Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (2012)

Hayao Miyazaki serialized this manga on and off from 1982 to 1994, and it goes far beyond his film of the same name. The pages are dense with fine pencil work: insect swarms that fill a spread, fungal forests drawn spore by spore, airships and armies seen from high above. The pages were printed in a sepia-toned ink rather than black, which gives the whole saga a soft, aged mood. This deluxe two-volume hardcover box set is the format to choose, since its pages are larger than the older English paperbacks and give the detail room to breathe. The later volumes grow crowded with factions and politics, so some readers will slow down. The drawing never does.