100 Great Comics / Graphic Novels
The following is a list of 100 ‘sequential art narratives’ that I highly recommend. There may well be superior works out there, but if there are I haven’t yet read them. The list will develop over time. Without wanting to get into the whole nomenclature issue of whether these should be called graphic novels or comics, I’ll point out that some of these are ongoing series and some of them are one-off publications. Unlike my novelist lists I have not restricted myself to one work per author. They are arranged alphabetically by title. In most cases I have listed just the writer, but in some I have listed writer and illustrator.
The first twenty titles are below. See the remaining titles here:
100%, Paul Pope
Set in a gritty near-future, 100% juggles three separate but interconnected stories that revolvearound a downtown Manhattan nightclub catering to demimonde habitues including artists, erotic dancers (whose internal organs are projected onto viewscreens for the ultimate voyeuristic kick), prizefighters, barmaids, and busboys. The meandering story line isn't particularly plot-heavy, but Pope more than makes up for any narrative slackness by skillfully using the comics medium to convince, rather than simply tell, us about this slightly futuristic, highly recognizable world. In the end, 100% is like a William Gibson novel filmed by Wong Kar-wai to a punk-rock soundtrack. Pope's gray-toned drawings, aided by his expressive brushwork, are highly detailed but remarkably clear; visual complexity never gets in the way of impressive storytelling. Pope is one of the few American artists--if not the only one--to have drawn manga for Japanese publishers and show the strong influence of Eurocomics, too. His globalized approach and emphasis on style over substance, which mirrors trends in other media, perhaps point to the future of the comics medium. (Booklist review)
A.L.I.E.E.E.N., Lewis Trondheim
The latest offering from the prolific French cartooning sensation winkingly purports to be an extraterrestrial comic book found by the cartoonist while on vacation in the Catskills. Trondheim fills the stories with "alien" dialogue, which naturally can be read without the help of any words, filled as they are with Trondheim's trademark silent comedy. Creatures stroll through psychedelic landscapes and have adventures in miniature. They are eaten, operated on and transformed, all in just a few short pages. Like a Pokémon story gone horribly, and hilariously, wrong, these cute little aliens are always being tortured or haplessly having their eyes poked out; one even floods an entire city with an endless stream of extra-dimensional poop. The artwork represents a departure for Trondheim, as its alien "source" results in its appearing to be old: pages are yellowed, and subtle but gorgeous dot-screens fill in the lines. Adult comics aficionados who appreciate Trondheim's work will find this book quite enjoyable. Older children should also be amused by the violent but delightful whimsy found within. (Publishers Weekly review)
ACME Novelty Library, Chris Ware
With all his literary accolades and awards, it's easy to forget Ware (Jimmy Corrigan) is one of the warmest, funniest cartoonists in America. The Acme Novelty Library collects a few issues of Ware's comic book series by the same name and adds plenty of new pages and visual delights. It is, like all of his work, an utterly immersive experience. You're not just reading his comics, you're inhabiting his world: from fake ads to diagrams for paper models to a lengthy and very funny fictional history of the Acme Novelty Company. These strips combine complex and beautiful visuals with the humor of hapless, often sad characters in ridiculous predicaments. "Rusty Brown", a series of strips based around an obsessive collector who will be the subject of Ware's next graphic novel, is particularly strong. These comics showcase Ware's unusual sensitivity towards his characters, building an incisive, multi-dimensional portrait of Brown and his friend Chalky White. On top of all of these riches there is Ware's own personal "history of art" in cartoon form, and a multi-page story about a naked superhero. Combining surreal humor, cutting satire, stunning visuals, and empathic characters, Ware's latest is a wondrous journey into the universe of a master cartoonist in peak form. (Amazon.com review)
Adventures of Luther Arkwright, The, Bryan Talbot
Garth Ennis says of this collection, "From riveting action scenes to beautiful silent sequences, from studies in hateful obsession to humor both ribald and gentle, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is surely one of the all-time great epics of the medium. This long-overdue collection proves both Bryan Talbot's mastery of his craft and his understanding of what makes a truly great comic book: an intriguing story, characters with genuine resonance, and artwork whose illustrative excellence lies in perfect balance with clear and precise storytelling. With Luther Arkwright, Bryan shows us how it's done." "A work ambitious in both scope and complexity that still stands unique upon the comics landscape . . . stunning," says Alan Moore. (Publisher’s description)
