Hey, Wait...


Jason - 2000
    This superbly evocative graphic novella by the award-winning Norwegian cartoonist Jason (his first appearance in the English language) starts off as a melancholy childhood memoir and then, with a shocking twist midway through, becomes the summary of lives lived, wasted, and lost. Like Art Spiegelman did with Maus, Jason utilizes anthropomorphic stylizations to reach deeper, more general truths, and to create elegantly minimalist panels whose emotional depth-charge comes as an even greater shock. His sparse dialogue, dark wit, and supremely bold use of "jump-cuts" from one scene to the next (sometimes spanning a number of years) make Hey, Wait... one of the most surprising and engaging debuts of the year.

The Reprieve


Jean-Pierre Gibrat - 2008
    Dead to the world, he takes advantage of the situation and hides in the small village of Cambeyrac, using his secret observation post overlooking the village square to watch the permanent theater that people offer in the course of the day. Loves, hatreds, jealousies, cowardice, acts of heroism... nothing escapes the observer's eye, especially not the beautiful waitress Cecile. Until the moment comes when, spectator no more, he must become an actor himself and meet his destiny. This hidden life he had hoped to live was just a reprieve. The book also includes a portfolio of pin-ups and sketches featuring its heroine.

Department of Mind-Blowing Theories


Tom Gauld - 2020
    Which is especially useful when he's being funny about science' Neil GaimanA dog philosopher questions what it really means to be a 'good boy'. A virtual assistant and a robot-cleaner elope. The undiscovered species and the theoretical particle face existential despair.Just as he did with writers, poets and literary classics in Baking with Kafka, Gauld now does with hapless scientists, nanobots, and puzzling theorems - with comic strips funny enough to engage science boffins and novices alike.

Rebetiko


David Prudhomme - 2009
    General Metaxas is cracking down on rebetis and their way of life. A small group of friends - Rebetiko musicians - wind their way through the Athenian backstreets, ouzeris and market squares dodging the police while settling disputes over hashish and women. With music at its heart, the narrative builds to a joyous party at its climax in this multi-award-winning graphic novel.

Boxers & Saints


Gene Luen Yang - 2013
    The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.Boxers & Saints is one of the most ambitious graphic novels First Second has ever published. It offers a penetrating insight into not only one of the most controversial episodes of modern Chinese history, but into the very core of our human nature. Gene Luen Yang is rightly called a master of the comics form, and this book will cement that reputation. This boxed set includes the trade paperback Boxers as well as the trade paperback Saints, packaged together in one slipcase.

Asterios Polyp


David Mazzucchelli - 2009
    An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait. Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about? As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.

Saint Cole


Noah Van Sciver - 2015
    Saint Cole depicts four days in the life of a twenty-eight-year-old suburbanite named Joe, who works at a pizzeria to support his girlfriend Nicole and their infant child and then Nicole invites her troubled mother to move into their two-bedroom apartment until she lands on her feet again. Joe reacts by retreating into alcohol: he wants out, and he's angry. He s in a position to act rashly and he does.

Berlin, Vol. 1: City of Stones


Jason Lutes - 2000
    Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical events unfolding around them. City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow.

A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return


Zeina Abirached - 2007
    The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safe--home.

Book Love


Debbie Tung - 2019
    And paperbacks! And ebooks! And bookstores! And libraries! Book Love is a gift book of comics tailor-made for tea-sipping, spine-sniffing, book-hoarding bibliophiles. Debbie Tung’s comics are humorous and instantly recognizable—making readers laugh while precisely conveying the thoughts and habits of book nerds. Book Love is the ideal gift to let a book lover know they’re understood and appreciated.

Dockwood


Jon McNaught - 2012
    The work is certainly poetic but not precious or twee. And the drawings are beautiful. Masterful stuff for someone so young."—Seth, author of Wimbledon Green and George Sprott: 1894�1975 in TimeDockwood is a small town in the Southeast of England, seven miles east of Brampton Moor. It has a population of 26,000 and is home to a bowling alley, a boating lake, and Willowbrook Outlet Village.It's a cloudy Tuesday in October and the residents of the town are going about their business as usual. In Elmsview Nursing Home, a kitchen porter dutifully prepares lunch for residents. Elsewhere, a council worker sweeps the fallen leaves from the pavements. Along Nettlefield Road, a paperboy is delivering his daily round. And in the trees, swallows gather noisily in preparation for their annual migration.In this new work, Jon McNaught weaves together the everyday lives of three locals against an evocative backdrop of autumnal transitions. Bittersweet and contemplative, Dockwood is for anyone who believes the stories that take place within life's small moments can often be the most meaningful of all.Jon McNaught is a printmaker and cartoonist living in Bristol, England. He also works as a printmaking instructor at the University of the West of England. He has produced comic strips for Nobrow, Art Review, and Stripburger, among others. His first book Birchfield Close was published in 2010 by Nobrow Press, as was his second, Pebble Island.

Days Gone Bye


Robert KirkmanRus Wooton - 2004
    The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled: no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, the survivors are forced to finally start living.

Black Science, Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever


Rick Remender - 2014
    But now Grant and his team are trapped in the folds of infinity, the Pillar sending them careening through a million universes of unimaginable adventure, sanity-flaying danger and no way home...Presenting the first mind-warping chapter of the critically acclaimed sci-fi epic by superstar creative team of writer RICK REMENDER (Uncanny Avengers, Captain America) and artist MATTEO SCALERA (Secret Avengers).Collects BLACK SCIENCE #1-6.

When David Lost His Voice


Judith Vanistendael - 2012
    Now the whole family is under the same terrible verdict. David’s wife becomes progressively consumed by the looming shadow of death while his daughters struggle to be as helpful as possible. Meanwhile, David soldiers on, not wanting the tumor to rob him of everything, including the chance to see his granddaughter grow up. Vanistendael’s extraordinary art and sensitive text provide a powerful portrayal of a family preparing for life after unimaginable loss. Praise for When David Lost His Voice: “Neither sentimental nor cynical, this narrative holds the most delicate aspects of family life gently and openly for readers to immerse themselves.” —Booklist “Vanistendael’s illustrations are gorgeous, dynamic, and deeply emotive, with a hint of sentimentality.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The sensitive and compelling writing is enhanced by Vanistendael’s color art, which is simple, impressionistic, and beautifully designed.” —Library Journal "A poignant cancer drama" - The A.V. Club “Vanistendael’s fine art is dazzling, breathtaking, and a visual tour de force, one of the best things I’ve seen in a graphic novel.” —The Miami Herald “Vanistendael achieves that rare triumph of capturing in the end of a life the wonder of every day that led up to it.” —Salon.com

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.