Best Graphic stories

Irvin Foster

25 July 2008

Where is Ayn Rand and John Irving? I checked your list twice, I will not believe you didn't list either writer. Full of rich personalities and period detail, even if the follow-up books never come, it'll still be one of the premier works of historical fiction in the medium. Blankets by Craig Thompson ( Top Shelf ; 2003 ) This semi-autobiographical novel set in the snowy hinterlands of Wisconsin tells the tale of a lonely, inventive youthful person who struggles with his fundamentalist Christian upbringing when he falls in love. Fluidly told over 582 pages, Blankets magically recreates the high emotional stakes of adolescence. Thompson has set new bars for the medium not just in length, but breadth. Bone mixes the humor and look of early Disney flicks with the scope of the Lord of the Rings cycle. Smith draws personalities that are both lovable and frightening, infusing each panel with dynamic energy. The best all-ages novel yet broadcast in this medium, whilst youngsters will read Bone for its breathless journey and sight gags, older children and adults will appreciate the themes of blind fanaticism and corrupting power. It follows the career of Ted Mishkin, a brilliant animator of the 1930s driven to craziness by a ( presumably hypothetical ) evil, bipedal pussy named Waldo. Employing a charming drawing style reminiscent of 1930s cartoons Deitch explores the character of fact, the puzzle of inspiration, the exploitation of pop culture and the redemptive power of art. Together with Alan Moore & Dave Gibbon's look outs, it redefined the idea of "superhero" and helped spark the 1st wave of "serious" interest in comics. Matchless in his capability to form offbeat personalities and write sardonic humor, Clowes has recently gotten more experimental in his form, but David Boring remains his most readable and unified book. Montreal's Drawn & Quarterly has just started re-publishing the chapters as individual comics with new covers. Neither smart nor a kid, Jimmy reunites with his long-lost pop, reveals him a great disappointment, and unearths an African-American sister he never knew about. Confronting race, history, and family this book proved incontrovertibly the form may be as deep and complicated as any poetry novel.

Hernandez ' Palomar mixes the look of Archie comics with Faulkner's richness of personality and place into the melodramatic sweep of a horny soap opera to form one of the most noteworthy works of any account art. Working with UK compatriot Gibbons, Moore made a complicated murder puzzle with intense, memorable personalities that explored the themes of comprehensive power, love and the medium of comic books.