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New to graphic novels? Check out these

By MARGO HAMMOND
Published October 16, 2005

Interested in trying out a graphic novel? I asked Bob Andelman, author of Will Eisner: A Spirited Life (see review, above), to pick 10 to get you started. The first five he chose, not surprisingly, are by Eisner, who first used the term "graphic novel" in 1978. The second five, by a broad array of artists, demonstrate the variety in the field.

"These graphic novels are not books for children," warns Andelman. "While not extremely sexual or violent, all are adult in tone, language and images."

- Margo Hammond, Times book editor

In a new edition of Contract, coming out next month, Will Eisner explains the inspiration behind this seminal 1978 work: the 1969 death of his teenage daughter, Alice, who was stricken with leukemia and died a painful death. Until this year, only his closest friends even knew he once had a daughter. The new 500-page edition also includes the two graphic novels that followed - Life Force and Dropsie Avenue - as well as 12 new illustrations.

In this thinly veiled autobiographical novella, Eisner captures the atmosphere surrounding the comic industry in the late 1930s.

This is a fully formed, multigenerational saga of Jewish families struggling to overcome the weight of both poverty and wealth. Packed with class warfare, sexual politics and booze, it can be a challenging read for anyone looking for a hero. Most of the characters are quite despicable, which nonetheless keeps the pages turning.

Told in flashbacks, this story of a young Jewish boy named "Willie" on his way to basic training in World War II, my personal favorite, reflects Eisner's real-life history. Eisner includes the classic story of how he changed his younger brother's name from Julian ("Jew-leen" as the Italian boys in the neighborhood said it) to Pete.

The Plot isn't Eisner's best narrative. But as a political lesson in how liars can twist history beyond truth and recognition for decades, the author's last graphic novel is his most powerful. And when it is distributed next year as a free insert in Arab newspapers across the Middle East, it will likely become his most enduring as well.

Now in its 20th year in print, Watchmen provides a depth of storytelling and plot rare for characters running around the planet wearing masks and capes.

After years as an underappreciated mainstay of underground and alternative comics, Pekar became a star with the film adaptation of his earlier graphic novel, American Splendor. In Cancer, he and his wife, Joyce, talk about how they deal with Pekar's bout with cancer.

If you want an example of a graphic novel unlike any other, consider this one. The New York Times, whose magazine now runs a strip by Ware, called it a "wonderfully nuanced portrait of loneliness." But be forewarned. As the Los Angeles Times put it, it's "nearly impossible to read."

Baseball and comics don't usually mix, but Sturm stirs the perfect alchemy in The Stars of David, the story of a barnstorming squad of Jewish ballplayers in the 1920s. Golems are the superheroes of Jewish mythology - one also figures in the plot of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - but this one is an African-American. Add in the manager of the team, Noah Strauss, who looks a lot like many people envision Jesus Christ, and it's a memorable tale.

Originally published in Esquire in 1960, Grasshopper, by the creator of Mad magazine and the Playboy comic strip Little Annie Fanny, is not the author's best-known work, but it's a lyrical, breezy blast to read. Filled with linguistic twists that clearly belong to the Beat Generation, it looks like a child's fable, but its sarcasm and politics are anything but childish.

[Last modified October 14, 2005, 12:38:03]