Comic Book Resources

Bone.

From Hell
The Invisibles

I guess Maus, maybe some Will Eisner GN's like Contract with God. I would include Alan Moores From Hell. Oh, and Barry Ween, every good list needs Barry Ween

1. grendel - devils and deaths. a stunning tale of war, life, and love. enthralling, painful, passionate.

2. four women - a dark psychological tale about rape by sam kieth, the only male writer who i truly trust to write stories about women. dig it.

3. grendel - the devil may care. another stunningly beautiful and painful love story pitting the future against honor. brutal.

4. 100% - sexy sci-fi love stories in a future not too far from our own by paul pope. did i say it was sexy?

5. rogan gosh - peter milligan and brendan mccarthy. headtrip mobius strip story full of literary references and dizzying turns of logic. giddy and beautiful. completely surreal.

6. ultra gash inferno - by suehiro maruo. never has there been a more refined argument for disgusting, vile, violent pornography as high art. intense and disturbing, yet highly refined.

7. the frank book - by jim woodring. enter the mind of a 5 year old's strangest dreams. beautiful, poignant, horrifying, mystifying, and packs an ending that still chokes me up when i think too much about it. and almost completely wordless.

Well, Watchmen. But you knew that. Maus. One volume of Usagi Yojimbo, not sure which. Maybe A Contract With God. As mentioned above, Bone. Round it out with a couple more of these character-driven indies. American Born Chinese? Love and Rockets?

And, if we're trying to represent comics as they are, I think it might be worthwhile to break these rules and add in another, more typical but high quality superhero book. They are the vast majority of the corpus. I'm at a loss right now as to what to suggest for that . 52 comes to mind, but too many volumes. Maybe something to set the scene for Watchmen, show the kind of thing it was reacting to?

Are we just talking American comics here?

I would go with Sandman vol 8 Worlds end. It has diffrent type of stories in diffrent styles that not only can be looked at or studied but makes a fine read. and yes Wildcat dose guess star but I wouldn't call it a superhero book.

Does Sandman count? There are some superheroes involved, but it's mostly not a superhero book.

Camelot 3000 & Watchmen & Stardust & the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen V1 & V2 are the other non-superhero GNs I own and love, so I'd have to say them.

I'm actually taking a course like that right now. I don't necessarily agree with all the choices (I think we could use some Will Eisner, frankly), but this is what my professor assigned:

-Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
I don't know what the general perception of this book is online, but it actually serves as a great intro to the course--especially if you expect to have students who aren't regular comics readers.

-Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, edited by Ivan Brunetti
This was well received also. I think any sort of anthology of short works would be good, just to give students an idea of the breadth that's out there.

-American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang

-Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

-Kafka, by Robert Crumb and David Mairowitz

-City of Glass, by Paul Aster, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchellil

-Persepolis vol. 1, by Marjane Satrapi
This is great too, since the movie just came out.

-Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware
A lot of the people in my class hated the hell out of this, but it did foster interesting discussion.

-Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Kim Deitch

-Maus vol. 1, by Art Spiegelman

-American Splendor, by Harvey Pekar

-Buddha vol. 1, by Osamu Tezuka

I'd definitely put some Sandman in there, not only for its obvious qualities, but because a lot of the stories lend themselves to good discussions/questions about the nature of story telling, perception, constructed realities, etc.

In a similar vein, Fables would make for good discussions of intertextuality. If it's a comics-as-lit course, this would be a good way to tie comics to other literary works, maybe compare and contrast depictions of some of the characters over the last few centuries.

Then you could work in a little comics vs. film in the form of From Hell or History of Violence. Compare the story telling requirements of the different media.

I'd probably pick something like Nightly News or DMZ. One of those books that just screams "contemporary" and "relevant" and all. That kind of stuff always looks good on the old syllabus and again makes for good discussion and essay prompts.

Oh, and you'd need to present at least excerpts from Understanding Comics, or one of McCloud's other non-fictions. That would fit in nicely as the first week's reading.

Those are just some thoughts from the perspective of what you could structure a class around, not necessarily the "best" books out there.

Scott Pilgrim

Sandman

Watchmen

Fables, vol 1

Maus

Sin City - The Long Goodbye

Tezuka Osamu's Adolf

Everyone else's suggestions seem pretty darn awesome, but I think at least one of the better/non-racist Tin-Tin albums for solid storytelling/artwork, plus the complete Calvin & Hobbes to look at the pluses and minuses of the newspaper strip format and some rather innovative Sunday page layouts.

No Superheroes? Oh boy, Superheroes are the direct lineage of the old dime novels, which are important to American History, how can you not have Superheroes?

That aside, Global Frequency and Crecy maybe. Crecy is Maus that doesn't think it's a comic strip. And every high schooler now reads Maus. The original Books of magic maybe, its standalone, and that is important, and Global Frequency isn't arty and pretentious, its the opposite, it's the most marketable story to non-comic book fans.

Neat idea, every non-superhero batman story assigned to different people. Being able to discuss the commonalities of a mythology with out exposing one the core elements of it.

We3
A good Pogo collection
The One

and yes to the Extraordinary Gentlemen (esp volume II), Watchmen, Maus and Sandman if it counts.

Would Morrison's Doom Patrol be called super-hero? And of course Flex Mentallo, if only it was collected.

Comics have seen many fantastic autobiographies & near-autobiographies. A course along the lines of 'Self-image in Contemporary Graphic Storytelling, ENG/HUM 2350' could have a phenomenal list of texts, many of which have a lot of relatively current buzz. From the looks of Chris S's list, his professor will use theme for a unit.

Will Eisner's The Dreamer

Maus

Fun Home

American Splendor

American Born Chinese

Persepolis

Blankets

Mom's Cancer

Hate (right? That's a comic book question that could use answering. I've always assumed these stories were somewhat based on Peter Bagge's life.)

1-Box Office Poison

2-Strangers in Paradise

3-Watchmen

4-Would Chaykin's "American Flagg!" work?

5-Maus

6-V for Vendetta

- Lone Wolf And Cub (does it count as one if I tape all of them together?)

- Watchmen

- Sandman (does it count as one if I tape all of them together?)

- Akira (does it count as one if I tape all of them together?)

- Y The Last Man (does it count as one if I tape all of them together?)

- Mouse Guard

- Fell (Is this out in TPB?)

- DMZ (all the TPB so far)

-

1. Understanding Comics - You have to start out as if nobody knows what the hell these things are or why they're important.

2. Maus - Now you can show them why they're important. How a comic can do things a movie or a book can't.

3. Watchmen - Superheroes will come up, whether you want them to or not. Deal with them while showing them how deep the rabbit hole can go, how dark and real things can get . . . even with spandex.

3. Sandman, preferably Vol. 7 or Vol. 4 - Show them how comics can play tricks. How far they can go. What roles a letterer, the artist and the writer can play with a good sense of direction. Break it all apart to show how very complex a comic book can be.

4. City of Glass - Compare and contrast the Graphic Novel to a regular novel. Show how one can show up the other and even vice versa. Get them engaged.

5. Sin City - The Hard Goodbye - Discuss the comics vs. films metaphor. What does one do that the other doesn't? How does this particular GN's adaptation suggest the limitations of both media?

6. The Tale of One Bad Rat
or
Ghost World
or
Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Boy On Earth - They've got their feet wet - start demanding criticism from them. How does this book work better as a GN than any other form of media? Why is this effective? Hell, are they even effective?

7. Kabuki, Vol. 1
or
Transmetropolitan, Vol. 2
or
Bone
- Let them have a little fun, now, for God's sake. Then ask the hard, pretentious questions - is this literature? Is it art? Is it both (answer: YES)? How important is this work?

8. Yotsuba &!, Vol. 1 - Manga will come up, or at least it should. Discuss the cultural differences and appreciation of GNs between Japan and the USA. Overview the full acceptance of the GN in Japan as a medium that can contain all styles and be read by all ages. Ask your class - why not here?

In the end, I'd assign a paper asking which of the GNs was the most effective in using the unique benefits of the comic book medium itself to get it's artistic message across, and why they think it did so.

If you end up using any of these books/ideas, please let me know. I'm very curious what your final choices will be.

(I'm repeating other people, but I look at this as votes - ha.)

UNDERSTANDING COMICS
I agree with a few people here, it HAS to be on there. And yes, probably first.

MAUS.
It's a great choice too, because of what others have said. Its when mainstream took a look, so its good to show.

WATCHMEN.
Yeah.

FROM HELL.
I have a friend, who is well read in literature, that considers this the best thing he has ever read in any medium.

JIMMY CORRIGAN: THE SMARTEST BOY ON EARTH
Modern-ish classic, and he really stretches the medium. So different from the ones above.

A CONTRACT WITH GOD
Because Will Eisner should be on here somewhere, right? I'm not that well read on Eisner, but the one that is considered to be the "first" graphic novel is a good start.

BUDDHA or ADOLF
Probably the first Buddha. Tezuka was so damn legendary, and it would be the Manga I would put on this short list. (Although I'm sure there are better examples, I don't know Manga.)

