Journeying to the "sacrifice zones" of global capitalism, places where the underclass has been foresaken in favor of profit margins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chris Hedges and American Book Award-winning cartoonist Joe Sacco capture a country in decline. When their narrative culminates in Zucotti Park, readers will feel just as outraged as the protestors portrayed on the page.

Nearly 80 years old and famous in his native Japan, graphic novelist Shigeru Mizuki has had to wait until now for his first book in English. A quasi-autobiographical account of the desperate plight of some Japanese soldiers at the end of WWII, this book offers harsh naturalism, raw emotions, and sudden beauty.

Eleven years in the making, Joyce Farmer's graphic-novel memoir of  her elderly parents exhibits meticulous realism and pathos; it earns a place on the shelf next to such unforgettable examples of the form as Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and David B.'s Epileptic.

This is the first book in a planned ten-volume series of Jacques Tardi's irresistible graphic novels depicting the adventures of a female Victorian occult detective—think Hellboy meets the Mummy films, with a dash of Gallic insouciance.

A vast amount of the unique cultural wealth of Guadeloupe is zestily compressed into this narrative of a single day of summer enjoyed by three sisters. Alas, this graphic novel represents the final work of Aristophane, the noted French artist who died tragically young, at age 37.