Here are 100 books that Men of Tomorrow fans have personally recommended if you like
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I read dozens of books about comic book history while researching my own book, and it turned me a near-obsessive on the topic. As weird as it sounds, I don’t really read comic books anymore, but I still read books about the industry.
I’ve never read an autobiography structured like this, and I had so much fun tearing through it. Instead of presenting his life chronologically, Gibbons decides to tell a bunch of anecdotes on topics organized alphabetically.
I loved this idea, which was basically the equivalent of “all meat, no filler.” I found the stories pretty compelling, too—and honest.
This comprehensive, in-depth, and personal journey through the eyes of one of the world’s most famous comics creators, Dave Gibbons, spans his earliest years copying Superman and Batman comics as a kid, to co-creating the bestselling graphic novel of all-time, Watchmen, and beyond.
Presented alphabetically, with informally written anecdotes that can be read from cover-to-cover or simply dipped into, Gibbons reveals unseen comics’ pitches, life as the first Comics Laureate, and going from being a fanzine artist to infiltrating DC Comics in the 1970s. The book covers everything from working on Doctor Who and meeting Tom Baker to being inducted…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I read dozens of books about comic book history while researching my own book, and it turned me a near-obsessive on the topic. As weird as it sounds, I don’t really read comic books anymore, but I still read books about the industry.
Uslan is the reason we have Batman movies, and he’s led a fascinating life.
I was especially interested in his time working for DC Comics in the 1970s—a transition time for the publisher when young, enthusiastic talent was allowed in after years of being mostly a closed shop.
Meet the man whose life-long quest to reclaim the true, cool soul of Batman wonderfully transformed today's comic book movies. Growing up outside of Asbury Park, New Jersey, Michael Uslan was obsessed with comic books. He'd be the first to grab the latest issues off the shelves of the three local comic book stores, including four copies of the now legendary Fantastic Four #1. His favorite superhero was the brooding, crime-fighting vigilante, Batman. Despising the campy 1960s TV show, Uslan became determined to bring the real Batman-dark, serious, burdened by a tragic past-to the silver screen. Undeterred by Hollywood's initial…
I read dozens of books about comic book history while researching my own book, and it turned me a near-obsessive on the topic. As weird as it sounds, I don’t really read comic books anymore, but I still read books about the industry.
Simon was an artist, yes, but he was also a longtime writer and editor, and I was really impressed by his ability with words.
This autobiography has a charming, no-nonsense voice that I found made for a breezy, fun read. Plus, the book is packed to the brim with amazing anecdotes from comics history. Simon’s heyday was long before I was even born, but reading his story gave me a newfound appreciation for him and led me to seek out his work.
"Gripping from the first page... If you love comic books, history, or just love a story of a real self-made man, you must read this book." - Shadowlocked
"A true visionary, Simon's book is laced with never-before-seen photos and illustrations, and told in his own words. If you're at all curious about the history of comics and one of its earliest visionaries, My Life in Comics is a must-read." - IGN
"... a lovely memoir, often funny, sometimes thought-provoking, and never ostentatious. It's a true pleasure to read." - Graphic Novel Reporter
Everyday Medical Miracles
by
Joseph S. Sanfilippo (editor),
Frontiers of Women from the healthcare perspective. A compilation of 60 true short stories written by an extensive array of healthcare providers, physicians, and advanced practice providers.
All designed to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the day-to-day activities of all of us who provide your health care. Come…
I read dozens of books about comic book history while researching my own book, and it turned me a near-obsessive on the topic. As weird as it sounds, I don’t really read comic books anymore, but I still read books about the industry.
Kupperberg was a writer and editor at DC Comics for decades, but it’s the chronicle of his early years as one of the hobby’s first BNF—big-name fans—that grabbed me here.
This autobiography paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be a comics obsessive in the days before the internet, giant conventions and mainstream acceptance, and everything that came with it, including the social isolation and the exhilarating hunt for back issues. It’s not a perspective I’ve found in many other books.
