Monthly Archives: November 2016

The 10 Greatest Superhero Graphic Novels

19 Saturday Nov 2016

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Now that I’ve given the 10 greatest graphic novels in general, here are perhaps the 10 greatest superhero ones (in no particular order).

  1. Zot! (black & white) by Scott McCloud
  2. The Bulletproof Coffin by David Hine & Shaky Kane
  3. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quietly
  4. Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
  5. Enigma by Pete Milligan and Duncan Fregredo
  6. Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
  7. Animal Man by Grant Morrison and Chas Truog
  8. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd
  9. Hellboy by Mike Mignola
  10. Batman Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

For the most part, I tried to avoid long-running series, and instead focus on comics with a single story (Hellboy and Animal Man being the two major exceptions). I also tried to restrict the amount of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore comics on the list, as they have both written a very large amount of great superhero comics, and could easily envelop this if I let them.

The 10 Greatest Graphic Novels

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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So, for the curious, here is my list of the 10 greatest graphic novels of all time in no particular order:

  1. Maus by Art Spiegelman
  2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
  3. MW by Osamu Tezuka
  4. The Sculptor by Scott McCloud
  5. From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell
  6. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
  7. The Metabarons by Alejandro Jodorowsky & Juan Giménez
  8. Epileptic by David B
  9. Contract with God by Will Eisner
  10. The Adventures of Luthor Arkwright by Bryan Talbot

In forming the list, I have enforced the following rules:

  1. It has to be a narrative. An autobiographical narrative is fine, but is still must be some form of a story. Which means, for example, no Understanding Comics.
  2. It must be a story contained within a single book. I find it so hard to judge the overall value of something that extends over 6, 10, or 20 volumes — the quality of such a work can vary so much. Sadly, that is why there is only one manga on this list (MW).

I must admit that I am dissatisfied with the dearth of manga here. Probably means I should read more one-volume mangas. But I feel that this does give a nice variety of genres: one fantasy (The Sculptor), one drama (Contract with God), two horror (From Hell and MW), two science fiction (Metabarons and Luthor Arkwright), and, of course, four memoirs (Maus, Persepolis, Epileptic, and Fun Home), probably the most important graphic novel genre.

All of these works are powerful pieces that I feel define the medium and push it in some very powerful directions.

What I’ve been doing

14 Monday Nov 2016

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So it’s been a loooooong time since I’ve posted here. When I’m teaching to make money, working with Cloudscape Comics, writing my own comics, writing a couple of novellas, and even running an Unknown Armies rpg, it’s hard to make time for other things as well.

But anyway, as horrible as 2016 seems to have been for everyone else (the death of numerous actors and musicians, the death of Umberto Eco, Brexit, the rise of Trump), it has actually been pretty good for me. I got a comic published in Pulp Literature, Epic Canadiana (which I designed, edited, and wrote a couple of stories for) won the 2016 Gene Day at the Joe Shuster Awards for excellence in comics, and Cloudscape’s latest anthology, Bones of the Coast, is current heading to the printers. So that’s all exciting. I’ve been getting involved in all sorts of lovely projects even if the rest of the world is spiraling into the Abyss. Does that balance everything out?

Anyway, exciting things have happened and more exciting things are currently in the works.