My Favourite Graphic Novels That Aren’t About Traditional Superheroes

by Xan van Rooyen
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9 books
I came to graphic novels fairly late in life, stumbling upon this vibrant and dynamic method of story-telling only in my late teens. As a kid, I was a voracious reader but never read comic books. Sadly, there was a certain amount of stigma around comic books that they were for kids who struggled to read and weren’t appreciated as an incredible method of storytelling in their own right. Thankfully, I managed to shed these childhood notions of what constituted ‘proper’ reading and quickly found myself immersed in the world of graphic novels, reading them as voraciously as I’d been reading novels.
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The Crow

J. O'Barr, 2002
This is how I found graphic novels. Like any self-respecting Goth in the late 90s/early 2000s, I loved The Crow film by Alex Proyas. When I found out it was based on a book, I simply had to have the original story and thus my love affair with graphic novels began. The original graphic novel, written and illustrated by James O’Barr, is an exquisitely dark tale of love and death (it gets even darker than the film!) and the art is as dramatic as the story is devastating.

Squire

Nadia Shammas, Sara Alfageeh, 2022
Written by a Palestinian-American and illustrated by a Jordanian-American, this story echoes real world history and ongoing conflict, while never becoming bogged down in its politics. That said, this book is an important one that shows how the stories we tell about history, and how who takes control of those narratives, can drastically alter public opinion of a situation-something we unfortunately see play out far too often in the real world. The art is fantastic, with colors in the panels bringing to life the natural beauty of a fantastical Middle East.

Monstress

Marjorie Liu, 2019
This is an expansive series set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia with drawing from a variety of mythologies. The art is fantastic, the world-building is rich and politically complex, the characters are so well developed, and the series has excellent and varied queer representation.

Cosmoknights (Book One)

Hannah Templer, 2019
If you enjoy swashbuckling space adventures featuring awesome queer characters and all the found family warm-fuzzies complete with vibrant and dynamic artwork, you definitely need to check out the Cosmoknights graphic novels. It manages to be extremely wholesome while also giving middle fingers to the establishment and challenging the status quo.

Descender Volume 1

Tin Stars
Jeff Lemire, 2015
Descender & Ascender series - These are two separate but related series set in a universe divided by technology and magic, and how these two start to merge. I’m a huge fan of pretty much everything Lemire writes, but these two series in particular have stuck with me, perhaps because Nguyen’s art is just breathtaking and manages to show the difference between the technological and fantastical through the illustrations.

Ascender Vol. 1: The Haunted Galaxy

Jeff Lemire, 2019
Descender & Ascender series - These are two separate but related series set in a universe divided by technology and magic, and how these two start to merge. I’m a huge fan of pretty much everything Lemire writes, but these two series in particular have stuck with me, perhaps because Nguyen’s art is just breathtaking and manages to show the difference between the technological and fantastical through the illustrations.

The Wicked + the Divine

Kieron Gillen, 2017
In this series various gods and deities have become the equivalent of rock stars, giving two years to live as incarnate humans before dying. Throughout the series, the twelve incarnate navigate complex alliances while trying to solve a conspiracy to undermine divinity, all while the clock ticks down. The art is magnificent, breathing life into a diverse cast of characters including Lucifer, Inanna, Baphomet, and the Morrigan.

Grafity's Wall

Ram V, Anand Radhakrishnan, 2018
Unlike the rest of the books in this list, this is a stand-alone graphic novel and I highly recommend exploring all of Ram V’s work as I have loved each and every one of his books, but this is definitely my favourite. Graffiti’s Wall tells a semi-autobiographical story of a found-family group of friends as they come of age in Mumbai, exploring their dreams despite the harsh reality of their circumstances as they gradually complete a massive mural.

The Sandman: Book of Dreams

Neil Gaiman, 2022
This series needs no introduction and was also one of the first graphic novel series I fell in love with. Now a major Netflix series, Gaiman’s world is highly complex and the non-linear story-telling used throughout this series makes for a challenging but fantastic read, taking the reader on a convoluted, poignant, violent, painful, mythological, dystopian, euphoric journey with art by numerous artists capturing this vivid and incredible world through vibrant and expressive panels.