Our New Book Group for Graphic Novels

Last Wednesday we launched our new reading group dedicated to comics and graphic novels, and I think it’s fair to say the evening was a huge success. So before I go any further I’d like to thank all those who turned up and made it such a fun evening full of interesting ideas and lively debate.

As this was our first time, and indeed the first time for trying such a specific group, we began by talking about comics or graphic novels that we really like. I enthused about Batman: Year One, and from there we discovered fans of comics ranging from Naruto, through Deadpool, to David Boring. For those of you who were there don’t worry I shan’t mention Year One again, but Commissioner Gordon is very good in it isn’t he? Here he is looking moody and awesome.

Anyway... If this first meeting could be said to have a purpose it was really to set up the group and decide what we were going to read. Rather than follow the traditional book group path we decided to base our meetings on themes and suggested reading. For example, in June our Theme is Crime Noir as a genre and the main reading for this is Coward, volume 1 of the Criminal series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips. Ed Brubaker is an award winning writer who has worked on Daredevil, Batman and Captain America, though he first made his name with the comic ‘Scene of the Crime’ and is a great choice to kick off our Noir discussion. Coward is now available to buy in the shop at £9.99. Other reading suggestions include X-men Noir, a 1940s style take on the merry mutants, or 5 is the Perfect Number by Igor T. This is a fantastic Italian graphic novel exploring the relationship between a mob hitman and his father.

So even if you missed our debut it’s not too late to join us. This is what we're reading:

and our next meeting is on Wednesday June 8th at 7:00 in the shop. Any other examples of crime/noir comics are welcome and I hope to see you there.