Adventures of Sock Monkey, The, Tony Millionaire
A mischievous sock monkey named Uncle Gabby and his bumbling pal Drinky Crow are the heroes of this funny, unsettling, and oddly endearing collection. Written and drawn by Tony Millionaire, best known as the creator of the successful alternative comic strip, Maakies. Follow Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow as they try to find a home for a shrunken head, play matchmakers between the bat in the doll's house and the mouse in the basement, hunt salamanders, and try to get to heaven. Delights! Happy endings and random destruction are guaranteed! (Publisher’s description)
Age of Bronze, Eric Shanower
Shanower won 2001's Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for Best Writer/Artist for this extraordinary project: the first part of a seven-volume graphic novel about the Trojan War. He has researched every imaginable source about the war, from ancient legends to medieval romances to contemporary scholarship, and synthesized them into a fantastically rich narrative. He's also delved deep into the architectural history of Mycenaean Greece, so that the dress and settings in the book look like Bronze Age artifacts, rather than the Classical Greek styles normally associated with the story. The book begins with the story of Paris, the milk-white bull and the kidnapping of Helen, and goes up to the start of the war Shanower still has a ways to travel before touching the material of the Iliad. He treats the material as historical fiction rather than mythology, as a tale of people, not of gods, though the supernatural aspects of the story are worked in through dreams and visions. Shanower subtly alters his visual style for every flashback sequence: when Priam relates the story of Herakles, the images are cartoonish and the characters larger than life. His dialogue is formal but not florid, and the narrative flow is clear and simple. But the story also has many amazing scenes for an artist the erotic entanglement of Achilles and Deidamia, the feigned madness of Odysseus, the launching of the thousand ships to rescue Helen and lay waste to Troy and Shanower makes the most of them, with a fine-lined style in black and white drawings evoking woodcuts and classical paintings. (Publisher’s Weekly review)
Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot
Talbot's freewheeling, metafictional magnum opus is a map of the curious and delightful territory of its cartoonist's mind, starring himself in multiple roles. The starting point is the history of his hometown, the northeast English city of Sunderland, along with his lifelong fascination with the myths and realities behind Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland—potentially dry material, but Talbot pulls out all the stops to keep it entertaining. He veers off on one fascinating tangent after another. The book encompasses dead-on parodies of EC horror comics, British boys' comics and Hergé's Tintin, walk-ons by local heroes like Sidney James, extensive analysis of a couple of William Hogarth prints, a cameo appearance by the Venerable Scott McComics-Expert and even a song-and-dance number, drawing a three-dimensional web of coincidences and connections between all. It's also a showcase for the explosive verve of Talbot's protean illustrative style, with digital collages of multiple media on almost every page: pen-and-ink drawings in a striking variety of styles, photographs, painting, computer modeling, and all manner of found images. (Publishers Weekly review)
American Splendor, Harvey Pekar
American Splendor is the world’s first literary comic book. Cleveland native Harvey Pekar is a true American original. A V.A. hospital file clerk and comic book writer, Harvey chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. His dead-on eye for the frustrations and minutiae of the workaday world mix in a delicate balance with his insight into personal relationships. Pekar has been compared to Dreiser, Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce. But he is truly more than all of them—he is himself. (Publisher’s description)
Arrival, The, Shaun Tan
