Read Stephen Weiner's 101 Best Graphic Novels

At twelve, Freddie Bloch finds the security of his family and home gone in the wake of the Great Depression, an alcoholic father, the untimely arrest of his brother and the promise that there are jobs “somewhere.” In an effort to at least find his father again, Freddie sets out from California to Detroit in hopes of reunion and adventure.

Instead, Freddie finds a life not of adventure, but one of base survival and of quick life lessons. He meets a fellow hobo early on, Sam, who likes to call himself the King of Spain. Through Sam and Freddie’s story, the Detroit Labor riots of 1932 are vividly recounted, the tension of anti-communist resentment, desperation for jobs, racism and Freddie’s desire to find his father all coming to a head at once. The drawings of this incident are fantastic, recounting iconic photos from the day.

The book deals with the fallout after Freddie comes to realize he will never reunite with his father who may or may not have made it to Detroit in search of a job. The book shifts after Detroit, as most of the country is no longer optimistic about rumors of jobs, but rather has resigned themselves to finding a way to survive.

The black and white drawings are well-done and detailed, capturing mood and tone as an additional character in the book. This is no cartoon-cheery depiction of hard events – it’s hard times and hard places for people who had not ever expected to know that kind of life.

If there’s one thing Frank Miller is good at, it’s atmosphere. His talent for creating living, breathing universes for each of his works shines through best in the story of the Battle of Thermopylae.

First, to get the problem of Herodotus out of the way. The Battle of Thermopylae was recounted in The Histories and has been largely taken as the factual accounting of Sparta’s valiant effort to hold off Xerxes and his forces. 300 does not assume to replace Herodotus, nor does it ever claim to be more than a story of what might have happened those days. Discuss amongst yourselves: What makes Herodotus’ version anymore accurate than other accountings?

Onto Frank Miller. This is the technicolor, hyper-testosteroned (my word), retelling of a story we’ve all come to know and love: the few against the many with impossible odds for nothing but the sheer glory and rightness of what they’re doing. Miller tells this story in a brisk fashion, fleshing out Leonidas in ways that make him both more human and more of a larger than life myth than even Sparta could have hoped. This is a story of war and carnage with the backdrop of the Spartan way and nothing else. It’s a graphic novel one simply sits back, takes it in and enjoys.

This is really a graphic novel aimed at children. Still, Ari’s black and white story stands out on many levels – first, it’s a diverse comic, utilizing both Spanish and English throughout the book. Secondly, Avi treats the backstory as a book by actually using traditional prose pages to describe the Kurbs deal with humanity.

The story itself is the stuff firmly aimed at the tweener set. The Kurbs are the true owners of Manhattan, having only agreed to give it to the humans if the ritual of power trading on the 21st of December – a the present time, POWER has taken the form of a common subway token.

It may sound convoluted, but it comes down to a single human woman that passes her power onto her daughter through each generation – which is how we get to Sarah and our story. Of course, Sarah has no idea that she is in line for this power as she thinks her mother is dead, a secret her father has had good reason to have kept hidden from her all these years…

It’s a quick read and things are resolved and revealed rather quickly. Considering the intended audience, though, that’s probably exactly right!

This is an incredibly honest picture into what growing up in the midst of even the harshest political climates will mean to the teenage girl – no matter what, there will be days where the entire world will still need to revolve around you.

We first meet Marjine as a ten-year-old girl, idolizing her parents and everything they’ve taught her. Encouraging her to be an intellectual, she’s encouraged to read philosophy and her main act of rebellion is to wish to be a saint. Much of this soon turns sour as The Shah rises to power and women are first required to wear scarves. As the book progresses, one will long for Marjane’s lighter oppression under the scarf.

This is the brilliance of the book. As you see a young girl growing into the need for self-expression, Iran’s political environment takes turns that suppress more and more self-expression. You’re given not only a picture of a single girl who is able to express herself and rebel in her own way, but her family, her families friends – those that had been tortured and imprisoned – still doing those things that were necessary for human expression in spite of the potential costs (which are paid), shows exactly how important these so-called “petty needs” really are to the human spirit.

More cleverly, Marjane interjects commonly held “facts” throughout the book to demonstrate that not even Iranians believe propaganda that Westerners may hold to be “truth.” Whether these would be reports of the army successes, 99.9% election results or sentimental alliances, one might be surprised as to what isn’t so black and white.

Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar puts me at a whopping 4/101 read.

This is somewhat misleading as I do have a rather decent collection of graphic novels. Of course, I read through a number of series that everyone seems to have read – Preacher, Fables, Y, Sandman, Sin City and Walking Dead. And the one shots are too numerous to list.

But then this list comes up and I’ve only managed 300, Maus and The Watchmen…with the others I’ve read, I’m looking forward to the rest.

Now, when it comes to Harvey Pekar, I do have to admit I’m a sorry lot for not having read this before. I did enjoy the American Splendor film a great deal and had always meant to pick up the books. I’d read a few of his articles here and there and his old blog on line, but not the graphics themselves.

Our Cancer Year chronicles Harvey’s battle with Lymphoma. Not only is it an unflinching look at chemotherapy, illness, radiation and the relationship between he and his wife, but it’s an amazing documentation of what happens when life suddenly has to accommodate cancer. Because that’s what life does – accommodate. It does not slow down, people do not pause and it most certainly does not come to some slow-mo inspiring stop where the unpleasant parts are mere blips on the way to beating the disease in spectacular fashion.

Much of this is just Harvey fitting Cancer into his life while he buys a new house. It’s dealing with the everyday problems of life and trying to work while taking chemo. It’s seeing cancer up close and far too personally, because it’s not just the few nice shots of hair running down the drain – cancer is shingles and drug-induced paranoia. It’s seeing a husband and wife pushing themselves too far before deciding to get help and finding out that even help has an unpleasant life outside of cancer.

In this complete and utter depth of detail, there is comfort in seeing that someone’s willing to put out their cancer year warts and all.

And I’ve been looking for more one-shots. The sad thing is that I may actually already have a few of these in my “unread” piles (although that will make getting this goal done easier!).

I’ve got a few on hold with the library – this will be a long-term goal since I don’t like to rush through reading things.

List on List of Bests here: http://www.listsofbests.com/list/28668/compare/Stephmo