Do you think you’ve outgrown comic books? Then you haven’t explored today’s Graphic Novels. Mature themes, a wide variety of subject matter, and barely a superhero to be found. There’s a Graphic Novel for every type of reader.
The Memoir Reader: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. This cult favorite comic artist offers a darkly funny family portrait that details her relationship with her father–a funeral home director, high school English teacher, and closeted homosexual.
The Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fan: Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to raise their child in a dangerous world.
The Foodie: Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley. This recipe-complemented memoir describes the author’s food-enriched youth as the daughter of a chef and a gourmet, key memories that were marked by special meals and the ways in which cooking has imparted valuable life lessons.
The Humor Reader: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. Blogger Allie Brosh showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.
The “I’d Rather Watch TV” Guy: The Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman. Unless you ARE a member of the walking dead, you probably already know the premise. 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 industry, and very few survivors. In a world ruled by the dead, the survivors are forced to find ways to start over in this terrifying new world.
The Sequel-ist: Fight Club 2: The Tranquility Gambit by Chuck Palahniuk. Ten years after starting Project Mayhem, Sebastian lives a mundane life, but it won’t last long, the wife has seen to that, soon he’s back where he started, but this go-round he’s got more at stake than his own life.
The Film Noir Buff: The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. An epic graphic novel of Hollywood in the early days of the Blacklist, The Fade Out tracks the murder of an up-and-coming starlet from studio backlots to the gutters of downtown LosAngeles, as shell-shocked front man Charlie Parish is caught between his own dying sense of morality and his best friend’s righteous sense of justice.
The Big Book Reader: Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka. It may or may not be contagious. There seems to be no cure for it. Yet, Monmow Disease, a life-threatening condition that transforms a person into a dog-like beast, is not the only villain in this shocking triumph of a medical thriller by manga-god Osamu Tezuka.
The “Stranger Things” Fan: Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan. Supernatural mysteries and suburban drama collide in the early hours after the Halloween of 1988 for four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls.
The Samurai Warrior: Vagabond series by Takehiko Inoue. Adventure abounds in this fictionalized account of the life of Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, based on Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel Musashi.