My Favorite GNs of 2017

It's that time of year again, when I single out what I feel are the best graphic novels I've read that were published in the last year. I read a lot of them, and these are the ones that have stayed with me most. Enjoy!

Favorite Book
My Favorite Thing is Monsters
Set in 1968 Chicago, this book is a coming of age tale/murder mystery/holocaust survivor story/appreciation of classical art that prominently features monsters from the movies and popular culture. It's gorgeous, has more layers than an onion, and will pop your eyes out with its artwork. It's a masterpiece of a book, and an instant classic. People will be talking about it for decades, and I cannot recommend you read it enough.

Favorite Memoir
The Best We Could Do
This multi-generational account of an immigrant family from Vietnam is a heartfelt and enlightening look at the effects of war on a people, the hardships that many refugees endure, and the complicated ways families operate. It's a beautiful and very human book that I feel contains an important story for contemporary times.

Favorite Biography
The Abominable Mr. Seabrook
Watching the title character destroy himself with alcohol is painful to observe, but his life is fascinating and exceptional. This meticulously researched account of a proto-Gonzo journalist who dined with cannibals, observed voodoo rituals, and roamed the Arabian Desert with Bedouins is well-detailed, beautiful, utterly engrossing, and devastating.

Favorite Coming-of-Age Story
Spinning
Tillie Walden's account of her childhood/adolescence hiding the fact that she is gay while being a competitive ice skater is beautiful, understated, gut-wrenching, and memorable. I feel this book would be very popular with YA readers, but it will resonate with older readers as well.

Favorite Music Book
California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & the Papas
Artist Pénélope Bagieu is a genius. This biography of Mama Cass is exquisitely drawn, not to mention that it contains beautiful and seemingly effortless storytelling. Not just for fans of classic rock or folk music, this book speaks to anyone with a dream of changing their life circumstances.

Favorite True Crime GN
The Hunting Accident

This book about turbulent relationships between fathers and sons hinges on an incredible true story that involves a robbery, mob connections, poetry, prison, an infamous murderer, a shotgun blast to the face, and a trip through hell. The artwork is appropriately dark and phantasmagorical, and the story will leave you breathless.

Favorite New Series
Rock Candy Mountain
As I have stated repeatedly in the past, I am totally in the can for anything Kyle Starks publishes. This comic is his first ongoing series, and it features hobos, trains, fist-fights, and the devil himself. Go read it if you like fast-paced action and intrigue as well as witty and funny dialogue.

Favorite Series
Fantasy Sports
All the entries in this series have been pure gold. Full of jokes, magic, sports, and intrigue, these comics are fun, fascinating, and exceptionally beautiful to boot. The latest entry features the most compelling rounds of mini-golf ever put to paper, and I cannot wait for the final volume in the series coming next year.

Favorite Book for Younger Readers
Real Friends
This memoir of childhood is an intimate and moving depiction of elementary school friendships. It is full of relatable moments and surprisingly complex characters and has much to offer any reader, girls and boys included.

Favorite Nonfiction Book
Dogs: From Predator to Protector
The latest in the Science Comics series is simply fantastic. A book that covers all kind of ground, from genetics to heredity to breeding to the history of domesticating animals. It's a rare fun and funny book that is chock full of information. Plus, Rudy the narrator is adorable.

Favorite Adapted Webcomic
Demon
These books (4 in all) are also easily the most depraved books of the year, but they are ingenious, funny, and compelling. This account of the machinations of a maniacal killer over a period of centuries as he tries to avoid capture while also foiling a plot to take over the world is beautifully plotted and paced. And gross. It will offend you and make you squirm, I guarantee. Not for kids. 

Favorite Book About Mythology 
Pantheon
Giving Demon a run for its money in terms of gross-out factor, Pantheon is exceptional in that it is colorful, hilarious, raunchy, irreverent, and apparently extremely faithful in retelling myths from Ancient Egypt. You will never look at salad the same after reading this book. I know I don't. Also not for kids.

Well, that's my list. Happy New Year!

Demon, Volume 2-4

As I've written before, I seek out Jason Shiga's work. It is usually fun, funny, and cerebral, full of puzzles, strange gadgets, and/or unique situations. His series Demon is no exception, although here I have to say he has dialed his sensibilities to 11.

