OT: Graphic Novels and Series

By Ctein

A graphic novel is to a comic book as, well, a prose novel is to a short story. Make that a clichéd short story. Traditional comic books are, for the most part, formulaic and structural the same way a TV drama (or a pop song) is. Graphic novels try to tell far more complex and elaborate stories in far less traditional ways than your monthly "Spiderman."

The scope and scale of the graphic novel is limited only by the author's imagination...and their discipline. Occasionally they are created and published as a single project, but far more frequently they appear in serial form as comics until the whole work is done. Assuming it ever is. These projects can take a dozen years to complete. Too often the story never gets finished, or begins to meander hopelessly.

Buying into a serialized graphic novel is an act of faith by the reader that is not always rewarded. It is not an inexpensive act of faith, either. Individual trade paperbacks and collected volumes may be reasonably priced, but a story may take six or 10 volumes to tell. In recommending some of my favorites, I've chosen ones that are all (more or less) complete. Most of these have Wikipedia entries, so I'm keeping descriptions to a minimum for reasons of space.

I'll start off with two that tackle the same question: how do you write a genuinely interesting story about an omnipotent being? I'm talking about someone who wouldn't give Superman a second glance. What can you say about such a person that wouldn't be boring as all hell?

Iredeemable, by Mark Waid, asks, "Being super-Superman and having the entire world depending on you has to be one hell of a psychological burden, so what happens if he snaps? What are the consequences of an omnipotent being having a psychotic break?" I thought the ending was too cute, but the ride is definitely worth it. Try Volume I (of ten) and see what you think.

La Muse, by Adi Tantimedh (Author) and Hugo Petrus (Illustrator) says, "How do you make an omnipotent being interesting? You make her completely irresponsible." Well, why not? There is pretty much nothing she can screw up so badly that she can't undo it. Oh yeah, and give her a long suffering and normal sister. The result is lighthearted, silly, and funny (in an apocalyptic way). It's also just one volume, so it's entirely affordable.

Strangers In Paradise, by Terry Moore, took 15 years and 93 issues to tell, but Terry's a professional and he made it through to the end. At its core it's a romance, in a ménage à trois, "Kill Bill," weirdly lighthearted kind of way. David's in love with Katchoo but she's in love with Francine who isn't at all sure who she's in love with. Well, not for many issues...and, boy, do they have issues (rimshot). For a start there is Katchoo's past as an agent/consort with a criminal band of killer Amazons who've infiltrated the U.S. government. Then there's the money she stole from said organization. Not to mention Francine's ex, Freddy Femur and Katchoo's terrifyingly competent (or maybe that should be competently terrifying) half-sister, Tambi.

I can't recommend Terry's more recent 30-issue novel, Echo. It ends far too abruptly with way too much deus ex machina and way too many unanswered questions. The coda simply does not make any kind of logical sense. I honestly don't know what Terry had in mind, but it reads like he decided, "Oh, to hell with it" and just threw the project away.

Next is the true opus magnus of the field, several intertwined novels, really. I'm speaking of Love and Rockets, by Los Bros Hernandez. It ran 50 issues over 15 years. It kind of breaks my rule because it's not really complete. It's an ongoing saga. Furthermore, publication of the 50 issue run became erratic as The Brothers admitted that they were having trouble keeping to the discipline of producing regular issues. It shows in some of the stories, I think. There seems to be some loss of coherency towards the end. Or maybe it's just that the stories are so complex and intertwined that I lost the thread. I'd have to go back and reread all 50 issues to be sure. Nonetheless, it sets standards for this field that few others have met in terms of writing, character development, and artwork. The three most major novels are collected in these books:

Locas: The Maggie and Hopey Stories

Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories

Luba

Finally, the most "literary" of all my recommendations: Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman. This, contrary to my opening paragraph, was originally published as a monthly series of comic books by DC.

The focus of Sandman is on Dream, one of a family of immortals. They are more like elemental forces than gods; they include Delirium, Desire, and Despair, and what is arguably Neil's most popular character, Death. She featured in two stand-alone novels, The Time of Your Life and The High Cost of Living. The collected series of 10 volumes, each of which is more or less a standalone novel, is rich and wonderful and I hated when I was done with it so much that I started all over again.

It took the series a while to find its footing. Therefore I do not recommend that you sample it with Volume 1. A better taste might be Volume 5, A Game of You. Don't worry about jumping in in the middle.

