Best Gifts for Young Men . . . and Me

The Greatest Graphic Novels (that I’ve read)

I love graphic novels.  It all started with comic books, for me.  When I was a kid, I devoured Mad Magazine (my family had a subscription) and Archie Comics–a friend of mine had hundreds of them–I’m not sure why, I just know that all I wanted to do when I went over to her house was read about Betty and Veronica and their never-ending battle for the oblivious and indecisive Archie’s romantic attentions.

But I can’t say I truly loved the art form until I went off to college and, in my freshman year, dated a guy who was obsessed with good grades (he was also gay, but that’s another story and one you have to pour a couple of drinks into me before I’ll tell you the details of).  Our dates consisted of his worrying about homework over dinner and then insisting we go to the library to study after dinner. Woo-hoo.  This was a problem for a lazy English major like me who had worked way too hard in high school to get to college to want to continue working once I was there, but then I discovered that in the Quincy House library there was an enormous collection of original Marvel comic books–and a truce was reached.  The guy studied.  I read comic books.  For hours on end.

I liked Spider-man.  Who doesn’t like Spider-man?  (And for you kiddies, this was YEARS before Tobey Maguire was even a twinkle in Sam Raimi’s eyes.)  But pretty soon it was all about the X-Men for me.  I didn’t know that one day Hugh Jackman would turn the rough and crude Wolverine into something unbelievably sexy and graceful–that was a bonus that came years later.  But what I did know was that the story of Jean Grey turning into dark Phoenix tapped into all the reasons I was an English major in the first place.  It was mythic, exciting, complicated, romantic and doomed in a good way.  I was hooked.

Years later, I gave my husband a boxed set of the original Mad Magazines from the 40′s and that somehow led to my reading as many issues of Tales from the Crypt as I could order, which so scared the crap out of me that to this day the mention of “button eyes” on a doll or tapeworms makes me run to my room to curl up in the fetal position until I’m not shaking anymore.  (Some of you out there know what I’m talking about, and, if you don’t, that’s good, you’ll sleep better at night not knowing. )

For a while, I confined my graphic novel exposure to the occasional Marvel collection or encyclopedia (supposedly for the kids, but really for me) and the AGE OF BRONZE series which tells the story of the Trojan War in great detail and which 8-year-old Will loves.  But this past year I happened to go to two book fairs–the Book Expo of America and the American Library Association conference–and brought back a couple of graphic novels and suddenly remembered how much I loved them.   One of them made the list below.

Around the same time, an article about the legal battle over the movie version of WATCHMEN caught my eye.  A bunch of people were quoted saying it was the greatest graphic novel of all time.  I got hold of a copy.  Reading it was one of those experiences–the kind where you wish you HADN’T read the book so you could go back and read it for the first time again.  It was incredible.

And then, in October, it was my birthday.  Rob–who is occasionally the best husband in the world–consulted with Matt Selman, Nerd-World blogger and Simpsons writer and apparently  world class graphic novel reader and SHOWERED me with graphic novels for my birthday that Selman recommended.  That led to one of the happiest reading orgies I’ve ever known.  Days and days of immersing myself in weird art and weirder storylines, of superheroes and anguished villains. 

I’m still on the lookout for good new ones.  I’ve read a lot of Alan Moore so his books appear a disproportionate amount on the list below.  Please let me k now if there are any great graphic novels out there that I’ve missed.  I haven’t read as many as I should and I want more.  More.  More.

But, for now, here’s my list of the best graphic novels (that I’ve read), in no particular order.  Give one or two to someone you love this holiday season.  And buy them at an indie.

(I’m tempted to do this list in holiday colors but Kim makes fun of me when I use color in my posts.)

1. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Simply the best.  This isn’t a “comic book.”  This is a great American novel. 

2. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.  Yeah, the movie sucked and the book feels dated and like it’s trying too hard.  It’s still a fun read.  And the Guy Fawkes mask makes a great visual.

3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volumes 1, 2, and the Black Dossier, by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill.  I love these, more than they merit probably.  It’s like someone wrote them just for ME–”hey, let’s write a graphic novel for a middle-aged housewife who was an English major in college.”  Seriously.  All sorts of literature is referenced in these.  Warning: the Black Dossier gets VERY sexually graphic so don’t give it to anyone under the age of 18.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Don’t say I didn’t enjoy it, either.

4.  The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel.  Not a super-hero in sight in this one.  I picked up this sort of autobiographical (and sort of not–he makes a lot of it up) life story in an advanced reader’s copy at one of the book events and found myself completely engrossed in it.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for a lot of pictures.  I don’t know.  I liked it.

5. The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman.  I’ve only read one of these–the second one, “The Doll’s House”–and that was because someone gave it to Kim for free (She wrote about it here) and I snagged it from her because I love Neil Gaiman and I love graphic novels so it seemed like “my kind of thing” to say the least.  Man, this was a DARK one.  You might even call it sick.  But maybe I just have a problem with cannibalism?  At any rate, I’d like to read the others but I don’t want to spend a lot on them.  That’s seriously a problem for me–how expensive this graphic novel habit is.

6.  The Age of Bronze series by Eric Shanower.  History, mythology, expsure to stuff you’re going to have to know in high school and college–all in exciting graphic novel form.  More for the kiddies than for the adults, but pretty cool.

7.  X-Men, the Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont.  I don’t own this one but I would like to.  That’s a hint to anyone who knows me who’s reading this.  Anyone out there?  Seriously, this is the story that got me to see that the comic book can hold its own with great literature.

8.  Watchmen.  Yeah, I know I already recommended it.  But just in case you didn’t get the message the first time: read it.