This is a continuation to last weeks articles of Holiday Gift ideas.  Some of the best Christmas gifts I received as a youth were graphic novels.  Before the days of digital comics this was the only way for me to have a complete story set, and since they were expensive I would put two or three on my Christmas list.  Here is part 1 of what I consider important comic graphic novels for collectors and new readers.

Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke is a 1988 one-shot graphic novel featuring the characters Batman and the Joker written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Brian Bolland, and published by DC Comics. Set in the fictional U.S. city of Gotham, Batman: The Killing Joke provides an origin story for the Joker, an established comic booksupervillain and nemesis of Batman. Taking place over two timelines, The Killing Joke depicts the Joker attempting to drive Jim Gordon insane and Batman’s desperate attempt to stop him.

To Purchase on Amazon click here.

Y the Last Man

Y: THE LAST MAN, winner of three Eisner Awards and one of the most critically acclaimed, best-selling comic books series of the last decade, is that rare example of a page-turner that is at once humorous, socially relevant and endlessly surprising.

To Purchase on Amazon click here.

100 Bullets

Written by Brian Azzarello; Art by Eduardo Risso, and Dave Johnson In this dark and intriguing trade paperback, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches ordinary citizens and gives them an opportunity to exact revenge on a person that has wronged them. Offering his clients an attache case containing proof of the deed and a gun, he guarantees his “clients” full immunity for all of their actions, including murder. In these opening chapters, Dizzy Cordova, a Latinagangbanger who has just finished a prison sentence, is given the chance to avenge her family’s murders, and a downtrodden bartender receives the opportunity to exact revenge against the woman that ruined his life.

To Purchase on Amazon click here.

Batman Year One

In 1986, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli produced this groundbreaking reinterpretation of the origin of Batman­ — who he is and how he came to be.

Written shortly after THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Miller’s dystopian fable of Batman’s final days, Year One set the stage for a new vision of a legendary character.

To Purchase on Amazon click here.

Maus

Maus[a] is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The book represents Jews as mice and other Germans and Poles as cats and pigs. Critics have classified Maus as memoir, biography, history, fiction, autobiography, or a mix of genres. In 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize.

To Purchase on Amazon click here.

Watchmen

Watchmen is an American comic-book limited series published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987, and collected in 1987. The series was created by a Britishcollaboration consisting of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moore’s proposed story would have left many of the characters unusable for future stories, managing editor Dick Giordano convinced Moore to create original characters instead.

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Source: Amazon, Marvel, DC, Vertigo