You won't find any articles credited solely to Andrea Burgess here at Ninth Art, yet for three years she was one of the site's most valued and influential contributors. Writing under the pseudonym 'German Bight', she was the first person to join Ninth Art's groundbreaking weekly comics forecast from outside the editorial team, providing the site with an invaluable dose of indie comics expertise. She was also one of three pundits on the special Ladies' Choice edition of Triple A.

A veteran of the convention circuit and an early contributor to Sequential Tart, Andrea now lives a mild-mannered existence working for a major transmetropolitan newspaper ? but we've lured her back into action to tell us about her Top Nine.

ASTERIX AND THE NORMANS
Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

When I was eight years old my junior school had the wonderful idea of holding a monthly book sale in conjunction with a local children's bookshop. I'd been reading TINTIN for years by that point, but I'd never noticed ASTERIX books before.

This was decidedly different to TINTIN. This was a world of exaggerated caricatures, improbable magic and slapstick comedy. What's more, it had Romans, and I was obsessed with ancient civilisations and mythologies. I saved more pocket money, I asked for book tokens for Christmas. Mostly it went towards ASTERIX books. I was hooked. Little did I know that a pattern had been set.

SWAMP THING
Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben

Fast forward a few years. I'd been caught up on every ASTERIX book published for a while now and had started buying up girls' comics annuals in jumble sales. On one of these foraging expeditions I'd come across some reprinted SPIDER-MAN issues, and from there (and much to the bafflement of my parents) I started buying American comics from my local newsagents. The 80s 'comics renaissance' was being touted in the music press and I, at fifteen, was wondering where on Earth you could find these other wonderful stories.

I knew two other people who read comics, and I asked the X-MEN fan about SWAMP THING, because the title was intriguing. "Hmm," he said, giving me a strange look, "you'd probably like it". Encouraged, after a fashion, I decided to seek it out.

After a one-off newsagent find that kept my interest whetted, I came across the first Titan reprint edition. From the very first page I was bowled over by the richness of the writing and the delicate, atmospheric art. A rainstorm is breaking over a city while a man watches and thinks of murder. This was what everyone was getting worked up about. This was what comics could do. This, at last, was the really, really good stuff. I needed more.

YUMMY FUR #13
Chester Brown

Eventually I learned of the existence of comics shops and ventured into the Forbidden Planet on Denmark Street. It was dark, cramped, and somewhat intimidating to a lone schoolgirl.

Then someone told me about Gosh on Museum Street. I became an irregular visitor, applying magpie logic to my buying habits and picking up anything that grabbed my attention. One Friday it was the cover to YUMMY FUR #13. Primary colours, mock Saturday morning cartoon style, words on the cover ('Friday night and Saturday morning') that seemed like an omen - I was going to my first proper gig that evening.

Between the covers, things were very different. Chester Brown had created a warped world of dysfunctional families, hapless clowns, penis transplants and a Ronald Reagan from another dimension. YUMMY FUR was the first indie comic to really rock my world. I tried to buy up every issue I'd missed, but was stymied by the unfortunate UK ban on #8 for a good few years. But that's another story.

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND
Hayao Miyazaki

When I was seventeen, a wonderful thing happened. A comic shop opened up fifteen minutes' walk from where I lived. The concepts of the weekly delivery and pull lists entered my life. Things were good. All kinds of curiosities turned up on the shelves, and the owners and other customers started recommending things. So it was that I bought the first few issues of NAUSICAA, second hand and slightly water damaged (the previous owner had read them in the bath and then sold them back when the collected edition came out).

It was the first manga I'd read. It may still be the best manga I've ever read. A world threatened by fungal spores, where men ride flightless birds instead of horses, where herds of gigantic insects rumble across the landscape. NAUSICAA is both epic and intimate, and despite its clear debt to Osamu Tezuka, it's artistically closer to the French BD of Moebius than any of its Japanese contemporaries.

A LIFE FORCE
Will Eisner

Before the internet, you had to get your comics recommendations from people who hung out at your local comics shop, or to read whatever press you could find. There even used to be specialist comics publications in the UK, once upon a time. (Oh, Escape, how I miss you.)

I'd heard the name of Will Eisner a lot, so I decided to give his work a try. I picked out A LIFE FORCE because it seemed to give me the most story for my money. This turned out to be a bit of an underestimation. Within the first few pages it felt like falling back into the short stories of Bernard Malamud - total immersion in an alien city peopled by very human characters. It's very easy to lose yourself for hours in this tenderly observed tapestry of tenement stories. Eisner returned to Dropsie Avenue many times in his work, and I could never help but follow.

ZOT!
Scott McCloud

I picked up ZOT on the recommendation of Chester Brown, who used to write up a short paragraph about comics he liked in each new issue of YUMMY FUR. ZOT was the story of a girl who slips between our imperfect Earth and an idealised one, and the young superhero who befriends her. It sounded good, so I kept an eye out for any issues that might turn up in the UK.

