Best products from r/altcomix

Heavy Liquid - I got this because I love Paul Pope's art. I was expecting a really hip comic but was left feeling indecisive confused about what I had read. I want so much to like his work but he makes it hard with his long meandering, pointless plots. This one introduces us to the very cool "S", a ex-people finder out to make a big score with this obscure drug called "heavy Liquid". We leave his slum apartment and his cute friend to the world of ultra rich art collectors with gangsters hot on his trail. Then we discover that there is an unrequited love interest of (not so cool) S.

I guess the thing that I'm not crazy about this work is that Pope never really develops any of the plot threads fully. Just when we begin to know S, Pope brings in this unrequited love interest that forces us to reassess everything we thought we knew about him. And then Pope is continually vague about this girl and relationship. And then there is the gangsters chasing him, and the ultra rich art collector and the famous friend of the love interest. And we never really get to know any of these people really well so it's hard to care about any of them. I love the art, and enjoy the hip kids and situations but I wish Pope would develop one of these plots and help me care about the characters and his work.

Daytripper by Gabriel Bà & Fàbio Moon

Thanks for this thread, it will be a cool occasion to advertise this beautiful book that I just finished (In French, because it's my mothertongue. The authors are Brazilian.)

The concept is very simple, but wonderfully efficient: What will be your obituary if you die today?

We follow the main character, Bràs, who shares with Kenny McCormick the fact that he dies at the end of each chapter. But, on the contrary to Kenny, he dies at a different ages in each chapter.

This allows the authors to highlight what is important at each step of the life of their character. Love, in all its forms, filial, friendship or romance, is present in each page of this book. A bit of fantasy adds to the atmosphere a little bit of tenderness and something that is from the domain of dreams...

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I left it with a renewed love for life.

I'm gonna disagree with a lot of people and tell you to not buy Understanding Comics. I mean, you can, I don't disagree with most of what he teaches, but I disagree with his results. Perhaps it's one of those 'good in theory, terrible in practice' things. The Sculptor, his latest (?) book uses his UC technique 100% and while it makes for an easy read, it's visually boring and the story is just one unbelievable trope after another, complete garbage.

I'm also not going to tell you to copy other comic artists, that's a very common mistake in comics. When you copy other comic artists you learn their mistakes, or shortcuts, or cheats. I still find after I've drawn a page I'll go back and see where I unintentionally swiped a pose or technique from John Buscema (How to make Comics the Marvel Way had a big influence on me as a teenager, which is who it was made for).

For figure drawing you want George Bridgeman. His figure drawing techniques are the foundation for pretty much every other great illustrator in the last 100 years.

Another good source is Burne Hogarth (Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing) his stuff is more action and hero based, but his lessons are sound. He founded what became the School of Visual Arts. These were my first art books when I was a teenager, and they still hold up.

For storytelling, I go for Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and the Visual Narrative, Sequential Art Principles and throw in Expressive Anatomy, because, why not?

David Chelsea's Perspective for Comic Artists is great, because it teaches you exactly how to do correct perspective, then in the last chapter he tells you how to cheat at all of it.

For classes, take a look at the horribly designed website for http://comicsworkbook.com/ it's run by a guy, Frank Santoro, who's actually not one of my favorite artists, but he knows his shit, for sure, and he's a helluva nice guy who loves comics 100%. I think his full online class is $500 and he runs it twice a year, I think. Also look in your area for a college or art store that might have figure drawing classes, they are invaluable.

Nobody has put together such a nice resource like the one you link, but you can just start diving into the books that are out there. Anthologies are good. Here’s a great one that I bought for full price when it came out and now it’s available used for DIRT CHEAP: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1932416080

This one too is amazing and dirt cheap: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0300111703/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Try Nobrow 10: https://copaceticcomics.com/comics/nobrow-10

And the NOW series by Fantagraphics.

You should definitely read The Comics Journal, http://tcj.com – and if possible, any of the physical TCJ back issues.

The biggest publishers of art comics are Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly. There is also Nobrow, Koyama, 2D Cloud, and many others. Look at their various web sites

See if you have an altcomix based book store in your town, which is more likely if you in one of North America’s bookish northern cities. Seattle has the Fantagraphics store, Pittsburgh has the mighty Copacetic Comics, Brooklyn has (edit: Desert Island), Chicago has Quimby’s, Montreal has Drawn and Quarterly...