WHO'S ON TOP: GRAPHIC NOVELS

TOP 5 GRAPHIC NOVELS:

HARDCOVER:

1. X-MEN: BATTLE OF THE ATOM, by Brian Michael Bendis and Others

2. CEMETERY GIRL, BOOK 1, by Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden and Don Kramer

3. BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland

4. BATMAN, VOL. 3, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

5. FAIRY TALE COMICS: CLASSIC TALES TOLD BY EXTRAORDINARY CARTOONISTS, by Chris Duffy and Others

SPOTLIGHT:

X-MEN: BATTLE OF THE ATOM

Brian Michael Bendis and Others

The X-Men’s past, present and future collide in this 50th-anniversary event! Something horrible happens to the past versions of the X-Men that shakes spacetime to its core — and more X-Men arrive from the future with a message: The original five must return home! But when young Cyclops and Marvel Girl run away to stay in the present, the hunt is on! And where does the modern-day Cyclops’ revolutionary faction fit in?

Things get even more complicated when mysterious foes attack the Jean Grey School, and the healing-impaired Wolverine takes a mortal hit! With spacetime up for grabs, the surprise ending will change everything as the X-Men’s footing in the world is drastically altered!

PAPERBACK:

1. PERSEPOLIS, by Marjane Satrapi

2. FUN HOME, by Alison Bechdel

3. MAUS: A SURVIVOR’S TALE, VOL. 1, by Art Spiegelman

4. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, by Julie Maroh

5. SAGA, VOL. 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

SPOTLIGHT:

FUN HOME

Alison Bechdel

A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books.

This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form.

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.

When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic — and redemptive.

MANGA:

1. NARUTO, VOL. 64, by Masashi Kishimoto

2. BLACK BUTLER, VOL. 16, by Yana Toboso

3. MONSTER MUSUME, VOL. 2, by Okayado

4. NO MATTER HOW I LOOK AT IT, IT'S YOU GUYS' FAULT I'M NOT POPULAR!, VOL. 2, by Nico Tanigawa

5. ATTACK ON TITAN, VOL. 1, by Hajime Isayama

SPOTLIGHT:

NO MATTER HOW I LOOK AT IT, IT'S YOU GUYS' FAULT I'M NOT POPULAR!, VOL. 2

Nico Tanigawa 

Despite having made it to high school, her long-awaited promised land, poor Tomoko Kuroki continues to strike out with her peers and remains utterly, wretchedly unpopular. And before she knows it, the first school term is nearly at its end! Can Mokocchi manage to make at least some happy memories over the break? Plunge into one girl's summer of . . . agony!