graphic novels, comics and mangas

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From wikipedia:
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is a Batman graphic novel written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. It was originally published in the United States in both hardcover and softcover editions by DC Comics in 1989. The subtitle is taken from line 55 of the poem "Church Going", by Philip Larkin.

The graphic novel presents very different versions of several characters in the Batman universe. Examples include: Maxie Zeus, an electrified, emaciated figure with messianic delusions obsessed with electric shocks; Clayface (presumably Preston Payne), who is rapidly wasting away from lack of 'feeding'; the Mad Hatter, whose obsession with Alice in Wonderland has pedophilic overtones; and Batman himself, who is driven close to the breaking point by the Asylum itself. Killer Croc was originally drawn as suffering deformities similar to those of the Elephant Man, although his final incarnation is that of a humanoid crocodile.

From amazon:
In this groundbreaking, painted graphic novel, the inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over Gothams detention center for the criminally insane on April Fools Day, demanding Batman in exchange for their hostages.Accepting their demented challenge, Batman is forced to live and endure the personal hells of the Joker, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Two-Face and many other sworn enemies in order to save the innocents and retake the prison.During his run through this absurd gauntlet, the Dark Knights own sanity is placed in jeopardy.This special anniversary edition trade paperback also reproduces the original script with annotations by Morrison and editor Karen Berger.

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From wikipedia:
Joker is an original graphic novel written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Lee Bermejo. It was published in 2008 by DC Comics. The entire story is narrated by a character named Jonny Frost, a low level thug who is sent to Arkham Asylum to pick up the Joker. Frost becomes part of the Joker's gang and assists him in trying to regain his former status as high profile gang figure within Gotham City, clashing with figures such as Two-face, Killer Croc, The Penguin and Batman.

From amazon:
An original hardcover graphic novel that tells the story of one very dark night in Gotham City--from the creative team behind the graphic novel Lex Luthor: Man of Steel.

The Joker has been mysteriously released from Arkham Asylum, and he's none to happy about what's happened to his Gotham City rackets while he's been "away." What follows is a harrowing night of revenge, murder and manic crime as only The Joker can deliver it, as he brutally takes back his stolen assets from The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face, Killer Croc and others.

Brian Azzarello brings to The Joker all the visceral intensity and criminal insight that has made his Vertigo graphic novel series 100 Bullets one of the most critically-acclaimed and award-winning series in all of comics.

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From wikipedia:
Batman: The Man Who Laughs is a one-shot prestige format comic book by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke, released in February 2005, and intended as a sequel to Batman: Year One. It tells the story of Batman's first encounter with the Joker in post-Crisis continuity. The storyline is based on the Joker's original introduction in Batman #1 (1940). The story "Images" in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #50 (September 1993), taking place some time after their first meeting (according to Batman), is tied into continuity as Batman's second encounter with The Joker.

The title is a reference to the movie The Man Who Laughs, whose star, Conrad Veidt, was an inspiration for The Joker.

From amazon:
Witness Batman's first encounter with The Joker in this volume collecting the graphic novel Batman: The Man Who Laughs, by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke! This collection also includes Detective Comics #784-786, a murder mystery tale guest-starring Green Lantern Alan Scott.

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From wikipedia:
Batman: The Killing Joke is an influential one-shot superhero comic book written by Alan Moore and drawn by Brian Bolland, published by DC Comics in 1988. It has in its original form continuously been held in print since then. It has also been reprinted as part of the DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore-trade paperback.

In 2008 it was reprinted in a deluxe hardcover edition. This Deluxe Edition features new coloring by Brian Bolland, meant to illustrate his original intentions for the book, with more somber, realistic, and subdued colors than the intensely-colored original.

The plot revolves around a largely psychological battle between Batman and his longtime foe the Joker, who has escaped from Arkham Asylum. The Joker intends to drive Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon insane to prove that the most upstanding citizen is capable of going mad after having "one bad day". Along the way, the Joker has flashbacks to his early life, gradually explaining his possible origin.

From amazon:
One of the most famous Batman stories of all time is offered for the first time in hardcover in this special twentieth-anniversary edition. This is the unforgettable that forever changed Batman's world, adding a new element of darkness with its unflinching portrayal of The Joker's twisted psyche.

Writer Alan Moore, acclaimed author of Watchmen and V For Vendetta, offers his take on the disturbing relationship between The Dark Knight and his greatest foe. The Clown Prince of Crime has never been more ruthless than in this brutal tale. This special new edition also includes a story written and exquisitely illustrated by Brian Bolland.

