From Alan Moore’s teardown of superheroes to Frank Miller’s redesign of Batman and more, these stories make up the best graphic novels of all time.
Did you know the first graphic novel wasn’t published until the 1970s? We can’t really pin down the very first one, but Britannica cites Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories as the first-ever graphic novel.
Since then, the graphic novel has become its own thing. They’re different from comics in that they’re often larger, self-contained stories, though they can also be a series of serialized stories released as reprints or collections. They’re also most often targeted at older readers and, as such, take on more mature themes.
All this is to say it’s a little hard to write a list of the best graphic novels of all time. I can’t read everything, and modern comics seem to blur the line between graphic novels and trade paperbacks more and more as themes mature and reboots change how often books are reprinted. But I feel confident in saying that these stories are at the top of the list and are must-reads for anyone who wants to step beyond monthly comics for something with a little more bite.
The best graphic novels of all time
If you’re ready to dive into the best comics has to offer, here are the best graphic novels of all time.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
There are so many Batman stories you could put on this list in place of The Dark Knight Returns. Batman: Year One, The Killing Joke, and more have all had grand implications in the history of comics.
But The Dark Knight Returns still feels special, somehow. While Year One canonized the modern Batman, Dark Knight Returns was the template. It reintroduced a darker, grittier Batman, paving the way for Burton’s 1989 film and serving as the foundation for Ben Affleck’s take on Batman.
How other Batman stories have aged can change a lot depending on how you feel about some elements. While The Dark Knight Returns still has a deeply political leaning with its take on Reagan and how it handles Superman, it’s still at its core a classic tale of one man standing up for a better tomorrow.
Saga
Saga is something of a once-in-a-lifetime affair if you’re a comic fan, the kind of lightning in a bottle that you rarely see.
Everything you’ll read compares it to a sci-fi Romeo & Juliet, and they’re not wrong. The story follows Alana and Marko, lovers from warring cultures who are seeking a peaceful life with their daughter, Hazel. Everyone in Saga is a shade of grey, but the story brings with it a powerful narrative about love and the lengths anyone will go to for it.
Saga is remarkably forward-thinking and progressive, handling topics like love, sex, and war with a deft hand and no shame about acknowledging the elephants in the room. If you’re looking for a series with a sense of humor and plenty of adventure that will make you think, laugh, and cry, Saga deserves a spot on your pull list.
All-Star Superman
For a character as quintessential as Superman, it’s so odd that more of his graphic novel outings aren’t considered classics. There are plenty of classic Superman stories: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Kingdom Come, The Nail, Earth One; they all tell classic Superman stories, but they don’t seem to enter the conversation that much anymore.
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A lot of that could be because All-Star Superman changed the narrative. In All-Star Superman, the Man of Steel sets about completing the “twelve labors of Superman” as he’s faced with the prospect of certain death. It’s a quintessential Superman tale that seemingly overshadowed everything that came before and has come out since.
All-Star Superman is a brilliant study of what makes Superman…well, super. Nothing has really explored the character in much the same fashion since, and as a result, it remains one of the most talked about Superman stories of all time.
Maus
It’s far from the first graphic novel, but Maus might be the first time a graphic novel was treated as having educational value. This 1991 graphic novel collects Art Spiegelman’s autobiographical story of his father’s survival in the Holocaust, depicting Jews as mice and Germans as cats.
Maus is striking in its visual design, with its heavy use of contrasted black-and-white art and stylized talking animal designs. Don’t let it fool you, though; Maus is a weighty, text-heavy read about a dark time in history.
But it’s endeared itself to comic fans and become an essential part of the culture. Just how beloved is Maus? When it was moved onto a list of banned books in 2022, the outcry gained national attention and kicked off a whole new discussion about the pitfalls of banning books. Maus is rightfully hailed as one of the most important comics of all time and a must-read for anyone just starting out.
Watchmen
Truth be told, I feel guilty for putting Watchmen on this list. It feels so obvious and overdone to mention it as the king of all graphic novels. That perception has, sadly, damaged it over the years, but it is undeniable: nothing on this list carries any weight without Watchmen’s teardown of the medium.
Watchmen is often treated not as the bar against which all other comics are measured. And it’s just not that. Watchmen is Alan Moore’s dissection of the superhero genre, a teardown of what makes it great and what makes it awful. If you recommend this to a new fan, someone who just started out and wants to understand comics, it’s going to be lost on them.
But you can’t deny that Watchmen is important and fascinating. It’s an examination not just of the ridiculous notion of superheroes but of all the tropes the reader willingly turns a blind eye to as they engage in the world. Watchmen truly is the greatest graphic novel of all time, but it’s also important to remember it for its criticisms of the genre.
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