Gene Kannenberg, Jr. has compiled a book containing what he calls the 500 essential graphic novels : the ultimate guide. Now that's the sort of inflated title that's just begging to be punctured once or twice, but with 500 titles there's bound to be some undiscovered or forgotten gems.
And the book is pretty nicely organized, with graphic novels being divided into ten different genres: Adventure, Non-fiction, Crime and mystery, Fantasy, General fiction, Horror, Humor, Science fiction, Superheroes, and War, and with a two-page introduction to each genre. Most sections will begin with what Kannenberg calls a "top ten essential section," usually featuring a picture of the book cover and usually a page or a couple of panels from the interior of the work. Rounding out each section are some works not quite good enough for the top ten. Each title lists writers, artists, publisher and most recent year of publication, and even an ISBN! Each also has a star rating from one to five and an age rating (A for all, 12+, 15+ or 18+). There's also a plot summary and review for each. Each title also includes a short list of "See also" and "Further reading" titles. For each title there's also a number that appears on the top left hand corner of each title that shows a number over the number 500 -- as in number 18 or whatever of 500 essential graphic novels, sort of a non-ranking in the list that's not much use at all.
In the back there are indexes (or indices) with page listings for writers, artists, and titles. (Be careful with those page listings, however. Don't confuse them with the rank out of 500 numbers) There's also a separate list of publishers showing which titles they produced. They even have an index for the age ratings! Too bad they didn't think to include a separate index for the star ratings.
Whew! That's a lot of information. Spread out over 527 pages, that's really a lot. True, the graphics cover up a lot of that page space. But the book is printed on trade paperback size pages (about 7 inches tall by 5 inches wide) so it doesn't take much text to fill out the book. And the graphic novel page samples are really hard to read when they're reduced down enough to fit. So that tends to detract from the overall appeal of the book.
As for the titles, well, it's a pretty nice mix. Most of the ones you'd expect to find are here: Maus, Contract with God, Watchmen, Barefoot Gen, along with some surprises like Cheech Wizard, Sam and Max Surfin' the highway, The Amazing Mr. Pleebus and Indian summer. Lots of comic strips make appearances too, including The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Liberty Meadows, and The complete Peanuts. No Doonesbury though.
As might be expected, the collection does tend to focus pretty heavily on American publications. Japan does have a few titles represented (their English adaptations, anyway). And the same goes for the Europeans. Maybe that's a minor quibble. And while the Superheroes don't predominate, their section does have over sixty titles listed, while War lists just 28.
But there's plenty to peruse. I developed quite a list of titles I need to seek out, and more than a few fond memories of past enjoyable reads. That's part of the fun of these greatest hits type lists. Flipping through pages and something catches your eye and you remember reading that back when it first came out and suddenly realize you're just grinning from ear to ear.
If you're not too familiar with graphic novels, this would be a very useful introduction to some excellent examples of the genre. And if you're really lucky, you'll be able to borrow a lot of these from your local library. How superheroic is that?