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From wikipedia:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century is the third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. Co-published by Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics in the US and UK respectively, Century will be published in three distinct 72-page squarebound comics. The volumes are tentatively scheduled to be released annually with Part 1 already released on May 13, 2009; Part 2 scheduled for April / May 2010; and Part 3 scheduled for April / May 2011.

From amazon:
The new volume detailing the exploits of Miss Wilhelmina Murray and her extraordinary colleagues, Century is a 240-page epic spanning almost a hundred years. Divided into three 80-page chapters - each a self-contained narrative to avoid frustrating cliff-hanger delays between episodes - this monumental tale takes place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in our own, current, twenty-first century.

Chapter one is set against the backdrop of London, 1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion and nine years since England put a man upon the moon. In the bowels of the British Museum, Carnacki the ghost-finder is plagued by visions of a shadowy occult order who are attempting to create something called a Moonchild, while on London's dockside the most notorious serial murderer of the previous century has returned to carry on his grisly trade. Working for Mycroft Holmes' British Intelligence alongside a rejuvenated Allan Quartermain, the reformed thief Anthony Raffles and the eternal warrior Orlando, Miss Murray is drawn into a brutal opera acted out upon the waterfront by players that include the furiously angry Pirate Jenny and the charismatic butcher known as Mac the Knife.

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From wikipedia:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is an original graphic novel in the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. It is the last volume of the series to be published by DC Comics; future editions of the series will be published by Top Shelf Productions due to Alan Moore severing all connections with DC. Chronologically, the volume is the third in the series, but Moore says that it is really an intermediary volume linking volumes two and three.

Unlike earlier volumes, the comic book portions of Black Dossier are not set in the Victorian era; rather, they are set in 1958, after the fall of the Big Brother government from Nineteen Eighty Four (the chronological explanation for this is that Orwell's book was originally set in 1948, but the dates were changed by the publisher). The story itself sees Mina Harker and Allan Quatermain - now immortal after bathing in the fire of youth from She - on their quest to recover the Black Dossier, which contains the secret history of the now-disbanded League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Out to stop them is a trio of secret agents: inept, brutally womanizing young spy Jimmy (a thinly-veiled James Bond), a young agent named Emma Night (later to become Emma Peel in The Avengers), and Hugo Drummond (really Bulldog Drummond). The pursuit takes Mina and Allan from London to Scotland and eventually to the magical Blazing World.

From amazon:
England in the mid 1950s is not the same as it was. The powers that be have instituted...some changes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been disbanded and disavowed, and the country is under the control of an iron-fisted regime. Now, after many years, the still youthful Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain return and are in search of some answers. Answers that can only be found in a book buried deep in the vaults of their old headquarters, a book that holds the key to the hidden history of the League throughout the ages: The Black Dossier. As Allan and Mina delve into the details of their precursors, some dating back centuries, they must elude their dangerous pursuers who are Hell-bent on retrieving the lost manuscript... and ending the League once and for all.

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From wikipedia:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II is a comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, published under the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics. It is a sequel to the original volume of the series and is mainly a retelling of The War of the Worlds.

From amazon:
The inspiration behind the blockbuster movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen once again uses the classic characters from familiar literature to tell a tale of epic proportions in Victorian England. In volume two, when alien invaders from Mars mercilessly attack London, the throne quickly calls upon Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll to protect the empire.Using their various skills and intellect, the League goes about preparing a defense against the invasion but when the Invisible Man joins the Martian's cause, all appears to be lost.Now, as one of the members dies a horrific death, the League turns to the legendary Dr. Moreau as their last desperate hope.

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From wikipedia:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I is a comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, published under the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics. It is the first story in the larger League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. The story takes place in 1898 in a fictional world where all of the characters and events from Victorian literature (and possibly the entirety of fiction) coexist. The world the characters inhabit is one more technologically advanced than our own was in the same era.

From amazon:
Proving that mainstream comics could be infused with past literary/cultural ideals and still be bestsellers, the America's Best Comics imprint took the dilapidated superhero genre and created three vastly entertaining hybrids with Tom Strong, Promethea and Top Ten. Now, a stunning coup de grace is delivered with this masterful pairing of Victorian adventure fiction's greatest characters and the old war-horse of the super-group. With the stunning The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it would be no exaggeration to say that Alan Moore has produced a near-perfect piece of adventure fiction that is clever, literate, rich with excitement and hard to put down.

