Today I am going to write about graphic novels. Because I was in a comic shop looking for new ones today and thinking, ‘man, I love these things.’ So I’m going to list some of my favorites. If you’re into comics or graphic novels of any kind, you’ve probably read all of these. Most of them read like a ‘best of and most famous’ list, but I guess sometimes the reason things get famous is because they are, in fact, very good. Also, I’m no great expert or critic in the field, I just read what I like. So maybe if you don’t read many graphic novels, you might find this random list somewhat informative, then go to the bookstore. I will probably be there myself.
- Blankets by Craig Thompson
I was attracted to Blankets at first because of the size- a whopping 582 pages. For a single-volume graphic text that is HUGE and it really jumps off the shelf. But the story Craig Thompson tells is engrossing on every one of those pages. It is a reckoning of his ultra-Christian upbringing, a poem to his first love and detailed memoir. There are lots of things that are both beautiful and ugly, but the most attractive element is how unwaveringly honest it is.
- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
The first time I picked this up I thought “blagh, depressing. Hard to read.” You might think so too. But you’ll change your mind. And then you’ll be ashamed of yourself for what you first thought.
- Batman: the Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
I won’t lie, this one is all Hawkeye’s doing. Aside from being my being one of the Number One Fans of Batman: the Animated Series while growing up (weekdays at noon on CTV!), I had never really read any Batman comics as a kid, not that you could buy them anywhere near my dinky little town anyway. Hawkeye did, however, and had Batman and other random comics scattered around his house, because he never cleans anything, and so they were always in sight and I regained interest in what I was missing out on by picking them up and leafing through. Not that we agree on everything, as I remember him liking the Killing Joke which I thought was interesting but very disturbing.
The Dark Knight Returns kicks ass though and is usually heralded with great fanfare in any recount of graphic novels/comics over the past 50 years. No wonder. I don’t even know why I am talking about it, because of course you have read it, I was the last one to know of its existence, and EVERYONE has read it. Know why? It’s super famous and awesome. We’ll move on.
- Louis Riel by Chester Brown
Oh MAN! Canadian history in pictures? Written well? Distinctive artwork? What more do you want?
Actually, what makes this really great is the subject himself. Louis Riel, the Metis leader of the Manitoba Rebellion, is a complex character people usually paint either black or white. For a long stretch of time, the history books treated him like a villain. He led a rebellion. It failed. Canada wins. In more recent, socially conscious and culturally sensitive times, Louis Riel became a hero. He fought against injustice. He was a minority. He was executed unfairly. Many people would pick a side and leave it at that. Others know the difference but don’t care to look further into it. Chester Brown gives Louis Riel fair treatment as a man with a difficult life he never asked for thrust upon him. Chester Brown also wrote “I Never Liked You” which is very good and, like Blankets, a story packed with all that awful teenage boy life drama that seems to provide unending inspiration to so many comic artists.
- Sin City: The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller
I’ve read a lot of the Sin Cities, but this one is my favorite. It’s all about Marv. Marv loves Goldie. Big, ugly, ruthless, savage, insane, murderous Marv loves Goldie the dead prostitute. Show any girl the comic and she will read through all the gore and brutality and get to the end and go “aww, Marv loves Goldie.” God, we girls are saps.
- Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez
This is another big one. I will admit to being attracted to the bigger texts. Not just because you get to read them longer, but because of the depths they reach. This book is a collection of sketches that build over time the history of a couple of generations in the town of Palomar. The clean artwork is impressively classic. The characters are many, as are the storylines. The author knows them all inside and out, and you get the sense that he really loves them. Who wouldn’t, if you wrote a story that took over a decade to complete? There are no enemies in this book, but there are failures. There are successes, but nobody stands alone or apart from anyone else. You can’t help but be drawn into the town as it goes about its daily business, you are sad when tragedy hits a character you grew to know well, you laugh at their in-jokes and you want more when you finish. Because there is no plot, there is no ultimate resolution, there is just life that keeps going when we as readers have to wave goodbye. And for fans of Latin American literature anyway, there is even some magic realism.
- Bone by Jeff Smith
I remember the character Bone from way way back, when somewhere I had read snippets of his story and had no idea the breadth of the thing was as enormous as the collected tome I saw on display much much later in a store far away from where that memory came from. I bought it right away. Bone is the fantasy epic of your dreams in pictures. Strange creatures, evil magic, hidden royalty, epic battles, character humor, long journeys, talking animals, beautiful scenery, quaint villages, and of course, the Big Secret That Could Destroy Us All. If you don’t like Bone, I don’t like you.
