Graphic Novels 101 | Arlington Public Library

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1) Apsara engine

Author

Description

"By turns fantastical and familiar, this graphic short story collection is immersed in questions of gender, the body, and existential conformity. The eight delightfully eerie stories in Apsara Engine are a subtle intervention into everyday reality: a woman drowns herself in a past affair, a tourist chases another guest into an unforeseen past, and a nonbinary academic researches postcolonial cartography. Imagining diverse futures and rewriting old...

2) Bitter root: Vol. 1

Author

Series

Bitter root volume 1

3) The contract with God trilogy: life on Dropsie Avenue

Author

Series

Contract with God trilogy

Description

As the dramas unfold in A Contract With God, the first book in this new trilogy, it is at 55 Dropsie Avenue where Frimme Hersh, the pious Jew, first loses his beloved daughter, then breaks his contract with his maker, and ends up as a slumlord; it is on Dropsie Avenue where a street singer, befriended by an aging diva, is so beholden to the bottle that he fails to grasp his chance for stardom; and it is there that a scheming little girl named Rosie...

4) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Author

Bechdel, Alison

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award

Alison Bechdel's groundbreaking, bestselling

...

Author

Description

One of the best-selling and critically-acclaimed graphic novels of all-time telling the story of two supremely ironic, above-it-all teenagers facing the thrilling uncertainty of life after high school. As they attempt to carry their life-long friendship into a new era, the careful dynamics of their inseparable bond are jolted, and what seemed like a future of endless possibilities looks more like an encroaching reality of strip malls, low-paying service...

6) The hard tomorrow

Author

Description

"Hannah is a thirty-something wife, home-health worker, and antiwar activist. Her husband, Johnny, is a stay-at-home pothead working--or "working"--on building them a house before the winter chill sets in. They're currently living and screwing in the back of a truck, hoping for a pregnancy, which seems like it will never come. Legs in the air, for a better chance at conception, Hannah scans fertility Reddits while Johnny dreams about propagating plants--kale,...

7) Invisible kingdom: Vol. 1,Walking the path

Author

Wilson, G. Willow

Series

Invisible kingdom (Graphic novel series) volume 1

Description

"In a small solar system in a far-flung galaxy, two women -- one a young religious acolyte and the other a hard-bitten freighter pilot --uncover a conspiracy between the leaders of the most dominant religion and an all-consuming mega-corporation. On the run from reprisals on both sides, this unlikely pair must decide where their loyalties lie -- and risk plunging the world into anarchy if they reveal the truth"-- Provided by publisher.

8) Lore Olympus: Vol. 1

Author

Smythe, Rachel (Comics artist)

Series

Lore Olympus volume 1

Description

Persephone, young goddess of spring, is new to Olympus. Her mother, Demeter, has raised her in the mortal realm, but after Persephone promises to train as a sacred virgin, she's allowed to live in the fast-moving, glamorous world of the gods. When her roommate, Artemis, takes her to a party, her entire life changes: she ends up meeting Hades and feels an immediate spark with the charming yet misunderstood ruler of the Underworld. Now Persephone must...

9) The low, low woods

Author

Machado, Carmen Maria

Description

"When your memories are stolen, what would you give to remember? Follow El and Vee as they search for answers to the questions everyone else forgot. Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, is plagued by a mysterious illness that eats away at the memories of those affected by it. El and Octavia are two best friends who find themselves the newest victims of this disease after waking up in a movie theater with no memory of the past few hours. As El and Vee dive...

10) The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (2021)

Author

Series

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (2021)

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past?...

11) Maus: A survivor's tale.Vol. 1, my father bleeds history

Author

Spiegelman, Art

Series

Maus volume 1

12) My favorite thing is monsters: Book one

Author

Series

My favorite thing is monsters volume 1

Description

"Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late 1960s Chicago, and narrated by 10-year-old Karen Reyes, Monsters is told through a fictional graphic diary employing the iconography of B-movie horror imagery and pulp monster magazines. As the precocious Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her beautiful and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, we watch the interconnected and fascinating stories of those around...

13) Relish: my life in the kitchen

Author

Description

"Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe-- many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions"...

14) Saga: Vol. 1

Author

Vaughan, Brian K

Series

Saga (Brian K. Vaughan) volume 1

Description

"When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe" -- p. [4] of cover.

15) Sandman: Vol. 1,Preludes & nocturnesPreludes & nocturnes

Author

Series

Sandman library volume 1

Description

"An occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman. This book also includes the story "The Sound of Her Wings," which introduces us to the pragmatic and perky goth...

16) Stone fruit

Author

Description

"Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray's niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties -- Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother...

17) Wash Day Diaries

Author

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

A 2023 Alex Award Winner
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner
From writer Jamila Rowser and artist Robyn Smith comes a captivating graphic novel love letter to the beauty and endurance of Black women, their friendships, and their hair.
Wash Day Diaries tells the story of four best friends—Kim, Tanisha, Davene, and Cookie—through five connected short story comics that follow these young women through...

Author

Description

A graphic novel in which Rorschach, an aging superhero, digs up the past in his search for answers about the death of one of his former colleagues.

Author

20) The wicked + the divine: Vol. 1,The Faust act

Author

Series

Wicked + the divine volume 1

Description

Every ninety years, twelve gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead. It's happening now. It's happening again.