A 1982 DC Comics house ad for the first issue of Arion, Lord of Atlantis proclaimed, “Written by Paul Kupperberg! One of DC’s Most Versatile Writers!”. The next forty years of his career would confirm the ad’s label as the writer’s resume filled with credits that covered the spectrum of genres, mediums, and characters, from superheroes to romance, Batman to Betty and Veronica, Superman to Scooby Doo, and the Justice League to Johnny Bravo.. A one-time editor for DC Comics and the fake news tabloid Weekly World News, he is the creator of Arion, Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion,…
Not only have I been a comic book editor for sixteen years and obsessed with indie comics for much longer, I’m also an avid camper who co-created and co-wrote a comic book series that exalts in the unique feeling of sleeping under the stars. As such, excellent comics about outdoor adventures have a particularly tender spot in my heart.
Luke Healey’s highly graphic, wonderfully expressive cartooning style is especially powerful in this memoir of his time hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. Through-hiking the PCH is an obvious physical feat in any circumstance, but it’s a deeply taxing mental one, and Luke’s reflection on his trip compels you forward.
You are next to him on the trail, begging the question repeatedly: how can we bear moving forward? How can we do this, day after day? You feel right there as Luke laces up his boots, takes a breath, and walks on.
The Pacific Crest Trail runs 2660 miles, from California's border with Mexico to Washington's border with Canada. To walk it is to undertake a grueling test of body and spirit... challenge accepted.
This intimate, engaging autobiographical work recounts the author's own attempt to walk the length of the USA's west coast. Healy's life-changing journey weaves in and out of reflections on his experiences in America and his development as an artist, navigating both the trail itself and the unique culture of the people who attempt to complete it.
I was an odd kid—a bookworm worried about why I was different from others. Luckily, my family continuously reminded me that I belonged. Once out of the closet, I was able to appreciate the importance of families, both chosen and unchosen. I became a writer because I was compelled to articulate that importance and maybe help others understand how knowledge, trauma, emotions, and love move between the generations. Queer and family histories have inspired a lot of my journalism and fiction, but especially my new novel, This Is It. I hope it fits alongside these recommendations that explore queer multi-generational stories with wit, intelligence, and wisdom.
This book gripped me from the opening page. It’s everything I usually avoid—comics, suspense, memoir, psychology article—but the way it's calibrated invited me in, then wouldn’t let me leave until I’d lapped up every detail. By setting up her childhood review as a mystery that has to be solved through visual exploration, Alison Bechdel justifies every choice she makes. And they are all correct.
With deadpan humor and wry drawings, Fun Home gave me a thickly layered exploration of how queer elements impacted generations of her family. It never felt navel-gazing, and I found it impossible to imagine the story told any other way than in a graphics.
DISCOVER the BESTSELLING GRAPHIC MEMOIR behind the Olivier Award nominated musical.
'A sapphic graphic treat' The Times
A moving and darkly humorous family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Alison Bechdel's gothic drawings. If you liked Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis you'll love this.
Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high-school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and the family babysitter. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is…
Odette Lefebvre is a serial killer stalking the shadows of Nazi-occupied Paris and must confront both the evils of those she murders and the darkness of her own past.
This young woman's childhood trauma shapes her complex journey through World War II France, where she walks a razor's edge…
I would trace the genesis of Hitler’s Monsters to three distinct influences. The first was my childhood love of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics––Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four––which, as illustrated by the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,are replete with themes of Nazi occultism and border science.The second was a conversation with my thesis advisor early in graduate school, when he noted that he was advising a dissertation on German occultism (Science for the Soul). The third influence was observing the mid-2000s resurgence in rightwing populism across Europe and North America, seemingly fueled by recourse to esoteric and supernatural thinking. The rest, as they say, is history.
For those interested in a compelling work of fiction built loosely around Nazism and the occult, Michael Chabon’sThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is the perfect novel.
Whether it’s one of the protagonists, a young Jewish magician, escaping Nazi-occupied Central Europe in the coffin of the “Golem of Prague” or the eponymous cousins finding success with their own comic book series infused by contemporary esoterica, Kavalier & Clayevokes the world in which young, first and second generation Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe created the Marvel and DC superheroes and super(natural) villains, often allied with the Third Reich, that have defined our popular culture for the past eighty years.
Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic - from the author of 'Wonder Boys'.
One night in 1939, Josef Kavalier shuffles into his cousin Sam Clay's cramped New York bedroom, his nerve-racking escape from Prague finally achieved. Little does he realise that this is the beginning of an extraordinary friendship and even more fruitful business partnership. Together, they create a comic strip called 'The Escapist', its superhero a Nazi-busting saviour who liberates the oppressed…
I have been passionate about making, reading, and studying comics for my whole life. When I first encountered autobiographical comics, they were all by women who I looked up to for their ability to tackle their lives with both words and images. This is a small list and biased towards the cartoonists I first encountered in the world of female autobiographical comics. There is so much more out there. I love how the flexibility and history of the comic form have allowed for so much blending of genres and styles.
Keiler Roberts has a number of books featuring vignettes from her daily life. All are incredible. This is a personal favorite, cleverly balancing medical scenes about her MS treatment and diagnosis, her work as an art teacher, her life with her daughter and husband (and their family rats), and private moments with herself.
Pet deaths and parenting, embarrassing childhood memories and mental illness, Roberts documents her daily life’s minutiae, its up and downs, with the deftness of an observational comedian. Her comics demonstrate that sometimes life can deal you a punch to the gut, but it doesn’t have to be devoid of a punch line.
I was first a clinical social worker and then a social work professor with research focus on older adults. Over the past few years, as I have been writing my own memoir about caring for my parents, I’ve been drawn to memoirs and first-person stories of aging, illness, and death. The best memoirs on these topics describe the emotional transformation in the writer as they process their loss of control, loss of their own or a loved one’s health, and their fear, pain, and suffering. In sharing these stories, we help others empathize with what we’ve gone through and help others be better prepared for similar events in their own lives.
This graphic memoir by Roz Chast is one of my favorite books of all time. I completely relate to the story, which focuses on Chast’s relationship with her parents as they age and become less capable of managing independently.
The book depicts her repeated efforts to coax her parents to face the reality of their aging and failing health as she gradually does more and more to help them, a situation I’m very familiar with and wrote about in my recent memoir. As an only child (like me), she must deal with every crisis and decision.
Her drawings add humor and emphasis to the story, but the prose alone vividly portrays her frustrations and heartbreak as Chast faces complication after complication and loss after loss in her parents’ final few years.
#1 New York Times Bestseller 2014 National Book Award Finalist Winner of the inaugural 2014 Kirkus Prize in nonfiction Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award Winner of the 2014 Books for a Better Life Award Winner of the 2015 Reuben Award from National Cartoonists Society
In her first memoir, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort…
Can a free-spirited country girl navigate the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that is the court of Louis XIV—the Sun King--and still keep her head?
France, 1670. Sixteen-year-old Sylvienne d’Aubert receives an invitation to attend the court of King Louis XIV. She eagerly accepts, unaware of her mother’s…
I'm a gay cartoonist and editor who lives and breathes graphic novels. As an editor at Graphix, Scholastic's graphic novel imprint, I've worked with Dav Pilkey, Jamar Nicholas, Angeli Rafer, Kane Lynch, and many others. As a cartoonist, I'm the author and illustrator of Out of Left Field, which is based on my experiences as a closeted kid on the high school baseball team. So many wonderful books have influenced my journey and career, but these are some of my favorites: groundbreaking graphic novels that helped make Out of Left Field possible.
Walden is one of my favorite pure artists—one of those people whose drawings I look at and say to myself: “I could never draw like that even if I practiced for the rest of my life.”
She combines her jaw-dropping artwork with sensitive, nuanced writing. While her work is consistently brilliant, this book—a memoir of her time coming-of-age as a queer person while being a competitive figure skater—was one of my foremost inspirations for my book, which started as a similar queer sports memoir before morphing into semi-autobiographical fiction.
Download a FREE sampler of SPINNING by Tillie Walden!
It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark. Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again. She was good. She won. And she hated it. Poignant and captivating, Ignatz Award winner Tillie Walden’s powerful graphic memoir captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know.