At this point, I'd really like to get something from TRANSMETROPOLITAN or PREACHER or Y: THE LAST MAN or SANDMAN, but its hard for me to choose one volume of any of those. SANDMAN is probably best suited to pull just one. (USAGI YOJIMBO is awesome too, but which volume??)

But I'm thinking another non mainstream one: Right above a guy recommends Talbot's A TALE OF ONE BAD RAT. That's good. You could go with PERSEPOLIS, BOX OFFICE POISON, STUCK RUBBER BABY or damn, almost forgot Sacco's PALESTINE. Yeah, that would be good. Oh crap, what about Lutes' BERLIN?

There are so many. Can we start over? And do 15 books? Hahaha.

Good luck. I hope you post what you end up choosing.

JR

Another vote here for "American Flagg", probably the only non-superhero title to really catch my attention in the 80s. A good example of both dystopia/(proto?)cyberpunk and as modern example of "two-fisted" pulp style storytelling.

No superheroes huh? No room whatsoever for "The Maxx"? Spirit animals? Homeless man possessed by a lampshade? Serial killer/rapist hiding in somebody else's dreamworld? A "freelance social worker"?

Not Watchmen - not because it's not awesome, but because people who read it before reading superhero comics miss out on a great deal of the disassembling of the myths and expections of the genre.

Persepolis, From Hell, American Born Chinese, any volume of Sandman but the first.

1. Bone - an example of traditional cartooning telling a huge story.

2. Y the Last Man - Deals with a lot of social issues from a sci fi perspective, as the best sci fi does. Also happens to be the best comic I've read.

3. Pride of Baghdad - a great of way of using the comics medium to tell a story that wouldn't wprk elsewhere. Also, an example of a political comic that wasn't preachy.

4. Stuck Rubber Baby - truly great historical political comic fiction

5. Scott Pilgrim - the very best of post-modern indie comics

6. Fables 1001 Nights of Snowfall - example of the best contemporary comic art. Also it can tie in with a theme of comic books telling modern day myths

7. We3 - Quitley experiments with comic art in a way that no one has since Steranko.

8. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - you could deal with the adapting of other literary characters into this text. Or I guess Lost Girls, but I feel that this one is a much better work.

The Barefoot Serpent (Semi-biography of Akira Kurosawa)
Blankets
Fun Home
American Born Chinese
Watchmen
Maus I and II
Will Eisner's A Contract with God
Capote in Kansas
Bone
Pride of Baghdad
Persepolis Vol. 1
Clumsy
American Splendor
Fables
Criminal Vol. 1

I would say that you shouldn't discredit superheroes completely, though. After all, superheroes are what made the medium in the first place and, despite the fact that they are "adolescent power fantasies" (gag), some do have literary merit. If nothing else, I think you do a disservice to the medium by not exploring its roots or its groundwork. That's like saying you want to teach a class on 20th Century Lit, but you want to ignore pop fiction entirely. It may not be as lofty or have as complicated of themes, but the two go hand in hand and influence one another tremendously.

You also really can't only lean towards the obvious "literary" titles (Persepolis, Eisner, American Splendor). Titls like Bone, Criminal, and Fables are too intelligently done and are too fine of examples of the craft to not be considered literature.

I do think it is interesting that everyone seems to be leaning towards books from the last few years. I don't think that is because we aren't well-versed. It really seems that "graphic novels as literature" has really exploded as a concept in the last few years.

I would have to recommend Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar stories which just get better the more you read them and can be paralleled with Gabriel Marquez etc.

I think most everybody here has covered my answers, but here's my 2 cents' worth:

1. Watchmen- yes, if you have one superhero comic, this must be it. There's a reason TIME stuck it on their Top 100 Novels Since 1923 list alongside Hemingway and Orwell. Plus, with the movie coming next year, people will be interested in it anyway.

2. Sin City- any of them, but especially Long Goodbye. Yes, another movie tie-in, but an excellent example of storytelling through visual motif.

3. Understanding Comics- Lesson 101 of sequential storytelling. I'd read comics for nearly 20 years before I read McCloud's treatise on the subject, and he still taught me things I didn't know and made me think of the medium in a whole new way.

4. Love And Rockets- I personally like Jaime's work a bit more, but Gilbert's Palomar saga is one of the finest comics ever created. It's depth and complexity are worth an entire class by itself.

5. From Hell- trying not to load up too heavy on the Alan Moore, but a perfect example of comics adapting real life situations. Any of Rick Geary's Victorian Murder Mysteries would also be recommended.

6. Tezuka's Buddha- there are plenty of amazing manga titles to recommend, such as Yotsuba, Monster, Planetes, Akira, Nausicaa, Lone Wolf And Cub, and Beck, but you can't go wrong with anything by Tezuka. Especially when it can be used to discuss the subject of religion and comics. I can't remember where I read this, but one of the best comments I ever saw about the difference in American comics and Manga is that American comics tell you a story while Manga SHOWS you a story. The more visceral approach to art is one of those things that really sets the two countries apart.

7. Tintin or Asterix- for the best example I can think of for European comics.

8. Bone or Carl Bark's Uncle Scrooge- for comics for kids. Don Rosa's Life & Times Of Uncle Scrooge is also recommended.

9. Maus- for obvious reasons.

I haven't read too many of the "critically acclaimed" graphic novels like Blankets, Fun Home, American Born Chinese, or Exit Wounds so I can't really recommend any of those.

I also left a few others like Sandman and Fables off my list due to their lengthy serialized structure and the fact that they don't get into the better, more layered work until later in the series.

In no particular order

The obvious:
From Hell
Maus
Persepolis (would make a good comparative study with Maus)
A Contract with God

The new-fangled "manga comics":
Phoenix (best volume for class analysis would probably be Karma)
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms

The hip guys:
Blankets
Love and Rockets
Flex Mentallo (this is a much better choice than Watchmen for your token Superhero. Yes I know there's no trade, just tell them to get it off bittorrent and send Grant a check)

Other Possibilities:
American Splendor: Our Cancer Year
Any Jason book for some European flavor (also a quick read, and trust me, students appreciate that around the middle of the semester)

I say don't do Sandman, Y, Bone, Akira, Fables or any of those. I love them to death, but they're all better examples of the serialized comic format rather than "graphic novels" (even if the term has been rendered pretty much meaningless in the real world) and I don't think just giving your students a single trade would do them justice.

Just a few random choices:

Grendel: Devil by the Deed
Codeflesh (Joe Casey/Charles Adlard, mainly for the fantastic lyrical approach to the last issue)

and if we could stretch the "no superheroes" rule just a bit, I'd totally include the first volume of The Authority by Ellis and Hitch.

Everything I would have suggested has been recommended, except for Preacher. Got to have Preacher.

I agree with Joffee, as much as I love the titles mentioned the single trades will never be as strong as the full experience and it will be too much to heap the whole series upon someone. Who knows, if you inspire them about the medium maybe they'll pick up those later by themselves.
@Ye Olde Iowa: I'm glad you mentioned The Barefoot Serpent, that book does not get enough praise! As for my list, I'll give a few that can't be excluded imo and try to motivate why i believe so:

A Contract With God
It pretty much started the graphic novel, or at least defined it, even though it's actually a collection of short stories. Unavoidable in historical context or it's influence, so why not start with it?

Maus
It won a Pulitzer fer chrissakes, that was a first for comics! Historical context again, and a good example of a story that the author would probably not be able to convey as strongly in another medium. Drawing the people as cartoon animals allowed him the distance needed to do the book, as you can see at the start of the second volume in the scene behind the drawing board. Art Spiegelman with the mouse mask on is a powerful image in that regard.

Watchmen
Incredible character depth and redefined a whole genre, it's impact is undeniable. Where superheroes grew up. V for Vendetta might be a good alternative though, if you choose to completely exclude capes. I think superheroes are a big enough part of pop culture for most people to get it though.

Blankets
Great story, great art. One example; the page where the car falls of the world is another great example of the medium's possibilities. A single image without words but in it's context very strongly conveying the emotions of the author.

Persepolis
Transcends cultural barriers to not only tell a very personal story but also broaden your horizon and inform about lives largely invisible to western culture.

Pyongyang
A memoir on author Guy Delisle's time in North Korea. Another look into an even more isolated culture. So isolated that it could not be done in any other medium, at least not as visually. Done with great skill to boot!

The Barefoot Serpent
A small book that deals with the painful subject of dealing with a family member's suiside sandwiched between a short biography of Akira Kurosawa. Doesn't seem to make sense if you hear it like that but anyone that read it will know that it does. It's also done with few words but with beautiful art and comes of a as a surprisingly positive story with great depth of character.

Le Combat Ordinaire
French artist Manu Larcenet's greatest work imo, also won first prize at Angouleme (better example of European comics literature than Asterix or TinTin imo, not that those aren't good comics). I read it in the Dutch translation (my native language) but it's available in English, I just don't know how the title's been translated. About a proffesional photographer (who shares a striking resemblance to the author in bith his life and image) who suffers from sudden anxiety attacks. Deals with social issues and big themes on a personal level in a very nuanced story that never judges it's character's. Beatifully drawn by a master of the craft.

