[title music: "Dart" by Screamfeeder]
[title text: "Top 10 Essential Graphic Novels" list by comics artist Stuart McMillen, Part 1]
G'day, I'm Stuart McMillen, and this is my guide to the top 10 essential graphic novels.
This is a list for all of the people out there who feel like they should be reading more comics and want some specific book recommendations.
Because I talk to a lot of people, and when I tell them that I'm a comics artist,
I often get the response that "gee, I'd like to read more comics, but I don't quite know where to begin".
So, with this list I'll be focusing on the real gold-standard comics that I think will appeal to as many people as possible.
And then, with future videos on this YouTube channel, I'll talk about some specific comics that I really like,
but might be a little hit-and-miss, depending on whether the average person will like them or not.
But these are the real gold-standard comics that I'm pretty confident that you will enjoy!
Now, quickly, before I begin, I thought I'd mention some of the categories of comics that are out-of-contention for this video:
I won't be covering any gag-type comics, like Peanuts, or Calvin and Hobbes.
I'm a big fan of funny comics, but with this video I'm focusing on lengthy single-arc stories that are told over the course of an entire book.
I'll also mostly stay away from superhero comics, because they're not really my bag,
and I'd rather suggest other genres of graphic novels that I think will get more people into comics, more so than superhero titles.
I won't cover manga, and that's mostly because of my ignorance to the best titles that are really worth recommending.
So maybe you could suggest some of your favourite manga titles to ME in the comments below.
And, look, I won't be listing any of Hergé's Tintin comics.
And that's because the Tintin albums are so well done, that I'd probably end up putting five Tintin albums in this list.
So, we'll talk about Hergé another time.
Alright, let's begin the countdown:
[Theme music, cover of graphic novel "Box Office Poison" by Alex Robinson (2001)]
Alright, number 10 on this list is Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson.
Box Office Poison is a comic that looks into the everyday lives of five main characters.
The book is set in America in the 1990s, so there's a lot of references to the culture from the era.
In fact, it's a little like the film High Fidelity, except instead of working in a record shop, the main character of Box Office Poison works in a book shop.
Now, this is a huge comic at over 600 pages – I mean, you could kill a man with this thing.
But, to me, the appeal of the book IS the length, and the sheer amount of stuff that Alex Robinson has squeezed in here.
The characters talk about hating their jobs, they have money problems,
they have relationship problems, they have doubts about their confidence and their self-worth.
It's the kind of thing whereby if these anecdotes were in a 200 page book, it might feel a bit thin,
but the fact that we're dealing with 600 pages means that every little storyline
and every little anecdote just adds more mass to the characters that we're learning about.
And it's worth saying that none of these characters are really exceptionally interesting.
None of them are particularly talented.
None of them will probably do anything special or important with their lives.
And that's the whole point of this book.
The characters are like you and I, and our friends.
They're a friendship group who just gets on with the day-to-day mundanity of living an average life.
Sometimes people complain about Box Office Poison for the reason that nothing really happens – but to me that's the whole point of this book.
It's got the same appeal as, Questionable Content or the first season of Seinfeld.
And I've also got to say that I really like Alex's artwork.
In particular, I really like the way that he chooses to draw characters of all sorts of appearances, and of all sorts of body shapes.
It's really refreshing to see characters drawn with body shapes that you may not see depicted very often.
Whether they've fat or thin, tall or short, all of the characters are drawn with a certain dignity and charm.
So if you like the sound of this 'slice of life' comic, check out Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson.
[Theme music, cover of graphic novel "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" by Chris Ware (2000)]
Now, let's talk about Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware.
I think that the title of this one gave me a false idea of what to expect from this book.
I was expecting it to be some sort of a superhero action book about a kid who actually was the smartest kid on Earth.
But in reality, the comic isn't about an exceptionally smart or lively man at all.
In fact, Jimmy Corrigan himself is a shy and lonely 36 year-old man, with a very limited social life.
Chris Ware draws us into Jimmy's world of loneliness.
We see the mundane way he eats cereal and milk.
We see Jimmy's dull job in an office cubicle.
The frequent phone calls that Jimmy gets from his overbearing mother.
The storyline is about Jimmy, at age 36, getting an invitation to go and meet his father for the first time.
In fact, the story is about three generations of men named James Corrigan who all meet up for the first time during this story.
The book travels backwards and forwards between events that happened at various points in history,
including a section that is set during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, when the protagonist's grandfather was a young boy.
We start to see how attitudes and behaviours can reverberate their way through generations.
None of the four Corrigan men who are portrayed are balanced,
and the ripples of heavy-handed discipline, absent parenting, and racism ripple through the four generations in different ways.
Now, this is a hefty 380-page book that will take you four or five hours to read through.
It's drawn with Chris Ware's distinctive clear line style, and features incredibly imaginative page layouts and panel arrangements.
So, check out Jimmy Corrigan, and also check out anything else by Chris Ware that you can find,
including his similar book Building Stories,
which is a story told through a box-set of various books and pamphlets that are designed to be read in any order.
But that's a whole other story that I'll leave for another time.
[Theme music, cover of graphic novel "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi (2000)]
Alright, number 8 on this list is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
This is an autobiographical comic that describes Marjane's experiences growing up in Iran during the 1980s during the time of the Islamic Revolution.
What happened during the Islamic Revolution is that Iran changed from a secular country,
into an Islamic theocracy that walled itself off from the rest of the world.
