From Comics to Source Material to Comics
As comics continue to converge with other artistic realms, my tastes in other media frequently has an influence my comic book purchases. I enjoy listening to Tori Amos , so I read Comic Book Tattoo , a compilation of stories inspired by her songs. The same applies in reverse; I liked Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men , so I finally broke down and watched Buffy (and loved it). One should take risks in order to discover new things, just as you shouldn’t base all purchasing decisions on Amazon’s “if you like this, you’d probably like this” suggestions. But I’m happy to say that reading comics has exposed me to a lot of new works, whether in films, novels, or music. Here are a handful of my cross-media discoveries: Criminal (the comic) --- Hard Case Crime Novels Some time ago there was an article in the back of an issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip’s Criminal about Hard Case Crime, a new publisher that’s been re-releasing classic pulp novels, in addition to contemporary writers...