Bone (1991)

The one-volume edition (Cartoon Books, 2004) If you can pack only one book, this is the one. Jeff Smith's whole saga, serialized in 55 issues from 1991 to 2004, sits in a single paperback of about 1,300 pages, so it outlasts even an ultra-long-haul flight. Three cartoon cousins, Fone, Phoney and Smiley, get stranded in a strange valley, and what starts as slapstick turns steadily darker as a war with the Rat Creatures closes in. The clean black-and-white line reads beautifully on a tablet, and the paperback is heavy enough that the digital version is worth considering. This edition won the 2005 Eisner Award for best reprint graphic album.