- Goodbye, Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson
After reading Blankets, I went looking for more Craig Thompson and found this earlier work. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Chunky Rice is a turtle boy separated from his best friend, a mouse. Strange choice of protagonists. But I knew I liked it when, after I had read it, certain scenes just wouldn’t leave my mind. Chunky and his friend are the main characters, but they are accompanied by a cast of several (equally odd) others whose stories tie into their own through the theme of losing someone. Oddly, it is the sea that connects and separates them all at the same time. It is sweet and affecting in its own bizarre way.
- Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
Can you belive there are still some people who haven’t read Maus? It’s true, I’ve met some of them. Maus was the rock of credibility for graphic novels in the wider circle of literature for a long time, with it’s big shiny Pulitzer prize. Art Spiegelman’s allegorical recount of the Holocaust is brilliant. But don’t take my word for it. Take every critic on earth’s word.
- From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Alan Moore is a crazy genius. And he makes it look easy. The seedy world of White Chapel and Jack the Ripper is not something easily found in detail, despite all the theories and literature surrounding the Ripper himself. Moore did his homework and presented historically accountable characters but also created a graphic novel so complex and terrifying I defy anyone to read it without getting mesmerized. I know this detail is nothing new for Moore. I read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen before this one, and the guy is virtually throwing period literature easter eggs at your face. All the same, read this book. As a bonus, Eddie Campbell’s artwork looks like an illustration from a Victorian serial novel, but more crazed and scratchy, which I thought was cool.
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The book is about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, and that is unbelievably interesting, but it is the little girl who steals your heart. Damn those outspoken, intelligent and willful little girls who dare to dream, they do it every time.
Ok, this list is getting long enough, I will stop here. On a personal note, I realize that my taste favors black and white comics as opposed to colored ones. Hum.
Now get thee to the book store!
edit: clips and trailers from the new Persepolis movie! It looks fantastic.
I can’t get two of the other clips I found to work, but if you search ‘Persepolis’ on youtube they’ll come up and they might work for you.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 11:36 am #
You keep implying that I’ll know what these things are, but I haven.. haven’t…. heard of any of them. *cringes* Don’t beat me!
I have, of course, heard of Batman, Bone, Louis Riel, and Sin City. I just didn’t really realize they were… graphic novels.
The one (and only) graphic novel I’ve read has been Pyongyang by Guy Delisle, who is a Canadian author/artist.
It’s a really neat look at the ultra-secretive North Korea, as seen from the inside. Plus it’s funny too.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm #
I smile contentedly having been given credit for your exposure to DKR. My only wish was that I had owned “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth” then so you could have read it. Although you probably would have found it disturbing as well.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm #
Hawkeye: Yes, thank god you are such a slob with your belongings. I recall talking about Arkham Asylum, it sounded really interesting, and I had always meant to go find it someday.
Weasel: Hey, I have never heard of that book! Looks like a good one. Must investigate…
on March 23rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm #
Also I think Songsjosiah must take credit for Jimmy Corrigan, I first picked it up in his apartment, if I am not mistaken.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 1:06 pm #
As Pyongyang was a gift to me, I will continue the spirit and pass along the gift to you. Assuming Maribars has read through it entirely.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm #
These are hot titles all, or at least those that I have read from the above list. Has anyone read Frank Miller’s other Batman graphic novel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again? I’ve heard really bad things.
Other obvious entries: The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Ghost World, Red Son
on March 23rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm #
I’ve read the first three of those, thought they were all good, and is Red Son a Superman comic? The Dark Knight Strikes Again was ..crazy.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 1:58 pm #
I saw the Ghost World movie and liked it.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm #
Red Son is a what if story about if baby Superman’s space-crib had crash landed in Siberia, USSR, instead of Kansas USA. Obvious Cold War themes abound, and the story covers 50 years. Very cool.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm #
I was under the impression that Superman used his time-stopping abilities to get around to solving mysteries, fighting crime, and ka-powing all the known megacriminals in the entire world. I was also under the impression that American media (comic books, movies, etc.) just focused on the major American events, much in the same way that they filter out the scenes where he sleeps and goes to the bathroom. You know, making it entertaining and localised to us.
I can not forsee superman going “oh shit, there’s some bomb about to go off in Russia? huh. Sucks to be them.”
Furthermore, I assumed that Superman’s landing in Kansas USA was actually just a creative liberty taken by the American media; for all we know he landed in the ocean and was raised by dolphins. Landing in Kansas is so obviously “Everywhere, USA” and appeals to the average American.
In this universe, I do not understand how there can be room for an alternate superman landing in the USSR. In fact, I think they are the same person; the details have just been muddled over time!
