i love TOL so much its actually gimving me brain worms im a huge comic nerd and it gives off the same vibe as some of my fav comics ever like serenity rose or lost at sea or the gulf it feels like an old alt 'classic' i wouldv read when younger and changed my brain chemistry (it still is)... so so good and your paneling and page layout and characterisation all make it flow so well and its so easy to get invested in the characters.. jamie and santiago are real and They are my Friends... their dynamic and world feel so lively and real.... i love how you play with comic conventions in using the thought/narrative bubble and turning it into voiced speech its so clever and awesome... your inking is so alive and dynamic... i havent been this ThinkingAbout a comic in ages. would buy in print. ps do u have any comic reccomendations/what comics inspires you?
Thank you so much!! This kind of manic obsession is what all true comic creators dream of, so it touches my heart <3
My main inspirations for making TOL were black and white comics I read as a kid but didn't fully understand at the time, like Bone, This One Summer, and (like you mentioned) Lost at Sea!
Lost at Sea in particular was a huge emotional cornerstone for me when I was younger, and was one of the main reasons I kept TOL in black and white. I read it when I was too young to really understand what the characters were going through, but I could tell there was something really emotionally powerful going on below the surface, and it stuck with me into adulthood. The fact that the world in that story had been abstracted by only existing in black and white only made it more mysterious and fascinating to me.
I have such an affinity for B&W comics. It simultaneously makes a piece feel more obtuse and obscured without the specificity of color, but it also makes it all the more personal and unique to each reader who fills in the gaps with their imagination. That's what I'm going for with TOL anyway.
I know some people have only read comics like Bone and Scott Pilgrim in color because it adds a whole new level of artistic expression to enjoy in a story, but I encourage people to revisit their favorite comics if they were originally printed in b&w to see how different they feel without color.
As for other comics I recommend, I really love Blankets, Keeping Two, Ducks, and The Sculptor.
These are all sophisticated creme de la creme novels that really touch on some intensely beautiful themes, and I can't recommend them enough to people who want to read a comic with some real maturity.
But what if you like comics with action and fantasy and cool shit that are also top of the line? Then I recommend Kaya, Ultramega, Do A Powerbomb, and most importantly: Coda.
These comics are so amazingly well drawn and are told incredibly well, but Coda, drawn by Matias Bergara and written by Si Spurrier is probably my favorite comic ever and I recommend it to literally everyone. It's the comic that pulled me out of my era of reading shonen manga slop and made me start reading western comics obsessively.
The duo also made Step By Bloody Step, a comic told without any words- only pictures. This is the kind of thing you have to read if you want to really understand what the comics medium is capable of.
ANYWAY. That's my reading list. Creators like Hayao Miyazaki, Cliff Chiang, Moebius, Frank Pe, Kei Urana, and Ryoko Kui are also amazing and you should check out their works as well.
I'm making physical copies of TOL chapter 1, and at the end I'm also gonna include a reading list of comics made by indie creators who I'm lucky enough to call my friends for people to check out, but that's a post for a different time.
I hope people will read at least one book from this list. Thanks for reading my ramblings!
