The New York Times, that venerable Old Gray Lady, has a Holiday Gift Guide (in the middle of Novemeber), on the best Graphic Books available for descerning readers who hate the term, comic book. They're not even saying graphic novel. I find this fascinating. But then, that's not the point. Ironically, this list is a little more mainstream than the list we saw from Amazon, a little while back.
They lead off with The Night of the Bookmobile, by Audrey Niffeneggar, the author of the hugely successful prose novel, The Time Traveler's Wife. She wrote and drew this book all by herself, and since she's a real novelist, it might have some resonance with the general reading public. It's also 33 pages for $20.
Then the list goes like this.
Kill Shakespeare Vol. 1 (IDW Publishing) We talked about the first issue on POW Podcast #230.
The Adventures of the Unemployed Man (Little, Brown)
Heart Transplant (Dark Horse)
Drunken Dream and Other Stories (Fantagraphics)
Superman: Earth One (DC Comics) Our review.
Return of the Dapper Men (Archaia Studios Press) November's Book of the Month.
American Vampire (Vertigo Comics) Pick of the Week for Issue #8.
Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour (Oni Press) Review and Video Show.
Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit (IDW Publishing) October's Book of the Month.
You can click through and read all the author's reasoning and such. There are some good things on this list of graphic books, and even a couple I would check out that I didn't know about. Some of these might even be in our annual gift guide video show, coming soon to a computer near you, but you'll have to wait for that.
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I’ve never heard of four of those. (Not surprisingly, the three without iFanboy links and "The Night Bookmobile".)
I can’t decide if Superman: Earth One is worth putting on my wishlist. I think I’m gonna give it a shot via interlibrary loan, first.
The Outfit is wonderful.
I hope people won’t pay that much for a 33 page book. It’s sad that they probably will.
Drunken Dream is a collection of short stories by legendary female manga creator Hagio Moto. It’s a beautiful collection with an array of stories from her long career. The Fantagraphics collection is a hardcover that reminds me more of a textbook, strong paper and not quite oversized. If you like stories about dealing with loss and family and unexpected endings, you might enjoy it. Also includes a lengthy interview w/ Hagio Moto about her work. Well worth the money honestly.
@chad0007: Depends on how good those pages are.
I found "The Time Traveler’s Wife" to be exceptionally good. If the graphic book (seriously?) is of that caliber, then it may well be worth $20.
Graphic Books could mean something totally different. I look forward to the top ten books with pictures and words over them.
Conor’s thoughts on the Earth One story have not been revealed. Thumbs up or down from the DC pro?
Why is she breast feeding that book?
@AMuldowney – It was thirsty?
An average comic book is 32 pages. Granted, it has ads, but still!
Illustrated children’s books are probably around that many pages and cost $20 in hardcover.
I feel like anybody who is recommending Kill Shakespeare couldn’t have read it.
The Niffenger thing looked neat — I haven’t seen it covered much in comics media so I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Is it "really" a comic book?
the night bookmobile was serialised on the guardian’s (UK Newspaper not Canadian superhero) website. I imagine it’s still up there. I remember having read the Time Travelers Wife and checking it out. I remember thinking it was interesting but not enough to keep reading it everyday or week or whenever new pages came up. Fairly certain high quality small print run "visual books" is where she had her initial fame.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/may/31/nightbookmobile
It is still up if anyone’s looking to check it out
Art has no price. You either want it or you don’t. Glad to see more options.
The Night Bookmobile is actually spectacular and in my opinion well worth the money.
Awesome to see Heart Transplant by Andrew Vachss listed. I’m a loyal fan of Vachss and will buy anything he writes b/c I believe in his mission/work.