4.35 avg rating — 2,321 ratings

"Based on a true story. Jim Woodring speaks the language of the dreaming mind. No one understands the subtle mechanisms of dream-logic like he does. These wordless escapades involving a 'generalized anthropomorph' we call Frank are actually historical accounts. Woodring alternates between candy-colored paint and equally stylized ink renderings that are indistinguishable from the photographic corollaries engineered by Whim in his dark little corner of nightmare on the edge of the Unifactor. If that unwieldy sentence kind of made sense to you, forget the computer and just enjoy the shrooms."

4.41 avg rating — 39,198 ratings

"Katsu! Kats? Kats-O? Katsu-O?... Katsuhiro!"

3.85 avg rating — 52,832 ratings

"This story was over a decade in the making, as Charles Burns produced over 360 meticulously rendered pages. His immediately recognizable graphic style is a high-contrast blend of classic American comic artists Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig and Milt Caniff, and European masters Herge, Edgar P. Jacobs, and Joost Swarte. 'Black Hole' is not just his magnum opus, it is one of the greatest graphic novels ever produced. This is as close to perfection as any artist can come, regardless the medium."

4.46 avg rating — 890 ratings

3.74 avg rating — 3,636 ratings

"Geof Darrow"

3.58 avg rating — 609 ratings

4.23 avg rating — 2,594 ratings

"This is Tardi working at the absolute peak of his creative powers. The passion he derives from the subject matter -- the sheer waste, futility and stupidity of trench warfare; the arrogance and ignorance that resulted in the horrible deaths of millions over the five year span of WWI; the stupid old fucks who gave the orders from an aristocrat's mansion a mile away, watching through spyglasses and talking about 'the glory of battle' and 'the burden of leadership' -- is reflected in the artwork. Tardi is no slouch, but his use of tones and textures here is exquisite, allowing him to portray the muck and slime and rotting corpses with a level of detail that he usually avoided. This is the masterpiece of an artist who is among the sequential art elite. "

4.65 avg rating — 379 ratings

"It's Winsor McCay. Little Nemo in Slumberland. Published in the same 16" x 21" format as when it debuted in the broadsheets back in 1906. McCay was so far ahead of everyone else, it doesn't seem right talking about his contemporaries. He didn't have contemporaries; I'm pretty sure he was from the future. 'Silas' might be in a maternity ward right now, destined to go back 120 years to put comics aright... for some ineffable purpose that of course relates to saving the human race."

4.53 avg rating — 228 ratings

3.93 avg rating — 14 ratings

"Mezzo's artistic genius is not diminished by frequent comparisons to Charles Burns. Both men have been creating noir and horror comics since the late eighties, early nineties, and both share clear European and American influences; most notably Herge, E.P. Jacobs, Joost Swarte, Yves Chaland, Al Feldstein, Milt Caniff, and Johnny Craig. Mezzo is no 'poor mans' Burns. Going back to 'Les Desarmes' you can see his artistic evolution ran parallel to Burns' career, not from it. This is comic art at its finest, dark and twisted and perfectly adapted for the story."

4.17 avg rating — 100 ratings

3.49 avg rating — 97 ratings

"Killoffer provides the art for this album. It fucking kills. One of the more shocking tales in the 'Monsters' series, the eerily beautiful underwater kingdom makes this tale of terror, violence, vengeance, and becoming the thing you hate all the more haunting. If I could own any 3 pages of original comic art (judged solely on merits, not price), it would probably be the last three pages of this book."

4.31 avg rating — 14,133 ratings

"Fuck Disney. Juanjo Guarnido is a genius. The closure of Walt Disney's European animation studio drove these two talented Spaniards to a desperate act of comics. I never would have believed that a deadly earnest comics-noir starring cat and dog and horse-headed characters would ever be worth reading. But this is one of those books that anyone who loves this 'trash' medium needs to have on their shelf."

3.15 avg rating — 114 ratings

"Blutch, bitch! You really can't fuck with style like that. I apologize. That was offensive and said nothing of substance. But I'm not going to delete it, for some mysterious reason... hmmm."

3.92 avg rating — 96 ratings

"Stephane Blanquet"

3.83 avg rating — 398 ratings

3.98 avg rating — 80 ratings

3.81 avg rating — 7,097 ratings

"Because I can, bitch."

