When I was young, I don't remember sitting around and reading a lot of comic books. Sure, I read the comics each day in the paper, and enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes or Far Side collections that belonged to my brother or my dad, but I simply didn't have stacks of the latest from Marvel and DC Comics - just wasn't interested.
Now older, I enjoy comics that spark intellectual creativity or thought. Doonesbury is good most days. FoxTrot is outstanding. But my two favorite comics are Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World and Darrin Bell's Candorville. Both are a little outside of the mainstream, but connect with me in some way. For Christmas, I got myself Tom's "Great Big World of Tomorrow", and enjoyed that a great deal. Yesterday, I received Candorville's "Thank God for Culture Clash", and read it all in one sitting. The stuff's great!
A special wrinkle in this note is that I've known Darrin since 1997, when we met in college at UC Berkeley. He contributed weekly comics and editorial cartoons to the school paper, where I worked, and every once in a while, we'd both be stuck in the same, boring Mass Communications course, where I would struggle to stay awake, and he'd be doodling caricatures of the professor in the margins - which was way more fun to watch. Darrin and I went our separate ways after school, but he's really done well for himself, and it's great to watch his progress. If you're not familiar with Candorville, and his other works, including Rudy Park, it's time for a new New Year's Resolution.
