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[Oakfront]

I can assure you that not all of my topics are going to be book related...

Anyway, what are some of your favorite graphic novels? Hopefully some of the guys can recommend some lesser know ones, rather than then same few you always see!

[Nix]

Watchmen is my all-time favorite, and (if manga counts) I really enjoyed the Nausicaa series.

[JoGribbs]

Here are 4 that I can remember that aren't obvious (Watchmen, DKR etc.)

Asterious Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Palestine by Joe Sacco
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes
Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

[AMAZON]

Nextwave
technically more of a miniseries than a graphics novel, since it takes place in the main marvel universe (sort of) but still fucking awesome

All-Star Superman is also quite fantastic

[Nix]

Hopefully some of the guys can recommend some lesser know ones, rather than then same few you always see!

Well, I hope you don't avoid reading Watchmen just because it's popular. It really is absolutely superb, especially if you allow yourself to read into some of the deeper social commentary (like the pirate story. That isn't just an annoying aside. There's a lot there)

[Merlandese]

Watchmen is my all-time favorite...

Agreed, though I need more exposure to legitimize my opinion.

I started reading Y: The Last Man, and I think it's great so far. I've heard phenomenal things about it.

[Castle]

Blankets was really touching and the art was nice. Good "growing up" story. Probably not going to be enjoyable to people who aren't between the ages of 16-30

[agersant]

Eye-candy from France (and Belgium).

Donjon is a mostly humoristic series set in an animal medieval world.


Thorgal is an epic saga about a Viking warrior fallen from the stars. Wikipedia says a dozen tomes were translated to English.


Blacksad is a film noir comic with animal characters (again). It is recent but has been translated to many languages according to wikipedia.


Blake and Mortimer is my all time favorite. It's an adventure comic from the 50s/60s telling the story of a Scottish scientist (Mortimer) and a brittish MI5 agent (Blake). Wikipedia says it exists in English too.
.

Long John Silver is just as good as it sounds. It's also one of my favorites. (It's all in color unlike the picture below).


Servitudes isn't too well known but it's a beautiful work. The story and tone are somewhat resemblant to Game of Thrones


Les Notes de Boulet are a series of short (2-3 pages) stories from the author's online blog. Great humor and social satire.

Official English blog.

[1982]

Enki Bilal's La Foire aux immortels

I remember even wanking off to this.

[Capntastic]

I read The Maximortal last year and it was pretty fucking awful.  Completely masturbatory "see, i GET comic books" narrative that doesn't go anywhere- though it tried to be poignant in its own way.  I ended up giving my copy to Jesse Moynihan (Adventure Time storyboard guy and more) in exchange for a drawing, so I guess it worked out.

It basically tries to deconstruct Superman as a character, cultural icon, and also the history of his creators, but tries to do so in a single over-arcing narrative.  It also doesn't really have a premise.  I could contrast it with Watchmen which could, to simplify immensely, be said to be about how anyone wanting to be a superhero would need a fucked up personality.  Maximortal kind of starts off with "man wouldn't a superpowered baby be awful!!" hijinx, which are retroactively ruined by trying to pin higher and higher ideas into the story.  It basically hints at some sort of duality between mankind's ideals and the fact that we are all literally horrible shitting idiots.  There's a lot of complex ideas being reached for that just don't get refined enough to be anything more profound than "did you ever think about like, if 1,000 people all had the same idea at once, and that like, made it real??"

I dunno, I'm not a graphic novel guy, and a lot of people in those circles have high esteem for it.  Maybe I'm missing something crucial, maybe it was hyped up to me too much, but I can't get over how poor its storytelling is.

[M]

My favorite is Batman: The Long Halloween.

[Nikica]

If you didn't read Transmetropolitan do it now and if you did then read it again. Seriously, it's one of the best comic stories out there.

[eyeliner]

I liked The Legend of Mother Sarah.

[JeremySpillmann]

@agersant Oh yea, Donjon... that thing got me hooked. Also the team is pretty insane considering that the books have numbers between -100 and 200 

I can highly recommend:

Maus, by Art Spiegelmann


The life and times of scrooge mc duck by Don Rosa (seriously, that thing is amazing. Don Rosas Biography of Scrooge is a must read)


Watchmen by Alan Moore

I also really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim, Bone, Death Note and Blacksad. But those are multiple volumes each

[Derek]

Donjon is a mostly humoristic series set in an animal medieval world.

Is that the Trondheim comic? I've never seen that cover... makes it seem much darker.