My Favorite Graphic Novels
Ok so, I'm kind of taking a break from working on illustrations here to rant. You know how there's been all these stupid posts about 25 things about myself or my top albums? Yeah I did'em too. But I figured I'd rant about something important: COMICS! So here we go. Top... well 15 or 20. Whenever I get bored I guess. Oh, a couple of things - I left off perenial favorites of all fanboys like The Sandman, Bone, MAUS, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. If you're a comics fan and you haven't read or love at least one of those - there is no hope for you. Yes, I'm being snooty & pretentious there. Deal with it.
Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER.
I'm counting this manga (Japanese for Comic Book) series as one. This is perhaps one of the best manga I've ever read. Urasawa manages to combine great character development with suspense and action seamlessly. The main idea is that a neuro surgeon saves a young boy's life over an important leader's life. This gets him in huge trouble with the administration, but before consequences are faces the entire senior staff is murdered and the young boy disappears. Fast forward 10 years and the surgeon is chief of surgery when the boy reappears and confesses that he's killed countless people - including the hospital staff - and credits it all to the doctor's saving of his life. The doctor is then framed for these murders by the boy and he escapes to track him down, and kill him. Which is just the tip of the iceberg which leads into massive government conspiracies and such. Seriously, if you want some intense storytelling - this is it.
Grant Morrison's New X-Men Omnibus
Yeah yeah, I know. But dammit, I still love me some X-Men, and I'll be danged if this wasn't the best thing to happen to that series since the Phoenix Saga. Basically Marvel let Grant run ape shit on the series. More changed in the first 3 issue story arch than in 20 years of X-Men stories. Gone were the goofy costumes, and go nowhere character development. Grant brought in the idea of Xavier's being a school again, the Cassandra Nova concept of the next evolutionary step AFTER mutants, and the execution of the citizens of Genosha. The book had balls, and I love it for that. I think this little bit of dialog really nails it for me: "What makes you such a bitch, Emma?" ... "Breeding, darling. Top class breeding." Of course it went right back to crap stories after Morrison left, but this was where it was at in the early 00s.
The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told
I absolutely ate this up when I was a kid. This single book made me fall in love with comics. Covering literally 50 years of Batman, DC put together all the best individual Batman stories in one humongous book and it rocks. I still crack it open to this day. My favorite? The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne! of course. It's a sweet little story about the romance between the golden age Catwoman and Batman.
Jaime Hernandez's LOCAS
What can I say about this book... it's just perfect. I love how Jaime draws realistic, beautiful women of all shapes and sizes. The stories of Maggie & Hopie are some of the most bizarre, and fun stories ever related. From being a mechanic, to a superhero to female luchadores (prowrestlers in Mexico) this book oddly combines that all with the persuit of love and a happy life. It has a wonderful rich narrative that really makes you appreciate the artform. A lot of people will say that Strangers in Paradise is the perfect book for women to read if they like comics - I'm offering this up as a point of contention.
Lone Wolf And Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
This is a 28 book series that inspired so many more stories that it's hard to count. A few that come to mind are Road to Perdition, Frank Miller's Ronin and Samurai Jack. The premise is that a father and son (maybe 2?) roam the countryside of Feudal Japan walking what they call The Path of Meifumado or The Path to Hell. As they roam the countryside doing deeds for hire (and sometimes pro bono if his heart beckons him so) all the while making their way to settle a vendetta for a wrong committed against them. The stories are told as vignettes that every once in awhile touch on this over arching theme.
It's a powerful series, and probably one of the most epic pieces of fiction ever made.
Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim
I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this series. Man, it's fun. It's very much a boy meets girl story, except the boy has to kill all of her 7 evil ex boyfriends before he can defeat her. It's like a romantic comedy with a nutty RPG/Video Game twist. Scott is the pathetic but adorable Canadian loser protagonist that falls in love with Ramona Flowers - a mysterious American delivery girl who can use subspace to cut through people's dreams and make deliveries. And that's how they meet. It's just a goofy enough concept to work, and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Spaced, Hot Fuzz) is making what looks to be a super awesome film of it right now! Can't wait!