*phew* That's a long comment... Good luck!

Any of the 'war correspondence' books by Joe Sacco would be a good addition too. Comics are actually a great vessel for this type of journalism, it shares the visual impact of a television report but can go far deeper into the story, like a newspaper article or even a book.

I don't accept the challenge.

My god, I wish I could name something someone else has not. At the same time, I'm bookmarking this page for future reading material.

I agree with books like From Hell, Persepolis, A contract with God, Jimmy Corrigan.

I would add to this A small killing by Moore and Zarate The Ballad of the salted sea by Hugo Pratt, and all the Corto Maltese books in general. The characters and the historical background of Corto Maltese are very developed and close to a "classic" novel (and the art is amazing too!).

The responses here have tended to be very US-centric, understandably enough, but how about Tintin? Sure, the early ones are pretty indefensible (Tintin in the Congo, I'm looking at you), but Herge's political sensibilities evolved with time (Tintin in Tibet, Tintin and the Picaros). That alone is worthy of commentary. Perhaps the most unusual and experimental is Castafiore's Jewels, in which nothing really happens, though it keeps threatening to.

Franquin's run on Spirou is funny, exciting and beautifully designed, but I'm not sure if there are any English translations of the series.

Lucky Luke and Asterix have a marvellous appeal: Luke is a pastiche of the Western genre with a reverence for Americana (Apache Canyon and Jesse James) and Asterix combines puns and slapstick with surprisingly accurate ancient history.

The books that I would recommend has already been listed at least 2 dozen times.

Wasteland (oni Press)
The Killer (Arachia)
Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Rex Mundi
MPD-Psycho

Pride of Bahgdad....does League of Extraornidary Gentlemen count as a super-hero book ?

Oooh Understanding Comics is a good one that I didn't think of.

Also, I really liked Pedro and Me. It was one of my first non-superhero books.

If I were teaching it, I'd structure the course as the story of the increasing inclusion of social and political commentary and documentary into comics:

Comics as the Fantastic:
Windsor McKay: Little Nemo or Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend

Comics as Distraction:
Will Eisner: Best of the Spirit

Comics as Travelogue:
Herge: Tintin in Tibet

Comics reflecting a darker world:
EC Comics Shock/Suspenstories

Silver Age/Introduction of Psychological Reality:
Kubert/Kanigher: Showcase Presents: Sgt. Rock

Comics as Social Documentary:
Spiegelman: Maus

Superheroes as Social Commentary:
Moore: Watchmen

Understanding Comics
From Hell
Maus
Palestine (or other Sacco)
Silver Surfer: Parable (It's not really a superhero book)
Preacher
Sandman
Asterix
We3
Black Hole
Stray Bullets
Ex Machina

No superheroes? Bah!

any comic book degree course that avoids superheroes would no doubt be seen as considerably more ridiculous than one that included superheroes due to the fact that anyone taking the course would have to realise that the only reason graphic novels even exist as a popular form is due to the advent of the superhero. if the industry only published non-genre books it would probably have died out by now.

if i were to choose such a course as a module for a comparative literature degree i'd want to be reading:

1. Will Eisner - The Best of the Spirit
2. Lee/Kirby - Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 1
3. Alan Moore - Watchmen
4. Morrison/Quitely - All-Star Superman
5. Ellis/Cassaday - Planetary

but i completely understand why you'd have difficulty choosing these for a course which pursues the idea of comics as literature. you'd probably want a lot of indies and vertigo books: maus, bone, sandman, fables etc.

Blood Song-Eric Drooker
Flood: A novel in pictures, might be a good choice to, I haven't read it.

Dropsie Avenue - You need some Will Eisner, and this is (arguably, I know) the Eisner work with the most "meat" to it.

King- Ho Che Anderson's biography of MLK is insightful, and challenges the image of one of the US's most beloved historical figures. The way Anderson conveys the assasination knocked me out.

Action Philosophers - or, How one can use the comics medium to make an academic subject more accessible to any given reading audience.

Fax From Sarajevo - Joe Kubert + currentish events = an amazing read.

Kabuki: Metamorphosis - challenges one's ideas about comics, narrative structure, art, and identity.

Palomar - possibly the medium's greatest achievement.

The first story in the Streetwise anthology (I forgot its name), by Jack Kirby. The King should be represented in any class on comics. TwoMorrows published a book of autobiographical short stories several years ago. It lead off with an obscure Kirby story reproduced directly from pencils. If you have not read it, go find it. The art is breathtaking, probably the best work Kirby did after the '70s.

Either The Maxx or Concrete - the trappings of a super-hero comic book are used to tell personal tales, both extremely high quality.

Well, I did take a graphic novel course once, and there were only three books assigned:

1. Understanding Comics
2. A Contract With God
3. Maus

To that, I would add something by Tezuka, Fun Home and probably Jimmy Corrigan. It's like the classic canon with Fun Home added because it was so momentous to even the larger non-comics mainstream (And because it's quite good).

What, only one person mentioned the Hernandez Bros? Ridiculous.

My picks-which-have-been-missed:
Locas, by Jaime Hernandez.
The Cowboy Wally Show, Kyle Baker.
The Filth, The God of all Comics (which may or may not have superheroine, depending how you look at it)
Cerebus, book 2? (can't decide)
Concrete, book 1

I'm glad that somebody else mentioned the Corto Maltese books by Hugo Pratt,because they are excellent. I'd also like to add any of the Lieutenant Blueberry books by Charlier and Giraud(aka Moebius) if you like Westerns. And really, who doesn't like westerns?

- V FOR VENDETTA - top of my list. One of the BEST things I've ever read in ANY medium.

- MAUS No reasons need be given.

- DOCTOR STRANGE : INTO SHAMBALLA
(ok... this isn't REALLY a "superhero" even though he wears a cape, but the story definitely is NOT superhero fare - and it has adult themes. There's a section on the illusion of lust - with Doc splitting himself into a hundred of himself and having a massive orgy with a hundred naked Hindu idols come to life. It's tastefully done, and there's MUCH more to it than that, but that's the only "NC17" moment.)
It's BETTER than GOOD, but maybe not quite GREAT (except the painted artwork - which is gorgeous! JM DeMatteis' story of spiritual awakening is a very good one though).

- Yeah... WATCHMEN (again, no reasons need be given)

- What about the trade of ALAN MOORE's SWAMP THING issues? (Anatomy Lesson)
Not really a superhero either, but good stuff.

- Almost ANY of EISNER's graphic novels.
The MASTER of the genre needs no further explanations.

~P~
P-TOR

- V FOR VENDETTA - top of my list. One of the BEST things I’ve ever read in ANY medium.

- MAUS No reasons need be given.

- DOCTOR STRANGE : INTO SHAMBALLA
(ok… this isn’t REALLY a “superhero” even though he wears a cape, but the story definitely is NOT superhero fare - and it has adult themes. There’s a section on the illusion of lust - with Doc splitting himself into a hundred of himself and having a massive orgy with a hundred naked Hindu idols come to life. It’s tastefully done, and there’s MUCH more to it than that, but that’s the only “NC17″ moment.)
It’s BETTER than GOOD, but maybe not quite GREAT (except the painted artwork - which is gorgeous! JM DeMatteis’ story of spiritual awakening is a very good one though).

- Yeah… WATCHMEN (again, no reasons need be given)

- What about the trade of ALAN MOORE’s SWAMP THING issues? (Anatomy Lesson)
Not really a superhero either, but good stuff.

- Almost ANY of EISNER’s graphic novels.
The MASTER of the genre needs no further explanations.

~P~
P-TOR

oops... sorry for the double post.

~P~
P-TOR

I suggest Elfquest. Drawn by a woman when that was extremely rare (now it's just very rare). Independent for a long time. Good story, good art. Fun with meaning.

I would also say no Watchmen unless you think the tropes of the superhero genre are embedded enough through other media to have it make sense.

Otherwise, I think Anun was dead on with
1. Understanding Comics
2. Maus
3. A Contract With God

And I would add
4. Pride of Baghdad (to continue the political and anthropomorphic animal themes of Maus)
5. It's A Bird... by Steven Seagle (If you haven't read it, it is a quite touching look at the writer struggling to write a Superman story while dealing with the possibility he has inherited Huntington's disease. This could tie into Eisner's autobiographical use of the form).
6. Uncle Sam by Steve Darnell and Alex Ross (again, comics as political allegory).

I would start with Understanding Comics, do A Contract with God & It's A Bird as the Autobiography unit, move to Uncle Sam and Pride of Baghdad as the political unit and end with Maus as a synthesis of all of the above. Just a thought.

I just took a college course that used a graphic novel text (the course was called Literature and Ethics) and we used ANIMAL MAN to really great affect. I'd *not* use MAUS as I think it's overused in college courses (and your students will likely read it in any postmodern text course they otherwise take). Allison Bechdel's FUN HOME, definitely. SANDMAN, definitely. WATCHMEN (despite my hatred for it), definitely. Basically, since graphic novels can open up such cool discussions about medium, form, and meaning, I'd primarily stick to ones that do what Douglas Wolk calls critiquing the form, not the content.

