Items18The creator’s order
  1. 1Isaac the pirate (2003)Isaac the pirate (2003)Published Jan 1, 20032002 winner: Isaac the Pirate, volume 1 (Les Amériques) The first winner of the reunited prize follows a poor young painter who signs on with a captain who turns out to be a pirate, drawn by Christophe Blain in a loose, quick line that makes sea spray and bad weather feel physical. It is adventure…0
  2. 2Jimmy Corrigan (1999)Jimmy Corrigan (1999) 6.9/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 19992003 winner Chris Ware's saga of lonely Corrigan men, spanning four generations, was written in English, so there is no translation question here, only the challenge of reading it. Its diagram-like pages, tiny lettering and exacting layouts reward slow attention, and the story of a shy middle-aged…0
  3. 3Ordinary victories (2005)Ordinary victories (2005)Published Jan 1, 20052004 winner: Le Combat ordinaire, volume 1 Manu Larcenet's photographer Marco has panic attacks, a therapist he is trying to quit and a father who is slipping away, and the book finds both comedy and real ache in that ordinary mess. The cartoony figures sit against gorgeous painted countryside,…0
  4. 4Chicken with Plums (2006)Chicken with Plums (2006)Published Jan 1, 20062005 winner: Poulet aux prunes Marjane Satrapi's follow-up to Persepolis is short, sad and often funny: a celebrated musician in 1950s Tehran, his beloved instrument broken, takes to his bed and decides to die. Over the days that follow, flashbacks and flash-forwards fill in the life and the…0
  5. 5Notes for a War Story (2007)Notes for a War Story (2007) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 20072006 winner: Appunti per una storia di guerra Gipi's three teenage boys live in an unnamed country at war, drifting into crime and the taste of power that comes with it. No battle scenes and no named conflict: the war is weather, always there, and the book is about what it does to boys with…0
  6. 6NonNonBa (2012)NonNonBa (2012)Published Jan 1, 20122007 winner The first manga to take Angoulême's Best Album prize is Shigeru Mizuki's memoir of a boyhood spent listening to an elderly woman, NonNonBa, who filled his head with yokai, the spirits and monsters of Japanese folklore. Those creatures later made Mizuki famous, and here you see where…0
  7. 7The Arrival (2006)The Arrival (2006) 9.6/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 20062008 winner: Là où vont nos pères Shaun Tan's immigrant story has no words at all, which makes it the easiest winner on this list to read in any language. A man leaves his family for a strange new country of invented alphabets, odd creatures and baffling customs, so the reader feels as lost as he…0
  8. 8Pinocchio (2008)Pinocchio (2008)Published Jan 1, 20082009 winner Winshluss turns Collodi's puppet into a silent robot and sends him through a grimy, violent, very adult world, with a cockroach version of Jiminy Cricket living inside his head. It is almost wordless, apart from wordy black-and-white interludes that follow Jiminy, and swings between…0
  9. 95,000 km per second (2016)5,000 km per second (2016) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 20162011 winner: Cinquemila chilometri al secondo Manuele Fior follows Piero and Lucia from a teenage crush in Italy through years spent apart in different countries, and each stretch of their lives is painted in its own watercolor palette, so you feel time passing in the color before anyone says a…0
  10. 10Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (2012)Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (2012)Published Jan 1, 20122012 winner: Chroniques de Jérusalem Guy Delisle spent a year in Jerusalem as the stay-at-home parent while his partner worked for an aid organization, and he records it the way he recorded Pyongyang and Burma: school runs, checkpoints, baffled curiosity and a lot of dry humor. Its value is the…0