92 Books Like The Boy Who Loved Batman

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.

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.

Researching the early days of the comic book industry is hard. Extraordinarily, gut-punching hard. The records are scant, and everyone involved is long dead. This is why I was so blown away by this exhaustively complete record of the founding fathers of comicdom and their (often shady) exploits.

I found myself silently muttering, “How’d he find that??” on nearly every page. 

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. 

While I wanted to know the history of Batman and all the facts and figures, I needed to know Batman’s larger cultural impact, and Brooker’s book helps provide it. He explores the different incarnations of Batman, from the comic-book page to the big screen. Brooker looks at the 1950s hysteria against comic books that targeted Batman, among others; the “camp” Batman of the 1960s TV show; and the Batman of films, from the 1989 Tim Burton version through the 1990s. Now all Brooker needs to do is update the book to include Christopher Nolan’s take on The Dark Knight! 

Most vacations take place in the summer, and this next book is a perfect example of how wrong they can go. I love how unique this take on the genre is: it actually takes place over three houses on Beldame, a small island on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

I really appreciated the dramatic tensions between the two families, amplified by heat, secrets, and worse. This gem of Southern Gothic fiction does a stellar job of walking the line between real and supernatural. Like a tidal island, the reader may find themselves slowly submerging into horror. The way each character’s nightmares are slowly revealed and realized has stayed with me for a long time.

Let me emphasize how gorgeous this book is. Imagine a Tim Burton world filled with bones and two skeletons having a heart-wrenchingly beautiful love story. That is the landscape of The Bone Valley by Candace Robinson. This book gets quite gory and dark but is absolutely my favorite of her books for its sheer originality and incredibly unique world. Not to mention the horrible villain who literally takes over the underworld just so she can torture people. Yeah, it’s dark. Robinson is known for her incredible balance of romance and horror nestled within a beautiful world, and this book is the epitome of that.

A hauntingly beautiful anthology of five twisted fairytales that, to me, felt like stepping into a pastoral Twilight Zone and stayed in my mind for days after the final page. Carroll’s artwork is eerie and subtle, and the limited color palette turns scenes of the mundane into a visual nightmare.

The stories are well-paced and spooky, and in my opinion, best read during a dark summer thunderstorm.

I love Tim Burton’s movies. His book of poems and short stories is just as good as his movies (don’t let the poems aspect put you off). I’m not a fan of poetry, but this collection of twisted tales is great (especially if you read them in your head in Christopher Lee’s voice).

As a bonus, the book is packed with Tim’s off-beat artwork (which matches the characters perfectly). I love the strange and unusual. To quote Lydia (from Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice), “I myself am strange and unusual.”

The Nightmare Before Christmas must be unique among books, and films, in that it can be enjoyed both at Christmas and Halloween. Tim Burton really is a wonderful and unique artist, as witnessed by The World of Tim Burton exhibition in 2015. It’s such a pity that he hasn’t illustrated more books. He is, of course, also a wonderful storyteller. The Nightmare Before Christmas brings together both of his extraordinary talents to produce a modern classic overflowing with original characters as familiar and beloved as any in the festive genre. One of the joys of parenthood is to share the things you have loved with your children. My own son is a confirmed lover of both the book and the film, and will no doubt pass on our tradition of reading, and watching, The Nightmare Before Christmas every Christmas and Halloween to his own children.