Well-written comics/graphic novels

[Reynard369]

Do they exist? I think the stories of superheroes like Batman, Superman, etc are engaging, but what little I've read of comic books has shown them to be simplistic and really lacking much depth. Part of the problem is the media itself, I know, but have I been looking at the wrong things, or is there something actually good out there?

 

[imatlas]

Yes.

 

[Reynard369]



Yes.

Care to elaborate? Provide some examples?

 

[animeman05]

Watchmen by Alan Moore was placed on Time's best 100 novels of the 20th century. Other notable titles are Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Pride of Baghdad, Jimmy Corrigan Boy Genius, Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and many more.

 

[bbaquiran]

The Walking Dead series is pretty good.

 

[Dr Huh?]

Read any of the following:

 

[burningbright]

^

My name is Burningbright, and I approve of this list. :stands with shirt sleeves rolled up and jacket slung over one shoulder and one knee on a children's school desk:

 

[indesertum]

anything by naoki urasawa or mitsuru adachi

 

[Teacher]

I really liked Maus and Kingdom Come.

 

[GraphicNovelty]

The thing about kingdom come, the dark knight returns and watchmen is that so much of their narrative focus is on comics as a medium and superheroes as a genre, which makes them hard for new readers to "get"

If you choose to read watchmen, try to see each character as an analogue of a different superhero archetype but taken to the extreme. Also, one of the big themes is why people become superhefroes in the first place. Of all three it probably stands best in its own, but its still very much an insider's book IMO.

For DKR, you have to see it as the radical incarnation of batman that it was. While, at the time, batman wasn't Adam west-level cheesiness per-se, it was a lot brighter and much less niorish. TDKR reimagines batman as the character we know today, which his why some readers find it so underwhelming.

For KC, know that, in the 90's, comics were all about grim n gritty, mostly due to urge influence of DKR and watchmen.most of the superheroes were portrayed as amoral antiheroes, and KC is a critique of that


We3 was short and really good. Sandman is pretty awesome as well.

 

[imatlas]

Persepolis

American Splendor

Preacher

The Cape

Powers (also somewhat "meta")

AstroCity (very meta)

The Goon

Many, many people say that The Sandman is the best comic series ever, but reading the whole thing is a significant undertaking. It can be read in pieces, but taken as a whole it is a modern epic.

 

[Reynard369]



Watchmen by Alan Moore was placed on Time's best 100 novels of the 20th century. Other notable titles are Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Pride of Baghdad, Jimmy Corrigan Boy Genius, Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and many more.

Persepolis

Many, many people say that The Sandman is the best comic series ever, but reading the whole thing is a significant undertaking. It can be read in pieces, but taken as a whole it is a modern epic.

Great rec on Sandman by Neil Gaiman. It was a toss-up between the first volume of that series, or the first volume of LXG, but I ended up going with Sandman because a) I liked the artistic style better and b) I like some of Neil Gaiman's work (American Gods, Neverwhere) and think he's generally a pretty good writer.

Anyways, I got the first volume of Sandman (Preludes & Nocturnes) and I'm about halfway through it. It's pretty cool, and while it's certainly a different experience from reading a book, I've enjoyed it thus far.

 

[esswhykay]

SF might be the perfect demographic for this book.

 

[steviecakes]

Jimmy Corrigan: the smartest kid on earth. Just read it for a class. Read it again as soon as I was done.

 

[Sander]



SF might be the perfect demographic for this book.

Thanks a lot for this, just finished reading it - enjoyed it very much.