[awww,comics]

zulu asked me to suggest comics with interesting art that would be suitable for junior high-age students, and though it wasn't technically part of my December meme thing (request more topics!), I thought I'd share. :P

A lot of the stuff I find most interesting currently is creator-owned work that I'm not sure would be age-appropriate, but I did come up with two comics that I think would be really interesting in terms of pushing the comics art envelope.

The first is Batwoman - but please note that I cannot countenance recommending anything in the current DC universe, so I specifically mean the pre-reboot Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III, collected in Batwoman: Elegy.

J.H.'s art is... magical. What I love most about his work on Batwoman, though, is his incredibly creative work with panels and page layouts. A lot of traditional comics thinking relies on a certain number of panels and/or flow, but J.H. subverts that and creates incredibly intricate, organic, beautiful full pages, double pages, and panels. For example:
Batman and Batwoman – speech not needed to convey the tension or the progression
Batwoman in a fight – this is post-reboot, but such a great example of not needing defined panels to move the action
Batwoman drugged – even in pencils and not coloured, the confusion of the drugging comes through
Batwoman and Alice - parallels! panel structure! gorgeousness!
J.H. also switches between art styles and creates new panel styles for each of them. Highly recommended, and not just for Zulu's class. :P

The other comic that sprang to mind was the current run of Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction and David Aja – particularly issue #11, which is told entirely from the POV of Hawkeye's dog. I'm actually way behind on this comic, but I know that the issue also retells events from a previous issue, only from different angles and without the use of human speech. The way that the narrative progresses mostly without speech bubbles and the ability to see the same events told by the same writer and artist from two very different perspectives might be quite neat.
Pizza Dog perspective | Two
Pizza Dog solves murders

(Actually his name is Lucky, not Pizza Dog)

Those are my thoughts – if anyone else wants to chime in for the edification of Zulu's classes, I'm sure your thoughts would also be welcome. :P