Just the Facts: A Decade of Comics Essays

Rating:
Summary: Slices of real life
Review: These short historical essays in the graphic/comic form are a fine example of what this medium can do.

This is a good access point to a genre of comic books that often gets overlooked - the biography. (Because it's not all superheroes).

Collier's clear storytelling and his involvement of personal vignettes in the context of the tales makes them educational and entertaining. Most prominent comparisons in the field would be the DC/Paradox Big Books of ... (Drugs, Crime, Urban Legends). But they have various artists whereas the tales here are united by the author's enthusiasm and interest.

Rating:
Summary: great current comic artist
Review: This is a collection of Collier's pieces from his eponymous comic and elsewhere, focusing on his non-fiction naratives. Collier is a fine graphic artist, but the interplay of the visuals and the texts to create engaging and informative stories is superb. Especially fine are the pieces in which he combines a story of some historical moment-the development of reggae, the evolution of the disc record player, with his own personal framing narative. The closest comparisons I can think of are Harvey Pekar's pieces with Joe Sacco on music or literature. Overall this is a collection of a lot of the best work by an underrecognized comic artist. Highly reccomended to anyone interested in current comic art.