Navigating the World of Comics

Comics are an inviting art form for many reasons, but they're also an overwhelming one. There are just too many comics to know where to start or to easily make sense of the material. At least that's how it can look to a newcomer. This article is a beginner-to-beginner guide to getting started in reading comics. That is, I have a long way to go before I'd call myself an expert, but I'm far enough along that I have things to say.

When I was starting my latest attempt to launch into the world of comics, I asked Google for some getting-started guides. It gave me some, and they were helpful, but they didn't entirely give me what I wanted. So I've done some of my own research and put together a guide that's closer to the map I'm looking for.

In this guide I'll invite you to be an explorer. The world of comics is vast, and so is the world of comics discussion. My goal is to give you a way to think about these discussions and then give you starting points for finding them. It's up to you to chart your own path.

This is a work in progress, so expect some updates!

Mapping the territory
Before we start navigating, it might be good to get an overall picture of the world we'll be traveling. Here's a good starting point:


 * Comics - Comic Spectrum - These articles give brief overviews of different aspects of comics, from which are the major publishers to how to buy comics to what the deal is with manga and webcomics.

The next sites cover large areas of the comics industry in detail. You can use them as references to search for specific information or wander through them aimlessly, clicking any links that catch your eye.


 * The Comics Portal - Wikipedia
 * Animanga Wiki
 * Arts > Comics - dmoztools.net - The comics section of a general web directory, a large, organized collections of links. This site is only a mirror of the original DMOZ directory, which has been shut down, so more recent sites won't be included, but there's still plenty to explore.

Even in the age of the web, books are still a good source of information. Here are some worthwhile reference books:


 * DC Comics: A Visual History, Updated Edition - This book highlights the major developments in DC Comics for each year the publisher has existed, heavily illustrated with comic covers and other art. It's a good place to find artists to follow, pick up on major characters and storylines, and place it all in the context of other developments in the comic industry and in world history.
 * Marvel Year by Year, Updated and Expanded - The Marvel version of the DC visual history.

Choosing destinations
Whenever you start on a journey, you'll want a destination in mind, or at least a purpose for your travels. For example:


 * Every few months comic-related hype blows up your Twitter feed, and you want to see what all the hubbub is about.
 * You've dabbled in comics and want to explore them more extensively.
 * You like comic fans and want to be able to talk with them.
 * You want to study the work of other comic creators to learn how to tell your own stories with pictures.
 * You just want to read some good visual stories.

Your goals will guide your decisions along the way. Before going into the details, though, let's look more closely at some destinations you might be aiming for.

Keeping up with new comics
One of your goals might be to catch up on some current storylines in comics so you can keep up with them going forward. How will you keep up once you've caught up? Here's some advice on doing that:


 * How To Buy Comics: A Beginner’s Guide - The Mary Sue
 * Small Press Previews: A New Way Of Keeping Up To Date With The Latest Indie Comics - Comics Alliance

Here are some places to find out about new comic releases:


 * New Releases - Previews World
 * Fresh Comics
 * Midtown Comics
 * Indie Comics Magazine
 * News Archive - Anime News Network - Search the post titles for "releases."

Places to talk about comics
If one of your goals is to discuss comics with other fans, there's no shortage of places to do that. Here are some starting points for finding them:


 * Comics meetups near you - Meetup.com - Places to talk to fellow comic fans in person.
 * Comics - Reddit
 * Manga - Reddit
 * 10 International Comic Blogs That Keep You Updated With The Comic Space - Wishberry - Most blogs like these let you comment on the posts, and some even have forums so you can start your own discussions.
 * The Weekly Pull - The hub for a group of large comic-related YouTube channels, centered around their shared podcast. They sometimes have guests from other channels, such as NerdSync, so you can get an idea of who else is out there. In addition to podcast episodes and YouTube videos, the site features articles and a forum.

Planning routes
Once you have an idea of your destination, or at least the kind of travel you want to experience, how will you get there? The approach I'm recommending is to pick one or more specific ways to organize your journey and then pick a strategy for choosing your stops along the way.

Here are some other writers who recommend a similar approach:


 * How Do I Get Into Comics? - How to Love Comics - A good set of general advice.
 * How to Get Started Reading Comics That Have Been Running For Decades - Lifehacker
 * How To Start Reading Comics In 2017: A Beginner’s Guide - Comic Book Herald

In my version of this scheme, the organizing factors you could choose are


 * sources (places to find comics),
 * stories (quality, stand-alone comic collections),
 * creators (writers and artists),
 * events (important stories from a character's life or a publisher's continuity),
 * and themes (topics or story elements).

