best books of the last 25 years
I'm late in posting this, but I didn't want to let it slip:
Alison Bechdel has a four-page graphic essay in the latest issue (the 1000th, celebrating "The New Classics") of Entertainment Weekly. It's a nice piece on the subject of compulsory reading, which she posted here on her blog. Also interesting to fans of the graphic form is EW's list of "The 100 Best Books of the Last 25 Years." EW is generally friendly to graphic novels, and this list is no exception; here are the six that made the list:
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
While I've only read a smattering of the text-only books on EW's list, I'm 5-for-6 with the graphic novels (I would be batting 1.000, but I've only read parts of Sandman). EW might have considered a few others as well:
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
Barefoot Gen (Keiji Nakazawa)
Black Hole (Charles Burns)
Blankets (Craig Thompson)
Bone (Jeff Smith)
Cerebus (Dave Sim/Gerhard)
Dark Knight (Frank Miller)
From Hell (Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell)
Love and Rockets (Los Bros. Hernandez)
Palestine (Joe Sacco)
Sin City (Frank Miller)
Understanding Comics (Scott McCloud)
V for Vendetta (Alan Moore/David Lloyd)
300 (Frank Miller)