[/thesis]
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm #
Dark Knight Strikes Again is pretty awesome and fun, if you read it in the right context. The people who complain about it expect that it would be exactly the same as DKR. Those people forget that 15 years passed between the two stories, and Miller had found his voice with Sin City in between. Also, Klaus Jansen (the inker) is nowhere to be found, which drastically changes the art of the book.
I never really got how much Jansen added to DKR until I read a story in Batman: Black and White which he did all the art for himself. Fantastic stuff. I digress.
I think Frank Miller realized that he made comics a very dark place with DKR, so he tried to make DKSA a lot more random and fun. There’s less emphasis on the psychology of the characters, but story and the way the characters are used is top notch.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 pm #
I’ll be honest though. I like Miller’s Batman: Year One better than either DKR or DKSA.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:56 pm #
I checked out the blankets one online - I didn’t realize it was so long though! That’s really cool.
And I did read Pyongyang, and will do that passing onning.
And I find it hilarious that there’s a graphic novel based on www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com
on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:56 pm #
Weasel I think your Superman argument thing totally forgets that Superman would be enculturated from a baby into whatever society or home he landed in, and that makes a big difference on who you turn out to be. Not that I’ve read the book, but the idea of placing Superman in any context that brings him up on earth differently is pretty cool.
And wow, I had Year One on the list before I had the Dark Knight Reurns, and erased it because I thought one Batman comic was enough, leaving DKR there because I read it first and it piqued my interest in exploring further. But I really, really liked Year One. Especially watching them write the start of the relationship between Batman and James Gordon. I always liked the Commissioner.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 pm #
JESUS CHRIST!!!! We all forgot Preacher! Preacher recently took the top of my list of favorite graphic novels. Simply stunning work, all 9 volumes.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:09 pm #
Beaton: That is why Superman saved all the dolphins from extinction back in the ’60s yet he failed on a few occasions when it came to saving the humans. Letting criminal masterminds run rampant for longer than a day? That never happened under the sea.
Let’s face it, superman was a supreme dick to mankind in general. Yes, it’s romantic to write him as a nice guy that worked at the daily planet and allowed women to vote, but the truth is that his spandex uniform was a wetsuit and he actually worked at the Daily Starfish. When he travelled to some of the Arabic nations he smacked some women around because they weren’t wearing shauls and he helped Hitler fight his own personal demons as well.
Every society writes about superman, but they change his name and make them his own out of respect. But if you look at the real superman you’ll understand how the dolphins got so smart.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm #
I LOVE THE KITLERS!
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:24 pm #
also: MARISTAR I WILL BRING YOU BLANKETS YOU WILL LOVE IT
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:56 pm #
omg I didn’t get the kitler reference until I looked at the MAUS pic again. that was awesome.
on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm #
also: I am slow and dumb
on March 23rd, 2007 at 5:18 pm #
63!! Also THANKS BEATON! WE WILL MAKE THE EXCHANGE (PYONGYANG BLANKETS).
on March 24th, 2007 at 2:01 pm #
Woo, I just finished reading Goodbye, Chunky Rice. It was a very sad & emotional
comicgraphic novel. I was starting to tear up by the end. Artwork very well done and .. *sniffle*… and…poor solomon :(
on March 25th, 2007 at 7:54 pm #
Solomon is the heart of that book
on March 26th, 2007 at 7:38 am #
I have also read Blankets! I approve. However, if I say any more I will be ruining things.
on March 30th, 2007 at 9:18 am #
OK WAIT WAIT WAIT
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TELLING ME THAT FRANK MILLER DID A BATMAN SERIES?
I demand to know, right the hell now, why I wasn’t informed earlier. Hell, Beaton - you didn’t even mention Miller in the article!! It’s like you’re TRYING to hide it from me.
You wanna know how I found out? huh? I was done reading some of the above mentioned comics and I went down to the library and picked up this awesome ‘History/Future of Comics in Comic Form’ book which is entertaining me right now. And right in the middle of the Graphic Novel it mentions Miller’s Cranky Old Batman.
I DESIRE CRANKY OLD BATMAN
I also demand answers as to why the hell nobody brought this to my attention earlier. I also was a fan of the animated series (every day after school)!
on March 30th, 2007 at 9:22 am #
Also the book I’m reading mentions Alan Moore quite frequently, I think they have a boner for him.
[…] got me reading graphic novels, for which she wins a cup of […]
on May 30th, 2007 at 9:29 pm #
OMG OMG OMG
Maristar got me a present today: She got a copy of Louis Riel out of the library under my name! Best present EVAR!
on May 30th, 2007 at 9:31 pm #
I LOVE IT
I also read Pyongyang
IT WAS VERY GOOD
on June 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 am #
I guess I have to comment to put to people’s attention that I posted Persepolis clips at the end of this article just now. The author co-directed it, you know it’s going to be good. Watch them!