4.05 avg rating — 1,809 ratings

4.21 avg rating — 629 ratings

4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings

4.24 avg rating — 19,360 ratings

4.02 avg rating — 347 ratings

4.14 avg rating — 28 ratings

"I miss Sof' Boy."

4.26 avg rating — 132 ratings

"This book is a fucking monument. Almost literally. Not every artist completely succeeds at adapting their style for the 16" x 21" format, but every turn of the page still makes a profound impression. 'There is glory even in our failures', as someone somewhere said or sung."

3.65 avg rating — 1,110 ratings

"Ladronn. Wow."

3.82 avg rating — 9,078 ratings

"In my opinion, this is the quintessential Clowes book, and his most beautifully illustrated work to date. Along with Caricature, which contains some of his best short stories, Boring is the perfect example of Daniel Clowes' importance as a storyteller. Ghost World and Ice Haven are both absolutely brilliant, and very close, but this is the story that really blew me away."

4.11 avg rating — 1,951 ratings

3.89 avg rating — 13,804 ratings

4.08 avg rating — 3,593 ratings

"Quite Frankly, I like this book, and nothing more needs to be said."

3.94 avg rating — 131 ratings

"Vito!"

3.95 avg rating — 668 ratings

"Frankie!"

4.03 avg rating — 43,418 ratings

"No one can accuse Thompson of being lazy or unambitious. Blankets and Habibi are both massive projects, but Habibi in particular is an artistic feat without parallel in comics. It is absolutely perfect on every level, and I feel it's far better than Blankets, though Blankets is very, very good. Critics were surprisingly negative at times, though most tended to damn it with faint praise rather than attack it outright."

4.10 avg rating — 150 ratings

"'Murena' is the series title, this is the hardcover omnibus collecting the first four albums. Philippe Delaby is the artist. Rome during the reign of Nero. Written in some language called 'franch', I think. The pictures are nice, with blood and swords and nipples and such."

3.71 avg rating — 245 ratings

4.10 avg rating — 12,601 ratings

"Moebius. Of course."

3.97 avg rating — 1,860 ratings

3.67 avg rating — 303 ratings

"Dos Pastoras is amazing. This is some stunning artwork."

3.08 avg rating — 93 ratings

4.09 avg rating — 2,360 ratings

"Otomo's first masterpiece is overshadowed by the grandeur of Akira, but both the art and the story display the full-range of his creative powers. If you haven't read Domu, stop whatever you're doing and run blindly around the countryside screaming the title until someone finally tries to pacify you with a copy. If some asshole shows up with 'Appleseed', add projectile vomit and urine to the routine. Accept no substitutes."

4.16 avg rating — 641 ratings

4.09 avg rating — 1,954 ratings

3.61 avg rating — 254 ratings

4.11 avg rating — 2,328 ratings

"Eduardo Risso is the man behind the best uninterrupted 100-issue monthly run in comics, as both penciller and inker. Just doing it is impressive. But he turned in some of the most beautiful work you'll see regardless of time constraints. He's obviously a hard worker, and more importantly, a natural born artist."

3.82 avg rating — 77 ratings

4.33 avg rating — 755 ratings

3.83 avg rating — 1,045 ratings

4.57 avg rating — 6,712 ratings

"Takehiko Inoue takes the reader back to the end of the Sengoku period and the transitional years between the battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and the final triumph of the Tokugawa shogunate. His adaptation of the classic novel recounting the life of Miyamoto Musashi rivals Blade of the Immortal in almost every way. Artistically, they are both brilliant, but have very different styles, each one suiting the subject matter perfectly. Inoue is celebrated for the stunning level of detail and texturing in his work; it is almost photo-realistic, but with a slightly stylized take. Inoue, like Samura, is an anomaly in the realm of manga art. Vagabond started in the late 90's as well, and like 'BotI' is approaching it's end after 7 or 8000 pages. Having both of these modern classics end almost simultaneously feels like a tragedy."