But, I think the truly outstanding volume and the one you should really begin with is Brief Lives, Volume 7. It's brilliant, and the prose is everything you could hope for from Neil. Let me close this column by quoting from the first page of Chapter 3, part of a short essay on what it means to live long:

There are not many of them, all things considered: the truly old. Even on this planet, in this age, when people consider a mere hundred years, or thousand, to be an unusual span.

There are, for example, less than ten thousand humanoid individuals alive on this planet today who have personal memories of the saber-toothed tiger, the megatherium, the cave bear.

There are today less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis (the first Atlantis. The other lands that bore that name were shadows, echo-Atlantises, myth lands, and they came later).

There are less than five hundred living humans who remember the human civilizations that predated the great lizards....

And so on.

That's it for this week. Next time it's back to teas. I've discovered something new (to me) that I just have to tell you about!

Ctein

Wednesday columnist Ctein launches a series of OT posts this week to catch up on them—he's been staying on topic too much. Have faith.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ben Marks: "Oh. Wow. Taste in these things is intensely personal, but I have to say, Ctien's recommendations do not have a false note among them. Would add V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and Scott Pilgrim, although they stretch the definitions laid out above. For what it is worth, I think the Hernandez Bros.' work stands with any (any) literature produced in the last century."

Comments

[Mara]

I'll just have to recommend Baru's "L'Autoroute Du Soleil". A classic.

[Joe Kraft]

Sandman for me holds that place an old favorite song or movie does - even if you don't quite remember the words, you remember how it made you feel.

One omission from this list that I was sure would be included when I read your 4th paragraph is MiracleMan by Alan Moore. Just top-notch all around, with a devastating climax in the series. Unfortunately, I think I may have lost my original copies, and reprints are too high-priced.

[Ray]

Iredeemable is good, as is it's companion series Incorruptible. Alan Moore's Batman graphic novel and Love and Rockets were my gateway drugs.

And then there's this:

Multiple, differently colored lighting planes, visually and emotionally separating the subjects... That's kinda awesome. I'm amazed that more photographers don't appreciate comics/graphic novels (yeah, sorry, it's a silly distinction). Comics share the photographer's penchant for visual narratives, with none of that pesky physical reality getting in the way.

[Nimesh Patel]

On non-fiction graphic novels, Maus is legendary. I also recommend highly: "Logicomix", and biographies of Niels Bohr - "Suspended in Language" and Richard Feynman - "Feynman".

[misha marinsky]

The only graphic novel series I have read and bought, is Maus.

I was raised surrounded by Survivors.

Just my 2¢.

[Roger Bradbury]

This week I've been reading The Ringworld Engineers. It hasn't been made into a graphic novel, though it would make a good one.

I read the dedication first, and a name which meant nothing to me the last time I read the book leaped out at me. It was Ctein.

It's a small world, unlike the one in the book.

[psu]

I was never much for comics or graphic novels ... until I bought a retina iPad. Read the entire Sandman series in one marathon binge on the thing. It's really really great for this particular application.

[Erik P]

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel memoire. Witty, hilarious, sad and very sensitive. My absolute favourite besides Maus.

I simply want reality, don't care much for the super heroes.

[Antony Shepherd]

I loved Strangers in Paradise, even though the mob subplot went on a bit too long, and early on Moore set up a flash-forward sequence then changed the plot and characters so much you could never get back there. Still one of my favourites, although I did drop Echo after about 20 issues when I realised i'd missed a few issues and didn't really care.

Even though Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan is basically "Hunter S. Thompson in the future" it still has credit as satire.

Taking a slight diversion, I do think SiP fans would get something from Ai Yazawa's manga NANA, the story of two young women who meet by chance on a train one snowy night to discover they have three things in common. They're both 20, they're both moving to Tokyo, and they're both called Nana. Nana Komachi is moving in with the guy she was going out with at college, and Nana Osaki is going to restart her punk band after her bassist lover left her to join a more popular band. Sadly this stands incomplete at 21 volumes since 2009 due to the author's ill-health. But even so it's a damn good read.

[Ricardo Silva Cordeiro]

This was surprising. I never thought to see another of my great passions discussed here on TOP.

Since we're talking lists, here are some recommendations of mine from various genres:

- Almost all Alan Moore's work
He's a master on this art.

- "Enigma" by Peter Milligan
A "tour de force" in just one issue.

- "Logicomix" by Apostolos Doxiadis
Just brilliant.

- "Akira" by Katshiro Otomo
The greatest epic japanese masterpiece. Mind-blowing art.