Here's my 7 (IMHO best order to teach them in):
American Born Chinese
Watchmen
Sandman (V.5)
A Contract With God
Fun Home
Animal Man (V.3)
Exit Wounds

I tend to agree that excluding superheroes is slightly pointless, since they feature in the vast majority of comic books. To understand the medium, I think that you need to be familiar with superhero books, since most of the other books mentioned are all - to a greater or lesser degree - reactions to superhero books. Asking students to compare major publisher and indie publisher superheroes would be a great exercise, and so would asking students to look at the differences between various major publisher continuities.

But to play by the rules, why not include some Adrian Tomine? Shortcomings is an excellent book, but Summer Blonde may lend itself better to study.

And what exactly is so bad about superheroes that they should be excluded? If a graphic novel is exceptional, its exceptional. Why allow the subject matter to exclude it with no regard to its quality?

"If I were teaching it, I’d structure the course as the story of the increasing inclusion of social and political commentary and documentary into comics:"

Dan, don't forget:

Comics As Propaganda
(Anything from WWII era)

Numbers 1 - 5 are great stories that have aspects to them and experiences in them at are unique to the comics form.

Number 6 is a transition between visual storytelling and a series of stylistic exercises that show what the comic book medium is capable of.

Numbers 7 - 8 are more technical books that demonstrate the unique properties of the visual language of comics.

1. Adolf (all five volumes)- Osamu Tezuka

2. Hicksville - Dylan Horrocks

3. Kabuki: Metamorphosis/Kabuki: Circle of Blood - David Mack

4. La Perdida/Soundtrack - Jessica Abel

5. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang

6. ANYthing by Will Eisner

7. 99 Ways to Tell a Story - Matt Madden

8. Understanding Comics/Making Comics - Scott McCloud

And what exactly is so bad about superheroes that they should be excluded? If a graphic novel is exceptional, its exceptional. Why allow the subject matter to exclude it with no regard to its quality?

Fair point, but in a Comics as Literature class?

There aren't many superhero stories that are anywhere close to as good as Human Diastrophism. Or Fun Home. Or Maus, or the best of Eightball.

Same reason John Grisham doesn't get taught in Comparative Literature classes. You can argue he defines the popular itineration of the form and should be taught in a Social History of the Popular Novel class... But there ain't a lot of depth to his stuff.

I've read thousands and thousands (and thousands!) of superhero comics, from all eras and ages, and the best of 'em simply aren't as good as the best independent comics. It's a time thing, basically. Superhero writers don't have the time for revision and perfection that the more laizzes fair indy crowd do.

It's a time thing. Independent comics allow more time for revision instead of having to produce one issue every month.

I'll de-lurk here just a moment because despite all of the excellent suggestions above (esp. the "Contract with God" trilogy, "Maus" and "American-born Chinese"), I can't believe nobody has yet mentioned Jean-Phillipe Stassen's "Deogratias" or Joe Sacco's "Safe Area: Gorazde" - or indeed, any of Sacco's other works.

Palomar - or anything by Gilbert Hernandez
Maus
Bone
Usagi Yojimbo - any of the graphic novels
Mechanics - Jaime Hernandez
American Splendor
Tintin in Tibet
The Golem's Mighty Swing - James Sturm
Watchmen

and c'mon, you gotta throw some superhero comic in. How about Lee and Kirby's FF or Stern and Byrne's Captain America or something with Ben Grimm?

Scott McCloud's _ZOT!_. It's less about a superhero and more about love,, and idealism.

Will Shetterly's _Captain Confederacy_. It's an alternate history story that examines (as you'd imagine) politics and racism. [Ignore the costumes; it's a means to an end, not the end itself.]

I believe the title was _Wilderness_, featuring the adventures of Wolverine McAlister. A great look at the French and Indian Wars from one mans point of view.

Don't understand why no superhero comics. Personally, I wouldn't take a class that claimed to be about Comics as Literature that left out Superhero comics.

Why?

2 reasons:

1) The Death of Captain Marvel

2) X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

A couple of people have recommended "a volume of Usagi Yojimbo," which I would support, and to which I would add, make it Vol. 2, since it does a good job of provided a complete story that doesn't rely on the reader knowing anything about other volumes. It also provides the most information about his character's personality, history, and culture (since it's the backstory volume)

Alice in Sunderland

Oh, also, I'd include a Joann Sfar book. Possibly Vampire Loves.

First of all, teaching a comics course without including superheroes would be like teaching a 16th Century poetry class and excluding sonnets. Interesting challenge, but impractical given wait the main genre of the medium is. But anyway...

- Understanding Comics. An essential in any class dealing with the medium.

- One of the recent EC Comics collections. Mostly for their historical significance, as these were the books that really forced the creation of the Comics Code.

- Maus. A moving Holocaust survivor's biography told with anthropomorphic animals.

- Watchmen. Duh.

- Sandman. Comics as modern mythology. Probably Season of Mists, unless I decide to make the students spring for one of the Absolute editions.

- Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth. Because no comics class worth its salt is complete without Kirby. And this is the least superhero-y Kirby book I can think of.

1. Understanding Comics
2. The Watchmen
3. American Born Chinese
4. 100 Bullets - First Shot, Last Call
5. Maus
6. Persepolis
7. A collection of the Spirit
8. Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art

Most of my choices have already been mentioned, so I feel like I'm voting more than anything else. Never stopped me.

1. Maus. It has to be in there. I know history professors who have assigned it as a supplementary text for a class on WWII.

2. Love & Rockets - Music for Mechanics. My sister got hooked on these and she doesn't read comics. Ever. Says something, i think.

3. Sandman - A Season of Mists. Most of the Sandman collections would work, but I think this is one of the more contained stories that still presents the breadth of storytelling. Dream Country would be interesting simply because of the sample script that was included; it would make an interesting teaching tool, depending on how you were approaching the class. But YMMV.

4. Sin City - The Hard Goodbye. Again, several Sin City choices would work. I think this might be the best one to work with, but any of the first 4 volumes are good. But personally I would go with either this or That Yellow Bastard. The graphic presentation is such a contrast with the rest of the list that it's important.

5. Fax From Sarajevo. Joe Kubert is brilliant and this is an incredible piece of work, IMHO.

6. Starchild. Fables gets a lot of hype and push right now, but James A. Owen's series broke a lot of this ground, IMHO about 15 years earlier. There's some tremendous storytelling in it.

7. Akira.

Comics as education –

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Systematically McCloud dissects the art form of sequential art in the form of a comic book. By using a comic book to explain comic books, McCloud educates the reader on the best possible way to experience these new novels, from appreciation of line quality to the dexterous nature of time on a page. Chapter six is arguably the most immersive chapter, stepping outside of the frame of comics into the world of art in general, outlining the many layers of a piece of work. Be it film, song, chair or comic book, McCloud exposes how all art has a bond that ties it together. This creates a strong argument for the idea that graphic books may well make better teachers than the classic way of reading from a text.

Comics as a pure expression of art –

Cages by Dave McKean
The graphic novel, “Cages,” offers too much information to be handled in a single reading. It’s a complicated story about the dance of the artist and their art, the need to escape pretension while wallowing in it, and not coincidentally, the nature of God, or Gods. The art itself is inspired, rendered by Dave McKean, who many are familiar with for his work on the Sandman covers. McKean blends photography, computer graphics, paint and ink to create what can be considered a celebration of art itself.

Comics as political protest -

Uncle Sam by Steve Darnall and Alex Ross
“Uncle Sam” was painted by Alex Ross and that is a huge attractor in and of its self. In fact, it is Ross’s art work that illuminates exactly how brilliant Steve Darnall’s social commentary really is. What this team does is cast the symbol of the American government, Uncle Sam, as a destitute near psychotic man bouncing back and forth between the present and the scope of American history. By way of metaphor, “Uncle Sam” exposes truths which are self evident, and while firmly trouncing hollow politics of our culture, offers a glimmer of hope for a future not so thoroughly entrenched in rhetoric.

Comics as auto-biography -

Blue Pills by Frederik Peeters
“Blue Pills” illustrates Peeters complicated relationship with Cati, a single mother with whom he has an instant bond, only to discover that she is infected with HIV. This book shares not only the struggles and fears of the very real couple, but how the two enjoy their lives and embrace hope for the future in the also infected child of Cati’s previous relationship.

Comics as a novel –

Black Hole by Charles Burns
This is about as close to a novel as you can get in comic books. It creates visual metaphors for the horror of sexually transmitted disease, taking infected individuals and afflicting them with external manifestations of their bug. From the tail on the girl tripping face to the man who talks in his sleep through the mouth on his neck, “Black Hole” is ripe with symbolism for an era of fear.

