Required Reading Graphic Novels

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	1401207928

"Remember, remember the fifth of November..."

A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world, V for Vendetta stands as one of the highest achievements of the comics medium and a defining work for creators Alan Moore and David...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563892278

New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman's transcendent series SANDMAN is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death by weaving ancient mythology,...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	0930289455

For the first time the Joker's origin is revealed in this tale of insanity and human perseverance. Looking to prove that any man can be pushed past his breaking point and go mad, the Joker attempts to drive Commissioner Gordon insane.

After shooting and permanently paralyzing his daughter...

Author	Craig Thompson
ISBN	1891830430

Craig Thompson, for all the lack of works in his bibliography, is one of the best creators working in comics today. Apart from Blankets, he has only released one other major work of fiction. (His third, Habibi , will be released this Fall.)


[The cutest of meet-cutes.]

There are...

Author	Brian K. Vaughan
ISBN	1607066017

When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe.

From bestselling writer Brian K. Vaughan, Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds....

Author	Jeph Loeb
ISBN	1563894696

Taking place during Batman's early days of crime fighting, this new edition of the classic mystery tells the story of a mysterious killer who murders his prey only on holidays. Working with District Attorney Harvey Dent and Lieutenant James Gordon, Batman races against the clock as he tries to discover...

Author	Alison Bechdel
ISBN	0618871713

In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father.

Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had...

Author

Jeff Smith

An American graphic novel first! The complete 1300 page epic from start to finish in one deluxe trade paperback.

Three modern cartoon cousins get lost in a pre-technological valley, spending a year there making new friends and out-running dangerous enemies. After being run out of Boneville,...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	1563898586

London, 1898. The Victorian Era draws to a close and the twentieth century approaches. It is a time of great change and an age of stagnation, a period of chaste order and ignoble chaos. It is an era in need of champions.

In this amazingly imaginative tale, literary figures from throughout time...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	0861661419

"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell."

Having proved himself peerless in the arena of reinterpreting superheroes, Alan Moore turned...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563890356

Neil Gaiman is at his best when his imagination is peopled with gods and demons—magnificent, outsize personalities, ranging from the eerily transcendent to the surprisingly human—and the tale he chooses to tell in “Season of Mists” gives him ample room to create a godly and superior...

Author	Daniel Clowes
ISBN	1560974273

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical...

Author	Mike Mignola
ISBN	1593070942

Dark Horse presents new editions of the entire Hellboy line with new covers, beginning with Seed of Destruction, the basis of director Guillermo del Toro's blockbuster films. Hellboy is one of the most celebrated comics series in recent years. The ultimate artists' artist and a great storyteller...

Author	Mark Waid
ISBN	1563893304

Writer Mark Waid, coming from his popular work on Flash and Impulse, and artist Alex Ross, who broke new ground with the beautifully painted Marvels, join together for this explosive book that takes place in a dark alternate future of the DC Superhero Universe. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and almost...

Author	Katsuhiro Otomo
ISBN	1569714983

Akira: And A Boy Shall Rule Them All... Badly. A Boy Whose Head Contains A Supernova



'Akira' and 'Lone Wolf and Cub' were among the first complete manga masterpieces to be published in English, and despite the mirror-imaging, were very similar to their original tankobon incarnations....

Author	Warren Ellis
ISBN	1563894459

After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his...

Author	Gene Luen Yang
ISBN	1596431520

All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl...

Born...

Author

Shaun Tan

In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He's embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life- he's leaving home to build a better future for his family.

Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's...

Author	Kurt Busiek
ISBN	0785100490

Welcome to New York. Here, burning figures roam the streets, men in brightly colored costumes scale the glass and concrete walls, and creatures from space threaten to devour our world. This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of Marvels.

Witness...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	0930289226

Before WATCHMEN, Alan Moore made his debut in the U.S. comic book industry with the revitalization of the horror comic book THE SWAMP THING. His deconstruction of the classic monster stretched the creative boundaries of the medium and became one of the most spectacular series in comic book history.With...

Author

Charles Burns

Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it,...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563892049

The Penultimate volume to the phenomenal Sandman series: distraught by the kidnapping and presumed death of her son, and believing Morpheus to be responsible, Lyta Hall calls the ancient wrath of the Furies down upon him. A former superheroine blames Morpheus for the death of her child and summons...

Author	Brian K. Vaughan
ISBN	1401203140

From one of America’s most critically acclaimed graphic novel writers – inspired by true events, a startlingly original look at life on the streets of Baghdad during the Iraq War. In his award-winning work on Y THE LAST MAN and EX MACHINA (one of Entertainment Weekly’s 2005 Ten Best Fiction titles),...

