Outside of a Dog, #33

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

DC may be home to the originals – Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, but Marvel comics, founded by Martin Goodman in 1939, boasts more than a few famous names, many of them created by the now-familiar Stan Lee. Here are some of the best:

Ultimate X-Men, Volume 1: The Tomorrow People – Mark Miller

Rebooting one of the most popular and long-lasting franchises, “The Tomorrow People” begins retelling the story of the Sentinel Project, used to hunt down and kidnap or kill hidden mutants.

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Ultimate Spider-Man, Volume 7: Irresponsible – Brian Michael Bendis

When a foreign-exchange student, Gedlhoff, shows up with the strange ability to blow things up just by looking at them, Spider-Man really has his work cut out for him. But, as always, his real life and his superhero life don’t always cooperate, because, as Peter Parker, he’s dealing with losing Mary Jane as a friend and a girlfriend!

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Best of the Fantastic Four – Mark D. Beazley

Collecting many adventures of the cosmic-ray-altered supergroup, this graphic novel tells the first story of the Fantastic Four (which debuted in 1961). It also continues on to stories as late in the continuity as 2004.

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Runaways, Volume 1: Pride and Joy – Brian K.Vaughan

A comic made with teenagers in mind, this series takes on a whole new meaning of ‘fighting with your parents!’ The kids in this story find out that their mothers and fathers are all evil supervillains – and they, too, have superpowers! Will they be able to work together to stop their parents?

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Outside of a Dog, #32

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Last week, we featured graphic novels NOT about superheroes. This week, let’s see what the world of the caped and masked, brought to you by one of the great comics titans, DC, has to offer:

Wonder Woman: Love and Murder – Jodi Picoult

Picoult, probably best-known for her controversial and popular novels like Nineteen Minutes and My Sister’s Keeper, now takes on the legend of the Amazon princess. When Diana Prince, Special Agent of the Department of Metahuman Affairs, is assigned to capture Wonder Woman, her alter ego, she’s set on an adventure of both human and epic proportions.

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Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

The excitement surrounding Watchmen is at fever pitch right now, as the movie was originally set to release in March 2009. The book, published in 1986 and 1987, follows superheroes at a time when they’ve become outlawed. Watchmen is a masterpiece of art and story, sometimes showing flashbacks, sometimes using a story-within-a-story, and it has won not only praise from Time magazine and The Comics Journal, but a Hugo Award, as well.

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Green Arrow: Quiver – Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith, director of cult favorite movies like Clerks and Dogma, is a big DC Comics fan. He was offered the chance to write for Green Arrow, a superhero archer whose trick arrows can do anything from stick to a villain like glue, or trap them in a web. The best part? Green Arrow was killed off in 1995 fighting eco-terrorists. Smith reboots the original character, Oliver Queen, and the series, to great success in Quiver.

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Batman: Dark Detective – Steve Englehart

Could we mention caped crusaders without mentioning Batman? While The Dark Knight Returns, by comic legend Frank Miller, is the best-known and best-regarded of the superhero’s impressive history, the Dark Detective series delves into a storyline where the Joker is running for Mayor of Gotham City.

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Outside of a Dog, #31

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Are comics just for kids?

Graphic novels - usually defined as collections of storylines in regular comics (like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns or The Astonishing X-Men: Gifted), or standalone novels in graphic format (like American-Born Chinese or Maus) – are taking the literary world by storm. Once the province of kids and collectors, the offerings available in the graphic novel format now are, well, astonishing! Here are a few of our favorite “no flying, no tights” graphic novels:

Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale:: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale:: And Here My Troubles Began – Art Spiegelman

The Maus novels, by legendary writer and artist Art Spiegelman are based on the author’s father’s recollections of being a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. While the story is told using mice, pigs, cats, dogs, and other animals, it never feels like a child’s storybook. Maus has won the Eisner Award for great achievement in comics, as well as a Pulitzer Prize Special Award.

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Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi

Satrapi grew up in Iran during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and here, in startling black-and-white drawings, relives that childhood, as a rebellious girl with radical parents who struggle under the new regime. There’s a second novel, too, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, which details the author’s schooling in Vienna, and return to Iran. The first graphic novel was also made into a movie in 2008, though it cannot be placed on hold through the library at this time.

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Bone – Jeff Smith

Bone is a serialized collection of comics put together irregularly from 1991 to 2004, currently published in 9 graphic novel collections. The story follows the Bone Family as they are run out of the city of Boneville, and is something of a high fantasy novel, though with humor interjected at key points. Almost every edition of Bone has won an Eisner Award, and a Harvey Award.

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Next week, we'll visit with some great superhero graphic novels from one of the comics giants: DC.