The last piece I posted here concerned the way in which the storytelling in Saga, Unfollow and God Country put the weather to use. Or, as the case may be, didn’t. (Should you be of a mind, that blog can be found here.) Which got me thinking about the ways in which other comics have done the same. It’s an impossibly broad topic, of course, so I narrowed matters down to representations of rainfall and spent an enjoyable few hours browsing a shelf or three of comics in search of some beguiling, varied examples. Hopefully, what follows will, at the very least, make for an interesting diversion.
- from 1970’s Valerian: The City Of Shifting Waters, by Jean-Claude Mezieres & Pierre Christin.
2. from 2009’s Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle.
3. From Zenith: Book Four, by Grant Morrison & Steve Yeowell, as first collected in 1990.
4. from August 6 1980’s Annie, by Leonard Starr.
5. From 1984’s The Towers Of Bois-Maury: Babette, by Hermann,
6. From A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi with translator Adrian Tomine, as published in English by Drawn & Quaterly in 2009.
7. From 1975’s Asterix: La Grande Traversee, by Goscinny & Uderzo.
8. From Lone Wolf And Cub: The Assasin’s Road, by Kuzuo Koike & Goseki Kojima, as reprinted, with Dana Lewis’s English translation, in 2000.
9. from 1986’s Watchmen #5, by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons & John Higgins.
10. From Herge’s The Adventures Of Tintin: The Broken Ear, as translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner, as first published in English in 1975.
11. From 2006’s Phonogram #2, by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie.
12. From Stickleback: England’s Glory, by Ian Edginton & D’Israeli, as first collected in 2008.
13. From 1965’s Strange Tales #132, by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee.
14. From July 20 1947’s The Spirit: Li’L Adam, by Will Eisner with his studio.
15. from 2012’s Hawkeye #1, by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth and Chris Eliopoulos.
A second 15-strong selection of rain-splattered comics pages can be found here at Them Darned Superpeople, while the third and final gallery is here.
Them Darned Superpeople 
What a lovely selection. My favourite here is the D’israeli entry. I have one for you, Daredevil #160, by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller and Klaus Janson.
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Thank you Martin. Glad to hear you think well of D’Israeli’s work. I think he might just be my favourite comics artist. Obviously it’s impossible to be absolutely definitive when opinions change on such things from minute to minute. But more often than not, he tops my lists.
DD #160 is a very good call. Daredevil’s probably had more rain-sodden pages since Miller first appeared than any other character short of Batman. But, yes, #160 is particularly rain-sodden, as it were! I did enjoy those McKenzie issues before Miller, not to put too fine a point on it, had him sacked. (Of course, I enjoyed what came after too.)
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