So Youve Finished Watchmen and Dark Knight: The Next Step
Finished Watchmen and The Dark Knight? Discover your next graphic novel obsession with this curated reading list featuring Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways, Charles Burns' Black Hole, and more essential comics for mature readers.
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Black Hole
by Charles Burns
“The best graphic novel of the year” (Time) tells the story of a strange plague devastating the lives of teenagers in mid-1970s suburban Seattle, revealing the horrifying nature of high school alienation—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety, and the ennui. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways—from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable)—but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself. And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird. To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…
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All Over the World and Other Stories
by Warren Ellis
Collecting the stories that first introduced the world to Planetary, this volume features the adventures of a team of super-powered archaeologists.
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Runaways
by Brian K. Vaughan
When six young friends discover that their parents are all secretly super-powered villains, they run away together and find strength in one another to overcome their evil legacy.
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The First Hundred Days
by Brian K. Vaughan
After growing tired of risking his life, America's first superhero Mitchell Hundred retires from masked crime fighting and runs for mayor of New York City, but he discovers that he has more to worry about than just budget problems.
