This week, my fellow abductees and I have been thinking about COMICS. One of our readers, Adam (Hi, Adam!) responded to Andy’s post below with the following:

All of the comics and graphic novels you have suggested would be hard for me (and a lot of kids) to get. Because with internet comic shops you need a credit card and I have a feeling that my parents (and a lot of other kids’ parents) wouldn’t spend any money on comics for us.

Before I launch into my third and (for now) final ‘You Must Read This!’ comics harangue (snee hee hee!) I’d like to answer that with this:

Try your local public library – where you can borrow and read anything, comics included, for free. Mine already stocks Invincible and Death Note – that’s partly why I chose to write about them – and it also has Understanding Comics, Joe’s choice. But if your local library doesn’t have what you want, all you have to do is ask for it. Right now public libraries are making a massive special effort to attract young people and get them to become regular library-users. The future of libraries depends on it. Libraries and librarians are there for you. So take the chance: get in there and see what they can do.

It’s my hope that – thanks in part to fresh influences like the massive popularity of manga, and the all-ages comics movement – a new generation of readers will come up without the prejudices against comics that have caused so many older people to miss out on a wealth of great storytelling. The good stuff is out there, waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. So dig for it, and when you find it, pass it on!

On that note (MOOHOOHAHA! ’scuse me) here is one of the weirdest, most frightening and most utterly brilliant stories I’ve ever come across…

These are the covers of all three volumes of Uzumaki, written and illustrated by Junji Ito. The story of Uzumaki centres on a boy and a girl and their struggle to survive when the small town in Japan where they live comes under attack. But the threat in Uzumaki isn’t zombies, or werewolves, or demons, or aliens. The clue is in the title: the Japanese word ‘uzumaki’ describes a particular shape, or pattern…

The town is being menaced by spirals.

No way? Way. Believe it. The threat starts out small. Tiny whirwinds are seen in the streets. The town’s inhabitants become increasingly obsessed with spiral patterns in everyday objects such as springs, drill bits, corkscrews, lighthouse beacons, sirens. From there, with the inexorable, hypnotic anti-logic of a dream, the spirals take over. Spiral patterns appear in girls’ hair, until the hairstyles become sentient and battle each other over which spectacularly curling ‘do attracts the most attention. Spiral patterns appear on slow-moving town residents’ backs, before they turn into snails. And if you think /those/ things are weird, wait ’til you see what happens in Volume 3…

Uzumaki is a horror story: make no mistake about that. But the horror in it isn’t about blood (though it’s got its moments) or monsters (though it’s got those, too!) The emotions Uzumaki produces are something close to the claustrophobic, merciless unease of being trapped in a nightmare. Every few pages as I read it I was saying aloud things like ‘Whoah!’ ‘Ha!’ ‘Ew!’ ‘Gah!’ and ‘Wow!’ I tell you, I’ve never read anything like it.

With its one dazzlingly original premise, Uzumaki opens your mind to the story possibilities that are waiting in everything around us. I hope that my arm-waving comics glee(!) this last week just might, in some way, have done something similar: in comics, as in novels, there’s a whole world of amazing storytelling just waiting for you to find it. Don’t miss out.

For pointers to more great comics and other awesome books check my LibraryThing profile. Happy reading!