Holiday Book Guide 2014: Graphic Novels
True histories, legendary cartoonists and online gaming spring to life. See all our holiday books recommendations.
Syllabus
Notes from an Accidental Professor
Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95
The latest book from the cartoonist and author is part memoir, part lesson plan and part reflection on creativity.
Sugar Skull
Pantheon, $23
In the third and final comic book in the surreal, tragic series that began with "X'ed Out" and "The Hive," Burns concludes the story of Doug, a performance artist beset by amnesia and terrifying visions.
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
A Memoir
Bloomsbury, $28
This memoir of Chast's parents' slow decline, a National Book Award finalist, finds comedy and tenderness in life's indignities
In Real Life
First Second, $17.99, ages 12+
Teenage gamer Anda's happy online life is shaken up when she befriends a young Chinese player, a "gold farmer" whose job is collecting items in games and selling them to other players.
Kill My Mother
Liveright, $27.95
The legendary cartoonist's debut graphic novel is a tale of dames and drunkards, wannabes and heroes that references the classics of pulp fiction and film.
I Only Read It for the Cartoons
The New Yorker's Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists
New Harvest, $25
This isn't a graphic novel but profiles of 12 of the magazine's most familiar cartoonists, including Roz Chast, Gahan Wilson and Edward Koren.
The Love Bunglers
Fantagraphics, $19.99
The latest from the co-creator of "Love and Rockets" may (or may not) be the last chapter chronicling the life of Maggie Chascarillo, punk rock mechanic-turned-middle-aged apartment manager.
Sally Heathcote, Suffragette
Dark Horse, $19.99
This graphic historical novel follows Heathcote, a fictional seamstress who becomes a women's rights activist in turn-of-the-century England.
Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel
Penguin, $17 paper
The notebooks in this graphic novel excavate the life of a Russian American novelist and single mother as she reconciles herself to sex and love.
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