What are your top 5 comics EVER?
Maggie Dahlstrom is a trans woman, queer-comics researcher, and lapsed cartoonist. She lives in Columbus with her fiancé Max. Check out her research project at go.osu.edu/teachingqueercomics
5). THE COMPLETE CUL DE SAC
Richard Thompson / Andrews McMeel
I was lucky enough to grow up in the metro D.C. area around the same time Thompson was creating his strip, Cul De Sac, and the way he writes his characters and depicts my city immediately brings me home. The recurrent gags across the series, from the uh-oh baby to Dill’s shopping cart reveries, along with the masterful linework, represents cartooning at its peak of artistry. When compiling this list, I struggled a lot with “favorite vs. best,” and this would be in my top 5 of both lists.
4). KISS NUMBER 8
Colleen Venable and Ellen Crenshaw / First Second
This is a story of a Catholic queer teen finding herself in the early 2000’s and it represents the nostalgia I crave. The story is really tight and it doesn’t pull punches. It has a great twist and its just a lot of fun.
3). BONE – OLD MAN’S CAVE
Jeff Smith / Cartoon Books
Bone was my intro to comics, but Old Man’s Cave, in my mind, is the story at its best. Tying together the mythology of the previous five volumes, it’s the moment where the characters really come into their own. Rose and Briar finally meeting face to face, the villagers having to exist in a broader societal context, THE VENU… Every part of this book hits, really capturing what I love about the broader series.
2). ANYAS GHOST
Vera Brogsol / First Second
I’ve read this book so many times and it still gives me the chills. It’s a ghost story perfected. On top of being beautifully drawn and masterfully crafted, narratively, I couldn’t ask for anything more. The themes that Brogsol juggles of the immigrant experience, growth and change in puberty, and how high school makes people just kind of awful is everything to me.
1). SNAPDRAGON
Kat Leyh / First Second
This is a comic I wish I had written. Or like, it feels like a comic I wrote for myself without actually having to put in all the work and just getting to be pleasantly surprised at the results. It’s queer, it’s witchy, it’s incredibly drawn and colored, it speaks to the unnatural natural. The characters are so strong and human, and it creates a world you can’t wait to go back to. There are comics that are “better,” but this comic is my favorite.