It's 1898 and at the behest of M, the mysterious head of the secret Service, Campion Bond is dispatched to procure the services of Miss Mina Murray (nee Harker), adventurer Allan Quartermain, "Science-Pirate" Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and his monstrous alter ego) and Hawley Griffin (a.k.a. the Invisible Man). Together, they must combat an insidious threat that will decide supremacy of the London skies, but their success may unleash a far greater threat. With no shortage of action, Moore and O' Neill sustain a high level of suspense, intrigue, mystery and terrific wit that all contribute to an indispensable read. O'Neill's art, so memorable in Marshal Law, produces a London filled with vivid, magnificent architecture and a malevolent atmosphere ripe with thrills and danger. An unmitigated triumph--pure and simple. --Danny Graydon

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From wikipedia:
From Hell is a comic book series by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell speculating upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic message sent from the killer in 1888. The work is dense, multilayered and immensely detailed; the collected edition is 572 pages long.

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, marries and fathers a child with Annie Crook, a shop worker from the East End of London; she is unaware of her husband's royal position. Queen Victoria becomes aware of the marriage, and has Albert separated forcibly from his wife, whom she then places in an asylum. Victoria then instructs her royal physician Sir William Gull to impair Annie's sanity, which he does by damaging or impairing her thyroid gland (In fact, Gull was the first to medically describe the state of hypothyroidism, calling it a 'cretinoid condition in adult women').

The potentially scandalous matter is resolved, until a group of prostitutes - Annie's friends - who are aware of the illegitimate child and its royal connections, attempt blackmail in order to pay off a gang of thugs who are threatening them. Gull is once again enlisted, this time to silence the group of women who are threatening the crown. The police are complicit in the crimes - they are granted prior knowledge of Gull's intentions, and are adjured not to interfere until the plot is completed.

From amazon:
From Hell is the story of Jack the Ripper, perhaps the most infamous man in the annals of murder. Detailing the events leading up to the Whitechapel killings and the cover-up that followed, From Hell is a meditation on the mind of a madman whose savagery and violence gave birth to the 20th century.

The serialized story, presented in its entirety in this volume, has garnered widespread attention from critics and scholars. Often regarded as one of the most significant graphic novels ever published, From Hell combines meticulous research with educated speculation, resulting in a masterpiece of historical fiction both compelling and terrifying. This new edition, which has been completely re-mastered, is certainly the finest edition of the book produced to date.

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From wikipedia:
V for Vendetta is a ten-issue comic-book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s about the 1990s. A mysterious anarchist named "V" works to destroy the totalitarian government, profoundly affecting the people he encounters.

The series depicts a near-future Britain after a limited nuclear war, which has left much of the world destroyed. In this future, a fascist party called Norsefire has arisen as the ruling power. "V", an anarchist revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask, begins an elaborate, violent and theatrical campaign to bring down the government. A film version premiered in 2005.

From amazon:
A powerful story about loss of freedom and individuality, V For Vendetta takes place in a totalitarian England following a devastating war that changed the face of the planet.

In a world without political freedom, personal freedom and precious little faith in anything comes a mysterious man in a white porcelain mask who fights political oppressors through terrorism and seemingly absurd acts. It's a gripping tale of the blurred lines between ideological good and evil.

This new trade paperbackedition features the improved production values and coloring from the 2005 hardcover.

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From wikipedia:
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore's proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced the writer to create original characters instead.

Watchmen is set in an alternate reality which closely mirrors the contemporary world of the 1980s. The primary point of divergence is the presence of superheroes. Their existence in this iteration of America is shown to have dramatically affected and altered the outcomes of real-world events such as the Vietnam War and the presidency of Richard Nixon. In keeping with the realism of the series, although the costumed crime fighters of Watchmen are commonly called "superheroes", the only character who possesses obvious superhuman powers is Doctor Manhattan. The existence of Doctor Manhattan has given the U.S. a strategic advantage over the Soviet Union, which has increased tensions between the two nations. Additionally, superheroes have become unpopular among the public, which has led to the passage of legislation in 1977 to outlaw them. While many of the heroes retired, Doctor Manhattan and The Comedian operate as government-sanctioned agents, and Rorschach continues to operate outside the law.

From amazon:
This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin.

One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial bestseller, WATCHMEN has been studied on college campuses across the nation and is considered a gateway title, leading readers to other graphic novels such as V For Vendetta, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and The Sandman series.

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From wikipedia:
Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 is the direct sequel to Mouse Guard: Fall 1152. It is a bi-monthly, six issue mini-series, it began in July 2007. This series differs in that there are no subtitles to each issue.

