recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire

Art classes would probably help them, as well.

You should read that book Vicar. It's fascinating, it's kind of layman's book but really some nice thinking and and an arty (comic!) approach that works much better than you would imagine. When you read that book you sort of start to realize the untapped potential of comics. Douglas Wolk, who posts around here from time to time, has a new book about comics that is good but it really just doesn't resonate like McCloud's does.

I thought I had posted to this thread a long time ago, but upon quickly browsing I can't see that I have...

Superhero:
Dan Slott's first volume of She-Hulk. (and he's going to be writing Amazing Spiderman Soon I think I read?)
Brubaker's Captain America.
Morrison's X-Men (Whedon's is alright too, but not as radical or innovative in terms of characterization, and not as densely plotted.) Also Morrison's Invisibles, Animal Man and Doom Patrol.
Moore's Swamp Thing, Tom Strong and, yes, Watchmen.
I'm NOT a huge Brian Michael Bendis fan, but I find his best work to be Daredevil (later continued by the maybe even better Brubaker) and also Ultimate Spiderman. I found Powers boring.
I think Batman Year One is better than Dark Knight Returns.
Marvel Essential Dr. Strange & X-Men volumes (with X-Men maybe start with the 2nd one, as the first isn't quite as excellent.)
All Star Superman (more Morrison.)
Warren Ellis's Ultimate Fantastic Four.

Non-Superhero:
Cerebus (at least through the first six volumes or so. Becomes increasingly bizarre thereafter with a lot of elements that are, let's say, non-Tuomas friendly.)
Fell by Warren Ellis (starts off great, losing a bit of steam recently in favor of lots of interrogation/talk-down kinda stuff. But worth reading, definitely.)
Gotham Central--I echo all recommendations of this. Volumes 1-3 especially, but it's all worth reading if you like those.
Tintin (In Tibet, The Calculus Affair, etc.)
We3 by Grant Morrison (animals!)
Planetary by Warren Ellis, also.
Gary Panter action. Jimbo in Purgatory = gorgeous, agreed.
Brian Chippendale's "Ninja." (mindblowing stuff, and I'm not just saying that as a Providence apologist/fanboy.)
Walking Dead loses a little steam when they first find the prison, but only wallows in soap opera territory briefly.
all the volumes of Kramer's Ergot I've been able to get my hands on have been fantastic. Various creator anthologies of alternative/psychedelic/indie comics (Panter, Chippenale, CF, Leif Goldberg, Elvis Studios, Matt Brinkman, and, oh, craploads of people whose names aren't coming to me right now. The guy who does the super-dense mutant/head/object conglomeration stuff; the Jimmy Corrigan guy... (who i don't really like)... uh, you know, and so on. Each volume is like 25 or 30 bucks but absolutely worth it.)
I'm blanking on the name of the writer/artist right now but 1-800-MICE has been cool. Dude's also been featured in Kramer's Ergot.
EC anthologies, especially the sci-fi ones. The horror books (Tales From The Crypt) always get the most recognition, it seems, but the sci-fi ones always got me more. Ray Bradbury did the plotting for a bunch of em.
Pekar & Crumb's "American Splendor" is good. A contemporary of theirs, Rory Hayes, has done a bunch of awesome stuff with psychedelic monsters and amorphous bodies and shit. Way rad.

I do not like Adrian Tomine. Or Jeffrey Brown, really, though "Be A Man" was kind of funny.

The guy who does the super-dense mutant/head/object conglomeration stuff
^ marc bell

Stuff I like that I don't think was mentioned above:

Superhero:
Kingdom Come
Marvels
Superman: Birthright
JLA: Tower of Babel
Batman: the Long Halloween, Dark Victory

Other:
The Middleman (I prefer volume 1, but they're both good)
Flight (all of these are pretty great)
Daisy Kutter: the Last Train
Whiteout (Rucka again)
Danger Girl
Hopeless Savages

Umm...

Was everything in my list mentioned above? It's possible.

"Man, I don't want to be a lesbian, all politics 24/7 and no sexy."

Yeah but the strip is making fun of Mo for that...

