The Sandman

An epic, surreal, slightly macabre, beautiful and thought-provoking series

by Neil Gaiman (and assorted artists)

Rating: Adult

Genre / themes: gods, mythology, alternate reality, psychology,

Art level: Variable. Distinctive characters, but a lot of people don't like the art. Very dark tones for most books, even though they are usually in colour.

Star Rating: 4.5/5


Number of Books: Was released in single comics, then twelve collected graphic novels. Four huge ultimate editions available, and a smaller Death one.

Other notes: Neil Gaiman is one of the Gods of writing :D

My Review
Gaiman's Sandman series was a long-running comic which opens up a clever, dark, often satirical world that is full of short stories of sad or ordinary or miraculous people, and is connected by the great deeds and brief appearances of the Endless - Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Destruction, Destiny and Delirium.

 Sometimes the stories are tragic, or horrible, they focus on people's lives as they live and die, write books, touch magic, have sex, retreat from society. Sometimes the stories are utterly mundane, sometimes the characters save the world. Sometimes they're metaphorical - the famous writer who keeps a muse trapped in the attic, the woman who suffers a debilitating disease and retreats from society (but is actually turned into metamorphic warrior by the sungod Ra).

...and I just found this awfully fun dissertation on DeviantART looking at The Kindly Ones in the Sandman books.

The Sandman series is HUGE - the complete comics collection was recently released as the Absolute Sandman books - four enormous volumes bigger than my cat, and another for Death's miniseries. But it's also available in twelve 'normal' sized graphic novels, and a 'collected dustcovers' book. It was originally published - for years - in single comics, which can still be found on eBay.

The Absolute Sandman editions

Order the Sandman books from The Book Depository and get FREE shipping!

The Absolute Death volume is high quality and focuses only on Death herself - but it's also pretty short. It's only worth it if you can afford it, as there isn't enough exclusive content to make it worth buying for that alone. That said, the format is very nice, so if you can afford it, it's better quality than other options.

(Also, the price has dropped a lot on Amazon - it started out at $100!)

Watchmen

The classic gritty mockery of the superhero genre

by Alan Moore

Rating: Adult.

Genre / themes: Realistic/psychological take on superheroes, modern day, urban,

Art level: Functional. A couple of decades old and it shows. Everything is quite crammed in, and the colours look faded compared to today's books.

Star Rating: 4/5

Number of Books: One.

Other notes:  The recent film Watchmen was based on this book. Very large thick book, considered one of the classic greats of graphic novels. In the top 100 novels of Time magazine.

Watchmen : Amazon Blurb
Has any comic been as acclaimed as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but Watchmen  remains the critics' favorite. Why? Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations (Saga of the Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, and From Hell, with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. It won a comic award at the time (the 1987 Jack Kirby Comics Industry Awards for Best Writer/Artist combination) and has continued to gather praise since.

My Review
Any list of graphic novels must include this. A gritty and cynical take on the popular (and often happy and mindless) superhero comics that became popular, Watchmen follows the story of a group of vigilante superheros years after their boom-and-bust fame, and the intricate plot they either get caught up in, or mastermind, to fix their miserable world. The art is a little outdated, but not as badly as a lot of comics from that period - it takes a little adjustment, but works well enough not to spoil the story, and the dark, slightly distorted feel works well for everything set within the city.

Not for younger readers, this is very definitely a book for adults, and is big enough to take hours reading. And yes, it was the source material of the recent movie. I've put it first on the list because, although I prefer his other major graphic novel V for Vendetta, it is his best known and most recommended book!

Doll

A thought-provoking and slightly sadistic manga on what it means to be human 

by Mitsukazu Mihara

Doll -Softcover Volume 1 (v. 1)

Rating: Adult

Genre / themes: androids, science fiction, Japan, humanity, psychological, death,

Art level: Good (manga style), black and white

Star Rating: 4/5

Number of Books: Six, complete series.

Other notes: Short stories with emerging common characters and themes, 'adult' Chobits. Dolls with no will or emotions/modifications to them.

Doll: Amazon Blurb
In these haunting tales, dolls--human-like androids--have an uncanny way of working themselves into the lives of their masters: A woman develops an unusual closeness to doll that she takes beyond the grave...A man wants to make his doll into the perfect human lover...A father buys his son a doll to help him get over the death of his mother. Doll examines the question of what it means to be truly human.


My Review
The second manga that I recommend (the first was Lady Snowblood by Kazuo Koike) Doll is for older readers. It has very pretty - and highly stylised - manga-style art with Gothic Lolita designs (big eyes, long legs, very pretty faces on everyone). It's also an intelligent pyschological twister that I rate well above Deathnote, but is a fair bit more mature - think Chobits for adults!

The six Doll books tell the different stories - that gradually and subtly intertwine - of people, scientists and very realistic androids. Twisted little stories about replacements for lost parents, creating the ideal lover, and what it really means to be human that gradually culminate into a macabre and thoughtful anthology. Definitely not for younger readers.

The complete 'Doll' manga series