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Another random time interval, another instalment of the least regular column on virtual Earth. Today we’re going to focus on graphic novels, for absolutely no reason at all. Since Art Spiegelman’s Maus, graphic novels have steadily gained greater and greater esteem amongst the otherwise snobbish reader, and if you haven’t already it’s high time you checked a few out. If you are a graphic novel fan, there may not be anything new for you here, although hopefully one or two books. I’ve gone for a fairly diverse set rather than anything extensive.

Skibber Bee-Bye by Ron Regé Jr (Drawn & Quarterly)-One of the strangest books I’ve ever come across, a near-wordless tale of an odd-looking humanoid-but-bearish creature who is beloved-from-afar by a well-dressed elephant. A sometimes cute, sometimes strange, and often horrifying and surreal narrative, which follows Lynchian dream-logic more than any traditional story.

I Never Liked You by Chester Brown (Drawn & Quarterly)-Chester Brown is of course quite well known (if nothing else you will have heard of his Louis Riel), but I never hear people discuss I Never Liked You, one of Brown’s forays into autobiography (he made many). The book skips through memories in a disconnected and accelerated way to tell a decidedly unromantic love story without flinching, Brown pulling no punches against his younger self.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean (DC Comics)-Not at all obscure, in fact one of the more successful Batman graphic novels, and yet something few people I know have actually read, maybe because of its unexpectedly blatant infusion of psychoanalytic symbolism. If you want to read a strange, almost incomprehensible in parts, and yet extremely compelling and thought-provoking story involving Batman, with beautiful artwork, this is that story.

I Killed Adolph Hitler by Jason (Fantagraphics)-Jason is a recent discovery for me, and is fast becoming one of my favourite novelists. A Norwegian cartoonist with a minimalist writing style and a penchant for anthropomorphic animal drawings, Jason is perhaps the most deft writer I can name when it comes to pacing and understatement. I Killed Adolph Hitler is everything except what you might expect. A science-fiction thriller/love story with a time-travelling Hitler thrown into the mix. Imagine that, and then know that everything you just imagined is 180 degrees away from the actual book, and then go buy the book.

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (Pantheon)-Okay, if you know anything at all about graphic novels then you’ve already heard of or read this book, but if for some reason it’s slipped by you then you need to read it right away. An absolute masterpiece, one of the best books, period, to come out of the US in recent years.

Morlac by Leif Tande (Les Éditions de la Pastèque)-A stunning experiment, in which the main character makes every choice in each situation. When faced with a turning either left or right, he does both, and the possible stories branch off and later branch off again. Tande uses the field of the page to keep these divergent stories apart, although when logic dictates (due to the way the page is laid out) the stories intersect. A stunning, well-crafted, and ambitious work. I have only ever found it in a French edition, but it really doesn’t matter since there are no words in the text.