Tan captures the displacement and awe with which immigrants respond to their new surroundings in this wordless graphic novel. It depicts the journey of one man, threatened by dark shapes that cast shadows on his family's life, to a new country. The only writing is in an invented alphabet, which creates the sensation immigrants must feel when they encounter a strange new language and way of life. A wide variety of ethnicities is represented in Tan's hyper-realistic style, and the sense of warmth and caring for others, regardless of race, age, or background, is present on nearly every page. Young readers will be fascinated by the strange new world the artist creates, complete with floating elevators and unusual creatures, but may not realize the depth of meaning or understand what the man's journey symbolizes. More sophisticated readers, however, will grasp the sense of strangeness and find themselves participating in the man's experiences. They will linger over the details in the beautiful sepia pictures and will likely pick up the book to pore over it again and again. (School Library Journal review)
Astro City, Kurt Busiek
Astro City is a city filled with superheroes, villains, aliens, and ordinary civilians. Astro City is a city where the miraculous is commonplace and you can see all manner of amazing things every single day. The citizens of Astro City are constantly in danger, and know this, but the chance to live side by side with real superheroes every day seems to quell most people’s desire to move away. There is no one hero that is the center of Astro City, rather, it is the city itself that is the centerpiece. The comic has had many different focuses, on heroes, villains, and the citizens of Astro City. Generally though, Astro City will focus on one subject at a time, sometimes being a one shot piece, but lately have started to tell different story arcs that will last multiple comic books. (About.com summary)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender. Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. The great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argued that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task. Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. (Amazon.com review)
Batman: Year 100, Paul Pope
Many recent comics have tried to make sense of the large political situations of modern life. A character like Batman might seem an unlikely tool to ponder the right to privacy, but in Pope's hands the effect is dazzling. The superhero trope of the secret identity becomes a metaphor for the past life we all want to keep to ourselves. When the Gotham City PD and other forces come gunning for what is under the Dark Knight's cowl, Batman and his cohorts protect it out of a basic sense of justice. As written, the Batman of 2039 is a living legend, seen in flashbacks that correspond with the dates the stories appeared in print. There's a metaphysical quality to the character, as if his very story is what is keeping him alive. Pope's art strikes a balance between traditional superhero comics and cutting-edge illustration. The big dark figure and the high action that follows him everywhere is still present, but played by figures that look like they could be found in an underground manga. It's been 68 years since the character's first appearance, and we still have Batman and Robin setting things right. Who says it will be different when the future comes? (Publisher’s Weekly review)
Berlin: City of Stones, Jason Lutes
It's difficult to think of a story with a greater sense of elegant, nuanced foreboding than Jason Lutes's Berlin, Book One: City of Stones. Set in the Weimar Republic-era of German history, Lutes's story takes an unimaginably large and historically important time and observes it through the small lives of a band of sympathetic protagonists. The author spends the most time with his main characters, Kurt Severing and Marthe Müller, but the quality of Berlin is such that the reader cares emphatically about the fate of the rest of the cast: the lovelorn dyke art student, the recently separated single mother, even fleeting characters like the street policeman or the overworked newspaper editor. Even so, the shadow of the coming war cautions us not to get too attached to these people. They are imperfect, bickering, and naïve in their ideologies--just like real people. Brutality will soon follow, and the vulnerability of each of the characters haunts the pages. Using the graphic novel form to tackle an issue like the rise of Nazi Germany is fraught with traps, not least of which are comparisons to other works, such as Maus, as well as literary criticism for minimizing such an important topic. Lutes navigates these hazards well, creating sparse black-and-white sketches that often render a mood wordlessly. Whole pages go without text, and it serves the story well. As much can be told by showing a character in a window's evening reflection, eyes inked as darkened sockets, than through retelling details of (now) familiar historical events. The story itself has a rambling and philosophical feel, focused on details that become all the more poignant for their insignificance. One segment--where Lutes shows Marthe's walk onto a newly snow-covered street--tells us everything we need to know about this character, without much actual action occurring. Lutes doesn't use moments of transcendence to make a point or add sentimentality; instead, he firmly grounds us in this time and place. (Amazon.com review)