4.12 avg rating — 4,588 ratings

"Samura started young, and was pretty much swinging heavy hands and scoring KO's from the second the bell rang. BotI was clever, stylish and addictive, with a unique look that incorporated brushes and pencils. His love for the most obscure and bizarre weaponry to be found in Edo-period Japan gave the horrific violence another twist that set him apart. The series he started as a graduate almost 20 years ago has become an epic that will total over 7000 pages when vol. 30 arrives in November of 2014 and vol.31, the final chapter, in April of 2015. It seems like the end of an era. I first got into comics around the same time Dark Horse started publishing the series for North American audiences way back in 1998. Back then, manga was still being 'mirror-imaged' to suit our left-to-right reading instincts. Samura made a fateful decision: he didn't like the idea of reversing the pages, so he painstakingly carved up his pages panel by panel, re-arranging them to read left-to-right. A couple years later, Viz started releasing English translations of their huge back-catalogue in their original Japanese orientation. As it turned out, readers adapted surprisingly well, and Dark Horse began doing the same thing... except with Blade of the Immortal. With a well-established uniformity of design and layout, the series has stuck with the occasionally awkward and now otherwise unnecessary process of reorganizing each book panel by panel. I imagine he's making enough money to hire an assistant for that now."

4.08 avg rating — 24,678 ratings

3.60 avg rating — 234 ratings

4.14 avg rating — 1,507 ratings

"Woodring is a genius and a visionary. If he started a religious cult based on the Mysteries of the Unifactor, I'd probably ending up drinking the Kool-Aid... and I'm an atheist."

3.61 avg rating — 119 ratings

3.62 avg rating — 278 ratings

3.72 avg rating — 825 ratings

"Renee French has an affinity for the bizarre and the fertile borderlands of insanity. The rougher pointillism of her 'Grit Bath' years has evolved into a sophisticated style that almost tricks the fingertips into feeling a velveteen fuzz frosting on the pages."

3.61 avg rating — 1,006 ratings

"Farel Dalrymple has an awesome, improbable name and some crazy talent."

4.02 avg rating — 169 ratings

"This isn't the best volume of the six, art-wise (in fact it's the worst), but by the end of this thick collection, Caniff has hit his stride. Volumes 2 and 3 are where you see pure prime examples of one of the true masters of the comic-strip. IDW did an excellent job on these books."

3.99 avg rating — 1,517 ratings

4.40 avg rating — 2,173 ratings

4.17 avg rating — 8,075 ratings

4.17 avg rating — 30,503 ratings

"Quite Frankly, I don't have to explain myself."

3.61 avg rating — 960 ratings

3.75 avg rating — 4,643 ratings

"Mome-vet Eleanor Davis is perhaps the most talented cartoonist to emerge from the now departed, much missed Fantagraphics comic-anthology. Lille Carre is the obvious exception, I suppose. The list is a long one, so that's quite a statement. These are the stories that made her a name to fear for any geek slinging ink in an avant garde sort of way."

4.15 avg rating — 183 ratings

3.60 avg rating — 270 ratings

"Great Spanish artist who brings his own thoughtful twists to the 'Ligne Claire' style."

3.98 avg rating — 1,950 ratings

4.31 avg rating — 2,972 ratings

4.62 avg rating — 9,001 ratings

"While I don't like pulling out a later volume in such a long, winding narrative, the fact that Miura has been doing this series since the mid-eighties means he's grown as an artist. A lot. His early volumes look crude compared to the hyper-detailed majesty of his latest work. While this series has drawn fans who loved the anime, and fans who love the almost retro-80's AD & D flair of the settings and characters, as well as the over-the-top violence and gore, I keep coming back for the art above all else. Miura is one of those rare talents who hasn't stopped improving, even after 30-fucking-years on the same goddamn story. It took thirty years to write and to draw, and unfortunately, his cinematic style allows the casual reader to breeze through these 220-page books in an hour or two, without taking the time to appreciate the beauty of the work. It's definitely a downside of the standard 5.5" x 8" manga format that it's usually printed on pulpy, shitty paper and it's too small to be 'art-friendly'."

3.92 avg rating — 25,700 ratings

"Quite Frankly, I'm sick of this pun but I will see it through until the bloody end."

