(my list of) Best Original Graphic Novels of All Time

On Friday I was on my very first panel with Erik Bear and Jackie Estrada. A great way to get my feet wet. The hardest part on the day of was carrying in the ten books. But it did require a lot of preparation. ‘Original’ was the hard part of composing this list, so many comics are serialized first. But from my collection my picks were:

1. Odysseus The Rebel Admirable for breaking from the traditional Odyssey mold.
2. The Bloody Benders My favorite Rick Geary true crime book
3. Pride of Baghdad based on a true story of tragedy and war.
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum inspired the video game, the original story is a much deeper exploration of the madness of Batman
5. X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills this made me take superhero comics seriously
6. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall I’m cheating here since this is a collection of short stories but hey, it’s great so there
7. Meanwhile a choose your own adventure for the 21st century
8. King David a warts and all tale of the Hebrew king
9. Alice in Sunderland not just one of my favorite comics but one of my favorite books. A fascinating history of Sunderland England and a demonstrations of what can be done in the comics medium.
10. A Tale of Sand based on a screenplay by Jim Henson in his pre-muppet days

Here’s a little clip HamerskyOnComics recorded.