, a bigger world utilizing the best minds and famous adventurers in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and dark tales featuring Sherlock Holmes and HP Lovecraft, as if they were in action themselves, rather than characters of books.
One aspect of the past I especially enjoy is the newness of the subject matter, but also, stories that belong in history. Pirates were a problem, but in these stories, they were quite naughty, even evil. Springheeled Jack was a cultural story, drawn from urban legends, if you will. And classic stories from the best sources are done quite well. The beast of Chicago is about a serial killer who built a murder hotel, with ways to kill and dispose of the evidence, unheard of prior. Rebels is about the American colonial Revolution from Great Britain and is quite good, but I'd love to read a story from earlier America, The French and Indian War. It is the background of Last of the Mohicans, but there is so much more that could be told. (Not crapping on Rebels, it was good, I just want unfamiliar territory to explore.)
Cowboys, wilderness men, Native Americans, the Civil War, the Alien war, and weirdness from Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley offer the reader a new set of worlds to explore. As a big fan of Timothy Truman (at 6'4" and 250lbs, I tend to be a huge fan) his works here are great, and fantastic reading material. Journey is truly wonderful, if it also feels incomplete it is because I'd love to see new editions of it. And lastly, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Bernie Wrightson is one of the greatest works in black and white I have ever read. It is beautiful, and horrific.
Wizard of OZ, HG Wells Time Machine, Samurai stories up the wazzoo, and works about Napoleon and the American Civil war finish this collection off well. Samurai and ninja always are interesting, Lone Wolf and Cub is one of my 10 favorite all time works. But all the works here are brilliant. The Japanese manga Vinland Saga about the Vikings is brilliant because it is a typical Samurai take, but accurate on a different group of warriors, the Vikings. I loved it.
If you want a subject covered or have an idea, write me at alexanderness63@gmail.com
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