After having finally read Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library 19 a while ago, I was eager to return to Rob Clough’s interview on the book with Tom Spurgeon, which I remembered having skimmed over and been intrigued by when I first saw it. The whole piece was quite enjoyable, but this quote really stood out to me:
“[Chris Ware’s] figures and page construction were still difficult for me to process at first…After about 50 pages [of Jimmy Corrigan], something clicked and everything he did made sense. I’ve had a similar reaction to other cartoonists, most notably Ron Rege’ Jr., where my initial attempts to read their works wound up in my eye falling off the page. I could sense that there was still something there and that I needed to keep trying, until finally the visual language being "spoken” made sense to me. I often use the word “immersion” to describe such comics that demand this sort of reader interaction, and the play on immersive language classes is quite intentional.“
I’ve had this exact same struggle with several artists, but I think it’s essential to keep engaging with difficult works until, like Clough says, it finally ‘clicks.’ There’s such a range of great work out there, and I want to learn from all of it – even (perhaps especially) the stuff that doesn’t appeal to me superficially. I have therefore decided to post, mostly for my own benefit, a list of those cartoonists that I’m most actively working to better appreciate, understand and enjoy. This is just my top 15, though, those that I think I should prioritize – there are many more people in comics that I need to learn more about.
1) George Herriman
2) Frank King
3) R. Crumb
4) Gary Panter
5) Hugo Pratt
6) Ben Katchor
7) Rumiko Takahashi
8) Milo Marana
9) Ai Yazawa
10) Ben Jones
11) Guido Crepax
12) Jiro Taniguchi
13) Ron Rege Jr.
14) Kyle Baker
15) John Stanley