- "The Filth" by Grant Morrison
Complex multi-layered story that will not leave your mind easily.

- "Wilson" by Daniel Clowes
Funny and tragic. A very unique take on comic strips. It may be my favourite from this author.

- "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth" by Chris Ware
Chris Ware is the poet of this medium. Even who isn't fond of graphic novels will have trouble not classifing this as a work of art in every aspect.

- "Madwoman of the Sacred Heart" by Alejandro Jodorowsky
One of the many collaborations between the great master Jodorowsky with the legendary Moebius. A funny, fascinating and enlightening experience in one volume.

- "Bone" by Jeff Smith.
Excellent fantasy entertainment. Also check Jeff Smith's new series "RASL", a Sci-fi-noir with Nikola Tesla references.

[Jessica]

As Ctein is usually beyond reproach in every way, I'll phrase this as a question: why use the phrase 'opus magnus' when 'magnum opus' is in common use? For a moment I thought the common usage must be wrong, but I sat through too many Latin classes to forget that 'opus, opera' is a neuter noun and takes the neuter adjective form, ending with -um. In terms of word order, it doesn't matter. How about opus magnum, as a compromise? Or is this an inside joke that I don't get?

[John Whitley]

For a wonderful vision of what superhero comics can become if allowed to move beyond their formulaic origins, I highly recommend Kurt Busiek's Astro City Series. Like Sandman, Astro City was also originally published monthly, but the issues all collected into graphic novel form (aka "trade paperbacks").

[Mark Kirkpatrick]

A mandatory addition: Emmanuel Guibert's "The Photographer." It's the story of his trip as a photographer into Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, illustrated with drawings and (yep) photographs. (He shot Leica.)
Given Brubeck's death today, I have to mention Loustal & Paringaux's "Barney et la Note Bleu", for me the most visually beautiful graphic novel. Best to look for it in the used section of one of the very many graphic novel stores in France.

[Dean Z]

I am not realy familiar with this genre, but perhaps a cousin to this would be The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Not a word in it; it deftly "illustrates" the immigrant experience.

[Andrea]

Sin City, Hellboy, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Invisibles, Akira, Elektra: Assassin. And yes, I find a nice parallel between photography and graphic novels.

[Edie Howe]

Quick note in passing:

1. Google "Hawkeye initiative".
2. Be sure to complete any mouthful of beverage by swallowing BEFORE the results come up on your screen. I will NOT be responsible for any damage to your monitor otherwise.
3. Technically it's safe for work, but only barely.
4. A quick trip to the bathroom before you Google will help prevent incontinence from laughing so hard.

[Christian]

+1 for sandman. Another that I enjoy as a bit more literary is David Sims' Cerebus series. For me it starts to get overly preachy around omnibus #7, but I really enjoy the High society and Church & State stories. It's a victorian era fantasy story that features countless pop-culture references in sarcastic, parodying ways (a prime minister is obviously groucho marx, a secondary character is Elrod of Melvinbone, an albino with a sword named Seersucker who happens to speak like Looney Tunes' Foghorn Leghorn). It's quite funny while still being intelligent.

Sandman is the greatest, however. Natch.

[Dave Stevens]

Lots of great suggestions above, but not all of them hang together like a good novel should. Which is why Craig Thompson's Blankets and Habibi are so great. And any photographer would also enjoy his street-sketching journal Carnet de Voyage.

[Mark Jordan]

What scares me is that Ctein is moving on to teas. His previous columns ruined me as I am now wanting to pursue teas like I want to pursue cameras and gear. So many teas and so little time. What next Ctien? I am retired and Social Security won't cover this habit.

[Kevin Purcell]

Another recommendation for Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series. It's much funnier than Hunter S. Thompson (IMHO). And that two headed cat is so cute.

Alan Moore's From Hell is excellent and creepy. And might introduce you to psychogeography (I don't go for the occult side of it but the "realist" side is worth thinking about for the street walking photographer).

Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland is a sort of non-fiction graphic history (what is the term for "graphic non-fiction": graphic verity?) of Lewis Carrol's time living outside Sunderland (in NE England). Very wide ranging and engaging too combing not just drawn work but collages of images.

And finally meta example of "graphic verity" in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics will give you an insight into how graphic novels really work. Recommended for those in the UI design business too (you are telling a story after all).

[Christopher Lange]

Frank Miller's Sin City graphic novels are stunning in the quality of illustration. To be honest his work has had just as much of an influence on me as a photographer as the work of most other actual photographers.