I'll go into more detail on each of these factors in the rest of this section. But first let's talk about some basic strategies for choosing comics from your chosen route.

Strategies for choosing comics
Any path you choose will probably include a lot of comics. There are a few patterns you could use to decide on which of those to read:


 * Serendipitous selecting - In this strategy you pick up any comics that appeal to you without worrying about the ones you leave on the shelf. Your selection can end up looking kind of random. Serendipity is especially helpful for the times when you're looking for possible new routes. When using this strategy, it helps if you aren't a completist. Otherwise you'll still worry about the comics you've left behind.
 * Exhaustive selecting - In this strategy you read every comic you can get your hands on in the route you've chosen. In some cases the route is short enough that this will be manageable. In other cases it'll be challenging or impossible, and that's a good time to consider the next strategy.
 * Ranked selecting - In this strategy you read only the important comics in your route. It'll take some research, advice, and thought to decide which comics are important to you, but it could save you a lot of extra reading time.

Now let's look at some ways to find routes.

Source-oriented routes
In this method, you base your selection on whatever you can pick up from a particular source. Sources include libraries, brick-and-mortar stores, and online stores. You probably won't be able to read everything your source offers, so I'd say this method works best with a serendipitous strategy. It's a good way to sample comics when you're looking for a route from another category, such as finding a character to follow (that is, a story- or event-oriented route).


 * 6 Ways to Keep up With Comics When You’re Broke - Book Riot - This article describes some sources of cheap or free comics.

Free comics

 * WorldCat - An online catalog of thousands of libraries worldwide. If you're only after good comics from your local library, take a trip there and look around. If you're looking for a specific comic, you can search this catalog and see which libraries near you have it. If none of them do, you can probably borrow it through your local library's interlibrary loan service.
 * Comics - Hoopla - Libraries subscribe to this service to offer you digital comics (along with ebooks, audiobooks, music, and movies). Check your library's website to see if they're signed up with Hoopla.
 * Free Comics - comiXology - Free digital comics from one of the major online retailers.
 * Free Comic Book Day - Wikipedia - An annual event that offers a set of free promotional comics through your local comic stores.
 * List of Webcomic Directories - L-Lists - The sites on this list link to thousands of webcomics, most of them completely free.

Paid comics

 * Find a Shop - Free Comic Book Day - A searchable directory of physical comic book stores. These are good places to get overwhelmed by comics and to subscribe to regular installments of your favorite titles.
 * Bookstores near you - Yelp - Bookstores sell comics too. One notable chain is Half Price Books, which happily buys and sells used comics and graphic novels.
 * Notable digital distributors - Digital comic - Wikipedia - Places to buy digital comics online.
 * List of comics publishing companies - Wikipedia - You may be able to order print or digital comics directly from your favorite publishers.
 * List of manga distributors - Wikipedia - Places to buy manga, in some cases the digital editions.

Story-oriented routes
With this method you're looking for high quality comics. You don't care if they're important to a larger storyline. It helps if these are stand-alone stories, but they don't have to be.

You can find these by visiting some of the more selective comic sources, such as libraries, and reading whatever they've decided is worth offering. Here's one source of lists that are based on data:


 * Industry Statistics - Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. - Diamond distributes comics from publishers to retailers. This page links to their monthly lists of top selling comics and graphic novels. These ranks are based on orders from retailers rather than purchases by customers, but they should give you a good idea of the significant titles you might want to read.

You can also look for lists of good comics online through web searches such as these:


 * Best comics stories - Google
 * New to comics - Google
 * Comics getting started - Google
 * Best stand alone comics - Google
 * Literary comics - Google
 * Best indie comics - Google
 * Best manga - Google

You'll find a lot of these lists. Here are a bunch to start with:


 * New to Comics? Start Here! - All Things Geeky
 * 25 comic books for nerdy newbies to read first - Mashable
 * My Top Stories and Story Arcs of All Time - Comic Vine
 * 100 Greatest Superhero Comics - Hollywood Reporter
 * The 25 Comic Books You Need To Read Before You Die - Complex
 * 50 Best Of The Best Graphic Novels - Forbidden Planet
 * Top 100 Comic Book Storylines - List Challenges
 * Dave’s Faves: All The Best Comics I’ve Ever Read - Comic Book Herald
 * A Beginner’s Guide to Literary Comics - Nerdophiles
 * Drawn Out: The 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels - Rolling Stone
 * 60 Comics Everyone Should Read - BuzzFeed
 * New to Comics? Start Here! - comiXology
 * List of best-selling manga - Wikipedia
 * Manga comics: where to start - The Guardian

Creator-oriented routes
In this method you pick one or more comic writers or artists to follow and read some or all of their works.


