So productivity is going to be low out of me for a while, and coherence may be in short supply.

http://www.thestranger.com/savage

each other well before that. Mom has a bracelet he gave her for her birthday when they were both 3.

3? That’s incredible. (My parents started dating in junior high, and I thought that was impressive, but they’ve got nothing on your parents.)

Words are so inadequate, but my thoughts are with you.

I wish you and your family only the best.

—Myca

Dad died two weeks ago today. My brothers and mother and my wife and I were all in the room holding onto him when he passed. It was difficult. He was 83 and had COPD and he finally developed a secondary condition that he couldn’t shake off. We all went back to my brother’s house after that and had a bit of an Irish wake. The next two days were spent trying to straighten out Mom’s financial situation and figure out how and where she was going to live. She couldn’t stay where she was as she cannot live unassisted. I grabbed all the files, planted myself in front of a computer and got on the phone to Social Security, the VA and Dad’s last employer filing insurance claims and getting the right changes made in her SS and VA payments and a bunch of other stuff. We’re still not sure of her financial situation (a lot depends on what the VA decides to do), but for now she’s living decently. Then I went back to work for two days and then left town for a week for a church conference that had been scheduled two months ago. I was making follow-up calls as well and my priest spent the first two days of the week trying to calm me down. Vancouver apparently has a thriving microbrewery industry and I certainly supported it last week. I flew and drove back from Vancouver Friday. Then we had to actually move Mom to her new place and, because space is limited in the assisted living facility, auction off just about all her worldly goods. Mom wasn’t there - God knows we couldn’t let her watch that, we barely could. She’s got her and Dad’s chairs and a few pieces, including a couple of bookcases that Dad made out of kits back in the 50’s - they’d been married 63 years and had known each other well before that. Mom has a bracelet he gave her for her birthday when they were both 3.

Sorry about the off-topic post.

FunHome is probably the greatest graphic novel ever written. It’s one of the best novels (graphic or not) that I’ve ever read. It’s obvious that if you want to teach graphic novels, you’re going to pick the ones most worthy of consideration. That means this one, it means Maus. It does not mean safe, boring pablum topics. Good lord, what kind of education would that be?

Amp, can you do us a big favor?

Please list your favorite (or most significant) 10 or 20 GNs.

I’m working on a post listing them — it’ll probably go up sometime in the next week.

I was thinking of the list that has so far been named here, including Maus. I am unsympathetic to these students in mart because I think college students should be able and expected to handle mature topics.

I also agree that don’t think Fun Home is pornographic. It is not mostly about sex, its mostly about human beings and is not designed as a masturbatory aide. I stand by my sense that the offense here is homosexuality and not a fairly innocuous depiction of sex.

curiousgyrl, I have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever read a graphic novel, so I’ll have to take your word for it that there aren’t any out there with no sex scenes.

Did you intend to misstate what curiousgyrl said? She did not say that graphic novels all have sex scenes; she said that it would be hard to think of any “great graphic novels” that did not include “some nudity and/or violence”. How you translated that into “sex scenes” I’m not entirely sure. (Maus, for example, has a great deal of violence, and has nudity–given that much of it takes place inside concentration camps–but no sex scenes, as you put it.)

Despite that his books are a little closer-tied to the superhero genre, you really do have to include Alan Moore (if just for Watchmen) if you’re going to discuss great, influential, literate graphic novels.

I suppose it’s slightly off-topic, but I once wrote a short essay arguing that this can sometimes (not always, but sometimes) lead to intellectual dishonesty in a debate.

I’m enjoying this thread because I’m getting some great ideas of graphic novels to add to my reading list.

Has anyone read Steven T. Seagle’s graphic novel “It’s a Bird?” I found it poignant and clever.