Items14The creator’s order
  1. 1Bone (1991)Bone (1991)Published Jan 1, 1991The 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…0
  2. 2Saga (2012)Saga (2012)Published Mar 14, 2012Saga: Compendium One (Image Comics, 2019) The space opera that reads like a binge-watch. This brick collects the first 54 issues, more than 1,300 pages, of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples's story of Alana and Marko, lovers from opposite sides of an interplanetary war, and their daughter Hazel.…0
  3. 3Monster: The Perfect Edition (2014)Monster: The Perfect Edition (2014)Published Jan 1, 2014Volumes 1 and 2 of the Perfect Edition (VIZ Media) Naoki Urasawa's thriller follows a Japanese surgeon in Germany whose life unravels after he crosses paths again with Johan Liebert, a former patient. VIZ's Perfect Edition pairs the original books two at a time across nine fat volumes, and the…0
  4. 4My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (2017)My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (2017)Published Jan 1, 2017Books one and two, both now out (Fantagraphics, 2017 and 2024) Emil Ferris presents this as the diary of Karen Reyes, a girl in 1960s Chicago investigating the death of her upstairs neighbor. It is drawn mostly in ballpoint pen on pages made to look like a lined spiral notebook, and the density…0
  5. 5Big Questions (2011)Big Questions (2011)Published Jan 1, 2011The collected edition (Drawn & Quarterly, 2011) A 658-page fable that took Anders Nilsen ten years to complete. A group of small birds comes upon a downed plane, takes its unexploded bomb for a giant egg and starts arguing about what it all means, while the stranded pilot becomes their obsession.…0
  6. 6Habibi (2011)Habibi (2011)Published Jan 1, 2011Craig Thompson spent nearly six years on this 672-page black-and-white epic about Dodola and Zam, two escaped child slaves whose bond is tested across years in an invented Islamic landscape. Its pages are threaded with Arabic calligraphy and retold Bible and Quran stories, and the ornament is so…0
  7. 7Blankets (2003)Blankets (2003)Published Jan 1, 2003Craig Thompson's memoir of growing up in an evangelical Christian family in Wisconsin and falling for Raina, a girl from a similar background he meets at a winter camp. At nearly 600 pages it gives a first love the room most novels would, and its snowy, flowing art makes the hours drift. It won the…0
  8. 8From Hell (1991)From Hell (1991)Published Jan 1, 1991The collected edition (first published in 1999) Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's 572-page speculation on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper, serialized from 1989 to 1998, and the slowest burn on this list in the best way. Campbell's scratchy ink makes Victorian London feel grimy and close,…0
  9. 9Watchmen (1986)Watchmen (1986) 8.9/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1986The collected edition (DC Comics) Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's 12-issue series from 1986 and 1987 runs to 448 pages in DC's current paperback, and it rewards the kind of close reading a long flight allows. In an alternate 1985 where costumed heroes have changed history and Nixon is still…0
  10. 10Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (A Love and Rockets Book) (2003)Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (A Love and Rockets Book) (2003)Published Jan 1, 2003Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar stories from the first volume of Love and Rockets, gathered in one hardcover of more than 500 pages. They follow a small town in an unnamed Central American country, with Luba, a businesswoman raising seven children, at the center of a huge cast. It reads like a family…0