I was intrigued by a recent Warren Ellis post about comics creator Jonathan Hickman. Ellis described Hickman’s background in graphic design prior to his comics work, and mentioned that he’d done “the lion’s share of the most striking recent use of infographics in comics.” The examples given by Ellis were intriguing.
I was in Toronto, and looking for an excuse to patronize the new location of the Silver Snail, Toronto’s venerable comics institution, which has just moved from its historic digs on Queen Street West to a new spot on Yonge Street, after the owner sold the building and then retired, selling the business to store manager George Zotti. I’ve known George since he was a clerk at the Snail and I was a kid working at Bakka, the science fiction bookstore, which was once opposite the Snail’s Queen Street location, and I wanted to go down and see the new shop and also support his plunge from manager to owner.
George sold me three Hickman collections, all from Image press: The Nightly News (2007), Pax Romana (2009), and Transhuman (2009). Ellis’s point about the graphic design — and especially the excellent use of infographics — is well made in all three books. I don’t think