Author	Jeph Loeb
ISBN	1401223176

Batman: Hush is a thrilling mystery of action, intrigue, and deception penned by Jeph Loeb (Batman: The Long Halloween) and illustrated by comics superstar Jim Lee (All Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder) in which Batman sets out to discover the identity of a mysterious mastermind using the Joker,...

Author	Craig Thompson
ISBN	0375424148

From the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets , a highly anticipated new graphic novel.
 
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance,...

Author	David Mazzucchelli
ISBN	0307377326

The triumphant return of one of comics’ greatest talents, with an engrossing story of one man’s search for love, meaning, sanity, and perfect architectural proportions. An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait.

Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563891379

A mad journey about change.


Creative Team:

Writer: Neil Gaiman

Illustrators: Jill Thompson & Vince Locke

Covers: Dave McKean

Letterer: Todd Klein


COINS, BUTTERFLIES, PONdS, QUESTS & FAMILIES

In the review...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563890933

Take an apartment house, mix in a drag queen, a lesbian couple, some talking animals, a talking severed head, a confused heroine, and the deadly Cuckoo. Stir vigorously with a hurricane and Morpheus himself and you get this fifth installment of the Sandman series. This story stars Barbie, who first...

Author	Frank Miller
ISBN	1569714029

The armies of Persia—a vast horde greater than any the world has ever known—are poised to crush Greece, an island of reason and freedom in a sea of madness and tyranny. Standing between Greece and this tidal wave of destruction are a tiny detachment of but three hundred warriors. Frank Miller's epic...

Author	Chris Ware
ISBN	0224063979

Jimmy Corrigan has rightly been hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever to be published. It won the Guardian First Book Award 2001, the first graphic novel to win a major British literary prize.

It is the tragic autobiography of an office dogsbody in Chicago who one day meets the father who...

Author	Hayao Miyazaki
ISBN	1591164087

In a long-ago war, humankind set off a devastating ecological disaster. Thriving industrial societies disappeared. The earth is slowly submerging beneath the expanding Sea of Corruption, an enormous toxic forest that creates mutant insects and releases a miasma of poisonous spores into the air....

Author	Grant Morrison
ISBN	1401204953

Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely tell the unforgettable story of three innocent pets-a dog, a cat and a rabbit-who have been converted into deadly cyborgs by a sinister military weapons program.With nervous systems amplified to match their terrifying mechanical exoskeletons, the...

Author	Bill Watterson
ISBN	0740748475

[ Box Set | Book One | Book Two | Book Three ]

Calvin and Hobbes is unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his real-only-to-him tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers when Bill Watterson retired...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1401210821

One of the most popular and critically acclaimed comic book titles of all time, New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman's masterpiece The Sandman set new standards for mature, lyrical fantasy and graphic narrative. Now, Vertigo and DC Comics are proud to present the first of four definitive...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563891700

A reality storm is coming! Look for some safe place!


Creative Team:

Writer: Neil Gaiman

Illustrators: Mike Allred, Gary Amano, John Watkiss, Mark Buckingham, Shea Anton Pensa, Tony Harris, Vince Locke, Steve Leialoha, Dick Giordano, Michael Zulli, Alec Stevens...

Author	Fábio Moon
ISBN	1401229697

What are the most important days of your life?

Meet Brás de Oliva Domingos. The miracle child of a world-famous Brazilian writer, Brás spends his days penning other people's obituaries and his nights dreaming of becoming a successful author himself—writing the end of other people's...

Author	Frank Miller
ISBN	1593072937

Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

The first volume of the crime-comic megahit that introduced the now-infamous character Marv and spawned a blockbuster film returns in a newly redesigned edition, with a brand-new cover by Frank Miller - some of his first comics art in years! It's...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563892871

When a Dream ends, there is only one thing left to do...

THE WAKE

In which the repercussions of the Death of Lord Morpheus are felt, and, in an epilogue, William Shakespeare learns the price of getting what you want.

This is the tenth and final volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman,...

Author	David B.
ISBN	0375714685

Hailed by The Comics Journal as one of Europe’s most important and innovative comics artists, David B. has created a masterpiece in Epileptic, his stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English...

Author

Osamu Tezuka

Osamu Tezuka’s vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddhartha’s life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha’s ideas; the emphasis is on movement,...

Author	Kazuo Koike
ISBN	1569715025

The role of comic books in America is in transition, and so comics hold a tenuous and unusual position in the American psyche. To some degree, they are still considered dirty and cheap, still artistically bankrupt, and there are good reasons for this. For a long time, the industry had its hands tied by...

Author	Warren Ellis
ISBN	1582406936

Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown, a feral district whose police investigations department numbers three and a half people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where...

Author	Brian Azzarello
ISBN	1401215815

An original hardcover graphic novel that tells the story of one very dark night in Gotham City--from the creative team behind the graphic novel LEX LUTHOR: MAN OF STEEL.

