All throughout April, we’re crowdsourcing a coronavirus comics reading list. Each weekday for a month, we’ll post a new recommendation from someone in the comics industry to help folks get through the quarantine. It’ll be a crowdsourced list of recommended reading from writers, artists, letterers, editors, comics journalists, publicists, and more…all paired with a local shop that’s currently selling the books via mail order.

Today’s selection comes from cartoonist Beth Barnett…enjoy!

The top of my quarantine to-read pile is Satoru Koda's Golden Kamuy. This manga series currently has fourteen volumes translated into English.

The story follows Sugimoto, a Japanese veteran of the Russo-Japanese war, and his search for a fortune of Ainu gold, the location of which is tattooed on escaped prisoners, while aided by Asirpa, a young Ainu girl looking for her father.

The book handles explaining history and culture in the best way I've seen any comic do it — lovingly explored in breakdown pages that don't take away from the story, and there is a bibliography at the back of the book.

Golden Kamuy is a gloriously gruesome and gorgeous book, with delicious food and horrific violence rendered with the same gusto. It's not one for the faint of heart, but if you stick with it you'll be rewarded with beautiful art, wonderful characters, and one hell of an adventure. -Beth Barnett

Beth Barnett is a cartoonist who makes comics about heroes, health, and history. Her work has been featured in Dead Beats from A Wave Blue World, and you can find her comics online here.

Golden Kamuy
Creator: Satoru Koda
Publisher: Shueisha
English Publisher: Viz Media
Golden Kamuy. A tale of high adventure and survival on the Japanese frontier! Created by Satoru Noda More about Golden Kamuy. In the early twentieth century, Russo-Japanese War veteran Saichi Sugimoto searches the wilderness of the Japanese frontier of Hokkaido for a hoard of hidden gold.

Click here for the full coronavirus reading list!