Comics as journalism -

Palestine by Joe Sacco and Edward Said
Joe Sacco spent a significant time digging into Palestinian life, bouncing from home to home story to story listening to tales of life under Israeli rule. Together with Said, Sacco imbeds an understanding of the plight of the average Palestinian, granting sympathy without contrition. This book is honest, going so far as to give voice to the average Israeli citizens as well, creating a balanced portrait of a region at war.

Comics as philosophy -

Promethea by Alan Moore and JH Williams III
This is no super hero book; since Marvel and DC own the copyright on this phrase, Promethea instead is a science heroine, college student Sophie Bangs granted magical powers. What Moore does here is no easy feat, taking the precepts of an adventure story and sending it upwards the tree of knowledge. Combined with Williams above reproach art, this story takes one part Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, two parts Crowleys book of Magic, two parts kabala, and a little dash of Wonder Woman. What could have been just another story about imagination becomes, like “Cages”, an exploration of what makes imagination work, how man can rise above himself, and ultimately just who or what God really is.

Persepolis vol 1 & 2 - Marjane Satrapi
Summer Blonde - Adrian Tomine
American Born Chinese - Gene Yang
Heartbreak Soup - Gilbert Hernandez
Really Any of the "Flight" anthologies
Blankets - Craig Thompson
Ghost World - Dan Clowes
Seven Miles a Second - (I can't, for the life of me remember the author. It's on Vertigo)

1. Watchmen
2. Pride of Baghdad
3. The Nightly News
4. Ghost World
5. Maus
6. Fell
7. From Hell

There aren’t many superhero stories that are anywhere close to as good as Human Diastrophism. Or Fun Home. Or Maus, or the best of Eightball.

I think that's the same snobbery that says that proper films are ones made in black and white and directed by Europeans.

- Watchmen
- From Hell
- Locas
- Jimmy Corrigan
- Maus 1&2
- Ghostworld
- Blankets
- Cages

and Understanding Comics.

I would go with these five graphic novels for a course on comics as literature.

The Mystery Play

From Hell

the Pride of Baghdad

Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron

Palestine

Sandman and Cerebus both need to be a course onto themselves as they are too big of works to be confined to examining just one novel from the series.

A lot of good ones have already been mentioned but I would include Berlin.

I'm surprised that Black Hole hasn't been mentioned in more people's lists. It's another fine example of what you can do with a comic book that you can't do elsewhere.

I'm going to do it like a course too and I'm sorry there has to be some space in any course to talk about Superheroes as a cultural myth and a prevelant genre:

Week One: Between the Panels - Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner (okay, not a graphic novel but a necessary text in my view)

Week Two: Precursors to the Modern Graphic Novel - "Master Race" by Bernie Krigstein, It Rhymes With Lust by Arnold Drake, The Best of the Spirit by Will Eisner

Week Three: Ordinary Life in the Graphic Novel
A Contract With God by Will Eisner, Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot

Week Four: Graphic Novel and Biography
Fun Home (A Family Tragicomic) by Alison Bechdel, American Splendor: Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar Joyce Brabner and Frank Stack, Louis Riel by Chester Brown

Week Five: Documentary Storytelling and the Graphic Novel
Maus by Art Spiegelman, Fax From Sarajevo by Joe Kubert, The Illustrated 9/11 Commission Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon

Week Six: Creating (and Critiquing) Worlds
Cerebus: High Society by Dave Sim, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Sandman: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman and Jill Thompson

Week Seven: Graphic Novels and the Novel Form
From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Week Eight: Graphic Novels as Political Polemic
In The Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman, V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller,
(superhero I know, but I think it's a graphic novel that's way bigger than being a Batman story)

Week Nine: Understanding, Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Superhero
Essential Spider-Man volume 1 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli, Supreme by Alan Moore and various, Astro City: Life In The Big City by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson

Week Ten: The Graphic Novel as Postmodern Text
The Invisibles: Entropy In The UK by Grant Morrison and various, Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison, Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams, David Boring by Daniel Clowes

I must have the most punishing and expensive reading list ever for a university course...

Hopefully I fixed that quote thing . . .

But a course on comics as literature without superheroes is actually more like a class on 16th century poetry without sonnets about bees. Superheroes aren't a medium or an integral part of one, they're a specific genre.

There's been some good ones, some very discussable ones, but very few on the level of Heartbreak Soup or the others mentioned.

That's not snobbery, folks. I love good superhero comics. But as much as I enjoy Brubaker's Cap A, it's not exactly Ice Haven.

Oh geez, you said 6-8? I got caught up in the fun of the comments.

Well then: From Hell, Ghost World, Louis Riel, Our Cancer Year, Fun Home, Maus, V for Vendetta, Cerebus: High Society

How about now?

I AM THREAD READING SAVIOR

I took a course in this last fall,

Understanding Comics: its praises are sung by all, although Making Comics really solidifies alot of his theories

Fun Home: idealist, romatic, downright kickass.

The Fate of the Artist: this takes a long and hard look between the difference between the immage and the word.

Safe Area Gorazde: comics journalism at its best, the only thing that can top this is Sacco's Palistine.

City of Glass: another headtrip of a read.

Heartbreak Soup: Hernandez rox.

American Born Chinese: what else needs to be said

One hundred demons: Linda Berry's look at her childhood through the eyes of fiction, all done with brushtrokes and wavy lines, a near perfect fictional memoir.

Maus 1+2: what else needs to be said...though, strangely enough, not everybody teaches vol 2.

Jimmy corrigan: if I read this book one more time, i am going to kill somebody.

also, in another course, we talked about comics as a narrative form, in which we read (in addition of Understanding Comics, maus1, and Jimmy C.)

A collection of golden age batman stories

Batman Year one: beautiful art, story, and a great tone for the batman

Batman, the long Halloween: pacing, setting and tone is top notch.

Batman: child of dreams: a nice look at the manga form when compared to western analogue

(the professor was a batman fangirl)

Punisher, Born: a hype-real look at comic narrative and form. also, Garth Ennis.

and a bunch of non-comic sources including Comic book Nation, Seduction of the Innocent,and Simulation and Simulacra

In 'course order' here.

1. Watchmen
2. Undestanding Comics
3. Cerebus: High Society
4. The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones
5. Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life (Vol 2.)
6. Sandman: A Game of You
7. Cerebus: Jaka's Story
8. Violent Cases

Here's a couple of great books I haven't seen mentioned yet.

Ed The Happy Clown- Chester Brown
Dark, surreal, subversive, and really pushes the boundries of what you can do in the medium.

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron- Daniel Clowes
Very formal in style, but at the same time, it's absolutely batshit crazy.

Loosely chronologically:

1.) Conan: The Frost Giant's Daughter (1920s)
2.) Maus (1930s)
3.) The Spirit (1940s)
4.) Shade the Changing Man: The American Scream (1960s-ish)
5.) Stray Bullets vol. 1 (1970s - 1990s)
6.) Why I Hate Saturn (1990s+)

Pride of Baghdad

Whiteout v.I

Maus

True Story, Swear to God

Death: The High Cost of Living

And I know that you said no super hero books, but really, X-Men: God Loves, Man Killsis a masterpiece and addresses a lot of topical points that are worthy of discussion. Consider it.

Everything I'd suggest has been mentioned, but I want to second a call for Box Office Poison. It's another example of "comics as a diary" ala Blankets and Fun Home. However, Box Office Poison could also prompt some interesting discussions on world-building, multiple POV's, how to find the drama in daily life, and those points in life where you can only come of age via pain and disappointment.

Oh hell, I'll still make my own list too:

1. Watchmen (re: deconstructing superheroes and people's preconceptions about comics)

2. Criminal Vol. 1 (re: comics' pulp legacy)

3. American Born Chinese (re: commenting on real life via fantasy)

4. Box Office Poison (re: commenting on real life directly)

5. Pride of Baghdad or Maus (re: comics as social commentary)

6. Sandman or Fables (re: comics as they relate to other literature/what you gain from serialized storytelling; I'm not sure which volumes, though)

7. Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1 (re: the pure, zany fun of comics)

I've been teaching a few comics courses recently, both as general overview courses, and from a more political, topic-specific angle, and have yet to find a context in which Rick Veitch's 'Can't Get No' hasn't churned up some useful material; if the students're used to mainstream comics, even the paper format's going to give them pause for thought.

Chick pamphlets're worth a bash, too, if you can get hold of them.

Since they've come up, regarding the Scott McCloud books, I've found it useful to introduce them in relation to 'City of Glass', especially the introduction; the section where Spiegelman goes on about the softening of his sole-author puritanism, or something, is a convenient way of highlighting the McCloud books' tendency to foreground artists all the time, and ignore writers.

That said, it helps to teach McCloud, and, to a lesser extent, Eisner's 'theory' books, as a discrete topic; if you just bung the books down on a reading list, they'll be read uncritically and taken as gospel without any analysis of exactly what's being said.

Holding McCloud in reserve for a week or two's worked out well, too; if you give it to undergrads straight off, the students spend the rest of the course just applying sections of 'Understanding Comics', without incorporating much of their own criticism. Not that McCloud's stuff isn't extremely useful; life'd be a bit depressing if you got a load of film or literature kids and give them comics without also giving them something to draw their attention to the mechanics of the form.

