I need some time to narrow down my list to 3 but if people are looking for suggestions a few possibl elists (and I've not read a lot on thse so I need to track some down...

Here's GQ's list of 20 GN everyone should read...

GQ

aside-who ever thought GQ would acknowledge comics let alone do an article on 20 GNs you need to read before you die-that would have been inconceivable when I first started seriously exploring comics outside super-heroes 30 years ago...

and then Rolling Stone's list of the 50 best non-super-hero GN's

Rolling Stone

for the more super-hero oriented among us, a blast form the past from Shax's old friend Wizard Magazine, their top 100 GN...

Wizard top 100

I'd also suggest checking out this year's 12 Days of Christmas for ideas, and finding a cartoonist and his works to read, there were so many great entries there this year.

But I'll have to give more thought to the 3 I would pick to answer Shax's question.

-M

Depends what you mean by graphic novel.

Within the "unambiguously a graphic novel" class, and within American comics (what I know best):
I could get behind mrp's Understanding Comics.

Then I'd go with Blankets by Craig Thompson.

The third will take some reflection, but I lean toward Fun Home by Alison Beichdel.

Within the "someone might call it a graphic novel" class:
I think V for Vendetta is a comic everyone should read. If someone were to read one comic, I think that's a good choice. And there's no excuse for any comics fan not having read it. It's on the short list of comics that should be part of the vocabulary of being a comics fan.

The Wizard list clearly takes the "fits in a book" point of view in terms of definitions.

That's certainly the easiest one.

Where you see them trying to hard, I see them trying to find stuff that will appeal to a mass audience, i.e. their audience and not to the hardcore niche of direct market comic book buyers many of whom support super-hero comics and nothing else. They are looking at stuff that might appeal to readers not brought up on comic books and not enculturated by mainstream super-hero comics. Sure there is some mainstream big 2 stuff on their list, but they range afield because the mass audience has a much broader spectrum of tastes than the direct market super-hero buying customer base. If you did a Venn diagram of GQ's readership base and readers who frequently purchase big2 comics from the direct market, I'd be curious to see how much overlap there is.

GQ is going to try to produce an article that features a list that will resonate with their readership, not one that resonates with the veteran comic book fan whose tastes in comics are pretty much already established.

Rolling Stone too is creating a list that would resonate with its readership, and Wizard definitely was as well. They just have different readership bases. All the lists are subjective, which one resonates with you is simply a matter of which one strikes closest to your personal bias where comics is concerned. Doesn't make the other lists less valid or relevant, just afield from where your tastes lie.

-M

Yet if you walk into a brick and mortar bookstore (not a comic shop) and ask for Saga, the clerk will take you to the Graphic Novel section, not the comic book section and not to the sci-fi/fantasy section which is how the trade dress categorizes it, so abuse or not, the Rolling Stone list reflects how these products are being sold in the marketplace. If you look at Amazon's list of top-selling graphic novels, you will see lots of Vol. 1 of ongoing series collected in trade-and well when Saga is complete and it's told it's entire story, if it's collected into one giant omnibus or say a trilogy of omnibus (to parallel LOTR) that tell a complete long form fictional story-would that then be a novel?

If we are going to allow for individual comics collected into a another format to be considered a novel despite original format, shouldn't we allow for a series of trades that form a complete story to be considered a novel if the final completed opus meets the requirements of a novel? Saga is an incomplete story because it is still in the process of being told, much like David Copperfield was when only some of the installments had been published as a serial in the newspapers.

In one sense I think the market has defined what a graphic novel is for the mass audience already (and it's not the definition we are bandying about here), and I am pretty sure that ship has sailed and won't be coming back, so the way the Rolling Stone list uses graphic novel is correct in its own way considering that.

I don't like that definition, and even though I am happy to discuss what the definition should be, I cannot deny what the definition means in the marketplace right now and know that whatever consensus we may come to here, it is not how the term is being used in the marketplace, and that definition will be the dominant one.

-M

This site might be useful for this event, and after:

rustystaples.com/

"Welcome to the Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel review site. This is the largest site dedicated solely to graphic novel reviews to be found online.

In time we aim to cover every graphic novel ever published in the English language, but our launch selection already encompasses over 2500 titles, and is increasing every day.

Content is searchable by creator, title, publisher or category."

Fax from Sarajevo by Kubert is a must, and I'd probably say Contract with God(and its sequels) would get the number two spot...but I'm torn on the third. I'd say either Enemy Ace: War Idyll by George Pratt, Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws by Herge, The Last Temptation by Gaiman and Alice Cooper and The Midnight Circus by Mike Mignola are all tied for that last spot.