Book picks similar to
The Arrival by Shaun Tan


graphic-novels
graphic-novel
favorites
comics

Hawkeye, Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon


Matt Fraction - 2013
    You won't believe what is on The Tape! What is the Vagabond Code? Matt Fraction pens a Hawkeye thriller that spans the globe...and the darkest parts of Hawkeye's mind. Barton and Bishop mean double the Hawkeye and double the trouble...and stealing from the rich never looked so good.Collecting: Hawkeye 1-5, Young Avengers Presents 6

The Unsinkable Walker Bean


Aaron Renier - 2010
    It just worked out that way.Mild, meek, and a little geeky, Walker is always happiest in his grandfather's workshop, messing around with his inventions. But when his beloved grandfather is struck by an ancient curse, it falls on Walker to return an accursed pearl skull to the witches who created it—and his path will be strewn with pirates, magical machines, ancient lore, and deadly peril.Author/illustrator Aaron Renier brings everything he has to this swashbuckling adventure story. Drawing from sources as disparate as Tintin, Treasure Island, and Harry Potter, Renier has woven together a breathless tale that will leave readers' ears ringing from the cannon-shot and their eyes dazzled from the glowing stares of sea-witches.

The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 1: Tintin in America / Cigars of the Pharaoh / The Blue Lotus


Hergé - 1990
    These full-color graphic novels broke new ground when they were first released and became the inspiration for countless modern-day comic artists.This repackaged hardcover volume contains 3 classic Tintin stories, including: Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and The Blue Lotus.

Target Practice


Mike Maihack - 2014
    She enrolls in Yasiro Academy, a high-tech school with classes like algebra, biology, and alien languages (which Cleo could do without), and combat training (which is more Cleo's style). With help from her teacher Khensu, Cleo learns what it takes to be a great leader, all while trying to figure out how she's going to get her homework done, make friends, and avoid detention!

In Real Life


Cory Doctorow - 2014
    It's a place where she can be a leader, a fighter, a hero. It's a place where she can meet people from all over the world, and make friends. But things become a lot more complicated when Anda befriends a gold farmer--a poor Chinese kid whose avatar in the game illegally collects valuable objects and then sells them to players from developed countries with money to burn. This behavior is strictly against the rules in Coarsegold, but Anda soon comes to realize that questions of right and wrong are a lot less straightforward when a real person's real livelihood is at stake. From acclaimed teen author (Little Brother, For the Win) and Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow and Koko Be Good creator Jen Wang, In Real Life is a perceptive and high-stakes look at adolescence, gaming, poverty, and culture clash.

Mooncop


Tom Gauld - 2016
    Whatever were we thinking...? It seems so silly now."The lunar colony is slowly winding down, like a small town circumvented by a new super highway. As our hero, the Mooncop, makes his daily rounds, his beat grows ever smaller, the population dwindles. A young girl runs away, a dog breaks off his leash, an automaton wanders off from the Museum of the Moon.

Adulthood Is a Myth


Sarah Andersen - 2016
    Please go away.This book is for the rest of us. These comics document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas, and wondering when, exactly, this adulthood thing begins. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life.

Jellaby


Kean Soo - 2008
    Adjusting to life without a father is hard enough, but school is boring and her classmates are standoffish -- and even Portia's mom is strangely distant. But things start looking up when Portia mounts a late-night excursion into the woods behind her house and discovers a shy, sweet-natured purple monster. Life with Jellaby is a lot more exciting, but Portia's purple friend has secrets of his own; secrets that may even lead to the mystery of Portia's father's disappearance!

Wonderland


Tommy Kovac - 2008
    Now, the amazingly talented folks at SLG Publishing, through a licensing deal with Disney, have finally answered this age-old question. In their beautifully executed comic book series, WONDERLAND, readers experience Alice's fantastic world as they've never seen it before. Writer Tommy Kovac's Wonderland is missing Alice herself, but it's still populated by the other characters that make the world such a curiously exciting place. The Queen of Hearts is present, barking orders to lop off people's heads, as is the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and the rest of Wonderland's beloved cast. And there are some new faces, too, including the book's main protagonist, the mysterious Maryann herself. All are beautifully illustrated by Wonderland's artist, Sonny Liew.The graphic novel will collect the six issues that comprised the Wonderland comic series in a beautiful, collectible, jacketed hardcover edition.

Giants Beware!