Will Eisner's New York : The Big City
I love NYC. I romanticize it, and would love to be back there someday. Eisner who grew up a poor Jewish boy in the lower East side manages to emulate and capture this wonderful city in his stories of everyday life. Again, short vignettes and peeks into the NYC of yesterday - they just take on a life of their own, and I love them all. This book breathes with the steam and grime of the old school New York. It's a wonderful thing.
Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier
I obviously take a lot of influence from this guy - he's one of my favorite cartoonists. This maxi series looks at the origins of the silver age of DC's Super Heroes in the 1960s. It's mostly about Hal Jordan's - Green Lantern - origins and how he, and the other major superheroes of the time come together for the first time to combat an evil as old as the world itself. Darwyn manages to weave in tales of the Losers ( an old WW2 comic) fighting Dinosaurs as well, so it therefore ROCKS! What I really liked about this book is that it captures that early DC comics enthusiasm and optimism shown around that time. It's bright, clean and beautiful.
Alex Ross & Mark Waid's Kingdom Come
If The New Frontier is a perfect example of the shiny beginnings of the DC Universe - Kingdom Come is it's dark counterpart. The darkness that envelops the near end of the Superheroes. As an outside viewer to this destruction, Normal McKay, a pastor who has lost his way is victim to apocalyptic visions of the DCU. When it all starts to unfold before his eyes, he realizes that a newly returned Superman (in seclusion ever since The Joker massacred the entire Daily Planet including Lois Lane) is the catalyst for this impending war between the old school of heroes and the new school of ultraviolent heroes. He's not the savior Norman hoped he would be... Drawing majorly on Biblical prophecy from the book of Revelation Kingdom Come was one of my favorite stories in high school, and still continues to be. Plus, it's Alex Ross art which is always gorgeous.
Brian K. Vaughn's The Escapists
I almost went with Y The Last Man (a phenomenal apocalyptic book by the same author) but my heart really loves this book more. Drawing inspiration off of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (an AMAZING novel which won a Pulitzer) Brian writes a book about a young man who purchases the rights to Kavalier & Clay's long dormant character : The Escapist. It's a wondeful story about the hardships that these characters face as they try to produce this comic series, try to keep a huge corporation from screwing them out of the rights and the amazing odds they go to to produce this comic. What I really like is that it's kind of a bittersweet story about dreamers trying to live their dreams. Something I can all to much understand.
Mark Schulz's Xenozoic Tales
Some of you may remember this as a short lived cartoon called Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. It's basically a post apocalyptic story where dinosaurs have returned (sweet!) and two people try to discover what exactly happened to the world before they came into existence. And of course they also have to figure out if they're actually going to work as a couple. It's kind of like if Planet of the Apes took place in a submerged NYC with Dinosaurs. There's definitely a hint of old school Star Trek as they explore the various places of the earth and find new tribes of people. It's a lot like the old republic serials of the 30s and 40s in style and tone. Schulz's draftsmanship is top quality and I wish he'd finish the story someday soon.
Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
Ok, I have a huge soft spot for this book. Don basically took ALL of Carl Barks' classic Uncle Scrooge stories and cobbled them into 12 cohesive tales of Scrooge's life. No easy feat... and man are they just that damn good! What's nice here is that Don not only provides spectacular artwork, but he bases a lot of Scrooge's adventures against the backdrop of a young America in the 19th and 20th century. Carl Barks' stories were the basis of Disney's Ducktales series, and this combination of all those stories is like the ultimate version of that tv show. You got all of Scrooge's life, and a real understanding of why he is the way he is. I know, I know - it's Disney, but this is the shining example of what Disney SHOULD be as an artform.
Steve Purcell's Sam & Max : Surfin' the Highway
I love this book. Man do I ever. It's a book that parades as a bubbly cartoon but is the complete satirical opposite. I can't really describe the hilarity of the concept of a dog detective with his rabid psychotic rabbit partner - you need to read it for yourself. I think one of my favorite things is that Steve blatantly places the wrong things in exotic locale and then has the characters make fun of it. Like they visit the Phillipines and you can see the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids in the background. The dialog goes ... "So here we are in the Phillipines!" "Drawn without reference material apparently." And it just builds from there... I love this fucking book. And the game that came out from Lucasarts back in the day. Damn that game was rad!
