Sandman

It was hard for me to get into Sandman. The first reason is because the art in Sandman is never anywhere near as good as the writing. The second reason is either because of Neil Gaiman's egotism or because of how ridiculous Gaiman fans are. Neil Gaiman is often compared to Alan Moore, and let's face it, he's no Alan Moore. He may be the next best recent comic book writer to deal with myth, lore and zeitgeist, but he's at least two levers below Moore in skill and creativity.

But Sandman is good. It's really good. It will stick with you when you're done. It is intensely anthropological, with Dream and family describing all of human mythology since the dawn of this world. There are tricksters and creators and beings of great power. Like the trials of Hercules, plots are often linear and revolve around tasks. But like much of ancient literature, it will linger on seemingly unrelated one-shot stories, perhaps about a bold Englishman who is granted immortality or about a cat who starts a revolution in feline dreaming that could change reality. The story stands alone, but occasionally reaches into the DC Universe.

Sandman is good. I still don't know if I can say this about the rest of Gaiman's corpus, but Sandman is good.

Y: The Last Man

Whenever issues of politics or religion come up, the most likely situation is that some interlocutor will make some broad stroke statement and say something like, "If we wiped religion off the face of the planet, we wouldn't have these problems anymore." Y: The Last Man is a comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerra in which a catastrophe wipes all men off the face of the planet save for a man-child named Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. I've thought long and hard about whether I felt I could recommend this series to everyone I know. On the one hand, the adventure is interesting and humorous and filled with references, but this doesn't really make it stand out. On the other hand, the issues and statistics surrounding gender issues are incredibly interesting, and in comic book form this series makes deep and difficult topics easily accessible to any reader. Vaughan is not trying to pin all the crimes of humanity squarely on the shoulders of the male gender, but at the same time he's certainly not giving men a get out of jail free card. (I'm supposed to insert a Catholic joke here, nyet?) I think you'll be hooked on Y: The Last Man pretty quickly if you just pick up a volume or two.

Preacher

Sometimes I think everyone on the planet knew that Preacher was one of the most amazing comic book series ever published long before I did. Just in case there's someone who hasn't encountered Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's masterpiece, I thought I should write out a recommendation. Vertigo's Preacher series tells the story of some normal people (well, mostly) who become entangled in an enormous metaphysical drama. It is edgy and smart and never takes the easy way out, taking on the more interesting geographical destinations in America: Texas, New York City, San Francisco, Louisiana... You might say that Preacher is, in a way, the Great American Novel. I say this mostly because people list The Great Gatsby as the leading contender for that title, and as interesting as F. Scott Fitzgerald can be at times, the American experience is not one of old and new wealth. It's one of pain and struggle, of grit and of wonder. These four adjectives apply easily to Preacher. I suggest you read it as soon as possible, and continue to read it over and over throughout the years.