From amazon:
In the Winter of 1152, the Mouse Guard face a food and supply shortage threatening the lives of many mouse through a cold and icy season. Some of the Guard's finest - Saxon, Kenzie, Lieam, and Sadie, led by Celanawe, the legendary Black Axe - traverse the snow-blanketed territories acting as diplomats to improve relations between the mouse cities and the Guard, and find themselves on a race against time to deliver crucial medicines. This is a winter not every Guard may survive... Collects the second Mouse Guard series by Russ Manning Award-winner David Petersen, with an epilogue and bonus content.

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From wikipedia:
Mouse Guard is an Eisner Award winning bi-monthly comic book series published by Archaia Studios Press. The comic is noted to stand-out on the shelves due to its odd size a square (8" x 8") as opposed to the standard comic size (6½" x 10"). Mouse Guard is written and illustrated by David Petersen. Series one is collected in a single volume entitled "Mouse Guard: Fall 1152" (ISBN 1-932386-57-2). The story focuses on a colony of intelligent mice, who live in a medieval era, paralleling the same age in human history, though in their world there are no humans.

From amazon:
In the world of Mouse Guard, mice struggle to live safely and prosper amongst harsh conditions and a host of predators. Thus the Mouse Guard was formed: more than just soldiers that fight off intruders, they are guides for common mice looking to journey without confrontation from one hidden village to another. The Guard patrol borders, find safeways and paths through dangerous territories and treacherous terrain, watch weather patterns, and keep the mouse territories free of predatory infestation. They do so with fearless dedication so that they might not just exist, but truly live. Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam, three such Guardsmice, are dispatched to find a missing merchant mouse that never arrived at his destination. Their search for the missing mouse reveals much more than they expect, as they stumble across a traitor in the Guard's own ranks.

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From Amazon:
Top Shelf is proud to announce the complete, 608-page (!!!) Box Office Poison graphic novel. This perennial fan favorite is so wonderfully written that the series screams for an all-up collection. As big fans of the comic book series know, this epic story of Sherman, Dorothy, Ed, Stephen, Jane, and Mr. Flavor is not to be missed.

Alex Robinson's completely natural and inspiring knack for dialogue has made his story of dreary jobs, comic books, love, sex, messy apartments, girlfriends (and the lack thereof), undisclosed pasts, and crusty old professionals one of the most delightful and whimsical books to hit the stands in years. This definitive edition will be for keeps!

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From wikipedia:
City of Glass: The Graphic Novel is a one-volume adaptation of Paul Auster's acclaimed story, also entitled City of Glass. The story was originally part of The New York Trilogy, and in 1994, David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik set out to adapt the offbeat, somewhat surreal short novel into a graphic novel.

The original comic was published by Avon Books as Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass. The project was somewhat led by influential and popular comics artist, Art Spiegelman. The original printing was received very well, and the work was chosen as one of the "100 Most Important Comics of the Century". In 2004, a new edition of the book was released as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel which featured an introduction by Art Spiegelman. In this introduction, Spiegelman calls the graphic novel "a breakthrough work."

The story follows a man named Daniel Quinn. One night, he receives a call meant for a private detective (strangely enough named Paul Auster, the same name as the author of the story). He is intrigued by the phonecall and takes the case. His employers end up being a man, named Peter Stillman, and his wife. Through the course of the narrative, Quinn discovers some surprising things about identity, language, and human nature. He also ends up meeting, not the unseen detective Paul Auster, but writer Paul Auster.

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From wikipedia:
Automatic Kafka was a 9-issue American comic book written by Joe Casey with art by Ashley Wood. It was published in 2002 by DC Comics in the Wildstorm Universe.

The series followed the life of Automatic Kafka, an android who had been a member of a mass-marketed superhero group called the $tranger$ during the 1980s. After the team breaks up, Kafka is lost, looking for a new direction in life. The comic follows Kafka as he tries different ways of becoming human: drugs, sex and fame among them. The series also visits Kafka's former teammates who each have adapted to their life post-$tranger$ in their own way.

Automatic Kafka was a very experimental comic; Ashley Wood's unique style and Joe Casey's writing made it something between parody, satire and homage. With an abundance of sex, drugs, nudity and violence, avant-garde art, and complex scripts, it only found a small audience.

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From wikipedia:
A History of Violence is a graphic novel written by John Wagner and illustrated by Vince Locke, originally published in 1997 by Paradox Press and later by Vertigo, both imprints of DC Comics.

It is also the source for the film of the same name directed by David Cronenberg, the first cinematic adaption of a work by John Wagner since 1995's Judge Dredd. The film was the last major Hollywood film to be released on the VHS format.

