Best Books of the Year – Graphic Novels

-- Publishers Weekly, 11/7/2006

The year's best graphic novels span the range of material from a Chinese-American boy trying to come to terms with his heritage to a self-centered ad-man finding salvation in a post-9/11 road trip; from the quiet musings on the meaning of life from a cartoony everyman to a handful of Japanese school kids battling for their lives following a traumatic train wreck.

On the brink of WWI, Alice, Dorothy and Wendy, classic characters from children's literature now grown to adults, explore their sexuality and mythic pasts in this controversial erotic fantasy.

Fun Home
Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin)

In this haunting memoir, Bechdel examines her closeted father's homosexuality and destructive lies while learning to accept her own lesbianism.

Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness
Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni Press)

Indie slacker musician Scott Pilgrim must fight his former girlfriend's superpowered vegan bass-playing boyfriend in this hilarious sendup of video games, indie rock and comics.

Making Comics
Scott McCloud (HarperCollins)

Completing his analytical trilogy, the guru of comics theory takes an in-depth look at how comics storytelling works, offering advice, how-tos and exercises.

Ghost of Hoppers
Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics)

In this complex and wistful tale, an older, now-divorced Maggie Chascarrillo manages a low-rent apartment complex full of oddball tenants while she struggles with her new life and her old lover, Hopey.

Curses
Kevin Huizenga (Drawn & Quarterly)

Huizenga's spare but architectonic drawings highlight stories that slyly explore philosophic quandaries, often through the eyes of Glenn Ganges, an everyman protagonist who offers a thoughtful wonder at life's complexities.

American Born Chinese
Gene Yang (Roaring Brook/First Second)

The story of a Chinese-American kid in an all-white school is combined with the Chinese fable of the Monkey King and a hilarious racist stereotype in a delightful allegory on Chinese-American identity.

Can't Get No
Rick Veitch (DC/Vertigo)

Corporate executive Chad Roe awakes after an all-night bender to find his entire body marked in indelible ink. After 9/11, he takes to the road, in an elliptical narrative that calls his life's choices into question through satirical verse.

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón (Hill & Wang)

A comics adaptation of the original 9/11 Commission Report that retains all its content and recommendations.

Dragon Head Vol. 1
Minetaro Mochizuki (Tokyopop)

A Japanese schoolboy heading home by train is violently awakened when the train crashes in a dark tunnel, leaving him and others trapped underground amid the mangled and dead bodies.