Jorge Aguirre - 2012
    But her village is so safe and quiet! What’s a future giant slayer to do?With her best friend Marie (an aspiring princess), and her brother Gaston (a pastry-chef-to-be), Claudette embarks on a super-secret quest to find a giant—without parental permission. Can they find and defeat the giant before their parents find them and drag them back home? Giants Beware! offers up a wondrous, self-contained world in the tradition of the very best of Pixar. Claudette and her friends will have you laughing out loud from page one.  Giants Beware! Author Q&A What was your inspiration for the book?Rafael:  I’m not entirely sure.  I recently went through some old sketchbooks of mine and realized that I’d been drawing a character that looked kind of like our main character, Claudette, years before we even began the book.  I guess I’ve had this character of this girl with a lot of spunk in my subconscious for a while.  I’m also really into French comics and that influenced the look quite bit. Which character do you identify with and why?Rafael:  I’m not impulsive like Claudette.  I’m probably most like Gaston.  He thinks before taking the leap.  He worries a lot.  That’s probably more like me.Jorge:  I wish I could say I was like Marie.  Marie doesn’t care what other people think of her.  In this book, she aspires to be a princess and other kids make fun of her, but she doesn’t pay them any attention.  She’s very confident and smart.   I wish I were more like her.  I also wish I were like Claudette.  She’s brave, reckless, and impulsive.  But I’m not like her either.  Like Rafael, I’m probably most like Gaston.  I’m a little nervous and I love sweets.How did your partnership begin?Jorge:  We’ve known each other since we were both in film school at the Ohio State University in Columbus. I was in a writing class at OSU, and of all the bad scripts in class, mine was one of the least bad scripts, and so it was chosen to be produced with Rafael as the director.  We spent a good month or so filming a very bad film together.  That is how we became friends. Rafael:  Fast forward years later to Columbus, Ohio circa 2007.  We were at John Novak’s house (our colorist and a mutual friend).  I told Jorge about these characters I had bouncing around in my head and a story about a giant.  I went off and wrote and drew up the ideas I had so far.  I gave them to Jorge, and told him to run with it.  And he ran.  How did you draw the book?  How did you write the book?Rafael:  I drew the whole thing in Photoshop, on a Wacon Cintiq (a tablet-monitor). I like drawing digitally because it gives me a lot of flexibly down the line for edits and moving things around. John Novak and Matthew Schenk colored the book.  We used a DropBox to move files around between John Novak and Matthew Schenk (color), Jorge, and me.  Jorge and I would meet every once in awhile either in person in Columbus or via video chatting to go over pages and notes. Jorge:  I used Scrivener to collect all my notes, and Final Draft to write the script.  I lettered the book in Illustrator, which gave me the chance to do one last rewrite.  I’m always rewriting, and I always tried not to send any script pages to Rafael until they were fully baked or else he’d start drawing right away.What’s up with Claudette’s dad?Do you mean like why is he missing his legs and an arm?  Well, he fought a battle against a terrible dragon and lost.  You always hear about these great warriors who slay dragons.  Well, Augustine is a great warrior who had a very bad day.  And now his favorite sword is sitting in the belly of Azra the dragon.  But that’s a story for another day.

The Sculptor


Scott McCloud - 2015
    Thanks to a deal with Death, the young sculptor gets his childhood wish: to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands. But now that he only has 200 days to live, deciding  what  to create is harder than he thought, and discovering the love of his life at the 11th hour isn't making it any easier! This is a story of desire taken to the edge of reason and beyond; of the frantic, clumsy dance steps of young love; and a gorgeous, street-level portrait of the world's greatest city. It's about the small, warm, human moments of everyday life…and the great surging forces that lie just under the surface. Scott McCloud wrote the book on how comics work; now he vaults into great fiction with a breathtaking, funny, and unforgettable new work.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel


Ransom Riggs - 2011
    As Jacob grew up, though, he decided that these photos were obvious fakes, simple forgeries designed to stir his youthful imagination. Or were they...?Following his grandfather's death - a scene Jacob literally couldn't believe with his own eyes - the sixteen-year-old boy embarks on a mission to disentangle fact from fiction in his grandfather's tall tales. But even his grandfather's elaborate yarns couldn't prepare Jacob for the eccentricities he will discover at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children!

The Professor's Daughter


Joann Sfar - 1997
    they love each other.19th-century London. She is the lovely daughter of renowned Egyptologist Porfessor Bowell, he the dashing mummy Imhotep IV, owned by the professor and awake for the first time in thirty centuries. They stroll through London arm-in-arm and find their way into an abiding love, but everything seems to be getting in the way of it. Murder, adventure, mystery kidnapping, Queen Victoria tossed into the Thames—what more could you ask for? And yes, love conquers all in this rare gem from two of the most inspired graphic creators of our time.

Fake Blood


Whitney Gardner - 2018
    He hasn’t grown or had any exciting summer adventures like his best friends have. He even has the same crush he’s harbored for years. So AJ decides to take matters into his own hands. But how could a girl like Nia Winters ever like plain vanilla AJ when she only has eyes for vampires?When AJ and Nia are paired up for a group project on Transylvania, it may be AJ’s chance to win over Nia’s affection by dressing up like the vamp of her dreams. And soon enough he’s got more of Nia’s attention than he bargained for when he learns she’s a slayer.Now AJ has to worry about self-preservation while also trying to save everyone he cares about from a real-life threat lurking in the shadows of Spoons Middle School.

Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself


Jeremy Whitley - 2012
    Join Adrienne, her guardian dragon, Sparky, and their plucky friend Bedelia as they begin their own quest in this one of a kind, action packed, all-ages adventure!Graphic Novel. Collects issues 1-4 of Princeless.