 * Category:Comics creators - Wikipedia
 * The 10 Greatest Comic Book Writers of All Time - PJ Media
 * The 10 Most Influential Comic Book Writers Of All Time - Goliath
 * The 10 greatest comic book artists of all time - Creative Bloq
 * Comic Artists - Comicartfans - A large database of artists with lists on the front page of top ranking entries.
 * Keep Current by Reading This One Bleeding Edge Comic Book - Geek & Sundry
 * Creators of experimental comics
 * Experimental comics
 * Autobiographical comics
 * More autobiographical comics

Event-oriented routes
Many stories in comics take place in the context of a larger storyline. You could view the life of a character or team as a single storyline, or an entire comic book series, or even a publisher's complete body of work.

One type of route is to read through one or more of these story arcs. If you have the time, you could try to read through every issue of the arc, or you can find ways to narrow down the list to the most interesting or important parts of the story.

The fact that the top two publishers treat so much of their material as one semi-cohesive set of stories is one reason people find comics so hard to start reading. The good news is that both DC and Marvel periodically publish major story arcs in the form of crossover events. These events can serve as a way to organize the overall storyline of the publisher's universe.


 * Publication history of DC Comics crossover events - Wikipedia
 * Publication history of Marvel Comics crossover events - Wikipedia

Some story arcs can be hard to follow because they're spread out over a long time period and draw from several comic titles. So a lot of people have taken the time to put together reading orders to guide you, either through every issue of the story or through what they consider the most important parts. Here are some sites that cover a lot of storylines, mostly from DC and Marvel:


 * Comic Book Herald
 * Comic Book Reading Orders
 * Comics - Trade Reading Order
 * Comic Reading Orders
 * Mike's Amazing World of Comics
 * Comic Reading Orders - Reddit
 * The Complete Marvel Reading Order
 * All Comic Timelines - All Timelines - This site puts the comics from various universes in chronological rather than publication order.
 * Marvel Comics Chronology - SuperMegaMonkey

If you search the web yourself for reading orders, you'll also find some for more obscure storylines, such as this interesting project that explores short-lived publishers from the 1990s:


 * Dead Universes - The Shared Universe

A lot of reading orders list individual comic issues, but these can be hard to get your hands on. Fortunately, publishers often release collections of related issues as trade paperbacks or hardcovers, and these are a lot easier to find. How will you know which collections have the issues you need? The database sites below will help. Search for an issue, and the issue's page will list other issues or collections where it's been reprinted:


 * The Grand Comics Database - The GCD lists reprints of the individual stories within an issue.
 * Comic Book DB - Trade paperback collections are labeled TPB, and hardcovers are labeled HC.

Theme-oriented routes
This last method is sort of a catch-all category for factors that cut across the other methods. These include story elements, genres, audiences, topics, and any other factor you can think of. Sometimes you'll find websites about comics on your chosen theme, but in a lot of cases, the best way to find relevant comics is a good old fashioned web search. Here are some examples:


 * Comics about cyborgs - Google - A story element, a character type.
 * Comics set in Chicago - Google - Another story element, a setting.
 * Slice of life manga - Google - A genre.
 * Manga about revenge - Google - A topic.
 * Kids Comics - An audience.

Example
Here's a more detailed look at how you could put together a plan for reading through DC's events.

Closing thoughts
In this guide I've tried to give you a broad set of starting points for planning your comic reading adventures. The next steps are up to you. Pick a goal, pick a method, do some research, chart a course, and have fun reading. Maybe even share your journey with others. And feel free to leave feedback on this guide in the comments below.

Planned updates

 * Add examples.
 * Cover the different types of comics more evenly (superhero, licensed, literary, webcomics, manga, etc.).