The story concerns a small town Michigan cafe owner, Tom McKenna, who becomes a local hero after defending his store from an attempted robbery. When his story receives national attention, several members of the New York City Mafia arrive in town, believing him to be someone named Joey, who crossed them 20 years earlier. Tom protests his innocence to everyone, but eventually his façade is dropped and he is forced to reveal his history of violence to his wife and son and eventually the police.

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From wikipedia. Optic Nerve is a comic book series by graphic novelist Adrian Tomine. Originally self-published by Tomine as a series of mini-comics (which have later been collected in a single volume, 32 Stories), the series has been published by Drawn and Quarterly since 1995.

Tomine's style and subject matter are restrained and realistic. Many are set in Northern California. Several of his stories for Optic Nerve feature Asian American characters, including "Hawaiian Getaway," "Six-Day Cold" and "Layover." Adrian Tomine is Asian American and lives in Berkeley, California. Many topics of his stories are at least partly autobiographical.

In the initial self-published issues, as well as the first eight Drawn & Quarterly issues (1995-2001), Optic Nerve was typically a collection of short stories. After an extended hiatus, Tomine resumed the comic in fall of 2004 and began his first multi-issue storyline with #9. The most recent issue, #11, was published in early 2007.

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From wikipedia:
Blankets is a black-and-white autobiographical graphic novel by Craig Thompson, published in 2003 by Top Shelf Productions. A memoir, the book tells the story of Thompson's childhood in an Evangelical Christian family, his first love, and his early adulthood. Thompson has said that the novel grew out of a simple idea: to describe what it feels like to sleep next to someone for the first time.

Time magazine named Blankets as one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time.

From amazon:
At 592 pages, Blankets may well be the single largest graphic novel ever published without being serialized first.

Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith.

A profound and utterly beautiful work from Craig Thompson.

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From fantagraphic:
Prior to Safe Area Gorazde: The War In Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 — Joe Sacco's breakthrough novel of graphic journalism — the acclaimed author was best known for Palestine, a two-volume graphic novel that won an American Book Award in 1996.

Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, whose name has since become synonymous with this graphic form of New Journalism.

Palestine has been favorably compared to Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus for its ability to brilliantly navigate such socially and politically sensitive subject matter within the confines of the comic book medium.

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Synopsis: When a group of women — Marjane Satrapi's beloved, tough-talking grandmother, her mother, an eccentric aunt, and their friends and neighbors — gather for an afternoon of tea-drinking and talking, the conservation naturally turns to love, sex, and the vagaries of Iranian men.

As the day progresses, these vibrant women share secrets, confessions of sadness and regret, and, above all, outrageous tales about, among other things: how to fake your virginity, how to escape the husband your family has chosen for you, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery, and how to take advantage of being someone's mistress.

By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, these stories lift the veil off the real, private lives of Iranian women and — perfectly captured in Satrapi's simple, beguiling drawings — reveal the connections between women everywhere.

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From wikipedia:
Persepolis details Satrapi's life during the war between Iran and Iraq. Persepolis depicts Satrapi's childhood in Iran, and Persepolis 2 depicts her high school years in Vienna, Austria and her return to Iran where Satrapi attended college, married, and later divorced before moving to France, where she now lives. Hence, the series is not only a memoir, but a Bildungsroman.

The fact that these memoirs were even written in the first place is quite remarkable. In a culture where a woman's modesty and reputation is of the utmost importance, it is inherently improper for a woman to expose her personal inner life or that of her family to the public. Therefore, it is not surprising that autobiographical works by Iranian women are rare, that they are a recent phenomenon, and that most such works have been published in the West, and not in Iran.

From amazon:
Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trails of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.

Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.

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From wikipedia:
Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a memoir by Art Spiegelman, presented as a graphic novel. Parts of the story were originally published in the magazine RAW between 1980 to 1991. The complete story was published in two volumes: the first in 1986 ("My Father Bleeds History") and the second in 1991 ("And Here My Troubles Began").

In 1992, it won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award. All people are presented as anthropomorphic animals (for example, all Jews are depicted as mice, hence the name Maus which is German for "mouse"). The New York Times described the selection of Maus for the honor: "The Pulitzer board members ... found the cartoonist's depiction of Nazi Germany hard to classify."

From amazon:
A son struggles to come to terms with the horrific story of his parents and their experiences during the Holocaust and in postwar America, in an omnibus edition of Spiegelman's two-part, Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller. 25,000 first printing.

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