Excellent, I'll look 'em up. Thanks!

Oh That Monroe and The Magic Whistle Blows, both by Sam Henderson. Don't know if the "all-ages brigade" would consider this humor appropriate for minors, but they're EXACTLY the kind of thing I would find funny as a 14 year old.

Hell, I find 'em funny now

Also recently picked up Cinderalla by Junko Mizuno. The story of Cinderella, if everyone was a cute and sexy zombies with melting skin. Though the title is still funny, for stupid reasons.
:p

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS by Raymond Briggs is pretty good -- it looks like a kid's book, but it's actually a devestating story in comics form about two lower-class Brits following a nuclear war, utterly clueless as to what has happened.

Maurce Sendak's SOME SWELL PUP, on the other hand, IS a children's book -- but it's entirely in comics form (Sendak's only comic, I think) about adopting a dog. It's engaging and gorgeous, and since it's Sendak, even snobs like it.

Can someone answer my question from my previous post?

Thanks in advanced.

See, the problem is that age has nothing to do with it.

You seem to be convinced that despite the fact that you're mature enough to handle "Maus" that somehow you shouldn't read "Jaka's Story." Or your parents wouldn't want you. The first is hogwash. The second is . . . I don't know. I just don't understand it. I guess because of the historical importance of it, they made an exception, just like Network TV showed "Schindler's List" uncut. If that's the case, frankly there's a lot of stuff on this list you shouldn't be reading, starting with "Church & State."

But I don't believe any of that. There are books whose only excuse for calling themselves "mature" or "adult" is that they contain sex and/or violence that many parents wouldn't want their children exposed to. Frankly, even those books I don't think are truly harmful to teenagers, though they might be to very young children. But nobody here has mentioned any of those books, because they're lousy, and anybody or any age with any taste whatsoever wouldn't want to read them anyway.

Books -- whether in words or pictures or both, movies, plays, any story, really, is "adult" when its subject matter is such that it is likely to be uninteresting or disturbing to a child. These are two very different things, of course. "My Dinner With Andre" falls into the former category, "Pulp Fiction" the latter.

Frankly, an intelligent teenager who read and liked "Maus" is an adult in my opinion for the latter category. If you were going to be disturbed by something enough to do damage to your fragile little psyche, "Maus" would have done it. You are strong enough to survive contact with most of what you will run into, and it's a good thing, 'cause there's some nasty stuff out there in the world, and you're going to be on your own real soon.

As to the former, "Whiteout" is a spy story. It's told on an adult level that might lessen it's appeal to a particularly unintellectual thrill-seeker, but you'd probably like it. It does definitely have thrills, it plays fair with its genre without pandering. It's been a while since I read it, but I don't remember any nudity. There's some pretty strong heavy violence that happens in the course of the story, but there are no gratuitously graphic portrayals of it, as I admit one of my favorite comics, "Preacher," often featured.

The fact is, you shouldn't really be worried about this at this point. I have a fifteen-year-old daughter, and there is very little I would try to shield her from. There are a few books and movies I consider so disturbing that I won't talk about them in front of her, so if she becomes aware of them it will have to be through other channels. Even with those few, though, if she insisted that she wanted to read or see them, I'd allow it, though I'd talk with her about it before and afterwards. I don't think it makes sense to think of teenagers and "children" with respect to things like this.

You are essentially an adult. Your personality is mostly formed, though you are still putting the finishing touches on it and will discover aspects of it you aren't even aware are already there for several years yet. There is nothing in any book you read that is going to turn you into a pervert, or an axe murderer, or anything like that.

Now, whether you'll enjoy a book is another matter entirely. And that, I think, has less to do with your age than with your personality. My daughter's tastes are more mature than those of some forty-year-olds I know. Since I know very little about you -- basically the fact that you're fourteen and you've read and seem to have liked "Maus" and are interested in other non-superhero graphic novels -- I can't really say whether you'd like "Whiteout" -- or "High Society," for that matter. But I can tell you that in my opinion there isn't a graphic novel that's been mentioned on this list I would even feel my daughter needed a warning about, much less one that I wouldn't want her to read.

Thanks for the reply.

I think I can handle alot of the stuff in comics.

I just don't like nudity in comics. For some reason I find it tasteless. Unless it helps move the story along. Which in most cases it doesn't.

Oh, about Maus my parents let me read without looking threw it. My mom just asked me what it was about then left me alone about it. I guess it might be beacause it was historical.

Alot of my TPB my Mom and Dad really don't look threw.(The only thing that they have looked at was Astro city beacause Confessor had a crucifix on his chest on the cover(I still got to keep that TPB though). I guess it's beacause we are christians. I might have to stay away from Church and State though. After hearing alot about it in other forums it looks like it might be religiously offensive. That might go for the rest of Cerebus also.But I still think it's worth it to try to read Cerebus.)(A weird thing is that my dad bought The Punisher when it re-launched and bought it untill Garth Eniss was done. Which is weird in the aspect that my dad's a christian. I enjoyed it,The Punisher, though)

I think i'm gonna explore some new types of TPB's. I'm interested in alot of crime drama that's out there.I think that reading more mature TPB's is a good idea.

Interesting hearing your story about what your parents will and won't let you read. As an avid lover of "Church and State", which is incredibly brilliant by the way, I want to make a comment, and, this being the internet, could be taken the wrong way.

