That’s a question that keeps on coming up in interviews. It’s a real toughie, because the ‘right’ answer depends on the person you’re talking to, and that’s often a theoretical complete stranger – or in an online interview, an Internet of complete strangers. How do you answer?
“{It’s) a huge question because it depends entirely on what the individual asking it already likes. I could tell anyone to read Ursula K. LeGuin’s ‘The Dispossessed’ or Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ or ‘Thursbitch’ by Alan Garner, all books I love, and I might turn them off SFF or Victorian fiction for life, because those aren’t the books for them.
Also, so many “must read” lists are like those lists of classic books in school. Most books on them are twenty to a hundred years old, and possibly not to your taste, but they’ve been on lists for ever and people just copy them through.
So I’ll always answer that question with others: What kind of comics do you already like to read? What’s your favourite genre? How realistic do you like art to be? If you have a specific taste in comics or fiction – Gothic, steampunk, romance, detective stories or giant robot battles – you’ll recognize manga in that style when you see it, so I’d start there.”
This (and other answers to interesting questions) comes from my 2022 interview for World Comic Book Review. Read the rest here