Cyberpunk is one of the most compelling and exciting narrative settings. Cyberspace, mega corporations and a creepy future society are the essentials of cyberpunk and these features are also great for great comics. Since the dark technological future immortalized by authors like Gibson and Sterling has become one of the most iconic in science fiction, even comics have seen in this narrative context a universe in which to set compelling stories. And so it was, to the point that now we are about to talk about the best cyberpunk comics ever.
Read also: Cyberpunk: playing to music
The Long Tomorrow Tokio Ghost Hard Boiled Private Eye Ronin Ghost in the Shell Judge Dredd: Mega-City 2 Transmetropolitan Robocop: Dead or Alive Akira
The Long Tomorrow
When Alejandro Jodorowsky decided to make the craziest feat of his career, that is to make a very long film inspired by Dune had put together an impressive art team. This team included Jean Giraud, the French designer better known as Moebius, and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon.
During the eternal work on that project, O ’Bannon, already a veteran of the success of Darkstar, had started writing a science fiction story. When Moebius read those pages, he was impressed and asked the author to turn them together into a comic. From this communion of intentions, The Long Tomorrow was born, a 15-page comic that is not a cyberpunk comic, but has even marked the subsequent cyberpunk imagery in a profound way. Ridley Scott drew heavily on Moebius's vision in creating his future Los Angeles for Blade Runner, and even William Gibson drew inspiration from The Long Tomorrow for the aesthetics of his Neuromancer. And incidentally, police robots known as RobotCop appear in The Long Tomorrow, remember anything? The Long Tomorrow is the grail of cyberpunk comics, also being partly the original spark
Tokio Ghost
Rick Remender and Sean Murphy take us to 2089, to an America where cyberpunk setting is portrayed to perfection. The two protagonists, Debbie Decay and Led Dent, are the two souls of the cybeprunk imaginary: she, attached to a desperate humanity, he is now a symbol of a society in which it is impossible to live without the influence of technology. Influenced by the manga imaginary, the future urban environment is chaotic, the background of a hyperkinetic story that finds a contrast in the second part, in which humanity seeks redemption. All the themes of the genre are present in Debbie Decay's tragedy, making Tokyo Ghost one of the best cyberpunk comics.
Ronin
Again Frank Miller, with a story in which the cyberpunk element is tinged with a hint of the supernatural. When the demon Agat imprisons the spirit in a masterless samurai, a Ronin, inside a sword, cannot imagine this prison being broken. Yet, Ronin finds himself free from his imprisonment in 21st century New York, with his consciousness fused into the body of Billy, a paralegic who moves with artificial limbs and endowed with telekinetic powers. Frank Miller has created a complex cyberpunk work, still current in terms of themes and narrative, but which seems far from the current taste for the management of action scenes. Ronin is still a must-read for anyone looking for cyberpunk comics!
Ghost in the Shell
The manga that represents one of the main points expressiveness of cyberpunk. Masamune Shirow's work fully collects the legacy of some of the essential themes of cyberpunk literature, from the symbiotic relationship between man and technology to the difficult understanding of man-machine interaction. Also in the realization of the visual system of the future world, Shirow found an excellent synthesis to best express the suggestions of cyberpunk. Ghost in the shell was able to heavily influence subsequent cyberpunk productions, from cinema to comics, becoming a staple for lovers of cyberpunk comics.
Judge Dredd: Mega-City 2
Taking advantage of the incredible setting created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, already sufficiently full of references to some of the symbols of cyberpunk literature, Douglas Wolk and Ulises Farinas further explore these you wait while transporting the granite Judge from Mega-City 1 to Mega-City 2, built on the old one on the ruins of old California, in Judge Dredd: Mega-City 2. In this new version of Dredd, the Law becomes a kind of farce, adapted to a society in which everyone is famous, whose fame becomes synonymous with respect and importance within society. Within Judge Dredd: Mega-City 2 numerous references to the tradition of cyberpunk literature appear, combining the charm of the setting with the root of social criticism
Akira
Katsuhiro Ōtomo's anime is often celebrated more, but Akira is one of the most beloved cyberpunk manga in history. The credit goes to the story perfectly integrated into the dictates of the genre, with an oppressive and sparkling metropolitan society, beautifully rendered both in the characterization of the characters and in the settings
