Time To Get Real

Favorite Graphic Novels

I've read a lot of books, but some of my favorite books aren't books at all. They're graphic novels.

I could try to make graphic novels sound more sophisticated than they are by telling you: A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art*; but that would be snooty bullshit. A graphic novel is a very large comic book, and most graphic novels are simply collections of a series of comic books.

With the definition of a graphic novel out of the way, here are a few of my favorites:

1. The Sandman series: A collection of books that cover the life of the king of dreams. But it's much more complex than that. Dream, the title character goes back and forth through history, encountering humans and their approach to life, death, and everything in between. Death and Delight/Delirium really steal the show, and I prefered them to Dream himself.

2. Death-The High Cost of Living: In this book, Death may look like a typical all-black clad goth girl, but she's actually a friendly, happy...being. This is the same Death from the Sandman series, and I was happy that she got her own stand-alone piece.

3. Top Ten Books One and Two: Imagine a society where having superpowers are the norm. Unlike X-Men, these superheroes are beat cops. When they die, they die, when they get hurt, they have to heal. I wouldn't call it an anti-X-men series, but it adds some much needed realism to the genre.

4. Fables series: Fairy tales are real, and they live among us in New York City, with the exception of The Three Little Pigs and other animal Fables who live on The Farm in the countryside. Fables have come to our world to escape from the mechanations of The Adversary, who conquered their original Homelands. Fables deal with political infighting and other drama, just like one big happy family. The Big Bad Wolf reminded me of Wolverine, Jack kind of struck me as a typical comic book character, but Pinocchio and other characters were a welcome spin on the idea of Fairy Tale heroes.

5. Watchmen: What happens when Superheroes go bad? Or get fat? Or go into retirement? Watchmen seems to answer all these questions without pat, cut-and-dry, answers. The graphic novel is just as good as the movie, if you've seen that already.

6. Martha Washington Goes To War: Based on an Ayn Rand novel, the aforementioned heroine joins revolutionaries in overthrowing a dystopian government known as PAX. She kicks a lot of ass, and to top it off, she's African-American with a blond crewcut. Her hairstyle may be dated, but the overall message of the book isn't.

7. DOLL volume 1: Even though it's a very disturbing read, it definitely made me think about the nature of human existence, and the way we treat each other. I also thought a lot about technology and reaching the point of no return. Stepping out of my comfort zone to read this english translated japanese manga was worth it.


8. V for Vendetta: The graphic novel takes more complicated turns than the movie does. When I compare the two, I think of the graphic novel as the better of the two. The movie is about liberalism vs. conservatism, while the graphic novel is about facism vs. anarchy. It really goes into the political motives behind past and future attrocities and how politics and armed forces are used to control the population. Even though, I'm not a fan of anarchy as a solution, I must say this was a facinating read.

I've read many other graphic novels, but these are the ones that stand out, and aren't connected to major superheroes.







* ""graphic novel, a and n." Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series, 1993, Oxford University Press