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!)

Fables

A new fantasy series about fairytale characters, and their refugee community in the real world

by Bill Willingham and various artists

(principal artist Mark Buckingham)

Fables Vol. 4:
March of the Wooden Soldiers

Rating: Young adult to adult.

Genre / themes: Alternate fairy tales, alternate universes, refugees, urban fantasy, modern world.

Art level: Good, coloured, western.

Star Rating: 4/5

Number of Books: Currently 14, nearly completed (I haven't been able to read the last couple of books yet).
 Also a spin-off series of nine books called 'Jack of the Fables'

and a single spin-off title, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love


Other notes: Variable books quality and length, but gets into its stride later in the series. Worth reading as an entire series.

The Fables books are a very new graphic novel series, and definitely worth picking up. The books are extremely variable in both length and quality - but skipping any isn't the best idea, as there is an actual narrative storyline! The first book is probably the least impressive, but later ones definitely make up for it! (I wouldn't recommend the first book alone, but I strongly recommend the entire series)

Fables is the story of the Fables - story book characters, fairy tales and myths - Snow White, Baba Yaga, Bigsby (the Big Bad Wolf), Prince Charming, Shere Khan, Bluebeard, Geppetto and Pinochio, the major King Coal, and the frog prince, to name but a few. They are refugees, fleeing a terrible army, who have established a city in the real world and are trying to get by without being noticed.

Fabletown is initially run by the affable and portly major, King Coal, and his ruthless secretary, Snow White. Bigsby, oncet he Big Bad Wolf, and the son of the North Wind, plays the sheriff, and the rest of the fables make up the diversity of the rest of the community, that they try to keep in line and out of site of the Mundanes. All signed a compact forgiving past crimes, and swearing to obey the laws of Fabletown. The (visually) non-humans live up on the Farm, also a source of tension.

The books follow both their individual adventures (Jack, knave of many stories, from tarts to beanstalks, wanders off to make himself a movie star at one point, and the first book revolves around the apparent murder of Rose Red), the politics and life of Fabletown (an uprising on the Farm, Prince Charming's election campaign), and the actual war with the Enemy (both in their homelands, and when spies and armies invade Fabletown).

The entire published Fables series in order, from left to right

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!

Strangers In Paradise

A tale of two girls in love, and the guy who loved them too. Also, crime, art, and growing up

By Terry Moore

Strangers In Paradise
Pocket Book 1

Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Love, growing up, crime (mafia/drugs/prostitution), relationships, lesbian/bisexual, modern day America.

Art level: Good. Black and white.

Star Rating: 5/5

Number of Books: . Individual comics collated into nineteen graphic novels, also collected into six small pocketbooks.
Check the book order here

Other notes: Self-published. Lots of flashbacks and forwards. Music and poetry a major theme.

Strangers in Paradise: Amazon Blurb
Katchoo is a beautiful young woman living a quiet life with everything going for her. She's smart, independent and very much in love with her best friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo's heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo's former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money. As her idyllic life begins to fall apart, Katchoo discovers no one can be trusted and that the past she thought she left behind now threatens to destroy her and everything she loves, including Francine. This is the first edition in the series - don't miss it! 


My Review

I LOVE this series.

Strangers in Paradise is the love story of Katchoo - a violent, intelligent, artistic blonde, with a troubled past and future, and Francine - the girl she grew up with, who's sweet and kind, has body image issues, and dreams of Mr. Right and the house with the white picket fence. It's also the story of art galleries and mobs, cancer and babies, death, guns, and school plays. Strangers in Paradise is kick ass, and philosophical, tasteful and sexy. The art is brilliant, and Terry Moore's lines are some of the few that make me want to draw cartoons instead of paintings.

The story of Katchoo, Francine and David is a brilliant graphic novel series. The explosiveness and the gentleness that is Katchoo will capture your heart and her story, and the story of her friends and love, interweaves deftly between art gallery, mafia, high school flashbacks, marriage, loss, jealousy, threesomes, death, and trust. This is an epic series. You can also read a bit more about Strangers in Paradise here.

