What "best of all time" means for comics
Comics have been published in the United States for close to a century, across newspaper strips, pulpy Golden Age adventures, underground comix, direct-market floppies, and the modern graphic novel. Any "best of all time" list has to reckon with that range instead of pretending superhero comics and literary graphic novels compete on the same axis.
This guide groups widely recognized, frequently cited comics by why they matter rather than ranking them on a single numbered scale. Some entries changed how stories are structured on the page. Others opened the medium to readers who assumed comics were only for capes and villains. A few simply tell a complete, self-contained story so well that they're still the first recommendation booksellers and librarians reach for.
None of the picks below reflect a purchase, a personal read-through, or an internal numeric score from this site. They reflect works that show up consistently across decades of critical discussion, award shortlists, and reading recommendations from libraries and comics historians. If you want a specific edition's price or current availability, check the listing directly on Amazon.
Foundational superhero storytelling
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen (1986-87, DC) is the book most often cited as the moment mainstream superhero comics proved they could carry adult, structurally ambitious literary fiction. Its nine-panel grid, deconstructed heroes, and interlocking timeline are still taught in comics courses.
Frank Miller's Batman: Year One (with artist David Mazzucchelli) reset how a origin story could be told: stripped-down, noir-inflected, and grounded in a city as much as a character. It remains one of the most frequently recommended starting points for Batman as a character rather than a franchise.
Marvels, written by Kurt Busiek and painted by Alex Ross, retells decades of Marvel history through the eyes of an ordinary photojournalist, and is widely credited with popularizing the painted, photorealistic superhero graphic novel format that followed.
Comics that expanded what the medium could be
Art Spiegelman's Maus, an account of his father's experience during the Holocaust told with mice and cats as its visual metaphor, is the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize (a Special Award in 1992) and remains a benchmark for comics as serious literary nonfiction.
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (DC/Vertigo) folded mythology, horror, and literary fantasy into a single ongoing series and is regularly credited with drawing a generation of readers who didn't previously follow comics into the direct market.
Bone by Jeff Smith began as a self-published, all-ages cartoon adventure and grew into a nine-volume epic that's frequently held up as one of the best gateway series for younger and first-time readers, thanks to its blend of slapstick humor and genuine stakes.
Modern series that built large, dedicated readerships
Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics), is a space-opera family drama that has become one of the most awarded ongoing creator-owned series of the last fifteen years, regularly cited in Eisner and Hugo Award recognitions.
The Walking Dead, created by Robert Kirkman with artists including Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, demonstrated that a black-and-white creator-owned horror comic could sustain a decade-plus run and cross over into television, publishing, and gaming.
Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takahashi pairs dense, richly illustrated fantasy world-building with a story about trauma and survival, and has become one of the most consistently awarded ongoing fantasy series in recent comics history.
Why some acclaimed comics don't appear on this list
Plenty of well-regarded comics are missing here on purpose. Long-running superhero franchises with dozens of writers across decades - most ongoing Batman, Superman, or X-Men series as a whole - are hard to point to as a single "comic" the way Watchmen or Maus can be, since quality and tone shift dramatically between eras and creative teams.
Single issues that are significant mainly for a plot event (a character's death or a major status-quo change) are also generally left off a list like this, since their importance is historical or collector-driven rather than reflecting a complete, standalone reading experience.
This list also avoids anything still too recent to have a settled critical reputation. A comic can generate a lot of short-term attention around a release without yet having the multi-year track record that titles like Watchmen, Maus, or Bone have built up.
How to use this list to start collecting or reading
If you're new to comics, start with a complete or mostly complete story rather than an ongoing series still being published; Watchmen, Maus, Batman: Year One, and Bone all work as self-contained reads.
If you prefer an active, ongoing series you can follow issue by issue or in collected volumes, Saga and Monstress are both still in progress and reward patience between volumes.
If you want to build a small personal library rather than pick just one book, a reasonable starting shelf looks like one complete literary work (Maus or Watchmen), one all-ages or family-friendly title (Bone), and one ongoing series you can grow with (Saga or Monstress) - that spread covers most of the tones discussed above without overlapping.
Most of the titles above are available as single-volume graphic novels, omnibus editions, or multi-volume collected sets. Exact editions, formats, and current pricing are shown on the product listing rather than claimed here, since availability changes.
It's also worth checking your local library before buying, particularly for Maus, Persepolis-adjacent literary titles, and Bone, all of which are commonly stocked in library graphic novel sections and are a low-risk way to confirm a title fits your taste before adding it to a collection.
How this list holds up over time
Every title above has been in print continuously for years, several for multiple decades, which is itself part of the case for including them: comics with lasting reader demand tend to stay in print, while comics that generated only short-term buzz around release often go out of print or fade from recommendation lists within a few years.
This guide will be revisited periodically as new comics accumulate the kind of sustained critical and reader recognition that the current list reflects, but it won't be reshuffled based on short-term sales spikes, awards-season hype, or unrelated media adaptations, since those factors don't necessarily reflect the comic itself.
If you've read all of the titles above and want to keep going, the character- and hub-specific guides linked throughout this site (Batman, Marvel, Superman, and indie comics) are a reasonable next step, each built around the same self-contained, no-outside-continuity-required approach used here.
Frequently asked questions
Is this list ranked from best to worst?
No. The comics here are grouped by the kind of impact they had on the medium rather than ranked on a single scale, since comparing a 1980s superhero deconstruction to a memoir like Maus on one numbered list flattens what makes each of them significant.
Do I need to read these in order?
Each title on this list is either a complete, self-contained story or the first volume of a series, so you can start with whichever premise interests you most without needing outside context.
Are these the best-selling comics of all time?
Not necessarily. This list reflects critical and historical significance, not sales figures, which this site does not track or report.