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You are currently reading a thread in /co/ - Comics & Cartoons
You are currently reading a thread in /co/ - Comics & Cartoons
What's the best historical comic that's not autobiographical?
Does it have to be historically accurate? Because if not Manifest Destiny is pretty great right now.
>>82928227
That Ellis comic with archers.
Gotham by gaslight
Louis Riel by Chester Brown
>>82928409
Yeah, I'm thinking historically accurate. Already reading Manifest Destiny though, it's awesome.
>>82928480
Read it, but that's definitely the type I'm looking for.
>>82928781
Looks great, definitely gonna get that.
>>82928227
Three, Northlanders
>historical comic
>autobiographical
Like historical figures wrote their own comic book biographies?
>>82930772
Not completely unheard of.
>>82930772
Uh, yeah? Comic books like Persepolis or Last Day In Vietnam.
>>82928227
At the rate he's going, he'll die before Achilles.
Are we including period pieces like Contract With God?
>>82928227
I recently read a manga called Innocent that was really good.
>>82928409
WHATS IT BOUT
>>82931901
another innocent that is great.
>>82928227
I don't know about these being "the best" historical comics (and some of them aren't strictly historical fiction or historical non-fiction in terms of genre) but these books are very well-researched as far as their historical content, besides being just solid reads overall, even for the non-history buff:
- A Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori (Yen Press; historical romance/adventure manga that offers insight into life and culture in 19th century Turkic Central Asia. The research and work that went into recreating period-accurate clothes, furniture, tools, weapons, etc. is mind-boggling)
- Luna Park by Kevin Baker and Danijel Zezelj (DC/Vertigo; it's a crime comic about a Russian mobster trying to make it in the US, but delves quite deeply into Russian history)
The Coldest City (Oni Press; nominally a "spy comic" but does a great job of representing the atmosphere and politics of the time around the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Iron Curtain)
Fax from Sarajevo (Dark Horse Comics; a heart-wrenching account of the 1990s conflict in the former Yugoslavia, by comics legend Joe Kubert, based on his fax correspondence with Bosnian comics publisher Ervin Rustemagić)
Three (Image Comics; a sort of counterpoint to Frank Miller's historically inaccurate 300, this miniseries portrays Spartan society as it might actually have been, based on the latest archaelogical and historical research. It sort of gets drawn a bit too much into exposition and polemics,though, so YMMV)
If this thread is still around later, I might post some more recommendations
>>82928409
Manifest Destiny is a fantasy comic, not historical.
Have you ever read the war comics by Jacques Tardi? Because those are pretty much where he excels at.
Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths is good.
Well not sure about the best but i quite enjoyed The Passengers of the Wind and Murena.
>>82930858
Yeah, anything historical by Mizuki is a great read. His History of Showa Japan (which is basically his biography with added historical commentary), his biography of Hitler , OTOND, all fantastic. Not /co/ related of course but still well worth a read. Mitsuteru Yokoyama did some great historical manga as well, mostly samurai stuff, good so long as you don't mind his stiff artwork. There's this superb historical manga called Stasuma Ghishiden; it's about the samurai of Satsuma being forced to bankrupt themselves on a river drainage project by the Tokugawa Shogunate but only three volumes were ever translated, the rest remains Japanese only.
Just start a Eurocomic binge 1/4 will be historical fiction of some sort
Ennis' War Stories are good.
>>82934325
Good choice.
>>82932061
It's like X-Files meets Lewis & Clark. It's about Lewis and Clark's expedition across the country but they encounter monsters of the week every issue/arc.
>>82935804
Yes! Shit-hot.
>>82928227
Black Paths by David B. is really good, it's based around Gabrielle D'Annunzio the Italian poet who took over the city of Fiume after WWI and installed his own government...he wanted a utopia but had definite fascist leanings and, predictably, it all went to shit...David B uses that backdrop to tell a love story but it has a solidly researched foundation. And the art is amazing. No-one draws like David B.
Also Best of Enemies by the same artist, written by Jean-Claude Fillieu, the first part of a history of the relationship between the US and the Middle East. It's good but a fair bit drier than the above recommendation.
Also I don't think anyone has recommended Berlin by Jason Lutes yet? A very good comic about Weimar Germany, impeccably researched, meticulously drawn, just pure comic quality. I love the small arc which explicates the death of Horst Wessel (?) the guy who wrote the Nazi's "national anthem" (I know that's not quite the right wording, if you're a historian you'll know what I mean!).
Surprised no-one has mentioned Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazdje yet, about the (most recent) conflict in the Balkans. Very highly recommended indeed, if you're looking for modern history.
Oh--I just remembered the excellent WWI comic Charlie's War by Pat Mills and Joe Calqhoun--it's available in beautiful hardback editions and goes on for quite a few volumes. Fiction, yet set against a breath-takingly well-researched backdrop of the real war. Beautiful artwork, too. And really sad in some places, incredibly visceral in others...those battle scenes...one in particular where the French and some Brits are holed up in this fort, it was a real battle but I can't remember the name of it, the soldiers were dying of thirst and shit with the Germans right outside, total siege situation.
Hope these have helped, OP.
