Just a short ‘recommends’ today. I know some purists might not think of graphic novels as ‘art’, but they inspire and take you to a different world, and the best will remain classics forever. This wonderful drawn series (recently republished in anthology form) originally appeared in Look and Learn magazine.
For those who don’t know it, that’s what they’d call an ‘educational magazine’, but is essentially a mixture of article, ‘how it works’ pieces on everything from trains to rockets, comic strips and was my first regular ‘comic’. Denied the wonders of DC and Marvel (too violent!) my dad had bought them in bulk I think and every week I was allowed a new issue if I was a good boy! The magazine fed my curiosity about everything but the comic strip amazed me, and sparked my love of science fiction and fantasy, which has in turn influenced my watching, reading, listing and writing habits.
The Trigan Empire was a gateway drug into proper sci fi literature, but in itself was such a classic, colourful and beautiful thing. Imagine the Roman Empire with spaceships and aliens and you’ll get the general flavour.