Bechdel, Alison.
Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Ms. Bechdel examines her strained relationship with her mother.
––––––.
Funhome: A Family Tragicomic
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006. Ms Bechdel writes a sympathetic memoir of her father, a funeral director and closeted homosexual.
Briggs, Raymond.
Gentleman Jim
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2008. A Walter Mitty– like janitor dreams of a more exciting life.
Brown, Chester.
I Never Liked You
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2002. Mr. Brown details a relationship with a female friend from his adolescence.
––––––.
The Little Man: Short Strips, 1980–1995
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006. This collection showcases the inimitable style of the Canadian graphic novelist.
––––––.
Louis Riel: A Comic–Strip Biography
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006. The graphic biography of Louis Riel, who led the Metis Revolt in Midwest Canada during the 1880s.
––––––.
The Playboy
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 1992. Mr. Brown details his relationship to pornography as an adolescent.
Clowes, Daniel.
The Death–Ray.
Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2011. Clowe's anti–hero is an everyman who finds a weapon with the ability to make his enemies disappear completely.
––––––.
Wilson
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2010. Wilson is the story of a middle–aged bachelor's misguided attempts to turn his life around
Crumb, Robert.
The Book of Genesis Illustrated
. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. The Babe Ruth of comics tackles the first fifty chapters of the Bible.
Gloeckner, Phoebe.
A Child's Life and Other Stories
. Berkeley, CA: Frog Books, 2000. Ms. Gloeckner, a medical illustrator, brings her talents to bear in the x–rated story of her misspent youth.
Johnson, R. Kikuo.
Night Fisher
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2005. The story of a privileged Hawaiian high school student's drug–abetted fall from grace.
McCay, Winsor.
Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice
. Mineoloa, NY: Dover Publications, 1976. This book includes thirty–two full–size reproductions of McCay's Sunday strips and is excellent for demonstration purposes.
Neufeld, Josh. A.D.:
New Orleans after the Deluge
. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Neufeld's graphic novel is a grim reminder of all that was lost in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina.
Nilsen, Anders.
Big Questions
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2011. This graphic novel, told from the perspective of its woodland inhabitants, tells of the fallout of jet pilot's crash landing.
Pham, John.
Sublife
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2008. An assured debut that brings to mind the precision artistry of Chris Ware.
Sacco, Joe.
The Fixer and Other Stories
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2009. Sacco's graphic novel portrays major events in Sarajevo during the Serbian War through the author's dialogue with Neven, a journalist fixer and former sniper.
––––––.
Palestine
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2002. Sacco writes about the Israel– Palestine conflict from the perspective of West Bank Palestinians.
––––––.
Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia
,
1992–199
5. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2002. Sacco uses first–hand accounts to tell of the siege of the Muslim–dominated city Gorozde during the Serbian War.
Seda, Dori.
Dori Stories
. San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1999. The late, great Dori Seda was one of the great graphic novelists of the 1980s. Her comics show a great sense of humor and absurdity.
Seth.
It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2003. The author's attempts to unearth the work of the forgotten Canadian cartoonist, Kalo.
Shaw, Dash.
Bottomless Bellybutton
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2008. The dissolution of the Loony family told from the point of view of Peter, a pothead filmmaker lacking in self–confidence.
Tatsumi, Yoshihiro.
A Drifting Life
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2009. Tatsumi's autobiographical account of growing up in the vanguard of Japan's early manga boom during the 1950s.
Thompson, Craig.
Blankets
. Portland, OR: Top Shelf Productions, 2003.
The author's autobiographical account of his first love while growing apart from his family's Christian beliefs.
––––––.
Carnet de Voyage
. Portland, OR: Top Shelf Productions, 2004. Details the author's travels abroad in a graphic journal.
––––––.
Habibi
. New York: Pantheon, 2011.
Habibi
is the story of Dodola and Zam, refugees from child slavery in a mythical Middle East, and their shared destiny.
Tomine, Adrian.
Thirty–two Stories: The Complete Optic Nerve Mini–Comics
. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 1998. The author's earliest mini–comics present an offbeat world view.
Watson, Esther Pearl.
Unlovable
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2008. The author creates a graphic novel from a found diary of a teenager from the 1980s.
Woodring, Jim.
The Portable Frank
. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2008. Woodring's further adventures of Frank, the anthropomorphic cat, through a surrealistic universe that plays by its own rules.