{"id":2036,"date":"2012-07-10T15:53:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T19:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/?p=2036"},"modified":"2012-07-10T15:53:58","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T19:53:58","slug":"top-ten-graphic-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/10\/top-ten-graphic-novels\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten Graphic Novels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinking about what to write about today, I found myself looking at comics. Or graphic novels, if you prefer. A while back (OK, in 2009), Time magazine published a list of what their editors consider to \u00a0be the top ten graphic novels<\/a> like, ever. At the time I responded to it on an internet forum I hang out on, and I think my assessment is still accurate. Plus I like lists.\u00a0I’m cranking up the internet time machine… can you hear the thunder of its mighty gears engaging? Here we go…<\/p>\n

… OK, I keep thinking about the all-time best graphic novels list<\/a> and how except for a couple of picks how wrong, wrong, wrong it is.<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Berlin: City of Stones (2000), by Jason Lutes<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Blankets (2003), by Craig Thompson<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Bone (2004), by Jeff Smith<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2002), by Kim Deitch<\/em><\/li>\n
  5. The Dark Knight Returns (1986), by Frank Miller<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. David Boring (2000), by Daniel Clowes<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. Ed the Happy Clown (1989), by Chester Brown<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), by Chris Ware<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (2003), by Gilbert Hernandez<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    A “greatest” graphic novel should have top-notch art and a top-notch story that really stands out from other works. The list should<\/em> have been (allowing only one title per author, in no particular order)\u00a0:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale<\/a>\u00a0by Art Spiegelman (1986)
      \nIt should be a no-brainer to have this on any graphic novel list.<\/li>\n
    2. Like A Velvet Glove cast In Iron<\/a>\u00a0by Dan Clowes (1998)
      \nDavid Boring? Really? How pedestrian, at least pick Ghost World if you’re being uninspired.<\/li>\n
    3. Arkham Asylum<\/a>\u00a0by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean (1990)
      \nThese guys DOMINATE the latter 20th century graphic novel landscape, for good reason.<\/li>\n
    4. Black Hole<\/a>\u00a0by Charles Burns
      \nCollected edition of volumes originally released 1999-2008) (A genius artist & great writer by any standard whose strong influence has been felt since the 80’s.<\/li>\n
    5. The Nikopol Trilogy<\/a>\u00a0Enki Bilal (1980-92)
      \nIt’s not just Americans making comics, duh, and Bilal is GENIUS.<\/li>\n
    6. The Hard Goodbye (Sin City Book 1)<\/a>\u00a0Frank Miller (1991)
      \nFar superior in plot and art to Dark Knight.<\/li>\n
    7. Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in Tibet<\/a>\u00a0Herg\u00e9 (1958)
      \nAgain, show some love to the non-American masters, graphic novels didn’t begin in the 1980’s.<\/li>\n
    8. Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia<\/a>\u00a0Joe Sacco (2000)
      \nYou like plot, little boy? Comics journalism at its finest.<\/li>\n
    9. Perla La Loca (Love & Rockets)<\/a>\u00a0los Bros. Hernandez
      \nRerelease of volumes originally published roughly 1985-1989) (they picked Palomar? come ON.<\/li>\n
    10. Hellboy Library edition vol.1<\/a>\u00a0Mike Mignola
      \nRerelease of volumes originally published roughly 1994-1998) (Colour! Line & shadow! Plot! …this guy out-Kirbys Kirby.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I like Lutes, Thompson, Smith, Dietch, and Brown – but best of all time? Hardly. And Watchmen, while a great story (though it shouldn’t have been on the best fiction list either), had pretty uninspired art. There, I said it.<\/p>\n

      I guess you could exclude Bilal & Herg\u00e9 as they weren’t originally published in English …\u00a0In which case I’d include\u00a0Black Kiss<\/a>\u00a0Howard Chaykin (1988) (Seriously underrated artist who can also write a hell of a noir vampire transexxual hooker corrupt police detective story) … and \/ or\u00a0Tank Girl<\/a>\u00a0Martin & Hewlett (1991 rerelase of early material) (C’mon, Tank Girl. Seriously influenced pop culture and graphics for years, forget the stupid movie version) …\u00a0or maybe\u00a0Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits<\/a>\u00a0Garth Ennis (1994) (This is where the series really started to blossom IMO & Garth Ennis made his reputation outside the UK. Again, forget the stupid movie version).<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Thinking about what to write about today, I found myself looking at comics. Or graphic novels, if you prefer. A while back (OK, in 2009), Time magazine published a list of what their editors consider to \u00a0be the top ten…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[376],"tags":[380,384,378,381,383,385,386,393,382,377,387,391,388,389,392,390,379],"class_list":["post-2036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-novels-comics","tag-art-spiegelman","tag-charles-burns","tag-comics","tag-dan-clowes","tag-dave-mckean","tag-enki-bilal","tag-frank-miller","tag-garth-ennis","tag-grant-morrison","tag-graphic-novels","tag-herge","tag-howard-chaykin","tag-joe-sacco","tag-los-bros-hernandez","tag-martin-hewlett","tag-mike-mignola","tag-top-ten"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2JDlZ-wQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}