The collected pocketbooks of Strangers In Paradise










The Strangers in Paradise: Treasury Edition is basically an edited version of the entire series in one book, with extra drawngs and cover art. Good for the beginner or collector, but the individual books are better for the entire story.

• For a more in-depth review of the Strangers in Paradise books, the music and the order of the entire nineteen large graphic novels (among other things!) check out this site on SiP.

• Check out the review of Strangers In Paradise at Good Lesbian Books
• Along with more lesbian graphic novels

Coraline: The Graphic Novel

Coraline: The Graphic Novel

A creepier young adult novel about a girl who wanders into the shadowier side of her life 

 by Neil Gaiman

Rating: Young adult (older children will enjoy it, but it may be a little creepy for them, adults should also enjoy it)

Genre / themes: Family, supernatural, alternate reality, imagination


Art level: Pretty good. Not outstanding, but not bad either. All in colour, quite flat looking.

Star Rating: 4 Stars


Number of Books: One.

Other notes: Adaptation of Neil Gaiman's original novel (which won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella for the year 2003, and also won the Locus Award, the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Work for Young Readers and the 2002 British Science Fiction Award for short fiction) and recently made into an animated film in 2009.

See this title on Amazon
See this title at The Book Depository

The Coraline novel is also available for the Kindle.

My Review

Coraline is for older children, young adults and anyone who likes Gaiman's slightly scary take on everything he writes. I got my dad this for his birthday, and it has been reread by both siblings and him several times since then - and is looking a bit battered! Coraline is a little girl who is lonely and imaginative and wanders into the wrong part of her new house - where she meets her creepy Other Mother and Other Father.

Her Other Mother at first provides her with everything she wants, including a great deal of attention - but then gets too creepy for Coraline, who runs home. Unfortunately, her Other Mother doesn't approve of this, and steals her parents away. Coraline has to return and face down her Other Mother in order to rescue them. If she can find where they are hidden.

The other Coraline books, and the movie.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Long Way Home
(Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Season 8, Vol. 1)

The spin-off comics from the awesome vampire dusting television series from Joss Whedon


Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Vampires, Buffy, supernatural, saving the world, normal- 'super' heroes.

Art level: Very variable - mostly quite bad, but the artists change a lot. The season eight books are much better.

Star Rating: 3.5 stars (4.5 stars for season 8)


Number of Books: Seven Omnibuses (one for each finished season) plus individual graphic novels and comics. Season Eight is unfinished, so still only in single story graphic novels.

Other notes: Mostly spin-off stories and retellings of the show, so it's not too repetitive if you've seen the original series. Bonus materials (e.g. original covers) included. Storytelling and art highly variable originally. Season eight only available as graphic novels, due to the television series ending, and much better quality (also actually written by Joss Whedon in many cases).

This is a brilliant gift for a Buffy fan, so-so for anyone else (with the exception of season eight which is pretty awesome)

See this series on Amazon
See this series at The Book Depository

My Review
The graphic novel version of the famous television series is collected in seven volumes, plus the eighth season that's still being written. The art doesn't get consistently good until the final season, but we're not buying this for the art. We're buying it for Buffy and the Scoobies.

 Some of the artwork or the stories are patchy, as they tend to be collaborations with various writers, but the omnibuses are the best way to collect the Buffy comics - they're even organised into chornological order (story wise). And the story is different enough to be worth reading, and to provide new enjoyment - especially the bonus stories! The stories in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 1" take place before the show's first season, and the other volumes all deviate from the television and include additional stories.

Season Eight - 4.5 stars
From what I've seen of the single graphic novels in the eighth series, the art is incredibly improved, and as it's the continuation of the television series, not the spin-off, and Joss Whedon is actually taking a hand in the plot, I can guarantee that a) it actually has a cohesive story (and is not just a bunch of collectible tales)  and b) it's canon, and good.

I actually met Georges Jeanty, the artist who did the pencils for the season eight books, and was impressed enough to buy one of his sketchbooks (reviewed here).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 was shortlisted for the 2008 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, in the 'Other work' category.

All the BtVS compilations so far (not including season eight)