Black Diamond Detective Agency, The, Eddie Campbell
Campbell, who secured his hold on graphic-novel immortality in the Jack the Ripper epic From Hell (2000), created with writer Alan Moore, continues to produce an eclectic and arresting body of work. In this story of detection and revenge, based on a screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell, he uses a pale palette to create a portrait of a turn-of-the-last-century America that is both thrilled by its technological innovation and terrified by the extreme changes that come with it. The Black Diamond Detective Agency, a fictional stand-in for the Pinkerton Agency, hunts down the culprits behind a lethal train bombing, even as a man in black with a more personal agenda seeks the same men. Cursing, brief nudity, and an implied sexual encounter suggest an older teen audience, who will best appreciate this complex visual experience that weaves in interesting historical supposition, such as the use of forensic sketch artists as nineteenth-century CSI agents, and highlights the staccato bursts of violence (including an exciting, well-choreographed gunfight in a train station) with stinging red accents. (Booklist review)
Black Hole, Charles Burns
The prodigiously talented Burns hit the comics scene in the '80s via Raw magazine, wielding razor-sharp, ironic-retro graphics. Over the years his work has developed a horrific subtext perpetually lurking beneath the mundane suburban surface. In the dense, unnerving Black Hole,Burns combines realism—never a concern for him before—and an almost convulsive surrealism. The setting is Seattle during the early '70s. A sexually transmitted disease, the "bug," is spreading among teenagers. Those who get it develop bizarre mutations—sometimes subtle, like a tiny mouth at the base of one boy's neck, and sometimes obvious and grotesque. The most visibly deformed victims end up living as homeless campers in the woods, venturing into the streets only when they have to, shunned by normal society. The story follows two teens, Keith and Chris, as they get the bug. Their dreams and hallucinations—made of deeply disturbing symbolism merging sexuality and sickness—are a key part of the tale. The AIDS metaphor is obvious, but the bug also amplifies already existing teen emotions and the wrenching changes of puberty. Burns's art is inhumanly precise, and he makes ordinary scenes as creepy as his nightmare visions of a world where intimacy means a life worse than death. (Publishers Weekly review)
Blankets, Craig Thompson
Revisiting the themes of deep friendship and separation Thompson surveyed in Goodbye Chunky Rice, his acclaimed and touching debut, this sensitive memoir recreates the confusion, emotional pain and isolation of the author's rigidly fundamentalist Christian upbringing, along with the trepidation of growing into maturity. Skinny, naive and spiritually vulnerable, Thompson and his younger brother manage to survive their parents' overbearing discipline (the brothers are sometimes forced to sleep in "the cubby-hole," a forbidding and claustrophobic storage chamber) through flights of childhood fancy and a mutual love of drawing. But escapist reveries can't protect them from the cruel schoolmates who make their lives miserable. Thompson's grimly pious parents and religious community dismiss his budding talent for drawing; they view his creative efforts as sinful and relentlessly hector the boys about scripture. By high school, Thompson's a lost, socially battered and confused soul-until he meets Raina and her clique of amiable misfits at a religious camp. Beautiful, open, flexibly spiritual and even popular (something incomprehensible to young Thompson), Raina introduces him to her own less-than-perfect family; to a new teen community and to a broader sense of himself and his future. The two eventually fall in love and the experience ushers Thompson into the beginnings of an adult, independent life. Thompson manages to explore adolescent social yearnings, the power of young love and the complexities of sexual attraction with a rare combination of sincerity, pictorial lyricism and taste. His exceptional b&w drawings balance representational precision with a bold and wonderfully expressive line for pages of ingenious, inventively composed and poignant imagery. (Publishers Weekly review)
Bone, Jeff Smith