I believe that actively religious people would find the hypothetical religions used in Cerebus fascinating, if only because Sim has made the heirarchy of the church and belief central to the story of cerebus. And it is most likely that conservatively religious people are the ones with the least ability to handle criticism, whether deserved or not, to their particular religious institution. It doesn't really matter whether you're jewish, christian, pentacostal or anything else. The very idea that the church you worship might be flawed simply shakes the foundation too much. I understand this, but think that it is odd, since i believe that anything that you truly believe in so sincerely should be strong enough to handle criticism, and, should in fact, invite discussion.

Sim's making the religious component so strong in Cerebus makes the entire story so strong, since faith lost or faith redeemed are extrememly strong emotional points when used correctly. Any Cerebus reader will remember how it felt when the character Bran Mak Muffin had his answers handed to him aobut the nature of his God.

As well, the potential criticism of the church and its heirarchy can and usually are totally different than comments on God and the nature of God. I think that there is something very different from discussing the Bible or Torah versus the potential for the current Catholic Church to address certain policies of handling "wayward" priests in an incorrect fashion. For all Sim's goofiness with the Wolverroach and Lord Julius and the others, his main story has been dead serious on all fronts when it came down to it, and he's never cheated out of making the tough decisions with his story or art.

I hope that you do get a copy and get the chance to read it for yourself, and form your own opinions on the work. Its a big world, and there are a million different viewpoints out there, and thats one of the great things aobut art and literiture: we get the chance to see things from other perspectives and hopefully broaden our minds a little. And this is something that, currently in the USA, in really looked down upon. Especially after September 11th, 2001.

I couldn't agree with you more, frankly. It's used way more than it should be in movies, in particular, and in a lot of comics where it's only purpose seems to be to make everyone involved feel like they're doing "mature" comics and justify that label on the front.

The slight bit of nudity in Jaka's Story is in service to the story. Dave has done a total of maybe three or four other pictures someone might find visually offensive from a sexual point of view (and nothing really pornographic), and another half dozen or so pictures of graphic violence (including one on the second page of the first comic). But that's out of almost 6,000 pages. There's little or no nudity in most of the comics mentioned on this thread.



Boy howdy. If you're likely to get offended at someone making fun of religious leaders and followers (not necessarily Spirituality or God, but certainly Churches and Religion), then you should stay far away from "Church & State." Heck, the nasty Inquisition priests and drunken Bishops in High Society might even offend you. On the other hand . . .

You know what? I don't usually suggest the first book to people starting out, but with you, I do. Read that. See what you think. Dave is irreverent by nature. He makes fun of EVERYTHING, even the things and people he admires and agrees with. It's part of his nature.

Anyway, I feel like I know a lot more about you, now. And I have some specific suggestions of books I think you'll like.

A Contract With God
By Will Eisner
I left this off my earlier list because it's not really a novel, but a collection of short stories. It's still very good, and makes you think about hard questions about people's relationship with God and with each other without either denigrating religion nor smoothing everything over with a phony happy ending to make religion look good (and these days most secular stories dealing with religion do the former and almost all religious books do the latter)

Palestine
By Joe Sacco
(2 volumes, about the persecution of the Palestinians by the Israeli government; not politically popular right now, but a compelling book nonetheless)

Safe Area Goradze
By Joe Sacco
This is about what happened to the Bosnians during the Serbian "ethnic cleansing" campaign.

Sandman
The main character is one of the seven "Endless," beings who are "older and more powerful than gods" -- that's god with a small g, like Zeus and Thor, and in the sense that this is mythological fantasy that has such creatures existing as real, I suppose you could call it UnChristian, in the same sense that some people find Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz unChristian because they have witches who aren't evil. It's really, really good, though, and it doesn't denigrate Christianity -- Lucifer appears pretty much as he appears in Milton's Paradise Lost, and there are Angels from the Celestial City, and to the slight extent that God is referred to He is treated with dignity and respect.

Torso
By Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko
After The Untouchables, Elliot Ness led the search for a killer who's been called (though perhaps not quite accurately) "America's First Serial Killer." Certainly he was operating long before the term came into vogue. This is a very realistic retelling of the case, with one of the most plausible possible endings (the case was never officially solved).

Road to Perdition
By Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner
Whether or not you liked the movie, or even seen the movie, you should try this. They are VERY different from each other.

Also Whiteout and its sequel. You might also check out 100 Bullets and the manga series Crying Freeman. I'm not that familiar with them, but I know about them and they come highly recommended.

That should give you a start.

Once again thanks for the reply's. You guys are very helpfull.

I'm gonna wait a little till I start reading Church and State. It seems like it might be too much for me to handle. Epecially with it dealing with all the religious stuff.I'll hold out on it till I feel I am at a point where I can read it with more understanding(and apriciate it more).

Also, with a name like "CHURCH and state" my parents will probably get suspicious and look over it before they let me read it

About 100 Bullets, I've looked apon it in a bookstore and they use alot of tasteless nudity. I will probably hold out on that too.

My dad knows how dark Neil Gaimen can get and I don't really like gothic type books(WHich Sandman seeems like from what little i've seen of it.).Gothic is really creppy. So I'll hold out on Sandman also.

Road to Perdition looks pretty good. I have not seen the movie(And won't untill i'm 16.). But it sounds very interesting.

Whiteout will probably be my next purchase. It sounds like a really good read.

Then following it probably Torso.It sounds very interesting and it might be a good read.

Thanks again guys

Neil can be very dark. The first Sandman book is very dark. The two I recommended are not dark, nor are they goth. At all. I defy you to read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and find anything goth in it.

Neil gets the reputation for being goth primarily because of his main character's big sister, Death, who is presented as dressed as a goth teenage girl and who became one of the most popular characters in the series (starring in two spin-off miniseries of her own) and partly because of her Neil attracted a huge number of goth fans. But Sandman in general is not goth. Not at all.