Men's health Magazine is running a series of articles for its readership who might be interested in comics that aims to serve as an introduction to comics or a guide to expanding one reading list of comics. I've only read one of the articles-one in which they poll 45 current comic creators and ask them to suggest 2-3 comics or graphic novels which they consider "must reading" or that were highly influential on them as creators. It's a pretty varied list both of creators asked and of comics recommended ranging form undergrounds, alt comics, Kirby Classics, and a handful of old standbys that always make such list, plus a decent amount of stuff you don't always see on such lists. It's worth a look (even to see what some of these creators look like as each creator's suggestions are accompanied by a picture of that creator and brief highlight of books they worked on. Of course, being what Men'e Health is, each suggestion has a link to buy it on Amazon accompanying it. Each has a 1 or 2 sentence blurb about the book as well.

If curious, you can see the article here

The intro to the article talking about perceptions of comics in mass culture prior to the recent wave of super-heroes in other media is a bit tone deaf and misinformed, and I skipped over the intro after the first paragraph, but the interesting thing is the creators selected and the creator's selections.

Overall 104 different selections were made, with a handful of repeats. Of those 104, I've read all of part of 42, and own 2-3 more I haven't gotten around to reading. There were a score or books recommended that I had never heard of before. I might need to do some exploring when the mood for discovery strikes me.

Books getting more than 1 mention included:

My Favorite Thing is Monsters (5)

Watchmen (3)

All Star Superman (2)
Batman Year One (2)
Ducks: Two Years on the Oil Sands (2)
From Hell (2)
Hellboy (2)
Love & Rockets (2 overall, but different collections in each)
Maus (2)
Preacher (2)
Saga (2)
Sex Criminals (2)
Stray Bullets (2)
This One Summer (2)
V for Vendetta (2)

Every other selection was only mentioned once.

I may miss a few, but here are some of the other recommendations in order they appeared, which is only the order in which they presented the creators, which has no particular rhyme or reason I could fathom:

Savage Dragon
Reckless by Brubaker/Phillips
Tomic (Ito)
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Strange Adventures (Tom King)
Bone by Jeff Smith
Kamandi by Kirby
Animal Man (Morrison)
Grendel Tales: Devils & Deaths
Madame Xanadu (Wagner)
Y: The LAst Man
Kill Your Boyfriend (Morrison)
Daredevil: Born Again
Uzumaki (Ito)
Akira
Ultimate Spider-Man (Bendis)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Beowulf (adapted by Garcia & Rubin)
I Go Pogo
Krazy Kat
Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant
Fun Home
Batman: Knightfall (Vol. 1-3)
Young Avengers Vol. 1 (Heidberg/Cheung) & 2 (Gillen/Mckelvie)
Through the Woods
Flex Mentallo
Ice Haven
Nemesis the Warlock
Jack Kirby's New Gods
BTTM FDRS
Alienation
Onwards to Our Noble Deaths
Alanzo Sneak
Tedward
The Devil's Grin
Eight Billion Genies
Maniac of New York
Sword Quest
Where Monsters Lie
Nice House on the Lake
Masterpiece (Bendis/Maleev)
Zap Comics #0
Showcase #37 (Aquaman)
Creepy 1968 Yearbook
Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin
Tales of the Toad #3
Wally Gripius
Asterios Polyp (Mazzuchelli)
How to be Happy
Cats of the Louvre
Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonara Carrington
Kent State
The March trilogy
X-Men: god Loves, Man Kills
Shubeik Lubeik
I Kill giants
Nausicca of the Valle of the Winds
What It Is
Skibber Bee Bye
Arthur A. Levine Books the Arrival
Bitch Planet
Mr. Miracle (Tom King)
Black Hole (Burns)
Upgrade the Soul
Black Monday Murders
Uncanny X-Men #205
Hawkeye (Fraction/Aja)
Pluto
Step Aside, Pops
You Know, Sex
Stray Toasters (Sienkiewicz)
Battle Angel Alita
Nikopol Trilogy (Bilal)
American Flagg!
Batman: Dark Knight Returns
Will Eisner's The Spirit
Day Tripper
Berserk
Mazebook
Mary Tyler Moorhawk
Faceless & The Family
The Invisibles (Morrison)
Bezimena
Lon Chaney Speaks
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen (Fraction/Lieber)
Fantastic Four (current Ryan North run)
Batman: Harley & Ivy
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
Beautiful Darkness

There's certainly some recency bias in some of the choices, but there are selections predating Action 1 (Krazy Kat). Selections include undergrounds, manga, European albums, as well as traditional American super-heroes and indy books.

Creators contributing range from Waid to Kirkman, Joe Hill to Patton Oswalt, Bill Sienkewicz to Jim Woodring, Gilbert Hernandez to Ann Nocenti and more.

I was a little disappointed not to see Eisner better represented (one mention of The Spirit bit none of his GN, and was surprised by some perennials for such lists absence (Incal, Persepolis, Sandman, Joe Sacco's stuff for example), but it certainly is an interesting list with lots of intriguing choices, and a few head scratchers to be certain, but that's the beauty of comics, there's something out there for so many different types of reader tastes.

-M