The first one I picked up was #22. The cover was taken up by a cartoonish villain called The Blotch, but the first few pages were set firmly in the familiar real world - or as real as you can get in comics. I had to read more, and hunting out the back issues became a minor convention pastime. The story evolved from a four-colour wonderland into the black and white 'Earth stories' of the later issues, which played off the frustration of being trapped on this world when you've had a taste of an ideal one. They're still some of the most affecting comics I've ever read.

ZOT has a big, liberal heart. If it had come out in these arguably more intolerant times, it might have struggled even more to find an audience. But that's all conjecture. McCloud has moved on to other things that have brought him greater acclaim, and more power to him - though he did return to ZOT online, a few years after ending the series in print.

THE COMIC BOOK OF FIRST LOVE
Various

Remember that 'comics renaissance' I mentioned earlier? For a while there, everybody wanted in on it. Virago, notable feminist publishing house, put out THE COMIC BOOK OF FIRST LOVE under their teen imprint. Not exclusively written by women or from a female point of view, it's a lively mix of very different stories and styles with nary a dud in it, even if some of them have dated quite alarmingly.

There's work by Eddie Campbell, Woodrow ("Trevs", as he was then) Phoenix, Kate Charlesworth and what I think is one of the most perfectly formed short stories in comics - 'Helicopters', by Graham Higgins.

It's a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl tale at heart, but subtle, witty, and beautifully drawn, using the medium for all it's worth. Higgins was one of the guests at the first comic shop signing event I ever attended. Two artists and a writer, there to promote his new series, crammed into one of the tiniest shops you can imagine (the first site of They Walk Among Us).

The amiable writer signed a miniseries for me and after that, for what seemed like an age, I waited and watched Higgins gamely draw barbarians for pubescent boys. When the shop was almost completely empty, I shoved my copy of THE COMIC BOOK OF FIRST LOVE at him, mumbling something along the lines of "I-really-like-this-could-you-sign-it-for-me-please?" He broke out in a huge smile. "This is my favourite!" he said. "Mine too!" said the writer, who was stood next to him. So 'Helicopters' was signed for me and I fled.

At my next visit to the shop, one of the owners told me that Higgins had been really chuffed about someone liking 'Helicopters', and that I could've gone to the pub with everyone afterwards because he wanted to talk to me. But I was cripplingly gauche back then, and so it goes.

The dedication reads: "To Andrea - you are obviously a woman of no small taste and sophistication. Eternally yours, Graham Higgins". I've kept the book with me ever since, with each university and house move. It's always one of the first out on the shelves.

SANDMAN #8
Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III

So I eventually checked out the comic by that amiable writer at the signing. I'll admit, I'd flicked through the first issue of SANDMAN and didn't like the art, so I'd left it. The latest issue, however, had much better art. It was also a self-contained story - 'The Sound of Her Wings'.

The thing that really grabbed me was that even though I only had a vague idea about what was going on to start with, I twigged, about halfway through the story, who the woman was. Now, I like trying to out-think authors, and I like having to work things out for myself, so this seemed like my kind of comic. My childhood obsession with ancient civilisations, which had sparked my interest in ASTERIX, had evolved into a youthful obsession with world mythologies and Jung. With all the requisite buttons pushed (and after a quick scramble to assemble the back-issues) I was in for the long haul.

But that's not all there is to my putting SANDMAN on this list. It always seems embarrassingly melodramatic when someone says that such-and-such changed their life, but SANDMAN did, albeit not in an explosive and melodramatic way. It was the first link in a chain of coincidences and friendships (I know people who got married because of this book) that has pretty much shaped my life into what it is today. I'd go into details, but neither of us has the time, trust me on this. Death's a sweetie, so I've read, but life's a funny old thing, isn't it?

FINDER
Carla Speed MacNeil

When SANDMAN finished there was a gap in my life for a good-looking, well-written, not-for-idiots comic that required me to think. I've never enjoyed being patronised by people or books. If I want something that'll act as an undemanding sop to my brain, I have a TV, which even saves you the exertion of turning pages.

So when I came across the first few issues of FINDER and picked up issue #1, with its odd landscape cover and its interior world where you were flung headfirst into a complex city and the protagonist's complex relationships and expected to keep up with it all, I was rather smitten. I bought the first four issues, read them, sent my copy of the first one to my best friend and waited for the phone call. After it came, I went back to buy myself another issue #1, plus all the other ones available, with orders from my friend to get them into the post to him ASAP.

Since then, Carla Speed McNeil's creation has been getting even more intricate, and her artwork's been getting ever more stunning. If I ever find myself wondering why I'm sticking with comics after all these years, I can pick up a copy of FINDER and remind myself that it's all about happening across unexpected wonders.

Andrea Burgess is a librarian and researcher for a major international newspaper.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.