The Top 10 Graphic Novels of All Time. Good to Get that Settled

Preacher is still one of my faves. Y: The Last Man should have made the Top 10 cut, and maybe Ex Machina as well since we’re bringing up Brian K. Vaughan. V for Vendetta, even if that gives Moore two spots. Maybe The Walking Dead also…

tl;dr

And by “tl” I mean: TEN pages? For a Top Ten list?

Craaap like this is why I never clicked through to the 100 best novels list.

I have to throw in a vote for Preacher as well. Also, I don’t know if it qualifies as a graphic novel, but the “Planet Hulk” storyline by Greg Pak was just amazing. Probably the best treatment the character has ever received.

I know this will be a black mark on my (very limited) Nerd World record, but calling comic books graphic novels amuses me to no end. I can’t help but hear a 13-year-old arguing, “They’re not comic books, they’re graphic novels! They’re way longer than comic books!”
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The comment, “The headline — “Not Just for Kids” — should be helpful to the like 6 people left on Earth who still think graphic novels are for kids.”, is a classic example of, “How could anyone not be at least slightly aware of the basics of something I’m an avid fan of?” It’s like me being astonished that someone could possibly not know the basics of World of Warcraft. I’ve been under the impression that most people aren’t aware that there’s a large market of comic books made for adults. (My imaginary conversation with a stereotypical person-over-30 35 40: “Why is there all this sex and violence in a comic book?” “It’s a comic book for adults… they call them graphic novels.” “Why don’t they read real novels?” “Most of them do.” “Then why are they reading novels with pictures?” “Because they can. /shrug”)

Lev, how do you separate “graphic novels” from plain old comic books? You’re using the term pretty loosely – a lot of the books you mention were regular floppy comics that were eventually collected into trade paperbacks or larger omnibus editions.

@jeffk, almost all graphic novels were originally offered as serialized comic books before being collected. If you have a problem with the distinction, I suggest you take it up with Charles Dickens.

@Church

Would you say every Green Lantern or X-Men or Buffy trade is a graphic novel? Does an entire series “become” a graphic novel when it concludes and is collected in its entirety? I’m just asking Lev about his criteria.

There are plenty of creators (Dash Shaw, Craig Thompson, Anders Nilsen, etc.) who are doing long-form comics that are graphic novels in the most literal sense, and serialized works like Black Hole certainly seem to fit the description too. But the Lynda Barry book, the Achewood collection, Y: The Last Man, and Sandman? I’m not so sure.

jeffk has an interesting point. I tend to think that ones like Sandman, Preacher or Y:Last Man are graphic novels because they tell a story with a beginning, middle and end even if they were originally monthly comics. So you can read the whole story in a volume or collected set.
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But if you read the X-Men’s Dark Phoenix trade paper-back, does that count as ‘graphic novel’? I tend to want to lump that into a ‘classic storyline’ rather than ‘graphic novel’ category just because the X-Men are still going on. But then I always think of Dark Knight Returns as graphic novel rather than just a ‘classic story’ even though Batman is an on-going comic. And where should The Killing Joke be classified? Arrgghhh! The perils of fanboy classification!

Yeah, it’s a pretty non-rigorous distinction that I approached pragmatically, meaning however I felt like it. Some of these were specifically written as extended, one-volume novel-like comix (ie like Tintin or Maus or Fun Home). Then others weren’t. Basically if a publisher ever chooses to collect a particular arc of a comic into a single volume, it magically becomes a graphic novel. HOw’s that for arbitrary.

@Church: You should look at the 100 best novels list. It’s easy to differentiate between Lev’s picks and the other guy’s. Lev picked relatively well-known yet non-mainstream yet influential books. The other guy picked the stuff you had to read in HS. But yeah there’s a bajillion windows you have to go through (well 100).

How about something from FABLES..? Hard to pick just one issue but I think its the best current title out there. Also, Justice League: The New Frontier. Next to Miller and Moore, probably my favorite Super-Hero comic of all time.

The “something by Will Eisner” should have been Dropsie Avenue, maybe, or Last day in Vietnam.

I just picked up Y: The Last Man, so I’m glad to see it in the discussion.
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I want to read Miracleman so badly. I suck at finding things that are hard to find.
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Re: Graphic Novel vs Comic, I was disappointed not to see a better definition here, because I keep having to answer that question and I can’t come up with anything better than “It’s more serious, longer, and has original characters.” Dark Knight Returns wouldn’t meet that definition.

I’d have to put Preacher on there as well. And Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. And something from Bendis, but it would be hare to choose, since he does, like, everything.

Top (#) lists are fascinating to me. They have taken on this facade of the Aristotelian expert-list, something that magically summarizes the unconscious minds of millions of readers/viewers/listeners/etc. Yet as Lev’s post shows, they’re really made by a bunch of guys (euphemistically speaking) making the same kind of decisions we would if asked for our own top (#) lists. And, in the end, no matter how much we say we like these because they introduce us to work we don’t know, isn’t this really all an exercise in confirmation bias?

I happen to love top 10 lists because 1) the debates that follow and 2) it’s a good way to steer people towards some great stuff.

In terms of what makes a graphic novel, I think you have to make the definition simply a book length comic book story that is self contained (has a beginning, middle, and end). Whether the characters had stories before or after is besides the point. So The Dark Phoenix Saga is a graphic novel, but a collection of classic Jack Cole Plastic Man stories is not.

To the guy that picked Dropsie Avenue and Last Day in Vietnam as the Eisner examples; it’s nice to finally have someone completely agree with me.

In terms of Moore, I think if Miracleman could be more widely read it would be as praised, if not more, than Watchmen. I don’t think I took a breath through the whole third volume. I don’t know why From Hell isn’t mentioned as much as a top Moore GN, though, as I think it might be his best work.