How to Use This Site

The best way to use this site is to make full use of the hyperlinks displayed on each page. Absolutely every book, creator, publisher, and genre listed on this site is cross-referenced with every other book, creator, publisher, and genre in every way imaginable. As long as you make full use of the hyperlinks, you will always find what you're looking for.

The Indexes
First, let's start with the red bar that sits just below the website's title ("More Than Superhumans"). On this bar are four hyperlinks: (1) the "What Do I Read First?" link, which lists a dozen good books to start you on your path to enjoying comics; (2) the "Titles Index" link, which provides a list of every book title covered on this website; (3) the "Creators Index" link, which provides a list of every single writer and artist whose work is covered on this website; and (4) the "Publishers Index" link, which lists every publisher whose books are discussed on this site.

The indexes are helpful if you know the name of a specific author you want more information about, or if someone has recommended a specific book title to you. There's also a chance that you have a publisher in mind and want to know about the kinds of comic books they publish. If so, one of these three hyperlink buttons is the best place for you to start.

Click on the "Creators Index" link, and you will see an alphabetical list of authors and artists. Click on one of those names and the hyperlink will take you to that author's own page on this website. The page will provide you with a little biography of the individual, an exterior webpage link (if the author has his or her own website, or if his/her publisher has set up a webpage for him/her), and it also lists his or her books. Each book listed is in turn hyperlinked to its own page on this site.

Click on the "Titles Index" link, and you will see an alphabetical list of every book discussed on this site. Click on one of those titles and the hyperlink will take you directly to that book's page on this site.

Click on the "Publishers Index" link, and you will see an alphabetical list of every publisher whose books are listed on this site. click on one of the publishers and the hyperlink will take you to that publisher's page on this site. There you will see a little bit of information about the publisher, a link to the publisher's exterior website (if it has one), and a hyperlinked list of authors that the publisher publishes.

Genres/Categories
Down the left-hand side of each webpage on this website (below the "Where to Start" hyperlinks) is a list of every genre used by this site to categorize the books it lists. Note that the genres are divided into "Fiction" (above) and "Nonfiction" (below).

Each one of these genre hyperlinks takes you to a webpage that contains an alphabetical list of all the books in that specific category. Also, at the top of each one of these pages, is a short discussion of the genre and a few recommended books with which you might want to start.

The Search Bar
At the top of the right-hand side of every page is a search bar labeled "search this site." Here you can type in anything (an author's name, a book title, a key word, etc.), and as soon as you press the "Go" button it will display every page on this site that contains your search word(s). This might seem like an easier way to find what you're looking for than clicking through a bunch of hyperlinks and searching manually, but keep in mind that using the "search" bar will require you to scroll through every entry that contains the word(s) you used. You might get lucky and the page you're looking for will pop up first, but it might not. Just a word of warning....

The Book Pages Themselves
Every book page begins with some pertinent information about that book. Below I'll explain why it's provided and how it might be useful to you.

Writer(s) and Artist(s): Although most of the books discussed on this website were written and illustrated by the same person, a few of them were written by one person and illustrated by someone else--or a group of artists. Thus, a (sometimes redundant) listing of both the writer(s) and artist(s).

Publisher: Considering how long they've been around, some books may have gone through several publishers (Will Eisner, some of whose books have been in print since the '70s, is a good example of someone whose individual books have been consecutively published by two or sometimes even three different publishers over the years). In this case, only the current publisher is listed.

ISBN: The book's most current ISBN (the paperback ISBN, if both a paperback and a hardcover edition of the book exist--unless the hardback is more readily available) is given here. This is primarily for helping you to track down out-of-print or otherwise hard-to-find books. (You can read more about this topic here.)

Price: This is the cover price of the book (in the case of multiple editions, the price that corresponds to the above ISBN is the one that's listed). Of course, the book may be cheaper on retail sites such as Amazon.com, or in used book stores.

Page count: The number of pages in the book. This is helpful because some books are a mere 48 pages, while others can be over 400 pages long--and this is good to know if you're about to drop $29.95 on something that may be significantly shorter than you were expecting.

Year Released: Usually, this refers to the first year in which the material contained in the book was first collected together in this particular form. For example, the date listed for Will Eisner's The Spirit Casebook, vol. 2 refers to the first year the book was published (in 1998), not when the original comic strips were first published (in the '40s and '50s).

Status: This tells you whether the book is currently in print and readily available, or out of print and perhaps harder to find. You can learn more about the art of tracking down hard-to-find books here.

Original Source: Comic books traditionally come in two forms. First is the comic book periodical, which is essentially like a newsstand magazine. It is usually 24 or 32 pages, and it is published on a somewhat regular schedule (monthly, yearly, etc.) like any other periodical. Second is the collected edition, often referred to (somewhat erroneously) as a graphic novel, which collects the contents of several previously published comic book periodicals into one book. This second form of comic book is primarily what we discuss on this website, because they are widely sold by bookstores and thus easier to find than the smaller periodical versions of comic books, which are like magazines in that they are not available once their duration on the newsstand has passed. So "original source" tells us which comic book periodicals are contained in the book being discussed on the page. This information is useful primarily because collected editions sometimes overlap each other in terms of which periodicals they contain. A good example is Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise, which is a periodical comic book series that has been collected into several different types of collected editions (see, for example, how Strangers in Paradise, vol. 1 and Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book, vol. 1 overlap in terms of the material they contain).

Other Collected Edition(s): As discussed in the previous paragraph, some of the more popular comic books are often collected into multiple types of collected editions (as in the Strangers in Paradise example above). If this is the case, the other editions are listed here and hyperlinked if those other editions have their own pages on this website.

Genres: All of the genres that a particular book fits into are listed here, with the appropriate hyperlinks.

Recommended for Fans Of: This is where we list movies, novels, and television shows, etc., that are similar to the book in question, as a way of recommending the book to people who may be able to better understand what they're looking for in terms of other forms of fiction (or nonfiction) they enjoy.

Possibly Objectionable Material: Comic books aren't just for kids anymore. Yet for some reason a lot of people in the United States are still shocked to discover instances of sex and violence in comics. So to avoid any embarrassment or potentially ill-advised recommendations, here is where we list things the book contains that some people might find objectionable, including nudity, adult situations, coarse language, drug use, violence, graphic violence (bloodier than your run-of-the-mill "punch to the face"-type violence), disturbing imagery, etc.

If You Like This Book, Try: Here is where comic books of a similar kind are listed, with hyperlinks.

Also in This Series: If the book is part of a larger series, the preceding and subsequent volumes are listed here (with hyperlinks).

Plot Summary: This is a brief synopsis of the book's plot. I try to avoid "spoilers" (i.e., information that might ruin your enjoyment of the book), but if the book is part of a longer series be aware that I might reference things that have happened in previous volumes.

My Own 2 Cents: This is where I--Mr. "More Than Superhumans" himself--provide my thoughts on the book. Not a review, exactly, just more information that should help you determine if it's something that is worth your time and money.