This series stars characters from Shiga's past works (Meanwhile, Bookhunter, and Empire State), though it treats them like actors playing new roles. As I recounted in my review of Volume 1, Demon follows the exploits of Jimmy Yee, an accountant who attempted suicide only to find that he kept coming back to life because he is a demon. Shockingly, he went on a murder/crime spree that put him on the authorities' radar. In the three books that follow, much gets revealed about his situation and its causes, and the cat and mouse chase between Jimmy and Hunter escalates to a bloodbath of global proportions. This series revels in depravity, but it is also amazingly clever, well thought-out, and masterfully executed. I cannot do justice to them in this space (and I don't want to spoil much either, so I'll simply give you a free-verse poem for each book:

2. surprise surpise

daughters can be demons, too

3. 100 years in the future

a demon meets his maker

plus uncovers a plot for world domination

4. the fight for freedom involves

a high body count

conjoined twins

and peg-legged amputees wielding baseball bats

Overall, I found these books to be compelling and almost impossible to put down. These adventures follow their own logic, are incredibly graphic, and delve into areas of bad taste in the most entertaining of ways. I think that the whole narrative is a smart, grotesque masterpiece, and I am kind of anxious to see where Shiga goes from here.

Shiga speaks about his future work as well as his take on Demon here. Publishers Weekly gave the books a starred review and wrote, "As with Shiga’s other books, there are puzzles aplenty to solve, with an added layer of urgent narrative drive." They also added that "the story will prove just as addictive for readers finding it in print." Dustin Cabeal called it "one of the funniest and yet intelligent books I’ve ever read."

Demon was published by First Second, and they have a preview and much more available here (Volume 2), here (Volume 3), and here (Volume 4). This series was first published as a webcomic, but now only the first chapter is available online.

These books contain lots of violence, some profanity, and some sexual content, so I advise them for mature readers.

A review copy (of Volume 4) was provided by the publisher.

Demon, Volume 1

Jason Shiga is a comics creator whose works I seek out. They are interesting in a cerebral way, as he often includes puzzles in his stories. I thought Bookhunter, his hard-boiled librarian yarn (who thought that would be a thing?), and the peril/escape story Fleep were both great pieces of action and intrigue. I was very much taken with the choose-your-own adventure tale Meanwhile, in both book and app form, and his sort-or-love-story Empire State was very well done. What is pretty funny to me is that the star of those last two books, Jimmy Yee, a sweet, naive character, also stars in Demon, but in a very different vein.

This graphic novel is the tale of a man trying to kill himself in various ways. He checks into a motel, writes a note and then hangs himself, only to awake in the same motel minutes later. I am not going to spoil what is going on, but after multiple further attempts at suicide, he figures out what is happening and then the story really goes into some depraved territory. Jimmy does not really care about his life, or the lives of others it becomes clear, and a spree of violence ensues. Of course the authorities take great interest in these events, resulting in a clever cat and mouse game. Jimmy is wily and tough to trap, they find.

 

 

I found this book to be completely compelling, well-plotted, and enjoyable, even as it revels in its depravity. Jimmy is a surprisingly dark but hilarious figure, and I found myself rooting for him in sort of the same way I rooted for Light in Deathnote. He's despicable, but his resourcefulness is quite admirable.

All of the reviews I have read have lauded this book for its smart, humorous, and dark features. Rob Clough praised various elements of the book: "There are clever action setpieces. There are mysteries within mysteries. There’s squirm humor that gets its charge from violating social norms and expectations." Greg McElhatton wrote, "Don’t get fooled by the simple nature of his figures; Shiga really knows what he’s doing here and he’s a genuine talent." Lauren Davis opined, "While Demon has a much more morbid—not to mention violent—tone than Shiga's recent work, it still has that pleasantly mind-bending quality that makes Bookhunter and Meanwhile so much fun."

Demon, Volume 1 was published by First Second, and they have a preview and much more available here. This series was first published as a webcomic, but now only the first chapter is available online. The entire story will be published in what will be a 4-volume series.

It contains a lot of violence, some profanity, and some sexual content, so I advise it for mature readers.