I know you said no super-heroes, but I still think you should include Dark Knight Returns.

Has anybody mentioned Road to Perdetion?

Watchmen, From Hell, Bone, Understand Comics, Tintin, A Contract With God, Some volumne or another of Sandman, A Tale of One Bad Rat.

Maus - It's so obvious it doesn't need explanation.

Sin City - The Long Hard Goodbye. You wanna get your Frank Miller in there without having to use Dark Knight, this is the only way to go.

And you have to chose some Crumb. Get in on the counter-culture 60's comics.

--

I audited a master's level lit class here in Montreal a few years ago, and really enjoyed it. We did Watchmen, Dark Knight, Sin City, Maus and a bunch of shorts. I was the only "comic geek" in the class (aside from the prof, who showed up day one with the Absolute edition of Watchmen) and as such, I got a few people asking after my opinions to make sure that they didn't contradict them selves in their term papers. Good class that was.

"But a course on comics as literature without superheroes is actually more like a class on 16th century poetry without sonnets about bees. Superheroes aren’t a medium or an integral part of one, they’re a specific genre.

There’s been some good ones, some very discussable ones, but very few on the level of Heartbreak Soup or the others mentioned.

That’s not snobbery, folks. I love good superhero comics. But as much as I enjoy Brubaker’s Cap A, it’s not exactly Ice Haven."

Joe Rice has it exactly right here. If it's a survey of American comics class, or a history of comics class, or a Storytelling Techniques in Comics class, sure I'd have lots of superhero comics on the syllabis. But a Comics As Literature class ... not so much, even though I love me some superheroes. I mean, did someone really recommend 52 for this proposed class? For real?

The great thing about this period is that there are SO MANY great comics that it's actually HARD to limit it to just a few! I'm not even sure Watchmen would make the final list, were it my class.

Anyway, my recommendations would be from this list:

1) Safe Area Goradze by Joe Sacco
2) Understanding Comics by Scott McLeod (though I agree that the temptation to take McLeod's theories as "gospel" is a problem
3) Ganges by Kevin Huezinga
4) An Anthology of Comic Fiction by Ivan Brunetti (maybe as an intro, to expose the students to a wide range of work)
5) From Hell by Moore and Campbell
6) Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
7) one of Rick Geary's Victorian Murder books
Maus by Spiegelman
9) Louis Riel by Chester Brown
10) Black Hole by Burns
11) Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez
12) something by R. Crumb
13) one of the Fantagraphics Krazy Kat selections
14) Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware (for sure, but I'd save it for late in the semester, esp. if the students aren't already comics literate)

I think you could take any of these, as well as lots of other graphic novels, and make a perfectly respectable Comics As Literature reading list. As long as 52 wasn't on it.

Whatever your thoughts are about superhero comics, Bill clearly says "no superheroes," so if you don't want to follow the rules (he only HAD two of them!), then why bother replying? You don't HAVE to accept his challenge - he even says that in the title!

Sometimes I think you could post something like, "Name any color you want, except red," and 10% of the replies would be "Red."

Hold on! I also want to add Hey, Wait! by Jason to my list!

I love Jason.

The problem is that it can be tough to quantify exactly what is meant by a "superhero comic". For instance, Dark Horse's Conan is very closely based on R. E. Howard's original writings, so it got a pass in my book, but someone else might think otherwise.

Shade The Changing Man was, previously, a superhero title before its resurrection, so it's a bit of a gray area too.

Then there's stuff like Swamp Thing. Where does that fall? Does it depend on the particular storyline?

Are you going to publish the results based on all of these votes? It would be cool to see the "official" list as recommended by this forum for use at university level.

The Rabbi's Cat, Joann Sfar
Kabuki: Metamorphosis, David Mack
Why Are You Doing This? or The Left Bank Gang, Jason
La Perdida, Jessica Abel
Any Title from Joe Sacco
Midnight Sun, Ben Towle
Poor Sailor, Sammy Harkham
Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman et al
DMZ, Brian Wood
The Killer, Jacamon and Matz

Oh... and something from Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Abandon the Old in Tokyo or The Push Man & Other Stories

Oh, sure, tk, I get not being sure. So you'd just say, "I don't think this counts as a superhero comic." That's totally cool.

Comics on Comics-Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Crime-100 Bullets by Azzarello and Risso
Gender Issues-Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan
Autobiography-American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
Originality/The Greatest-Krazy Kat by George Herriman
Perfection-Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
SciFi/Manga-Ghost In the Shell by Masamune Shirow
Journalism-Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco

I don't know about college, but I teach 5th Grade. Here's what I use to teach specific reading strategies:

Character Traits: any Archie collection

Understanding Non-Fiction Texts: Two-Fisted Tales (only the true story issues, obviously)

Elements of Historical Fiction: Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck

Story Structure (exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution, etc...): Lots of stuff works, but my students this year inexplicably love Richie Rich

Drawing Conclusions/Inferences: Little Lulu books (particularly the silent one-pagers)

The trick to this is getting past what you appreciate as a comic reader, and finding out what really works as literature to a non-comics audience. I think it's odd that everyone pulls out Watchmen as a great example of comics for a non-comics audience. Without knowledge of the superhero genre, Watchmen can be hard to appreciate. It's a great piece of literature, but it's still essentially a superhero story.

"Superheroes aren’t a medium or an integral part of one, they’re a specific genre.

There’s been some good ones, some very discussable ones, but very few on the level of Heartbreak Soup or the others mentioned.

That’s not snobbery, folks. I love good superhero comics. But as much as I enjoy Brubaker’s Cap A, it’s not exactly Ice Haven."

Superheroes aren't a medium, but they ARE an integral part of one. To stretch the metaphor further, teaching a comics course without including superheroes is like teaching 16th Century Lit without including any sonnets about Love.

The point about superhero comics generally being of a lower standard - due to production line pressures - is a valid one. But the fact that most superhero books are bad doesn't mean that they all are. People are including Sin City on their lists, which is about as literary as the back of a cigarette packet.

Subject matter doesn't determine quality. The vast majority of superhero books are throwaway rubbish, but the fact that the Watchmen was automatically included on the list demonstrates that there are superhero stories of exceptional quality. What about the Killing Joke or Arkham Asylum? Miracleman, Kingdom Come, Powers or any of another hundered great superhero books. Don't these books posess literary merits?

Hey guys,

Because of my interest in Comics in the Classroom and the debate over the Comics Canon, I've been following this discussion with great interest.

For your convenience, I've alphabetized all the recommendations so far and posted them here:

http://geniusboyfiremelon.blogspot.com/2008/03/comics-canon-as-built-by-democracy.html

By my count, 199 "graphic novels" have been recommended already.

Dear Tim:

Wuvs.

Sincerely,
Bill

I'm really surprised nobody's mentioned any of the Alec books by Eddie Campbell. Those, and his "Artist" books would go over real easy in a literary environment. Plus, they fill a niche here - for the most part they don't deal with first experiences, childhood nostalgia, or historical happenings, and they're not abstract, either. It's all pretty up-front, about interpersonal communication, how you value and judge others, how you project yourself, the difference between your public and private persona, and tons more about the philosophy of living.

Why no superheroes? Don't get me wrong, I love cape books as much as the next nerd, but an overabundance (or reliance?) on the tight-wearing crowd might be off-putting to a certain committee that would have to approve such a course/project. I'd like to go for the most literary works possible, while also showcasing the various types of comics/graphic novels available in the medium. Comics have a stigma, and I'm looking to fight it; most superhero books, even the brilliant ones like Dark Knight Returns, probably wouldn't help my case.

Watchmen is an exception thanks to Time Magazine as well as my own personal belief that it's one of the finest and most beautiful pieces of literature I've ever read. Flex Mentallo would make the list if it had a collection, though that work is far more insular and probably vastly difficult for a non-comics-reading public.

Lots of different types of courses could be taught on comics (a 'graphic memoir' class would be *packed* with fantastic stuff, for instance); I'm looking for a catch-all one for a "high-falutin'" English department. While comics are gaining more recognition, they've yet to fully burst through the wall of education like a mortarboard-wearing Kool-Aid Man. Let's keep trying.

I've had this one ready for years now, having been a former TA/Instructor.

Watchmen
From Hell
Y: the Last man - Safeword
Transmetropolitan - Lust for Life
Sandman: A Game of You
DMZ - volume 2 (name eludes me at the moment)

That would likely be enough for one semester, given the length and depth of material.

Pedro and Me, for sure.

Brian Cronin said:

Whatever your thoughts are about superhero comics, Bill clearly says “no superheroes,” so if you don’t want to follow the rules (he only HAD two of them!), then why bother replying? You don’t HAVE to accept his challenge - he even says that in the title!

Sometimes I think you could post something like, “Name any color you want, except red,” and 10% of the replies would be “Red.”

In this case, the comparison would be more like "Name any color you want, except red (dark red is ok, though)".

