Geek in Review: Some Great Graphic Novels You May Have Missed

During the last year, guided by my friends and the owner of my Friendly Local Comic Shop, I've been fortunate enough to find some comic books that I missed when they were first published, because I was busy being a husband, stepfather, and struggling actor. They are now available in collected volumes, and a couple of them are still releasing new issues. I've deeply enjoyed them all, and for today's Geek in Review, I thought I'd point out a few of them, in the hopes that there are some other geeks out in their 30s who at one time loved comics (or still do) but for one reason or another missed these when they were first published.

Here's an excerpt from the Transmetropolitan portion of Some Great Graphic Novels You May Have Missed:

Spider carries with him a device called a "bowel disruptor" which does exactly what it sounds like, from simple cramps to full on shitting yourself to death. While Spider frequently aims this device at other characters in the series, writer Ellis also turns its literary equivalent onto religion, politics, consumerism, and popular culture. This is not to suggest that it's preachy, in fact, quite the opposite; while Ellis has said that he created the series to "get some things off my chest," he manages to craft a compelling story with rich and multi-layered characters that holds our interest while it alternately boils our blood and cracks us up.

The result is like playing fetch with a pit bull: you never know when your friendly game of catch is going to turn into a mauling, but that's why it's so much fun to read.

I had fun writing (and, uh, researching) this week's column, and I'm really pleased that the newswire is very SFW today, so unless you have a filtering problem with your IT department, you can safely read it without risk of deadly boobies.

If you like it, I'd love for you to vote it up at Netscape. Updated: Oh man. As of 5:10 PST, over five hours later, only 16 people thought it was worth voting up. That makes me really, really sad. Does it really suck? I thought it was pretty good. Damn. Constructive feedback, anyone?