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.

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.

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.

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?)

“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.

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.

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

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 ^_^

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.

and DMZ is very interesting.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.