Bill precluded superheroes, then made an exception for one superhero book. Can't blame us for thinking he might consider other exceptions as well. I can understand the reasoning for avoiding superheroes if you're trying to focus on comics as a form of literature, but Bill's obviously willing to make an exception if the superhero comic has a significant enough literary value. That begs speculation about whether or not there are other superhero comics with a comparable literary significance that should be included.

goodbye chunky rice
The Goon
Criminal or Jinx
Peanuts
A complete lowlife
The Three Paradoxes
Sleepwalk

Lots of stuff that's already here, but (in no particular order):

1. EC Archives: Shock SuspenStories, Vols. 1 and/or 2 - Al Feldstein, et al
2. EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales, Vols. 1 and/or 2 - Harvey Kurtzman, et al
3. From Hell - Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell
4. Ghost World - Daniel Clowes
5. A Contract with God - Will Eisner
6. Devil Dinosaur - Jack Kirby*
7. Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock, Vol. 1 - Joe Kubert, Robert Kanigher
8. Chance in Hell - Gilbert Hernandez
9. Black Hole - Charles Burns
10. You Call This Art?!: A Greg Irons Retrospective

*Because you NEED Kirby, and even though it's considered a minor work, your students will be reading some heavy stuff otherwise, and will LOVE YOU for this.

I'm a current college student so I guess I may be a bit biased. I considered the time needed to read the stories. I picked more modern stories because the art is more appealing in my opinion to non comic fans.

American Virgin
Ex Machina
Captain America
Immortal Iron Fist
Sin City
Y - The last man

American Virgin is a well written, surprising series and the topic obviously would appeal to students.
Ex Machina I havent read in a few months, so I can't recommend a specific arc.
I know Captain America is a superhero, along with Iron Fist. Their current series aren't the average capes and spandex though.
The problem with Y-The last man is I can't pick a specific arc. 60 issues might be too much to expect them to read.

Superhero ones I'd really recommend. Maybe have them pick from a list of superhero TPBs and do a report.
Astonishing X-men (current run, first arc)- the classic superhero book.
Cable And Deadpool - the humor hero book.
Irredeemable Ant-man - question the role of heroes, and how real people might use their powers.
Runaways (first 18 issues for the class) - A well written arc about coming of age and problems young adults face.

No offense, Tater, but whether the art will immediately grab the contemporary college student is kind of beside the point. Most college students -- hell, most people -- will probably balk at reading any fiction published before 1970, but being exposed to unfamiliar work, understanding its importance, and even (if the educator's lucky) growing to appreciate it is kind of the whole entire purpose of a survey of literature. I like Immortal Iron Fist and Brubaker's Captain America, too, but a syllabus composed of these comics and others like them (including a classic from...um...what?...four years ago?) is kind of like having a film class where you watch whatever's on the new release wall at Blockbuster that week.

In this case, the comparison would be more like “Name any color you want, except red (dark red is ok, though)”.

I disagree with your basic assertion, but even if we play it your way, and presume a guy says, "Name any color you want, except red (you can say dark red)," saying "red" is still ignoring a pretty simple rule.

A rule just as simple as "No superheroes other than Watchmen."

If you don't want to follow the rules, that's totally cool. You don't have to accept Bill's challenge. But if you "accept" the challenge, then you should follow his simple rules.

Setting aside the issue of "shade of a color vs seperate color"...

By including an exception, the rule became subjective rather than simple or straightforward. Personally I think it would be best to exclude Watchmen as well as any other superhero books. I don't think it's practical to include a work specifically intended to deconstruct a genre when it would be the only example from that genre allowed.

Way more than 6:

Maus
Persepolis
Safe Area Goražde or Palestine (but I think Safe Area is a better book, although maybe less topical)
American Splendor - My Cancer Year
Bone
V for Vendetta
Clan Apis
Sandwalk Adventures
Interman
Tale of One Bad Rat
Badlands
Complete Copybook Tales
Golem's Mighty Swing
Days Like This
Astronauts in Trouble
Jinx/Goldfish
Torso
Lone Wolf and Cub
Eagle
Whiteout
Electric Girl (short stories, rather than a novel)

I have all of these on my bookshelf and they were all good reads. some were truly just fiction, some have a message, some are very political, one is about politics.
Some have been made into movies.

Alice in Sunderland might also be interesting although I am not sure it is literature as i have not yet read it.

If you want to consider a superhero book, maybe Zot! would be good.

I also like the cartoon history of the universe, Age of Bronze, and the understanding/reinventing/making comics trifecta.

Some or all ofthese may have already been mentioned, but I haven't read through the comments yet.

ooh and I forgot Scout and Coyote, 2 books about Native American themes from the 80s which you could compare to Scalped coming out now.

and DMZ is very interesting.

My ideal list would focus on the impact of the works on the audience, and how the medium was employed to achieve that impact:

1. Comics balancing intimate and epic elements: Spiegelman, Maus.

Vonnegut compared writing to holding a conversation in a restaurant -- you're speaking to hold the attention of the people at your table, while speaking clearly enough for anyone listening in to understand the appeal of what you're saying. The challenge for a biographical holocaust account is the nature of its overwhelmingly epic real-life life-and-death struggle. I can't think of a single stroke of genius in the comics medium that exceeds Spiegelman's use of using mouse-faces to draw in the reader to this story.

2. Comics as autobiography: Eisner, Heart of the Storm.

With the Spirit, Eisner established all of the advanced story-telling practices of comics as we know them today. But his later graphic novel work cuts back to a very lean story-telling idiom, layering location transitions through a single scene of characters interacting with each other, giving it a dreamlike quality and wasting no line. When he uses this lean storytelling approach for his own autobiographical work, simply by speaking with his comics-voice, comics-as-the-experience creates the intimacy with his reader, and he dispenses the need for the medium to establish a fidelity with conventional notions of reality as you often see with cartoonists who practice establishing intimacy with, say, a montage of images.

3. Comics influenced by other mediums: Something illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. (My pick: Big Numbers 1 + 2)

Without Ralph Steadman's influence, we wouldn't know who Bill Sienkiewicz was. Without Jackson Pollack's influence, Ralph Steadman wouldn't have influenced Bill Sienkiewicz. And Jackson Pollack was influencial because he disobeyed the convention of the brushstroke. All innovation is based on a disobedience from a convention, and Bill Sienkiewicz's work is a good example of this principle.

4. Comics as a medium of advocacy: McCloud, Understanding Comics.

A meta-comic that demonstrates, in spite of the industry practices that keep comics works out of the public consciousness, comics has as full a vocabulary to portray existence as we know it as any medium.

5. The portrayal of seduction in comics: Miller, Sin City: That Yellow Bastard.

Miller is a lot like Martin Scorcese in that they'll seduce you with appetites they ultimately portray as tragic. Where Scorcese seduces his audience with the macho bloodlust of a Travis Bickle or Henry Hill that leads their damnation, Miller will portray how Daredevil fights the urge to see Bullseye die or how Batman fights to restrain himself from killing the Joker.

In Sin City, protagonists and antagonists alike indulge in violent and hedonistic behavior. Miller portrays the most heinous evil as being sheltered by the false pretense of good nature (of which the hospital scene with Senator Roarke in Yellow Bastard is the most explicit example).

6. One of the best of the medium: One of the Krazy Kat volumes.

It's the first of the great strips. As little as Eisner had to work with, Herriman had to work with less.

Domu
An exploration of storytelling devices used to describe phenomona. Otomo excels at visually describing things that would be excessively difficult to explore with words alone.

Palomar
Hernandez celebrates the vibrancy and mischief of life through something rare to comics and difficult-to-convey in prose: a genuine history of its characters in which the reader can, at a glance, understand the passage of many things (things merely hinted at in the new appearance of each character).

Note: This is one of those ones that's iffy as it's so big and pricey—it probably depends on what else is assigned.

Sparks
Marvit explores the inclusion of faerytale themes in a contemporary setting, and does so with a story worth telling. Some of his storybook metaphors are a little obvious, but its a much more subtle use of the dynamic than something like Fables (which is incredible in its own right).

Jar of Fools
While Berlin is ridiculously good, it is unfinished and will takes years to reach a conclusion (if it ever does). Jar of Fools is here and now and is intricate enough to foster conversation along a multitude of lines.

The Birthday Riots
If exploration of literature with a political bent is seen as worthwhile, Kanan investigates a political problem without beating readers over the head with it or pandering (as Drooker does with Blood Song). Kanan presents a well-rounded work, something worth reading.

Blankets or Fun Home
While Blankets is my favourite of the two and demonstrates better the potential of the form, Lit students might more appreciate Bechdel's use of allusion in Fun Home (while clever, I found it a bit too deliberate). Either book is a good demonstration of what can be accomplished in fictionalized memoir. And both are probably better works in the end than the enjoyable American Born Chinese.

NOTE: Goodbye Chunky Rice might be a good replacement for either of these.