Confidential to jaymc: You would probably really like Watchmen.

Nope. They weren't. I don't know if all of them are "essential," per se, but a few of them definitely are.

I'm glad to see a couple of mentions now of David B.'s Epileptic

It is a graphic NOVEL in the geuine sense of the word, a huge, moving story with the most incredible graphics ever. I cried and cried at the end of it. I recommend it very highly.

Cerebus (at least through the first six volumes or so. Becomes increasingly bizarre thereafter with a lot of elements that are, let's say, non-Tuomas friendly.)

I saw this the other day and didn't pick it up cause I couldn't discern wtf was going on and there wasn't any kind of plot indicator on the book itself.

WTF is the plot of Cerebus?

There is an earthpig who is a barbarian. Then he gets into politics. Then he gets into religion. Then he goes to the moon and is told he will die alone and unloved. Then he goes back to earth and mopes. Then Oscar Wilde dies. Then the earthpig goes on a years long drinking spree. Then Dave Sim loses his mind and makes the book nigh-unreadable.

Between the politics and the drinking spree, it's really some of the best stuff there is.

I'm not an expert by ANY MEANS but I can vouch for a lot of the novels mentioned.

Currently enjoying Lady Snowblood immensely. Someone (on Librarything) said it was a guilty pleasure?!? Dude must have high standards, cause I think it's not really a guilty pleasure. Guess he thinks the nekkidness is a bit of GP or something. I love it because of the nakedness (duh!) but also because of the Japanese culture/history.

DMZ definitely seconded.

what about Seaguy? why is no one mentioning this?

I hated Seaguy.

But for people who like it a little rough, may I recommend Miller/Darrow's Hard Boiled.

yeah, i mentioned that upthread, especially re: the artwork. Amazing stuff.

> Currently enjoying Lady Snowblood immensely.

same writer as the (7000 page) Lone Wolf and Cub (am currently on book 6 of 28), Samurai Executioner, Crying Freeman et al - Kazuo Koike

spent the weekend re-reading Optic Nerve. am always annoyed with it when i finish any of the stories in a 'what happens next, i want to know' kind of way.

Seaguy's alright, but it's NOT morrison's finest work by any means. this may be because its lifespan was cut short and it remains unfinished.

Seaguy is pretty weird and sorta halfway there - I enjoyed it, but for anyone unfamiliar with comics it will be a total headscratcher.

Adrian Tomine is fucking horrible

re: Cerebus - the plot is really convoluted and will be impossible to follow if you start anywhere after High Society (Book 2, which is really where it starts to get interesting). The THEME of it, however, is generally power - the different forms of it, what it does to people, and how it is used. The rest is details (and yes, Sim did totally lose his mind - and the plot - somewhere around Book 9, altho there is still a fair amount of totally amazing artwork that followed)

Cerebus is also a kind of record/landmark in that it is the longest-running comic book penned (and written) by a single artist - it is the single largest graphic novel ever undertaken and completed, and encompasses (at various points) virtually the entire language and creative spectrum of comics.

Minor quibble: Gherard's backdrops are just as important as Sim's illustrations in terms of the book's general ambience.

i've avoided cerebus b/c i heard it was terribly misogynistic. should i get over that & read it anyway?

re: Gerhard, no argument there!

re: mysogny - it is quite clear in the book when Sim's mysogyny comes to the fore, and its somewhere around Book 8 or 9, I forget. Up to that point there's plenty about sexual politics, but nothing that makes it unreadable or inherently offensive. Its when Sim starts to speak - directly to the reader and practically out of nowhere - about how women control everything and men are all victims of their evil predatory ways that it goes to shit.

(I should point out that before then there was quite a lot of interesting explorations about gender and power and feminism and political-religious hierarchies and whatnot - its when Sim gets all pedantic and really antagonistic that it starts to hamper and poison his work)

also: the irony of such a gargantuan achievement in the medium being a deeply mysogynistic and basically "I SCARED OF GURLS" screed should be self-evident, particularly when one considers the traditional target audience of comics (awkward adolescent boys)

I'll second Ellis' UFF big time--it's my go-to book for introducing people to superhero comics. I think any of the better-written books from the Ultimate series is a good choice, if only because you aren't going to have to sit someone down and explain backstory for 90 hours.

