Don’t forget your sunscreen with this week’s “So You Want to Read Comics”.  This is our weekly feature where we take a look at a single topic or genre, then give you two comic book recommendations, perfect for new readers, based on that topic or genre.  This week we’re taking a look at comics for people who are fans of the beach.

There are nearly 400,000 miles of beach across the world and while you might think of only ocean-touching shores when the term comes up, beaches are technically any shore of sand or small pebbles alongside a body of water.  Throughout history, beaches have served as important parts of both the industrial development of people, but also have served as places of spiritual importance.  The popularity hasn’t waned either,  it’s estimated that in the U.S. alone, over 400 million visits to beaches are made each year.  Beaches have also played significant roles in pop culture throughout the years as people’s connections to their favorite shorelines transfer into their creative endeavors.  Jaws is considered to be the first summer blockbuster film and in case you’re not aware, is about a shark that terrorizes a seaside town during peak beach-going season.  The love story between Sandy and Danny from Grease kicked off due to a fateful summer at the beach (specifically Leo Carillo Beach in Malibu).

Here are a couple of comic books perfect for people who love the beach and are looking for a way to jump into comic book reading.

BEACH BLANKET BAD GUYS

Writer: Various

Artist: Various

Publisher: DC Comics

Beaches are for everybody, whether you’re a normal Joe, or a crazed homicidal supervillain with a penchant for in-depth schemes and a desire for world domination.  This collection features ten short stories focusing on some of the biggest and most deadly villains in the DC Universe.  Now, a good portion of these are simply “summer themed” there’s definitely feature the beach as a central piece, like the one where Joker decides to have a throwdown with Bizarro, or the one with DC’s deadliest assassin Deathstroke, getting a call from a seaside town to do a surprising hit.  The surprising thing about this collection is that some of these stories are definitely humorous as the cover implies, but a lot of them are deeper, getting into the pathos that dominates a lot of these villains’ personalities and act as a good way to learn about them before seeing them show up in the more hero focused titles.  It also doesn’t hurt that the collection of creators they got for this is stacked with names like Paul Dini and Tim Seeley just being the tip of the iceberg.

THIS ONE SUMMER

Writer:  Mariko Tamaki

Artist: Jillian Tamaki

Publisher: First Second

Beaches in stories can sometimes be more than just a sun-soaked setting.  Sometimes, they can play a much bigger and symbolic role.  This graphic novel centers around two girls who must navigate their own coming-of-age stories while also coming to terms with becoming aware of the complicated lives of the adults in their lives and how all of this is connected with fateful trips to the beach.  In 2014 This One Summer was published, and it quickly became simultaneously one of the most celebrated graphic novels of all time and one of the most controversial.  This One Summer received many major awards when it came out including the Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Novel and was the first graphic novel to receive an honor from The Caldecott Committee while the creators Mariko and Jillian Tamaki both received individual awards. But, due to some of the heavy subject matters and its approach to sexuality, it has found itself on lists of the most censored and challenged books multiple times over the years.  What makes this such an effective story is that it works in different ways for both young readers and older readers.  For adults it taps into a sort of idyllic time for a lot of people, which is the summertime trips to the beach, and it then starts to layer on these more serious topics which forces the reader to think about some of the deeper things that were going on during their favorite childhood memories.  While for younger readers it’s a reflection of the things that they’re actually going through and allows them to see parts of their own life being played out on the page.

What did you think of these recommendations?  Do you have any of your own?  Let us know in the comments section below.

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