Jimmy Corrigan
What Ware does with form is incredible. His craft takes the medium in fascinating directions and his exploration of the printed page gives readers a taste of a potential just being brushed by comics of the contemporary era. As well, his Jimmy Corrigan is a good example of how visual juxtaposition of storytelling elements can tell stories in ways unusable in either prose or cinema.

The Walking Man
An example of minimalist storytelling using hyper-attentive perception of detail. Despite the fact that little goes on in the book (which is little more than a series of walks around the neighbour), we still feel like we have absorbed a lot.

TWO I Wanted to Include...
V for Vendetta
Of Moore's work, V for Vendetta seems so far (to me) to hold the most compelling vision.

Usagi Yojimbo
Demonstrates American exploration of other cultures and does so with sublime mastery of the comic form. As suggested earlier, Volume 2 is a good jumping-on point (though Sakai's craft was still evolving at that point). As well, I like Volume 13 ("Grasscutter") as a good single read. It is also a nice example of how a book can include a rich history and mythology into its tale (with multiple prologues outlining the history of the sword, Grasscutter.

ANNNND EXCUSES...
Wow, it was impossible to choose so few that I had to make up reasons not to choose certain others.

I've excluded many worthwhile selections that would make for a good study of Comics-as-Lit simply because a student couldn't be expected to read something as long as, say, Tezuka's Buddha (eight volumes) or Otomo's Akira (six volumes). Even some of my choices, I think, would be pushing it.

Some other works are great, but I'm not certain they should be classified as lit. Palestine (and even Safe Area: Gorazde and The Fixer to lesser degree) is amazing in what it sets out to accomplish and how it goes about succeeding in its goal, but I'm not sure that we should characterize a journalistic endeavor as literature (though if we do, it should be on the list). Also, despite a work's importance to the history of the medium, I thought it should be excluded if it wasn't great literature.

And then, I excluded several others because they are just far too well-known. Maus has been pretty widely read and is even being assigned in high schools to my understanding (my wife is assigning it to her sixth graders as part of their section on European history and WWII).

I didn't choose Watchmen or League (which i prefer to Watchmen), because if I didn't choose V for Vendetta, I certainly wasn't going to choose leser works ^_^

*high fives lauren for her awesome choices*

Clan Apis, Eagle, and Days Like This are totally fun!

Again almost all of these have been suggested already but in no particular order.

Will Eisner's A contract with God. Its arguably the first graphic novel (in America at any rate, and this should at least count for something.

Neil Gaimans Sandman. Apart from the fact that picking any one volume would be like having to chose one favoured child over another. Its a work which should be considered in its entirety, not piecemeal.

Watchmen - Pick a reason.

Maus - Ditto.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Barefoot Gen. as with Maus for similar reason's. The final chapter of the first book alone is as moving a testament to the horror of war as I've ever come across in any medium.

Also what about the 2 volume 9-11 in the wake of the 911 tragedy its an interesting and at times moving cross section of artistic commentary. Although it might break the superhero rule, and on that note if thre was one other which could be included on its merits ala Watchmen it would have to be Dark Knight Returns.

I taught Intro to the Graphic Novel at Middlebury College last January over Winter Term--one month, the only class the kids take, two hours a day. It was under the auspices of the American Studies department, so there was a historical bent, we read books pretty much chronologically, and most of the work was by US authors or explored American themes. The syllabus went like this:

"Corpses Coast to Coast" (schlocky 50s horror)
K. Huizenga's Center for Cartoon Studies pamphlet
Krazy Kat (excerpts)
"I Guess" by Chris Ware
Rodolphe Toffler (excerpts)
a Little Lulu story by Stanley and Tripp
two post-war Spirit sections
Superman Chronicles v.1
a handful of EC stories--Kurtzman war and Feldstein horror
"Superduperman" by Kurtzman and Wood
Feldstein/Krigstein's "Master Race"
Lee/Kirby "Fin Fang Foom"
Crumb (excerpts)
a Dorfman/Swan early 60s Superman story
Lyunda Barry's 100 Demons (excerpts)
Huizenga's Ganges (excerpts)

then came the graphic novels:

Understanding Comics
A Contract with God
Maus 1 & 2
Our Cancer Year
Watchmen
Jimmy Corrigan
Fun Home

In addition, I screened Comic Book Confidential and American Splendor, and assigned tons of secondary source reading:

Arguing Comics, Heer/Worcester
Comics & Sequential Art, Eisner
Alternative Comics, Hatfield
Comic Book Nation, Wright
The Aesthetics of Comics, Carrier

Then throw in a guest lecture by Steve Bissette, to whom I'm eternally grateful, and four weeks later, we were done. With more time, I'd have added stuff by Jaime Hernandez, James Sturm, James Kochalka, Howard Cruse, Eric Shanower, John Porcellino, and others. Having just finished Matt Kindt's SuperSpy this morning, I'm dying to teach that.

Ooo, neat thought experiment. Hmm. I'd start off with a course-book of excerpts from various old comics and comic strips. Some Little Nemo in Slumberland, some Krazy Kat, short stories from the old pulp comics, a tale from the Crypt, that sort of thing. Then I'd move into longer works.

McCloud's Understanding Comics, of course, not because it's perfect, but it's a damn good starting point and gets you thinking in the right direction.

Tezuka and Eisner are the two great masters and innovators of their respective nations, and influenced everybody who came after them. You should have at least one book by each. Let's say... eh, A Contract With God for Eisner, and I'd pick a volume of Phoenix for Tezuka, probably Phoenix: Future.

Watchmen, because superheroes are a huge part of this genre, whether we like it or not.

For Gaiman, I'd pick Death: the High Cost of Living over any volume of Sandman, as Death is fairly self-contained. I might also consider Violent Cases.

Damn but I wish Moto Hagio's A, A' were still in print. If it was, it would be on this list, no question. A quintessential shojo from one of the Magnificent 49ers, the generation of female creators who took over writing girls comics from the men and revolutionized them. And it had everything that became a staple! Androgynous character designs! Expressionistic layouts! Gender-bending plotlines! Not only is it good, it's ARCHETYPAL! Damn it. You need to have at least one shoujo manga in your course, and if it can't be that one.... grrrr, so many of the shoujo titles out in English are fluff for teens and pre-teens, not masterpieces... Nana volume one? Closest I can come. But try to get some scans of Hagio Moto and some of the other greats.

Eh, some Chris Ware, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (but maybe throw a few Dykes to Watch Out For strips up on the board), Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi. Maybe Jiro Taniguchi's Walking Man, just because it's so different from anything done in the West. (It's about a man. He goes for walks. That's it.)

Hmm, I'm not as familiar with Euro-comics... something by Moebius? Oh, and a volume of Tintin, of course. A Joann Sfar (The Rabbi's Cat, maybe?)

I'm not sufficiently well-read in the comics medium to really give a good answer to this...so I guess I'm in good company.

Some of these are specific collections, that used to exist anyway -- I think I'd call the class "Underground/Overground = Things To Read While Being A Person Who Is Stoned":

J. Hernandez -- 100 Rooms
W. Kelly -- We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us
C. Schultz -- Ha, Ha, Herman
C. Brown -- Ed The Happy Clown
J. Doucet -- Dirty Plotte
Herge -- Destination Moon/Explorers On The Moon
All -- Fabulous Furry Freak Bros. (incl.)
Chris Ware -- Jimmy Corrigan
D. Sim -- High Society

Just think about it for a minute -- breathe it deep into the lungs -- I think it makes sense.

But that could just be me.

I'm really just seconding some suggestions made already.

1. Y The Last Man - Safeword: This is an interesting look into Yorick's mind and really gets at the heart of what the series is about.

2. Pride of Baghdad: I think anyone could read this and see it for the pure greatness that it is.

3. Ex Machina: See I'm really not sure if this counts as a "superhero book." I know people have debated that topic already, and yes Hundred has powers, but it's more about the politics of NYC.

4. Maus: Again, this is obvious.

5. Blankets: I think this very clearly shows that you can just tell a story about normal people that could happen in real life with no "suspension of disbelief" required.

6. Watchmen: I just had to put it so I didn't get yelled at for some reason.

MAD Magazine would be a great thing to include. The political, cultural, and social stuff could be used to examine the roles satire and humor in literature.

There are two benefits to using MAD: it can be gut-bustingly funny, which is atypical of college texts, and it is likely the most commonly read comic by your students, aside from those in the newspaper.

I'm not sure what sort of reprint would work best for your purposes. I don't know of a "MAD about Cultural Context" volume. If you can't find an appropriate collection, it might be possible to get the DVD-Rom collection and print out a few articles for handouts.

[...] I asked, you answered (boy, did you answer!), and now, I present you with the mostly-final reading list for the Graphic Literature course that’s been sent to the committee: [...]

This is a great exercise - also interesting to see people picking the same things but for different reasons. Might I also humbly suggest perhaps Comics as Philosophy as something to look at besides Understanding Comics by Jeff McLaughlin - though it might be too heavy for some... or perhaps Stan Lee: Conversations which gets into the mind of one of the most well known writers also by McLaughlin. Hmm any relation? *blush*