Mere months after publishing the final installment of the long-running fantasy saga Bone, Smith collects all 13 years' worth of it in a single, massive volume. As many comics fans know, the series chronicles the adventures of the Bone cousins--plucky Fone Bone, scheming Phony Bone, and easygoing Smiley Bone-- who leave their home of Boneville and are swept up in a Tolkienesque epic of royalty, dragons, and unspeakable evil forces out to conquer humankind. The compilation makes it evident how fully formed Smith's vision was from the very beginning--although the early chapters emphasized comedy, as do the final pages, the tale quickly found its dramatic bearings. His remarkably accomplished drawing style, in the manner of such comics masters as Walt Kelly and Carl Barks, was fully formed from the start, too. Libraries that have missed out on individual Bone series titles should seize this opportunity to make up for the fact, and those who have collected the series all along will do well to acquire the collected edition to supplement or supplant those doubtless well-worn volumes. But be prepared for overdues: even the most voracious readers will be hard-pressed to get through this hefty, phone book-like tome before they're supposed to return it. (Booklist review)
Buddha, Osamu Tezuka
Tezuka, the master of Japanese comics, mixes his own characters with history as deftly as he transfers the most profound, complex emotions onto extremely cartoony characters, and his work defies easy categorization. In Buddha, originally serialized in the 1970s and one of his last works, he lavishly retells the life of Siddhartha, who isn't even born until page 268. Instead, Tezuka introduces Chapra, a slave who attempts to escape his fate by posing as the son of a general; Tatta, a crazed wild child pariah who communes with animals; Chapra's slave mother, who stands by him no matter what; and Naradatta, a monk attempting to discover the meaning of strange portents of the Buddha's birth. Throughout the book, the characters engage in fresh and unexpected adventures, escapes and reverses, as they play out Tezuka's philosophical concern with overcoming fate and the uselessness of violence. Despite episodes of extreme brutality and broad humor, the core of the story revolves around various set pieces, as when Tatta sacrifices himself to a snake to save Naradatta and Chapra's mom. After a moment of intense emotion, the scene is upended by the arrival of a bandit who mocks their attempts at keeping their karmic slates clean. "Why were you all fussing over some stupid trade? Why not just kill the snake and eat it?" The answer unfolds over succeeding volumes. Heavily influenced by Walt Disney, Tezuka's often cute characters may take some getting used to, but his storytelling is strong and clean. Appearing in handsome packages designed by Chip Kidd, this is a stunning achievement. (Publishers Weekly review)
By the numbers, Laurent Rullier and Stanislas
In their stories of accountant turned adventurer Victor Levallois, writer Laurent Rullier and artist Stanislas tell the story of a man close to the actual events leading up to the war in Vietnam. Stanislas, a contributor to the Tintin Reporter and to the illustrated biography of Tintin creator Herge, has rendered this sophisticated story in a style familiar to fans of Tintin. The year of 1948 and young accountant Victor Levallois leads a quiet and uneventful life. But things take an unexpected turn when a colleague entrusts him with an unusual errand: deliver a suitcase full of US currency to the port of Marseilles. The suit is stolen and Victor finds himself bound for Saigon and the decadence, intrigue and adventure of a colonial war. Victor Levallois is no longer living his life by the numbers... (Publisher’s description)
Cages, Dave McKean
Best known for his work with Neil Gaiman, McKean is also an accomplished cartoonist in his own right. This is his magnum opus to date: an immense, pulsing graphic novel that's also a treatise on art, creativity and the uses and misuses of technique. Originally serialized between 1990 and 1996 (and collected in 1998), it's been out of print for several years. The book's plot is fairly rudimentary: a painter, a writer and a musician who live in the same apartment building find their lives intersecting. But the book's gradual shift from literalism to fanciful allegories and stories-within-stories mostly serves as the springboard for a visual tour de force. For most of the book, McKean restricts himself to wobbly, jagged two-tone pen-and-ink drawings, occasionally in the manner of Egon Schiele. But he often signals shifts in storytelling mode by switching media or style (to ink-wash brushwork, airbrushed photography, white-on-black "woodcuts," bold near-abstractions or whatever seems appropriate); when the artwork erupts into full-color paintings and collages, the effect is explosive. Even when the story falters or drifts into endless philosophical chitchat, McKean's artwork saves the day. His characters, built out of crazily bent lines and splatters, have perfectly choreographed body language, and his daring visual experiments serve the ideological goals of his writing. (Publishers Weekly review)
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