8 Graphic Novels You Might Not Know (and Should)  

When I was a kid they were called comic books and I was forbidden to read them. They fostered “lazy reading habits” according to my mom and were “a waste of time and money” as far as my dad was concerned. To be fair, my parents were mostly right. Comic art was merely serviceable, if not outright crude, and the story lines were usually juvenile. But, then I was in a book store and saw a copy of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight. Things had changed in comic book land when I wasn’t looking, and very much for the better. For one thing the art had become top notch, and the stories were skewing to the more complicated.
By now everyone knows about the handful of really BIG graphic novels. The ones by Frank Miller (Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight) and Alan Moore (From Hell, Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Neil Gaiman (Sandman). However, like every other field of endeavor the crème de la crème of graphic novels are merely the uppermost visible layer of a number of equally worthy efforts.
Johnny The Homicidal Maniac by Johnen Vasquez
The world probably best knows Johnen Vasquez through his kid-friendly “Invader Zim” show, but he got his start on Slave Labor Graphics with the truly skewed Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. The “hero” was exactly what the title claimed, a serial killer who Vasquez used as a mouthpiece for his sardonic, and very funny, observances on posers, hicks, suburbanites and everyone else he didn’t like (which was mostly everyone). One of the best black and white comics ever, Johnny is now available in a collected volume and deserves a place among the top works in the field.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Squee (Vasquez’s Johnny “sequel”, of sorts), I Luv Halloween
Bone by Jeff Smith
For a while Bone was only available in a collected edition which greed heads were charging $100 for. I paid. Then, a month later Bone was released anew for about one fifth the price. Good for you that it was because Bone’s epic story, equal parts Lord Of The Rings and Pogo is well worth your time. Following the adventures of three… well, creatures, who are sort of human… sort of… the book follows them into a dangerous exile at once deserved and unjust. There have been any number of “animal” comics but rarely are they as humanistic as Bone. More than a simple fantasy of good vs. evil, it’s about revenge, betrayal, greed and sacrifice. Weighty themes indeed for a comic book.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Cerebus, Moonshadow
Open Me… I’m A Dog! By Art Spiegelman
After wowing the comic community and most of the rest of the world with his graphic novel cum holocaust memoir Maus, Spiegelman took a break and wrote the best children’s story of a comic book I’ve ever read. This story is one of a kind, claiming not to be a book, but actually a bewitched puppy, (it even has a leash attached). As the little orange dog spins his tale the tiny book casts its own spell, pulling in even the most jaded.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, The Wolves In The Walls
The Incal by Moebius and Jodorowski
Yes, that Moebius, so you know the art is great, and yes that Jodorowsky, so you know the story is… totally confusing. The Incal is one of the best science fiction art films never committed to celluloid. Follow a character named John DiFool on a journey of discovery not merely life changing but transforming of the entire detailed future society in which he lives. If I had an extra skijillion dollars laying around, I’d be filming this right now.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: The Airtight Garage, The Nikopol Trilogy
Gyo by Junji Ito
One of Japan’s foremost authors of horror comics, Ito tends to concentrate on horrendous bodily transformation as a theme. Working less on scream your guts out terror than on a general and well-defined sense of creeping unstoppable dread, Ito’s stories trap their helpless protagonists in worlds literally twisted. Surrounded by the insane and the gleefully mutating, a young man named Tadashi has to contend with a world of giant reeking mutant fish – to start.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Uzumaki, anything by Hideshi Hino
Marshal Law: Fear And Loathing by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill
Starting their partnership in the British comic magazine 2000A.D. by creating the sci-fi aliens versus bondage outfitted inquisition tale Nemesis: The Warlock, the team went on to create the long-out-of-print Metalzoic graphic novel about a world of bio-mechanoid dinosaurs. However, as excellent as these earlier works are the culmination of the Mills/O’Neill style is surely the Marshal Law series, of which Fear And Loathing is the first. Delving into sado-masochistic sex and satirizing the glorification of violence that remains a trend in comics, Marshal Law is a real original. The main character is a bio-enhanced “super soldier” back from some tantalizingly obscure South American conflict. Currently, Marshal Law, as he’s known, spends his days bringing other enhanced war “heroes” to justice. And, by that, I mean killing them. It’s all drawn in an unusual angular style and like Watchmen the pannels are dense with information, every background scrawl is worth reading.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Nemesis: The Warlock, Judge Dredd: Apocalypse War
Freaks Of The Heartland by Steve Niles and Greg Ruth
Mix Frankenstein with a dash of Of Mice And Men stir in a little pre-adolescent reminiscence and you have Freaks Of The Heartland. Freaks fashions itself a horror story, and while horrible events happen, the real fear, as in the best tales of terror, lies in plumbing the blackest corners of the human heart. This story’s strength lies not in its tale of mutation and parental neglect in extremis but in its evocation of a desolate and isolated farming community. It’s not often reading a graphic novel you think you can almost feel a cold October breeze blowing across a moonlit field but Freaks Of The Heartland manages the trick quite nicely.
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Though not really the same, Freaks has a similar style of rural American horror as can be found in the first four volumes of the collected Swamp Thing, comprising Alan Moore’s “American Gothic” storyline.
The Last Christmas by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn
What happens to Santa after a nuclear war? What happens to Christmas when marauding bands of mutants roam the earth? What kind of a story would you get if you crossed a Rankin/Bass holiday special with The Road Warrior? Gary the singing snowman is ready to tell you all about it. If you’ve always dreamed of a hard-drinking gun-toting, curse-spewing, mutant-killing, hagard, bleary, hung over Santa; my friend, has your ship ever come in!
If You Like This You May Enjoy: Art Adams’ Gumby Christmas Special, Battle Pope