recommend me some essential graphic novels to acquire

I think it would've been much better for Moore to let the reader decide how mad Gull was instead of providind the supernatural ending we have now.

He did! The reader can totally decide that Gull is mad and imagining or hallucinating the ending, you've just decided it's 4 real.

If he was just imagining things, how comes his visions of future are totally accurate?

Also, unlike the reader Gull doesn't know who the women with the kids who he last sees is, so why would have had such a vision in the first place if it wasn't supernatural?

Spooky.

in fairness, I didn't know who the woman was either until ages later someone explained to me what had happenend. It is not for nothing they do not call me The Brainy Vicar.

I think Moore deliberately left her identity to be a bit of a mystery for the reaer to solve. The biggest clue is actually in the notes, not in the comic proper. Though the last scene makes little sense if you don't know who she is.

Maybe I am being blase, but you guys keep talking about the same things canon, which seems a bit cliche. Then again, Gear asked essential novels so I have no right to complain, I guess. Gotta repeat the love for LADY SNOWBLOOD though. I think it's awesome.

There are only so many options, kinda.

I mean there are far fewer comics made than movies or novels or what-have-you.

yes Tuomas I'm aware how much you hate it whenever anything supernatural happens in a story (be it Lynch or Moore or whoever). This is not a defect of writing or plot construction, its a personal hangup that you have.

As far as From Hell being a deeper work about evil, I think it gets a lot of its resonance from a) being based on actual events, complete with recognizable historical characters and settings and a huge backdrop that basically composed of the entirety of Western culture (see Gull's "tour of London" issue, which is a small masterpiece); b) it isn't just about any serial killer - for one thing, its about the FIRST serial killer - and Gull's evil is clearly bound up in a tradition of oppressive male power that goes way beyond "gosh look at this loony with his weird problem with women" kind of psychoanalysis; and c) because of these bigger themes the book ostensibly has a wider appeal - you don't have to know anything about the history of comics or superheroes or any kind of comics-medium-in-jokes (which Watchmen is riddled with, if not entirely composed of), this is stuff anyone can grasp, it operates on a basic primal level asking questions about what human culture is and how society is structured and the kind of suffering its built on.

Ok, so who is the woman at the end of From Hell?

the woman was supposed to be Gull's last victim, but she escaped (I forget her name, its the one the investigator had a little crush on) - the woman Gull actually killed was someone else who had taken her bed.

The chapter where Gull sees the future is possibly one of the most intense things I've ever read. Left me totally unsettled at the end of it.

Mary Kelly.

Also, unlike the reader Gull doesn't know who the women with the kids who he last sees is, so why would have had such a vision in the first place if it wasn't supernatural?

Do you always know exactly who everyone is in your dreams, and never find them unsettling for reasons you can't pinpoint?

I don't know if I should read through all of this but I am looking for a graphic novel with good art, originality, and void of super hero type stuff (but not too girly).

I liked reading through the previews of Adrian Tomine's work here.
I have read Daniel Clowes - David Boring and Ghost world, Maus, and Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth. I liked all of them. Clowes is great at capturing realistic expressions and dialog, Maus was great because it was a page turner, and Jimmy Corrigan was great because of its' epicness and wonderful art.

get this
http://weblogs.variety.com/photos/uncategorized/cantgetno.jpg

The Salon

I like deep stuff and creative imagery

get the one i said to get

and the one dr superman

I'll check em out

get this

if you are a HUGE STONER

Eisner's collected 'Contract With God' trilogy.
Eddie Campbell's Alec books (The King Canute Crowd, Three Piece Suit, How To Be An Artist, After The Snooter)
Anything else by Eddie Campbell
Cerebus, as mentioned above, is still astonishing (my guide here: This is the thread where I try and summarise Cerebus )
Fun Home
Lost Girls (not sure how available this is)
Alice In Sunderland is probably this year's finest work
Owly
Scott Pilgrim

> I liked reading through the previews of Adrian Tomine's work here.

tomine has several collections out, mostly short stories but the recent 3 issue extended story is recently out as a book ('shortcomings'). (search amazon for 'tomine')

there's a second volume of maus btw, and lots more daniel clowes and chris ware. have recently read and enjoyed clowes' 'ice haven' and wares' 'acme novelty library 17'.

lone wolf and cub.

Aldo, tell me more re. Alice in Sunderland.

Does one really need to be a stoner to enjoy "Can't get no..."?

Alice In Sunderland is Bryan Talbot's history of Sunderland, filtered through what is known of Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell.