Aaron Renier's Spiral Bound
Gosh, this book is just perfect. It's perfect for all ages, and it's in the format of a spiral bound notebook. It's the kind of book you want to read when there's a rainy day. It's a wonderful little book about a group of young kids and their "Super Secret Summer!" It's a book where hopes comes through, and goodness reigns supreme. The world could use more optimism like this. It reminds me of being a kid again, and that just kicks ass. I'd put this up their with must reads for kids along with Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes.
Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon's Preacher
And now for something completely different. This is as dark and as fucked up of a book as you'll ever get. Black humor reigns supreme here. Even HBO pussied out from making this bad boy into a series. The premise is that a preacher from Texas is possessed by the offspring of a demon & an angel. With that he finds out God has abandoned humanity and he sets off to find him & settle up - with his friends Cassaday the Irish Vampire and Tulip his pissed off on and off girlfriend. They're then persued by Angels, Demons, Herr Starr the head of an organization called The Grail, and The Saint of Killers. The twist is that this offspring has imbued the preacher with the literal word of God. He says it, you do it. And this makes for some hilariously fucked up situations. I think my favorite line was "Go Fuck Yourself!" And.. .well you can guess. If this thing ever got into the mainstream I think every book burning super overzealous Christian would shit a brick. Being a Christian myself I know this must sound odd that I love this book - But it's an interesting concept and well executed on top of it. I won't lie and say that I didn't say that's fucked up, but I still find it an excellent piece of comic fiction.
Makoto Yukimura 's Planetes
Space. I love space stories. Man do I ever LOVE space stories! I think what really got me into this book was that it just comes down to relationships set across the backdrop of man not only colonizing but dealing with the realities of space. At first it starts to center on Yuri, a man who cleans up space debris left by man after it inadvertantly causes a disaster on a space shuttle flight that takes the life of his wife. But then it progresses into being Hachimaki's story of finding love and his purpose in life of helping his father make the first manned exploration of Jupiter. It's like if Arthur C. Clark wrote a comic. It's realistic, and even a couple of hundred years into the future we're only just barely getting into our solar system. It's not Science Fiction - but Science Future with a wonderful love story told in small individual stories. I just wish it had more than four volumes to expand upon it's great story.
Jamie S. Rich's Love the Way You Love & 12 Reasons Why I Love Her
Ok, I think you can probably tell I'm a hopeless romantic who can't get enough of a good love story by now. And this is just that - a good love story. It's about a guy in a band who meets a gal and falls in love. She falls for him as well - but the twist is is that she's engaged to an agent who could possibly make his band the big act it's meant to be. It's a fun, cute and sometimes very intense little series.
And 12 Reasons Why I Love Her is a story told in 12 parts mixed chronologically. I think what I really liked is that it's the story of a relationship as it goes through a lot of the real life situations of real life romance. You don't see a lot of realism told in romantic stories like this, so that was refreshing. It's all about the little things in a relationships - a joke is the focus of one story. A first chance encounter at the movies. How to make those first steps. When the first storm hits. Your dreams. Your secrets. And each chapter has it's own song to accompany it that Jamie picked out. It's a really cool way to accent a book and I love that.
9/11 Emergency Relief
I don't think any of the artistic communties banded together like the comics industry did right after 9/11. Marvel, DC and Image/Dark Horse put out their own antholgies of artists and writers expressing their loss after the terrorist attacks that day. But I don't think any of them had as much impact to me as the independent press released one did. All proceeds were donated to the American Red Cross - but I think that the double edged sword of being a storyteller really shows through with this book. We tend to chronicle what went on during our lives. And while we see our own hardships as tough trials of life, when something like September 11th comes along it's almost too much to put down on paper. But the entire industry sat down, and took it upon themselves to chronicle the events and impacts of that day on the everyday person. Having been to the top of the South tower myself when I was younger, those stories really resonante with me. One day I'll tell that story in my own book, but I think a lot of people didn't think that the rest of the country felt the shock that the east coast did. If anyone ever tells you this, you can reccomend them this book. "Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
So that's it. I have read TONS of graphic novels and it was tough to be picky and choosy. Like I didn't toss in The Goon or Love Hina. Or even Oh My Goddess! Or guilty pleasures like The Savage Dragon or Conan The Barbarian. Some manga perrenials I left out like Ghost in The Shell or Dragon Ball. I just kind of went off of what really really stuck out in my mind and what I could read over and over again. I think I wrote this as a break from drawing so I could remember why I really love comics. I feel pumped now.... back to the drawing board!
Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER.
I'm counting this manga (Japanese for Comic Book) series as one. This is perhaps one of the best manga I've ever read. Urasawa manages to combine great character development with suspense and action seamlessly. The main idea is that a neuro surgeon saves a young boy's life over an important leader's life. This gets him in huge trouble with the administration, but before consequences are faces the entire senior staff is murdered and the young boy disappears. Fast forward 10 years and the surgeon is chief of surgery when the boy reappears and confesses that he's killed countless people - including the hospital staff - and credits it all to the doctor's saving of his life. The doctor is then framed for these murders by the boy and he escapes to track him down, and kill him. Which is just the tip of the iceberg which leads into massive government conspiracies and such. Seriously, if you want some intense storytelling - this is it.
Grant Morrison's New X-Men Omnibus
Yeah yeah, I know. But dammit, I still love me some X-Men, and I'll be danged if this wasn't the best thing to happen to that series since the Phoenix Saga. Basically Marvel let Grant run ape shit on the series. More changed in the first 3 issue story arch than in 20 years of X-Men stories. Gone were the goofy costumes, and go nowhere character development. Grant brought in the idea of Xavier's being a school again, the Cassandra Nova concept of the next evolutionary step AFTER mutants, and the execution of the citizens of Genosha. The book had balls, and I love it for that. I think this little bit of dialog really nails it for me: "What makes you such a bitch, Emma?" ... "Breeding, darling. Top class breeding." Of course it went right back to crap stories after Morrison left, but this was where it was at in the early 00s.
The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told
I absolutely ate this up when I was a kid. This single book made me fall in love with comics. Covering literally 50 years of Batman, DC put together all the best individual Batman stories in one humongous book and it rocks. I still crack it open to this day. My favorite? The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne! of course. It's a sweet little story about the romance between the golden age Catwoman and Batman.
Jaime Hernandez's LOCAS
What can I say about this book... it's just perfect. I love how Jaime draws realistic, beautiful women of all shapes and sizes. The stories of Maggie & Hopie are some of the most bizarre, and fun stories ever related. From being a mechanic, to a superhero to female luchadores (prowrestlers in Mexico) this book oddly combines that all with the persuit of love and a happy life. It has a wonderful rich narrative that really makes you appreciate the artform. A lot of people will say that Strangers in Paradise is the perfect book for women to read if they like comics - I'm offering this up as a point of contention.
Lone Wolf And Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
This is a 28 book series that inspired so many more stories that it's hard to count. A few that come to mind are Road to Perdition, Frank Miller's Ronin and Samurai Jack. The premise is that a father and son (maybe 2?) roam the countryside of Feudal Japan walking what they call The Path of Meifumado or The Path to Hell. As they roam the countryside doing deeds for hire (and sometimes pro bono if his heart beckons him so) all the while making their way to settle a vendetta for a wrong committed against them. The stories are told as vignettes that every once in awhile touch on this over arching theme.
It's a powerful series, and probably one of the most epic pieces of fiction ever made.
Brian Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim
I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this series. Man, it's fun. It's very much a boy meets girl story, except the boy has to kill all of her 7 evil ex boyfriends before he can defeat her. It's like a romantic comedy with a nutty RPG/Video Game twist. Scott is the pathetic but adorable Canadian loser protagonist that falls in love with Ramona Flowers - a mysterious American delivery girl who can use subspace to cut through people's dreams and make deliveries. And that's how they meet. It's just a goofy enough concept to work, and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Spaced, Hot Fuzz) is making what looks to be a super awesome film of it right now! Can't wait!
Will Eisner's New York : The Big City
I love NYC. I romanticize it, and would love to be back there someday. Eisner who grew up a poor Jewish boy in the lower East side manages to emulate and capture this wonderful city in his stories of everyday life. Again, short vignettes and peeks into the NYC of yesterday - they just take on a life of their own, and I love them all. This book breathes with the steam and grime of the old school New York. It's a wonderful thing.
Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier
I obviously take a lot of influence from this guy - he's one of my favorite cartoonists. This maxi series looks at the origins of the silver age of DC's Super Heroes in the 1960s. It's mostly about Hal Jordan's - Green Lantern - origins and how he, and the other major superheroes of the time come together for the first time to combat an evil as old as the world itself. Darwyn manages to weave in tales of the Losers ( an old WW2 comic) fighting Dinosaurs as well, so it therefore ROCKS! What I really liked about this book is that it captures that early DC comics enthusiasm and optimism shown around that time. It's bright, clean and beautiful.
Alex Ross & Mark Waid's Kingdom Come
If The New Frontier is a perfect example of the shiny beginnings of the DC Universe - Kingdom Come is it's dark counterpart. The darkness that envelops the near end of the Superheroes. As an outside viewer to this destruction, Normal McKay, a pastor who has lost his way is victim to apocalyptic visions of the DCU. When it all starts to unfold before his eyes, he realizes that a newly returned Superman (in seclusion ever since The Joker massacred the entire Daily Planet including Lois Lane) is the catalyst for this impending war between the old school of heroes and the new school of ultraviolent heroes. He's not the savior Norman hoped he would be... Drawing majorly on Biblical prophecy from the book of Revelation Kingdom Come was one of my favorite stories in high school, and still continues to be. Plus, it's Alex Ross art which is always gorgeous.
Brian K. Vaughn's The Escapists
I almost went with Y The Last Man (a phenomenal apocalyptic book by the same author) but my heart really loves this book more. Drawing inspiration off of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (an AMAZING novel which won a Pulitzer) Brian writes a book about a young man who purchases the rights to Kavalier & Clay's long dormant character : The Escapist. It's a wondeful story about the hardships that these characters face as they try to produce this comic series, try to keep a huge corporation from screwing them out of the rights and the amazing odds they go to to produce this comic. What I really like is that it's kind of a bittersweet story about dreamers trying to live their dreams. Something I can all to much understand.
Mark Schulz's Xenozoic Tales
Some of you may remember this as a short lived cartoon called Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. It's basically a post apocalyptic story where dinosaurs have returned (sweet!) and two people try to discover what exactly happened to the world before they came into existence. And of course they also have to figure out if they're actually going to work as a couple. It's kind of like if Planet of the Apes took place in a submerged NYC with Dinosaurs. There's definitely a hint of old school Star Trek as they explore the various places of the earth and find new tribes of people. It's a lot like the old republic serials of the 30s and 40s in style and tone. Schulz's draftsmanship is top quality and I wish he'd finish the story someday soon.
Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
Ok, I have a huge soft spot for this book. Don basically took ALL of Carl Barks' classic Uncle Scrooge stories and cobbled them into 12 cohesive tales of Scrooge's life. No easy feat... and man are they just that damn good! What's nice here is that Don not only provides spectacular artwork, but he bases a lot of Scrooge's adventures against the backdrop of a young America in the 19th and 20th century. Carl Barks' stories were the basis of Disney's Ducktales series, and this combination of all those stories is like the ultimate version of that tv show. You got all of Scrooge's life, and a real understanding of why he is the way he is. I know, I know - it's Disney, but this is the shining example of what Disney SHOULD be as an artform.
Steve Purcell's Sam & Max : Surfin' the Highway
I love this book. Man do I ever. It's a book that parades as a bubbly cartoon but is the complete satirical opposite. I can't really describe the hilarity of the concept of a dog detective with his rabid psychotic rabbit partner - you need to read it for yourself. I think one of my favorite things is that Steve blatantly places the wrong things in exotic locale and then has the characters make fun of it. Like they visit the Phillipines and you can see the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids in the background. The dialog goes ... "So here we are in the Phillipines!" "Drawn without reference material apparently." And it just builds from there... I love this fucking book. And the game that came out from Lucasarts back in the day. Damn that game was rad!
Aaron Renier's Spiral Bound
Gosh, this book is just perfect. It's perfect for all ages, and it's in the format of a spiral bound notebook. It's the kind of book you want to read when there's a rainy day. It's a wonderful little book about a group of young kids and their "Super Secret Summer!" It's a book where hopes comes through, and goodness reigns supreme. The world could use more optimism like this. It reminds me of being a kid again, and that just kicks ass. I'd put this up their with must reads for kids along with Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes.
Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon's Preacher
And now for something completely different. This is as dark and as fucked up of a book as you'll ever get. Black humor reigns supreme here. Even HBO pussied out from making this bad boy into a series. The premise is that a preacher from Texas is possessed by the offspring of a demon & an angel. With that he finds out God has abandoned humanity and he sets off to find him & settle up - with his friends Cassaday the Irish Vampire and Tulip his pissed off on and off girlfriend. They're then persued by Angels, Demons, Herr Starr the head of an organization called The Grail, and The Saint of Killers. The twist is that this offspring has imbued the preacher with the literal word of God. He says it, you do it. And this makes for some hilariously fucked up situations. I think my favorite line was "Go Fuck Yourself!" And.. .well you can guess. If this thing ever got into the mainstream I think every book burning super overzealous Christian would shit a brick. Being a Christian myself I know this must sound odd that I love this book - But it's an interesting concept and well executed on top of it. I won't lie and say that I didn't say that's fucked up, but I still find it an excellent piece of comic fiction.
Makoto Yukimura 's Planetes
Space. I love space stories. Man do I ever LOVE space stories! I think what really got me into this book was that it just comes down to relationships set across the backdrop of man not only colonizing but dealing with the realities of space. At first it starts to center on Yuri, a man who cleans up space debris left by man after it inadvertantly causes a disaster on a space shuttle flight that takes the life of his wife. But then it progresses into being Hachimaki's story of finding love and his purpose in life of helping his father make the first manned exploration of Jupiter. It's like if Arthur C. Clark wrote a comic. It's realistic, and even a couple of hundred years into the future we're only just barely getting into our solar system. It's not Science Fiction - but Science Future with a wonderful love story told in small individual stories. I just wish it had more than four volumes to expand upon it's great story.
Jamie S. Rich's Love the Way You Love & 12 Reasons Why I Love Her
Ok, I think you can probably tell I'm a hopeless romantic who can't get enough of a good love story by now. And this is just that - a good love story. It's about a guy in a band who meets a gal and falls in love. She falls for him as well - but the twist is is that she's engaged to an agent who could possibly make his band the big act it's meant to be. It's a fun, cute and sometimes very intense little series.
And 12 Reasons Why I Love Her is a story told in 12 parts mixed chronologically. I think what I really liked is that it's the story of a relationship as it goes through a lot of the real life situations of real life romance. You don't see a lot of realism told in romantic stories like this, so that was refreshing. It's all about the little things in a relationships - a joke is the focus of one story. A first chance encounter at the movies. How to make those first steps. When the first storm hits. Your dreams. Your secrets. And each chapter has it's own song to accompany it that Jamie picked out. It's a really cool way to accent a book and I love that.
9/11 Emergency Relief
I don't think any of the artistic communties banded together like the comics industry did right after 9/11. Marvel, DC and Image/Dark Horse put out their own antholgies of artists and writers expressing their loss after the terrorist attacks that day. But I don't think any of them had as much impact to me as the independent press released one did. All proceeds were donated to the American Red Cross - but I think that the double edged sword of being a storyteller really shows through with this book. We tend to chronicle what went on during our lives. And while we see our own hardships as tough trials of life, when something like September 11th comes along it's almost too much to put down on paper. But the entire industry sat down, and took it upon themselves to chronicle the events and impacts of that day on the everyday person. Having been to the top of the South tower myself when I was younger, those stories really resonante with me. One day I'll tell that story in my own book, but I think a lot of people didn't think that the rest of the country felt the shock that the east coast did. If anyone ever tells you this, you can reccomend them this book. "Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
So that's it. I have read TONS of graphic novels and it was tough to be picky and choosy. Like I didn't toss in The Goon or Love Hina. Or even Oh My Goddess! Or guilty pleasures like The Savage Dragon or Conan The Barbarian. Some manga perrenials I left out like Ghost in The Shell or Dragon Ball. I just kind of went off of what really really stuck out in my mind and what I could read over and over again. I think I wrote this as a break from drawing so I could remember why I really love comics. I feel pumped now.... back to the drawing board!