It hasn't been mentioned yet, but Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds is one of the best non-superhero books I've read. I found it by accident at a local bookstore. Having had a different kind of format (very tall), I didn't notice at first, but when I realized it was actually a comic book, I got it and read it and I was engrossed for the next couple of hours (yes,it did take me that long to read it). Its something that you just can't put down. Very intriguing, very moving.

Shamelssly plugging my own trade paperback...

The Wandering Ones: Ghost Wind published by Keenspot

available at http://www.keenswag.com

Everyone's listed a lot of great books; plenty of which I have yet to read. Anyway, without repeating what's come before, here is what came to me off the top of my head:

Blackmark by Gil Kane & Archie Goodwin from Fantagraphics.

Triple X by the Pander Bros. from Dark Horse.

Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President by Kaiji Kawaguchi from Viz.

Sparks by Lawrence Marvit from Slave Labor Graphics.

Exit by N. Kanan from Caliber.

Roland: Days of Wrath by Shane Amaya & Fabio Moon from Terra Major.

Beowulf by Jerry Bingham from First Comics.

Ring of Nibelung by Roy Thomas & Gil Kane from DC.

Blaze of Glory by John Ostrander & Leonard Manco.

Uther: The Half-Dead King by Scott or Bo Hampton from NBM.

That's all I can think of for now.

The only now here GN I have read is Maus.

Too bad the other's are too mature for me (I'm only 14).

I bring to you, good news; Goodbye, Chunky Rice is an all-ages book! so are any of the Bone books!

"Bone" is much less mature than "Maus," at least in the way most people mean. There's nothing in it any parent who let you read "Maus" would object to, that's for sure. It starts out, in fact, seeming like a book for little kiddies, but it gets deeper and darker as it goes on, though never as dark as "Maus" (at least not yet).

There are two problems here: one is that some books have material that some people find objectionable, and they are usually for sale only to "adults" (although any 35-year-old adolescent can buy them). Others may not have anything objectionable per se, but are likely to be, well "over your head" is a bad phrase, because if you've read "Maus" you're probably plenty intelligent and mature to understand them, but you'd probably enjoy them more later on in life.

Nonetheless, the following books out of my above-posted list should be enjoyable by any intelligent teenager and shouldn't be age-restricted (although some might be):

Age of Bronze
The Birthday Riots
Bone
High Society
Lost Girl
Palestine
Pedro & Me
Safe Area Goradze
Thieves & Kings
Wandering Star

Enjoy

Let's see... something less dark than a story about the Holocaust...

Hm...

Seriously though, try out Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker. While it's hardly all-ages, it should be fine for your age. (There are some sexual references, but there isn't anything pornographic.)

(And incidentally, LordJulius... picked up "Ethel and Ernest" this week. Good stuff!)

I have read Bone(I own volume one). I didn't see it here at first glimpse.

How would Cerebrus be for someone my age?

Severely depends on which specific story.

The first volume, "Cerebus" (aka "Cerebus the Barbarian" unofficially since it's mostly a funny-animal parody of Conan), isn't the best place to start, IMO, because the art and story in the first few issues was VERY rough. But on the other hand it's amazing to watch Dave (and it was Dave all by himself for the first 2-1/2 books) growing by leaps and bounds. He gets visibly better every issue for the first 10 or 12 at least, after which the differences are more subtle because he's already reached a pretty high level. The second half of the book is quite good. I know of at least two people reading the comic monthly who started with the issues collected in this book when they were about your age.

"High Society" was on my list of recommendations, I believe. Political satire, some think it's Dave at his best. I don't agree but it's very funny and very witty and the art is pretty darned good. Probably the best place to start. If you like it, then pick up the first one.

"Church & State," two big volumes, 1200 pages, more political satire, plus religious satire, and disconcerting scenes like the main character casually killing a baby by tossing it off the page. Heavy duty stuff, and although it can stand on its own better than most of what comes after, it's best tackled after the first two.

"Jaka's Story" has some (like one page) sex and nudity and because of that one page most stores won't sell it to you -- and some will make the entire Cerebus run off limits to you, which is just silly. If they do let you buy this one and you've got parents who are sensitive to that sort of thing, make sure they don't see that page. It's largely about marriage and other adult concerns, but if you're mature enough for "Maus" you can probably handle it. It stands on its own quite well for the first 2/3, when the overall storyline quite literally comes crashing in.

"Melmoth" is one of the few books as harrowing as "Maus," and in some ways more so because the Holocaust was an aberration in human history, but in "Melmoth" we are presented with Oscar Wilde's death as a representation of what's facing all of us in the end. Grim stuff. This is the very last book you'll be able to make head or tail of without reading the rest first, so I won't bother describing the rest of them.