Aubrey Sitterson's Co(Mix) Tape: Curated Recommendations You'll Love

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Aubrey Sitterson's Co(Mix) Tape: Curated Recommendations You'll Love

07/02/2019 12:00am

Aubrey Sitterson's new series No One Left to Fight hits comic shops this week, and it's a vibrant, pulse-pounding adventure! As a passionate comics fan and storyteller, Aubrey knows his stuff! So, we asked him to put together a list of some of his favorite Dark Horse comics, mix tape-style! Read his awesome recommendations below. You can check out all of the titles on Aubrey Sitterson's Co(Mix) Tape at Dark Horse Digital! All of his recommended titles will be 50% off from June 2-7th to celebrate the series premiere of No One Left to Fight!

Click here to see Aubrey's full mix!

1) Astro Boy Volume 1 & 2: Astro Boy is fascinating to me because it's one of manga’s/anime's most foundational works, while also managing to be somewhat of an outlier in terms of what contemporary audiences think manga and anime should be. But if you dig in, and really explore the pacing – especially the comedy – it becomes obvious how much Tezuka's most famous creation has influenced everything that came after. That willingness to get weird, dedicating multiple panels to setting up and paying of humor beats, is definitely something Fico and I tried to accomplish in No One Left to Fight.

2) Usagi Yojimbo Vol 12: Grasscutter: It's hard to overstate how important Stan Sakai's rabbit samurai was to me. Like many folks, my first exposure to Usagi came through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but when I learned he had his own comic, I was all in. It's is one of the most well-researched comics of all time, but the cultural exploration never gets in the way of it being a ripping yarn. This volume is one of my favorites, as it pays off so many disparate threads for so many characters, all while setting up more for down the road. It's serialized storytelling done right.

3) Concrete Vol 5: Think Like a Mountain: To me, Concrete is the archetypal Dark Horse comic book – it's what sounds like a frivolous, genre idea, done with such overwhelming care and craft that it transcends the genre even while delivering on all the tropes that define it. This volume stands out to me as one of the best, as it features the eponymous hero struggling to figure out what his moral obligation is, and whether to act at all. It's a moral quandary that is elided in most action-adventure comics, but is explored to sublime effect here.

4) Death Orb #1: Time for something contemporary! Ryan Ferrier is one of my favorite comic writers working today, so I was thrilled to become his Dark Horse labelmate. He, Alejandro Aragon, and Chris O'Halloran, have taken all the signifiers of post-apocalyptic fiction – the wastelands, the vehicles, the evil tech, the nefarious cults – and mixed it up into something smart, challenging, affecting, and totally new. No wonder it found a home at Dark Horse!

5) Grendel Omnibus Vol 3: Orion's Reign: Honestly, any volume is a great, great place to start, but like a lot of long-running series, I think it's best to dive right into the middle of Matt Wagner's Grendel. Doing so really gives you a feel for the depth, complexity, and sophistication of the world that Wagner created, especially as you have to really pay attention to piece it all together. I love starting a story with the earlier acts removed, which should come as no surprise to someone checking out No One Left to Fight. Oh, also: BRILLIANT TIM SALE ART.

6) The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite: I remember reluctantly picking this book up. I knew people loved Gerard Way, but I was never super into My Chemical Romance, and "rock star comic books"…don't have the best track record. But, because I loved Gabriel Bá's art so much, pick it up I did, and I was delighted to learn that Way not only knows his stuff, he clearly has an abiding love for the medium of comics. This is smart, exciting, gorgeous stuff, with emotional beats that hit like a ton of bricks. The rare comic that's even better than the hype around it.

7) Shaolin Cowboy: Who'll Stop the Reign?: I had a hard time selecting which Geoff Darrow book to actually write up – you'll notice two more of them on this list! I went with Shaolin Cowboy because while Darrow's art is always gorgeous, it's never been more gonzo than here. A childhood spent devouring Tintin books made a humongous ligne claire fan out of me, and when it comes to stunning, elegant detail that never loses its kineticism, it's hard to think of someone who makes better use of "clear lines" than Darrow.

8) Sabertooth Swordsman: Another recent one. Aaron Conley does everything I want from a cartoonist, eschewing boring photo-realism, leaning fully-into the cartoony and graphic, letting every bonkers character design and intense pose do the storytelling heavy-lifting. It's gorgeous stuff – high octane cartooning. And not only am I jealous of Damon Gentry getting to do a full graphic novel with Aaron, but I'm also super impressed by how he does the most important thing for any comics writer: He gives his co-creator amazing stuff to draw, then gets out of their way.

9) Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser: I came late to Fritz Leiber's rough-and-tumble, comedic sword & sorcery heroes, only after having Howard Chaykin tell me what a great counterpoint they are to the more straight-faced Robert E. Howard stuff that had been my bread and butter. So, imagine my delight at getting to read not only Chaykin, but Walt Simonson, and Denny O'Neil's take on the characters! It's rare that you get creators this influential working on characters that have influenced so much, even creating entire subgenres. Best of all: The comic is even better than the considerable sum of its parts.

10) Two-Fisted Tales Volume 1: Speaking of Chaykin…he's fond of saying that American comics has three founding fathers: Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and Harvey Kurtzman. Unfortunately, for many American comics readers, Kurtzman is the least well-known of the three, which is a problem that this volume can handily rectify. EC is mostly remembered for their crime and horror comics, but I think the war comics, generally speaking, are even better, showcasing a depth, complexity, and intelligence that might surprise folks coming in expecting trashy, disposable gore. With Toth, Davis, Craig, Severin, Wood, and more, this is seminal stuff.

Be sure to pick up No One Left to Fight #1 at your local comic shop! Written by Aubrey Sitterson, with art by Fico Ossio!

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Aubrey Sitterson's Co(Mix) Tape: Curated Recommendations You'll Love

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Aubrey Sitterson's Co(Mix) Tape: Curated Recommendations You'll Love

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