3.73 avg rating — 120 ratings

3.83 avg rating — 3,048 ratings

"Adding Julie Doucet to the list, I realized how few women artists are on the list so far; about 7 or 8 out of 64 (about a 1:8 ratio of women to men). My first instinct was to think up some more women artists to make it more even, but then I had to say 'fuck that'. Throwing women artists up that I don't like as much as other male artists is a lie that doesn't help anyone. Affirmative action might or might not be a good thing in the work place -- I have no idea, really, it's a complicated situation -- but it has no place in the art world. Including someone on the basis of gender (or race, or sexuality, et cetera) is just as ideologically wrongheaded as excluding someone on the basis of gender (or yadda yadda yadda). Comics is still a mostly male medium, but the ratio is getting closer to even all the time, especially in the underground/alternative/art-commix world. Julie Doucet's influence on artists of all seven genders is huge."

3.98 avg rating — 3,452 ratings

3.99 avg rating — 336 ratings

"Thanks in part to Jordi Bernet's excellent art on DC's reboot of Jonah Hex, IDW published these gorgeously illustrated volumes collecting the entire 'Torpedo' saga. A gangster tale set in 1936 Chicago, this is some of the blackest comedy I've seen in bande dessinee. Bernet has a knack for drawing the female form, and writer Abuli affords him plenty of opportunities to show it off. Volume 1 also includes the first couple strips by Alex Toth, who was the original artist before disputes with Abuli over the sex and violence prompted his departure. Toth is great, but Bernet owns this strip the second his pen hits the paper."

3.93 avg rating — 5,620 ratings

3.80 avg rating — 612 ratings

"This is one of those books that is so crazy and original that by page 8 I know I've found a new favorite artist. No one creates art like this. The Brazilian artist's style is unlike anything you've seen, taking elements from European, American and Japanese comics (as well as South American; I know Argentina has a long and vital comics scene, so I'm sure Brazil must as well). Very dynamic, incredibly violent."

3.91 avg rating — 2,461 ratings

3.69 avg rating — 3,455 ratings

3.84 avg rating — 129 ratings

3.68 avg rating — 386 ratings

4.15 avg rating — 13,607 ratings

"J H Williams III does his best work to date. Shifting from one style to the next with an ease that is astounding, he frequently uses a grey-tone ink wash that the digital colorist transforms into gorgeous, fully-painted gouache-like art."

4.06 avg rating — 674 ratings

3.23 avg rating — 332 ratings

4.19 avg rating — 2,310 ratings

3.77 avg rating — 7,032 ratings

3.71 avg rating — 246 ratings

4.11 avg rating — 1,068 ratings

"Stokoe just kind of came out of nowhere, it seemed to me. Of course, after reading Orc Stain I learned he had another book under his belt already, Won Ton Soup. Regardless, his originality and maturity as an artist (and storyteller) is impressive. With Rafael Grampa and Michael Deforge, James Stokoe is one of the boldest and revolutionary artists to get attention from critics and fans in the last several years. "

4.52 avg rating — 2,010 ratings

3.69 avg rating — 648 ratings

4.14 avg rating — 14 ratings

"The art is a bit rough in the first volume, but volume 3 is Raymond at his best. The stories are pretty fucking lame, but enjoyable for exactly that reason. The shit a writer could get away with back then was ridiculous. Yes, it was 'just' a comic-strip, but it was a strip that took up two full pages in most papers (Flash Gordon ran with Jungle Jim back to back), and in the age before television and comic-books, Raymond's art was reaching tens of millions of readers who actually looked forward to each instalment of Flash Gordon's adventures. It's hard to imagine now, when almost any show or book or song or comic is at our fingertips any second of any day."

4.43 avg rating — 93 ratings

4.33 avg rating — 950 ratings

"An accordion-format book depicting exactly what it promises, with a level of detail akin to Hard Boiled or Elvis Road. A panorama somewhere around 30 feet long by 8 inches tall, thousands of soldiers, vehicles, horses, artillery, and corpses cover the ravaged landscape, which even includes a shift in time and tone as the day darkens to night travelling east across the paper. "

3.72 avg rating — 279 ratings

4.39 avg rating — 592,177 ratings

3.99 avg rating — 4,140 ratings

4.10 avg rating — 1,609 ratings

3.54 avg rating — 572 ratings

4.37 avg rating — 3,468 ratings

3.87 avg rating — 5,954 ratings

4.55 avg rating — 124 ratings

4.22 avg rating — 28,869 ratings