It's probably best described as if Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore were collaborating on a book about the North East - imagine something that looks like Voice Of The Fire, or The Highbury Working, only with the comics density of Promethea and Watchmen put together.

Voice Of The Fire, or The Highbury Working

I do not know these books :( I will have a look at Alice though. Sounds good. Does one need to know Sunderland or is it secondary to the story?

Voice Of The Fire is Alang Moore's novel (non-graphic) about Northampton. The Highbury Working is a spoken word piece he did with Tim Perkins which is available on CD (in fact, all his spoken word pieces are good - let me see if I can sort out a Why Ess Eye later).

Sunderland is not secondary to the story, but you don't need to know anything about it. I certainly didn't know very much about it before reading - almost everything was new to me.

I have actually read Voice of Fire. I can't really remembering enjoying it all that much. The offer of the other sounds v good indeed!

Just pricing up Alice in Sunderland now, sounds very interesting indeed!

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=57

CaptainLorax, do you love comis? I Love Comics.

ugh Adrian Tomine

hadn't heard of that Veitch thing before, he's great!

i'm currently reading tomine's 'summer blonde' - i like it, but it's pretty depressing and sad. next up is 'curses' by kevin huizenga.

took me awhile to get into because i've never been a fan of comics or read a graphic novel, but they were gifts.

i've heard lots of good things about joe matt.

Alice In Sunderland is a BUCKET OF SHIT and has ZERO comics density. Every single page is a few black and white drawings of Talbot talking and talking and talking to the reader, in front of hideous, hideous, hideous shitey photoshop collages where he's taken all his reference photos and tried to swerve copyright by blurring the edges and sticking them through My First Oil Painting Filter and My First Lumpy Glass Window Filter. There's nothing wrong with the cross-references, but they don't actually reveal any deep thinking about the connections beyond "Ey up! This happened too! But 300 years earlier. Eh? Eh?" He's so smug about creating (get this) three different versions of himself to portray different levels of reader interest that he takes time to tell you that he's done it instead of just letting you decode for yourself that the fat slob asking dipshit questions is a device to prompt exposition and explication.

Forget the author of Arkwright and One Bad Rat, this is about one-ninth as good as Phage: Shadow Death.

Does one really need to be a stoner to enjoy "Can't get no..."?

You don't have to, but it will certainly help. If you don't have a taste for long poetic allegories instead, probably steer clear.

there's a second volume of maus btw

There's been a complete volume out for ten or twelve years, I don't think they keep the second serialised version in print anymore

Joe Matt is great - a real genius with the "unreliable narrator" tactic, albeit often a quite subtle one. The whole comic is built around a willful exaggeration of his most loathsome and lamentable character traits (kinda like Curb Your Enthusiasm, only much more carefully constructed and executed)

also his brushwork is really beautiful

dude is really nice too. my best friend emailed him asking if he would sign a book for him if he sent it - joe matt emailed back and told him if he hadn't already bought the book to not bother; he would just send a signed one to him for free.

Dang!

some dudes are just nice.

in his comics he's possibly the most unlikeable person imaginable - a raging narcissist with a host of crippling emotional problems and unattractive sexual proclivities.

void of super hero type stuff (but not too girly).

Oh man this is pretty much prefect.

I recommend Little Lulu

People who like stuff like Maus and Persepolis should check out Stuck Rubber Baby, it's a similarly grounded-in-history kind of a story of oppression and resistance, dealing with the fight for civil rights and gay rights in 60s America. It's not a straight (auto)biography like the other two, but the characters are very well written and believable, and the whole story is quite touching. And it's not too girly either.

GIRLY COMICS FOR DANDY DAMAGED PRINCESS-MEN

What the hell.

lolz @ Maus being called a "straight autobiography"

Poor Finnish word choices aside, I heartily second the recommendation of "Stuck Rubber Baby." Also "Can't Get No," even if you aren't high.

Dave McKean's Cages is excellent.

I'm not really into graphic novels so much so my standards might be off, but there's a Japanese book called "Blame!" (supposed to be pronounced 'Blam!', but you know, the author's Japanese) about people wandering this infinitely massive building in the future. The style cops a lot from Alien and it occasionally veers into cheesy Japanese cyber-gothiness, but the art is astounding and the author's vision is so uniquely bleak that it really sets itself apart from your standard Japanese sci-fi (which I usually just ignore). Anyway, the author is Tsutomu Nihei and I think it's just been translated into English.

an ILXor wrote THE BOOK.