Six Must-Read Graphic Novels

While at a party the other night I encountered my very first reader who wasn’t a relative. The young lady in question was intrigued by the comic world, but didn’t really have any idea what she should be reading. I happily listed a few recommendations, but the experience got me thinking that perhaps a short reading list is in order.

I encourage everyone to toss a graphic novel onto your stack. I can promise you they’ll be a welcome change of pace from anything you’ve read in school.

Blankets, by Craig Thompson, Top Shelf Productions

Blankets is Craig Thompson’s autobiographical tale of first love experienced amidst a fundamentalist Christian upbringing and bitter Wisconsin winters. It is maybe the best treatment of the subject matter that I’ve encountered in any medium. At 592 pages, Blankets is also more of a novel than many graphic novels. Despite its length, the medium allows for a quick read—figure three hours or so.

If you read only one book from this list, read Blankets.

A Contract With God, by Will Eisner, DC Comics

Will Eisner, who passed away earlier this year at age 87, was an undisputed master of the comics form. For decades he lent the medium a much-deserved respectability. In addition to being an icon, Eisner was an innovator: the term “sequential art” was his creation, and, by most accounts, A Contract With God is the first graphic novel.

Published in 1978, A Contract With God tells four stories about the residents of a Bronx tenement circa 1930. It is at turns funny and tragic and presents a fascinating look at how graphic novels began.

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller, DC comics

The inclusion of these two books on a list like this is almost obligatory. They also have a lot in common, so I’ve lumped them together.

Watchmen and Dark Knight are the two works more or less credited with shifting the tone of mainstream comic books in the late 1980’s. Both are superhero stories at their core, but they are grim, gritty, and realistic in a way few mainstream comics before them had been.

If you want to be That Guy, these books begin the deconstruction of the superhero.

Summer Blonde, by Adrian Tomine, Drawn & Quarterly Publications

Adrian Tomine writes and draws poignant and engrossing stories about angsty, social outcast generation x’ers.

Summer Blonde is a collection of four such stories, which are mostly slices from the lives of the characters. The fourth story, “Bomb Scare,” was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Oni Press

Scott Pilgrim is a 23-year-old resident of Toronto who has an awesome life. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life is the first volume of what is essentially an American manga. It introduces Scott and his friends, all the while gradually revealing a hilarious truth about the nature of Scott’s reality.

There really isn’t a whole lot else to say about the so-called story. I’m including it here because it’s pure fun. Those who read Scott Pilgrim are instructed to check all literary pretensions at the door, kick back, and enjoy.

The above graphic novels can usually be found in large-chain booksellers and in real live comic book stores. They can also be ordered online from their publisher (Web site included for the indie press books), or from the digital mega-bookshop of your choice.