graphically notable books

My preferences

• Titles written for adults or older teens

• Fairly recent publications

• Original work; no adaptations

• Absorbing, page-turning narratives

• Intellectual heft; something to teach me

• Works that pack an emotional punchZombies & super-heroes?

Not this time

I didn’t consciously seek out diversity, but the authors I chose include a hockey fan from Canada, a British scholar of critical discourse analysis, and a pair of

Brazilian twins.

“ … weaves a rich tapestry of triumph, tragedy, gender politics, dying dreams and personal tragedy.”

- Iann Robonson, Craveonline

First graphic novel to win a Costa Book Award

Part biography, part memoir, Dotter contrasts the lives of two women with famous, demanding fathers.

• Lucia Joyce (1907-1982), daughter of Modernist poet and novelist James Joyce

• Mary Talbot, daughter of eminent Joycean scholar, James S. Atherton.

James Joyce and his family

Young Samuel Beckett, a Joyce protégé. Briefly dated Lucia

Joyce’s last dance recital, in 1929. She designed her shimmering fish costume

Several awards in 2011• Eisner Award: "Best Limited

Series or Story Arc“

• Harvey Award: "Best Single Issue or Story“

• Eagle Award: Won "Favourite New Comicbook" 

“There are graphic novels that speak of what it is to be human and then there are graphic novels like Daytripper that celebrate our humanity as well as our very existence.”

- Comic Revoluion

“Unflinchingly mines the drama of both petty slashes of racism and larger instances of civil unrest …also how small acts of humanity can outclass even the most determined hatred.”

- Booklist

A story based on real-life events from Mark Long’s childhood

• Takes place in Houston, Texas 1968

• Two families – one white, one black – cross the color line to help free five college students accused of killing a policeman.

• Long wanted to provide a more nuanced portrait. Says too many stories about racism rely on clichés, like redneck cops or saintly minorities. “There’s nothing to be learned or truly felt when emotional responses come that cheap.”

Twenty years after Kings in Disguise, “one of the great graphic novels of all time,” comes an even better sequel.

• It’s now 1937, and Fred Bloch is a young man who wants to be a writer

• He works in a traveling WPA circus, apprenticed to an escape artist

• Though the story is fiction, the scenes were extensively researched. The strikes, Pinkerton goons, red-baiting comments are all depicted accurately.

A quietly epic human tale that beautifully employs the comic medium in its telling … and very possibly the most affecting graphic narrative that you will read in the next couple of decades.”  - Alan Moore

Fred and his reporter friend watch a confrontation between strikers and police during the 1937 Republic Steel Strike in Chicago

From Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1937

Because the Depression was 80 years ago, it's easier for people who didn't live through those times to discount the answers that were found back then. 

- James Vance

When we started the book, the full effect of the economic collapse hadn't been felt yet, the war on unions hadn't begun, the Occupy movement hadn't started. There was a point later on when Dan and I were talking, and he laughed and said that we'd gone from being a period piece to being timely. But that's what happens when you're dealing with history; sometimes you don't realize that what you consider to be the past hasn't ended yet, and you're a part of it, too.

- James Vance

  “Quiet lives, quiet people, and quiet drawings rest on every page, in the middle of vast, quiet farmlands that seem perpetually cold and barren, but somehow still sustain life.”

-GraphicNovelReporter

Quite simply, the most moving book I’ve read in a long time

And I don’t even like hockey!

All three stories in the trilogy take place in a rural community in Canada. The main characters in each segment have bit parts in the others.

Book One: Tales from the Farm

Shy, lonely Lester becomes friends with the much older Jimmy Lebeuf, who runs the local filling station. Jimmy almost made it into pro-hockey, but ever since the accident during a game, he’s been “kinda slow.”

Book two: Ghost Stories

Brothers Lou and Vince both played for the Toronto Grizzlies in 1951. A half a century later, Lou can still hear the roar of the crowd, and the scraping sound of his skates on ice. The memories are all he’s got now, but he’s so haunted by regrets that he can’t enjoy them.

Book Three: The Country Nurse

Anne Byrne is a home health care worker who knows all the secrets in town, except maybe her grandmother’s.

N In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation.

Lemire draws us in and sets us free. 

-

Goodreadspressivinkinof a young artist at the height of his n and sets

Can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception?

Maybe not, but reading this marvelous book is healing in itself.

Favorite Review Sites

noflyingnotights.com

comicsbeat.com tcj.com/category/blog

comicgeekspeak.com

comixology.com/Graphic-Novels diamondbookshelf.com

Please share yourown favorites!

Nanette BuleboshElkhart Lake, WI

920-946-9482

msbosh@gmail.com

@msbosh