In 2019 Shelfdust asked over a hundred comic book critics, podcasters, vloggers and commentators to pick their personal, subjective favourite ‘first’ comic book issues of all time. From their choices we counted down the top fifty entries, which you can find here! But we’re not leaving it there. Now the list is over and we know which comics made the list, we’ve invited critic and podcaster Matt Lune to host a weekly show right here on Shelfdust! Each week Matt will be sitting down with a different comic critic to look at every comic which charted into the top fifty, one issue at a time.
This week brings us the best comic of all time which ended up in 32nd place: Love & Rockets #1 by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.
Los Bros Hernandez are regarded as two of the greatest cartoonists of all time, and although a little rougher, you can see their style showing through in this very early work from the pair. There are several different shorts in the issue, but of perhaps most note is the start of the long-running characters Maggie and Hopey, who would go on to become two of the most enduring and beloved creations in comics history. Forward thinking and subversive, there was no doubt that Love & Rockets was going to appear in this list. This week we’re joined by Osvaldo Oyola to discuss it!
You can listen to the episode:
Come back next week….. as Matt will be talking about Crowded #1 with Alex Lu!
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Osvaldo posts his thoughts (and those of guest writers) on popular culture, race, and gender on The Middle Spaces, focusing on popular music and comic books. You can find him on Twitter here!
Matt Lune is a critic and podcaster who has written for publications including PanelXPanel, The MNT and Multiversity. You can find him on Twitter here!
This podcast is made possible thanks to the Shelfdust Patreon page! To find out more, head to our Patreon page here!
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