This Fall’s Top Graphic Novels Run The Full Range Of Emotions

Fall has become as important a release season for literary graphic novels as for literary prose novels. This year, publishers are rolling out their biggest guns in the high prestige (but relatively low volume) category, showcasing some of the industry’s biggest names in impressive new editions.

The headliner of the season, if not the year, is Monica, by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Patience), who surely belongs on the Mount Rushmore of contemporary graphic novelists. His latest, published by Fantagraphics, is the most ambitious work of his career. It tells the story of Monica, born amidst the spiritual confusion of the 1960s counterculture, and her midlife attempts to piece together the story of her mother who abandoned her in childhood to join a cult. The book unfolds in a series of vignettes that shift in tone and focus, although we eventually settle into Monica’s first-person point of view.