The Greatest Graphic Novels Of All Time

Here's another Alan Moore masterpiece that got absolutely butchered in its transition to Hollywood. The dense, epic From Hell is an investigation into the still unsolved Jack the Ripper murders that plagued London in the late 1800s. 572 pages long, it's not an easy read, but it's incredibly satisfying to penetrate the layers of symbolism that Moore piles on. If you hated the movie (as you should), don't let it ruin you on the book - it's a very different beast indeed.

I tried to limit the amount of manga that made this list - opening the door to the massive world of Japanese comics would necessitate me expanding it to 100 items at least. But some had to make the cut. Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is a landmark achievement in graphic storytelling - a 2400-page masterwork of dystopian sci-fi that's a breeze to read but will have you returning again and again. In a neo-Tokyo devastated by a long ago war, wild gangs of teenage bikers clash with a mysterious government experiment, and the chaos that results is some of the most lovingly-drawn ever.

British cartoonist Bryan Talbot is a man of singular, if bizarre vision - his comics are dense, beautifully illustrated, and often impossible to understand. His most approachable work, The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright, would take longer to describe than I have here, but I'll make a go of it. The titular hero can shift himself between parallel universes by thinking about it, and as such can get pretty ridiculous. Heart Of Empire is the sequel to these early works, and although it's easier to follow, it's no less thought-provoking, gory and unpredictable.

This one hails from a few years back, but it's still one of the most interesting takes on some of Marvel's B-list characters. The Inhumans, for those who don't know, are a race of superhuman beings who live cloistered in a secluded dome in the Himalayas, or sometimes on the Moon. This collected edition of the limited series by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee sports breathtaking art and a more emotionally complex story than you could ever imagine being acted out by fish-people and dudes who can't talk.