So, we see the Islamic Revolution through the eyes of Marjane and her family.
And it's quite fascinating to be allowed into the house of a typical Iranian family,
because it's a culture that isn't often represented in Western media depictions.
In contrast to how some of us might imagine them, the Satrapi family were well-educated, and politically aware.
They had a modern, cosmopolitan view of the world.
At first they supported the Revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979.
But then, as time went by, they became dismayed by the regressive fundamentalism that took its place.
So, for example, we see how Marjane and her female schoolmates were suddenly separated from the boys within their school,
they were given nationalistic school lessons about the glory of war,
and the martyrs who were now in heaven, having died for Iran in the war against Iraq.
It's actually kind of unsettling to see just how quickly the teachers, and the social institutions kicked into full-on fundamentalist gear.
For example, the so-called "Guardians of the Revolution" that suddenly started patrolling the streets and throwing their weight around.
All in the name of God, of course.
To me, it was interesting seeing the little things, such as how Marjane actually hated wearing the veil,
and how she would rebel by wearing jeans and sneakers and listening to Michael Jackson.
Persepolis is a single story that was published across two books.
The first book tells the story of Marjane's life in Iran,
and the second book tells her story about after she is sent to school in Austria during her teenage years.
You can also get both books published together as The Complete Persepolis.
So, check it out - it's a classic comics memoir.
[Theme music, cover of graphic novel "Safe Area Goražde" by Joe Sacco (2000)]
Alright, now let's talk about number 7 on this list: Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco.
If you don't know who Joe Sacco is, he's a war journalist who tells his stories through non-fiction comics.
Safe Area Goražde is Joe's book about the Bosnian War of the early 1990s.
The book is fairly evenly divided between pages with a white-coloured edge –
that show Joe walking around the streets of Goražde, meeting people, and doing his interviews.
By contrast, the pages with the black-coloured edge represent the reconstructed stories that were told to Joe by his interview subjects.
In other words, Joe listened to their first-hand accounts, and he drew them up as multi-page comics showing the events that happened to the people.
Now, I'm someone who hasn't lived in a war zone, and for me it was striking to see just how quickly things can turn sour during military conflict.
Before the war, the Bosniaks and Serbs lived in Goražde in relative peace and friendship.
But on the first day of the war, the Bosniaks woke up to realise that all of their Serb neighbours had secretly left town overnight.
And, later that day, the Serbs began attacking the city of Goražde.
This was first event in a cycle of conflict that the city had to endure over the next three years.
For someone who wasn't actually there during these events, Joe Sacco does an impressive job of recreating the experiences of his interview subjects.
And he depicts some grizzly things with his comics that probably wouldn't be possible through other mediums.
The detail of the comics artwork transports you into the places that Joe is describing.
There are lots of little details in the artwork that jump out. For example:
We see how the locals were generating their electricity from DIY hydro plants rigged from the city's bridge.
We see the way that the locals were chopping massive quantities of firewood, and stockpiling it, so that they'd have enough to get through the coming winter.
We see the way the streets were cleared of cars, and were filled with children playing, and adults pushing wheelbarrows.
And, we keep seeing the marks on the road where mortar shells have landed,
in a distinctive explosive shape that looks like a little bear's paw.
Joe Sacco is a real trailblazer of comics journalism, who has demonstrated how comics can be used to document serious topics like war and conflict.
So, check out my favourite Joe Sacco book: Safe Area Goražde.
[Theme music, cover of graphic novel "Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1987)]
Alright, onto number six on my list of Top 10 Essential Graphic Novels.
Number six is Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Watchmen's story is about a group of superheroes who were active in the 1950s and 1960s,
but were forced to retire after they became unpopular with the public in the 1970s.
After they became outlawed, the Watchmen either retired,
got co-opted by US Government, or continued working outside the law as independent crime-fighters.
I love the distinct personalities that each of these main characters have:
Dr Manhattan,
Ozymandias,
The Comedian,
Nite Owl,
Rorcharch.
It's interesting to see the comparison between the superheroes that they once were in their heyday,
as well as the way that they each individually dealt with not being able to continue as superheroes, when the law changed in 1977.
One thing that I should mention about Watchmen is how complete it feels.
This doesn't feel like the kind of story where the writer just invented some wacky characters,
and then started drawing them, not sure what would happen.
With Watchmen, there is definitely a well-defined story arc that feels like it's right there from the very beginning.
There will be little seeds planted early on in the story that might seem insignificant at the time,
but will be called back in later pages.
And there's lots of recurring visual motifs that pop up throughout the book,
such a smiley face with a drop of blood on it,
as well as the silhouette of two lovers embracing.
It's one of those stories where you understand most of what's happening the first time you read it.
But it also rewards additional readings,
so that you can appreciate all of the little things that you might have missed the first time.
Like "Tales of the Black Freighter", for example.
From a comics standpoint, it's also interesting to see how the story is told with such a restrained layout.
Compared to other comics that continuously dazzle the reader with characters popping out of the frame,
and artwork that bleeds all the way to the edge of the page,
Watchmen is drawn with a strict grid format of 3-by-3 panels per page.
Although, sometimes they do alter this 3-by-3 format, to add emphasis to certain panels.
As I mentioned at the start of this Top 10 Essential Graphic Novels list,
I'm not much of a superhero comics fan in general. But, I do love Watchmen.
So, if you want to wrap your head around the storytelling possibilities that comics allow,
you need to read Watchmen. Check it out.
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