A Treasury of Victorian Murder (Rick Geary)

Grim and moody as crime scene photos, but without the vulgarities of similar efforts, Rick Geary (famous for his work on the National Lampoon magazine, and Heavy Metal) paints a pitch-perfect portrait of the famous murders of the late 19th century. Everything from The Saga of the Bloody Benders (my favourite), to Jack the Ripper, to H. H. Holmes, the Beast of Chicago. You’ve probably never heard of most of the killers or victims in these stories, but you’ll never, ever forget them.

For more info: http://www.rickgeary.com/

I Killed Adolf Hitler (Jason)

There are a lot of things that could turn you off about Jason.

1) He’s been called the Alfred Hitchcock of graphic literature.

2) His drawings are spare.

3) His dialogue is spare-to-non-existent.

4) His characters are all people bodies with expressionless animal heads.

5) His non-linear storytelling style could have some putting more effort into reading than enjoying.

What amazes me is how much tension, mood, suspense, and texture Jason is able to derive from expressionlessness, and rudimentary shapes. What keeps me coming back to Jason is the invention, nuance, commitment, and humour inherent to everyone of his panels. Unlike some wordless story-tellers, Jason is near-perfect in his ability to change points-of-view, and show an object or a space several times in order to control the reading tempo, without boring you, erroneously adding details to the background, erroneously mixing in uncomplimentary emotions. In Jason's world, every detail is of the utmost importance.

I Killed Adolf Hitler is the story of a burnt-out hitman and his girlfriend connecting with a scientist who’s created a time machine that will send the occupant back to kill Hitler, but takes 50 years to recharge. This leads to a time-mishmash that’ll have you grabbing your forehead and shouting, “Who comes up with this stuff?” What’s so great about all Jason’s work is the utter seriousness with which he approaches the zaniness of his plots. Imagine that Ed Wood still made the movies he made, but as a genius storyteller, and a stellar craftsman. Instead of as a crackpot.

Fun Home (Alison Bechdel)

The opposite of Leviathan in almost every way. This is the wordiest, most literary graphic novel I’ve ever read, which is paced with a genius you might not suspect from reading Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For. Since she spent the years leading up to writing Fun Home on her fictitious lesbian comic strips, a niche genre if ever there was one, she’s developed a sense for writing however she damn well pleases, and the result is glorious. She doesn’t dumb down a single phrase, thesaurus a single hundred-dollar word, or string sequences together in an easy-to-understand manner.

It’s uninhibited art at its best.

Autobiographies ususally unfold chronologically, a by-product of the emotional source that drives a person to write an autobiography: nostalgia and fear of death/impermanence. Bechdel, instead, recounts her childhood, the realization of her homosexuality, and the accidental (possibly suicidal) death of her secretly gay father, in a way that’s almost like flipping through a scatterbrained photo album. Not to suggest there's a lick of carelessness in their arrangement: for Bechdel, the autobiography is a way to make sense of a mystery. Not just the reasons (or lack of reason) behind her father's death, but the thoughts and motives of everyone in her life, including herself. Everyone locked in their own, private emotional closet.

The irony of the title is drawn out in the humourless expressions of her family members, the perpetually austere locales, and the parade of unfortunate souls who enter the Bechdel family parlour to mourn their loved ones. And Bechdel evokes it all with a clear-handed grace, mindful of the balance between white space and the symbolic clutter that make up our lives.

For more info: http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/

Leviathan (Jens Harder)

Being wordless is something that can go either way in graphic novels. Either the images will command your will by their intricacies and majesty, or the esoteric nature of the images, or the mundane quality of their subject matter, will give your thumb a rapid little workout (but wouldn't you rather be playing PS3?).

Jens Harder's Leviathan is, so far, for me, the high water mark of wordless sequential art. The story, which is shockingly lucid, concerns the exploits of a...can you guess?

A leviathan.

That’s right.

A giant, underwater, monster whale-creature. A god of, and above, mortal beings.

It clashes with other such monstrosities, flexes its invulnerability on the humans who unwisely choose to tango with it, swims around (through a display of Kathryn Bigelow-esque, orgiastic vistas), and deals with the existential angst of being the only of its kind and with being virtually indestructible. In Harder's world waves spout up like a company of trumpets, currents surge with the feriocity of violins, and flesh smacks meatier than the tautest timpani.

A quotation from a relevant source, like Melville for instance, begins each chapter to set the mood, to honour Harder's inspirations, and to hint at the tempo for the art in the proceeding pages. Every page is packed with dynamic, daunting images of sealife (the hopelessness of the food chain), and depictions of the leviathan, the god of all creatures.

If doctor's and dentists and lawyers stocked this book in their waiting rooms, I'd...probably get out more.

For more info: http://www.hardercomics.de/

Y: The Last Man (Brian K. Vaughan)

A series so good that on the front of every volume is a different exclamatory quotation from a different, highly-regarded member of the upper echelons in the literary community. Stephen King calls it the greatest GN series he’s ever read. Which is both a huge smack down to the rest of the community, and utterly true.

You can think of it as my number one, desert island, eyes are about to be gouged out forever pick. So let's get it out of the way first.

Y is a Shakespearean in magnitude (and, often, in reference) recount of the last man on earth, Yorick, and his journey across the globe in a world of suicidal, tortured, drug-addled, samurai-sword-wielding, hormone-befuddled, grief-stricken ladies, all of whom are trying to move on in their futureless society, unknowing that the key to human survival is being carted around in secret by a group of American interests, all bent on keeping megalomaniac Amazons, and logical militaries, and ruthless ninjas, and, yes, even pirates, from severing that chance at survival for good.

Brian K. Vaughan has penned two other series (Ex Machina and Runaways) as well as some one-offs (Pride of Baghdad), each with a similar tone and artistic execution, but only in Y is his vision so thoroughly exacted, rich with timeless social commentary. Who else in the biz knows how to pack in pop culture references to make even the most outcast social misfit feel like an insider?

Art by Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan Jr. is at worst very competent, and at best stop-you-in-your-tracks arresting. At least once per volume (if not per issue) does the scene arrive where you remember everything that makes comics great in a single page-filling panel.

In expectation for the upcoming film version, Vertigo is releasing the series in five collectible editions, the first of which is already available through Chapters and your local, and much more deserving, comic boutique.

For more info: http://www.bkv.tv/