Also:
Whedon's X-Men
that one Iron Man reboot-thing that was really good until Civil War started.
BPRD/Hellboy
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for some people :D
Love & Rockets
Maybe The Maxx, it could possibly make someone hate comics forever.
Certain arcs of Constantine maybe.
Preacher
Transmetropolitan
Batman: Year One

I would NEVER try to intro someone to comics via:
Sandman
From Hell

I think Watchmen is the kind of book that you can go back to and get something different from several times. It'd be cool to read it as "just" a comic book; the story's good, the characters are interesting. So in that respect it's fine to show it to someone who hasn't read a lot of comics. On the other hand, it would definitely warrant a revisiting after you've earned your comic book big boy britches.

I think From Hell would be good for somone who wanted to read "graphic novels" not "comic books". Sure it's hardly light reading - it's the equivalent of the big weighty serious novel, so for someone into them it could be ideal.

man fuck that person.

So noone likes Lady Snowblood? Koogs, back me up here! :-)

I agree with Ledge, fwiw.

hirded. From Hell is great, but is more of an investment of time than anything else with drawings in it, possibly.

Yeah, From Hell is, IMO, a much better introduction than Watchmen, at least insofar as it's not laden with Comics Baggage. On certain days, I'd argue that it's a better work than Watchmen.

And Preacher: no. No no no. Unless the person you're introducing comics to is a college freshman who's all about "EDGY", no. It is by far a more juvenile work than a lot of mainstream superhero stuff.

Ledge is definitely right, but at the same time that person isn't going to ever become someone who reads a lot of comics, are they? They'll read From Hell and Cerebus and maybe Sandman and whatever coming-of-age b&w book Salon is pushing, but they aren't going to become a fan of comic books.

That's really the issue with introducing people to comics by way of quality indie stuff. There just isn't enough of it out there to sustain a person and make them a true Comix Fan if that's all they read.

From Hell is definitely a superior work to Watchmen

Agreed, I'd argue that any day. From Hell is amazing in an obsessive, painstaking way. I wonder if he was doing a lot of speed when he wrote it.

I think some people on this thread might be surprised how well Watchmen still works even if you don't really care about or are aware of the comics-baggage issues going on in it.

I can't make myself unaware of them, so I'm not sure how I could verify that... on one level I think Watchmen's inferiority to From Hell is specifically due to all its superhero-comic-book baggage: on the one hand its amazing to see such a humanistic deconstruction of the genre, but on the other its impact is limited because the story is constrained within those reference points to a large degree. From Hell, by contrast, is just a great story, well-written and painstakingly executed, about much larger and more universal themes and issues and goes DEEP into human culture and the psychology of evil in a way that just isn't possible within the confines of a conventional superhero story (however meta that story is).

I dunno, I think Watchmen is more entertaining and an easier read, and therefore I prefer it. From Hell is admirable for its attention to detail and obsessive exploration of a story, but frankly, it's kind of boring.

rong.

kind of boring = needed more fight scenes?

how about a carchase?

Yes, because Watchmen was so shallow and action-oriented.

I thought From Hell was fantastic. But then I am not a "real" comics fan, since I've only read stuff by Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Chester Brown, Jeffrey Brown, Jessica Abel, Ariel Schrag, Craig Thompson, Charles Burns, Brian K. Vaughan, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware, and haven't really wrestled with the whole Alan Moore/Frank Miller/Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean/Grant Morrison branch. There's also some well-respected comics that I just can't get into because I don't like the art.

Oh, I'm not saying From Hell is bad at all. I just prefer Watchmen because I think Watchmen is more readable, and therefore more successful as a book. The fact that half of the From Hell trade consists of appendices, to me, doesn't really make it a super fun read. Very smart, did exactly what it set out to do, not something I'd ever read again.

the whole Alan Moore/Frank Miller/Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean/Grant Morrison branch.

Even though they've all done superhero comics, I think it would be a mistake to think of their work as a "branch."