The Joker has been mysteriously released from Arkham Asylum, and he's none to happy about what's happened to his Gotham City...

Author	Brian Azzarello
ISBN	1563896451

In this dark and intriguing trade paperback, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches ordinary citizens and gives them an opportunity to exact revenge on a person that has wronged them. Offering his clients an attaché case containing proof of the deed and a gun, he guarantees his "clients" full immunity...

Author	Art Spiegelman
ISBN	0679729771

Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spieglman's Maus introduced readers to Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself....

Author

Neil Gaiman

Endless entertainment!


This volumen is a special presenting short stories featuring each member of The Endless.


The general rating is an average sum of the ratings given to each story contained in this comic book.


All stories are written by Neil Gaiman.

A...

Author	Mike Mignola
ISBN	1593070918

The heat is on!!!


This third TPB edition features “Hellboy” #5-6, 12-14, along with a pin-up gallery.


The general rating is an average result of individual ratings given to each short story contained here.


Creative Team:

Creator, Writer &...

Author

Mark Millar

I think Millar did an excellent job of showing both sides of this 'Civil War'. At first, I was sure I would hate Tony, but when I looked at things from his point of view, it was almost impossible not to understand why he thought he was right. That's not to say that I wasn't rooting for Cap the rebels...

Author	Chris Claremont
ISBN	0785122133

Gathered together by Professor Charles Xavier to protect a world that fears and hates them, the X-Men had fought many battles, been on adventures that spanned galaxies, grappled enemies of limitless might, but none of this could prepare them for the most shocking struggle they would ever face. One...

Author	Frank Miller
ISBN	1563899299

It's been three years since the events of The Dark Knight Returns, and everything is just fine.  At least on the surface.  What the world at large doesn't know is that it's a total sham.  A perfectly choreographed, pretty little world where everything that's ugly, or even potentially disturbing,...

Author	Will Eisner
ISBN	0878160183

‘A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories’ written and illustrated by Will Eisner, one of the giants in the sequential arts arena, is a perfectly executed graphic novel, which provides the reader a peek at the American experience during the early 1930s. Through four interconnected graphic...

Author	Mike Mignola
ISBN	1593070950

A murder in a New York wax museum and a missing corpse lead Hellboy and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense into ancient Romanian castles on the trail of a sleeping legend: the nobleman vampire, Vladimir Guirescu. Nazi scientists, revived in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, prepare for the...

Author	Neil Gaiman
ISBN	1563891069

Fables & Reflections (1993) is the sixth collection of issues in the DC Comics series, The Sandman. It was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Bryan Talbot, Stan Woch, P. Craig Russell, Shawn McManus, John Watkiss, Jill Thompson, Duncan Eagleson, Kent Williams, Mark Buckingham, Vince Locke...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	0913035610

KIMOTA! With one magic word, a long-forgotten legend lives again! Freelance reporter Michael Moran always knew he was meant for something more-now, an unexpected series of events leads him to reclaim his destiny as Miracleman! The groundbreaking graphic novel that heralded a literary revolution...

Author

Jeff Lemire

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What turns two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the simple-hearted care of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused...

Author	Brian K. Vaughan
ISBN	1401200761

Before I start this review, he's a picture of all the spots I marked that needed some deep, tedious, thorough analysis! (aka bashing :D)


[ok, so it's blurry but you get the point]

Although the very first page made me cry in despair all over again [Yorick is trying to convince a woman...

Author	Lynda Barry
ISBN	1570614598

In this graphic novel that's part memoir and part creativity primer, Lynda Barry serves up comics that delve into the funk and sweetness of love, family, adolescence, race, and the hood. Name that Demon!!! Freaky boyfriends! Shouting Moms! Innocence betrayed! These are some of the pickled demons...

Author	Masashi Kishimoto
ISBN	1569319006

Naruto is a ninja-in-training with an incorrigible knack for mischief. His wild antics amuse his teammates, but Naruto is completely serious about one thing: becoming the world's greatest ninja!

UZUMAKI NARUTO

Twelve years ago the Village Hidden in the Leaves was attacked by a...

Author	Grant Morrison
ISBN	1563890054

This edition collects the bizarre adventures of Animal Man, a second-rate super hero struggling with real-life issues and moral dilemmas. Buddy Baker is a caring husband, devoted father, animal activist and super-powered being. But as he attempts to live up to all of his roles, he soon finds that there...

Author	Alan Moore
ISBN	1563896672

Issues 1-6.

Sophie Bangs was a just an ordinary college student in a weirdly futuristic New York when a simple assignment changed her life forever. While researching Promethea, a mythical warrior woman, Sophie receives a cryptic warning to cease her investigations. Ignoring the cautionary...