The Art of Flying

Writer Antonio Altarriba set out to understand why his father took his own life at the age of ninety, and the result is a whole Spanish century in one man: a poor childhood in rural Aragon, service in Franco's army during the Civil War and the long disappointments that followed. Kim's plain, unglamorous drawing keeps the focus on the life rather than the spectacle. It won Spain's National Comic Prize in 2010. Adrian West's English translation came out from Jonathan Cape in 2015, and it is the heaviest read on this list, best saved for when you want a novel's weight in comics form.