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A list by bradmunson

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The Best Graphic Novels in the Whole World

Recommendations

Viewing 1-11 of 11

Concrete Volume 1: Depths

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

Yes, another tpb compilation (though it's far more elegantly made than most), but here again: there is a really rather wonderful over-arching concept here, about the life of a fairly nondescript political speechwriter who suddenly finds himself trapped in the body of a rock-skinned, super-strong Golem. So what happens next? AMAZING things in this gentle, intelligent, and almost leisurely speculation that shows just how different graphic novels CAN be (and so ften ARE).

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The Rocketeer, by Dave Stevens

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

2 people recommended this item

Description

Dave Stevens pulled off a miracle here: a story of a Depression-era, pre-WWII "superhero" that is funny without being precious, exciting without being manipulative, and just damn beautiful to look at. The film version wasn't bad (Billy Campbell of THE 4400, and the first screen appearance of Jennifer "The Hulk" Connolly!), but the comic is actually better. MUCH better, and charming as all get-out.

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30 Days Of Night: Three Tales (30 Days of Night)

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

Without a doubt the simplest, scariest concept on the list: up in the small Alaskan town of Barrow, where it's dark for a month at a time, the Vampires come to meet ... and to feed. Bloody, awful, ugly, and really wonderful. The newest and one of the best books on the list.

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Batman: The Killing Joke

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

2 people recommended this item

Description

I know, I promised no more Alan Moore. And certainly no more Batman. But look, c'mon, this one is DIFFERENT. For one thing, it really IS a novel -- a single story, conceived as such, and with all the horrific impact that only a single shot (so to speak) can deliver. And Dave Gibbons, of WATCHMEN and GIVE ME LIBERTY has never EVER been better. Not to mention the complete and utter lack of a 'comic book' happy ending. An absolute keeper.

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The Ultimates, Vol. 1

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

Sick of superheroes? Me, too. But just when I think the art is hopelessly overblown, along comes a big, beautiful thinking man's artist like Brian Hitch, and Mark Millar re-imagines the most hackneyed cliches in the biz -- Marvel Comics' Avengers -- as if nobody had ever thought of them before. Not the iconoclastic explosion of the icons like Moore's WATCHMEN; more like a re-boot with a new fifty years' worth of media savvy attached. It's like looking at clips from the greatest superhero movie of the 21st century. And wait 'till you see Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury...

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Y: The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

I generally don't want to confused "tpb's" -- large-format paperback compilations of "pamphlets" -- but sometimes the serial that was forced out in monthly drips was SUPPOSED to be a novel to begin with -- a single story, split unnaturally into chunks by economic reality. Anyway: Y: THE LAST MAN was/is one of those. You can still buy the monthly comic -- maybe you should, to make sure Brian K. Vaughn keeps doing it -- but I truly prefer to wait for the tpb to be published, and enjoy the story in its 'natural' state. And this is a weird one, the opens with the (bloody) spontaneous death of ever single male on the planet Earth ... except fo rone hapless would-be escape artist twenty-something, who suddenly becomes the most important creature in the world. Great dialogue, some interesting speculation that only rarely falls into absurdity or satire. I actually look forward to the almost semi-annual new editions.

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Ronin

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

Yes, I know, I know: you say "Frank Miller" you HAVE to say DARK KNIGHT RETURNS or SIN CITY. Nooooo, don't. This was one of his first, conceived as a real novel and not compiled from 'pamphlets' -- and it reamins a spooky, engaging and VERY different story. Sorry, Frank: still my favorite!

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1

Updated Aug 30, 2006

1st to recommend

2 people recommended this item

Description

No, it's not ALL about Alan Moore, but it's very, very hard to build a "best of" list and not mention him over and over. This is another old idea -- P.J. Farmer among many others has done it in text -- but nobody does it better, from his bleak and alcoholic Challenger to his giddily pornographic Invisible Man...it really is classic stuff.

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Watchmen

Updated Aug 28, 2006

1st to recommend

4 people recommended this item

Description

Alan Moore is a god. That's all there is to it. He was the first and best to 'explode' the superhero myth by bringing it poetically and painfully into a 'real' world, and the only thing as good as this story is Dave Gibbons' exquisite, precise art. Published as a 12-issue mini, but really, TRULY, a novel, it's the best of its kind, bar none.

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EPICURUS THE SAGE

Updated Dec 8, 2006

1st to recommend

Description

William Messner-Loebs was one of the first of the modernish comics writers to do g.n. that wasn't about masked vigilantes in any way -- in fact, he decided to go as far away in time and space as he could manage, to a slightly goofy and entirely fascinating look at ancient Rome and its sages. The cartoonish and affable ink-brush style that Sam Kieth uses here is perfect for the equally askew story and characters, and the whole book shows just how far from the norm you can go and still do something kind'a wonderful.

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V for Vendetta

Updated May 3, 2007

1st to recommend

3 people recommended this item

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Forget the movie. It's like highlights of the best scenes, and nothing more. For REAL depth and danger, look inside the g.n. This isn't about revolution; it's about **anarchy**, about no-government vs. ANY government...and with a deft, cold stroke, Moore paints a future England even more bleak than it is today, utterly brought to half-life (as far as it can manage) by David Lloyd's amazing art. Hard to bleieve this was a middle-of-the-book serial in a British black-and-white anthology comic back in The Day; it reads as if it was built in a single, nightmarish session...crammed with hard things to say.

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bradmunson
Qualifications:
writer, publisher, and comics fan since the Fifties more
About this list
...and not just the normal ones either. Yeah, the classics...but a minimum of the convenient compilations and none of the "should'a's" if they shouldn't be here. But still: the best graphic novels to come down the pike, picked from 40 years (FORTY YEARS!) of reading the damn things.
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