3 Graphic Novels with Buzz

Here for your reading consideration is a trio of 2012 graphic novels that have received a wide range of strong reviews and recommendations:

The Underwater Welder (M)
by Jeff Lemire

"Pressure.   As an underwater welder on an oilrig off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jack Joseph is used to the immense pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife and their unborn son. But then, something happens deep on the ocean floor. Jack has a strange and mind-bending encounter that will change the course of his life forever! Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending science fiction epic, The Underwater Welder explores fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and truth, and the treasures we all bury deep down inside." - Publisher

Bloody Chester (M)
written by JT Petty ; illustrated by Hilary Florido ; colored by Hilary Sycamore

"A deliciously gruesome horror tale set in the old west. This isn’t John Wayne’s heroic old west. This is the real deal: a filthy, disease-ridden frontier populated by losers, lunatics, and murderers. And when you’re a skinny teenager with no family and a name like Chester Kates, your options are limited. It’s stand up and fight or roll over and die, so Chester, aka “Lady Kate,” is set to fight until it kills him. It isn’t much of a life, but it’s at least straightforward. Until things go all cockeyed when Chester is hired to ride his horse (also named Chester) to a ghost town and burn it to the ground. Except the ghost town doesn’t just boast a tidy collection of mangled corpses: it also has three living inhabitants . . . who won’t be budged. But Chester’s been hired for a job, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t burn the town to the last cinder. Thing is, he may just be damned if he does. This horror-Western-mystery graphic novel will send a thrill—and a chill—down your spine. Funny, fascinating, and downright horrible, this is a book that keeps you turning the pages." - Publisher

Goliath (M)
by Tom Gauld

"This story reworks the David-and-Goliath myth. Goliath of Gath isn't much of a fighter. Given half a choice, he would pick administrative work over patrolling in a heartbeat, to say nothing of his distaste for engaging in combat. Nonetheless, at the behest of the king, he finds himself issuing a twice daily challenge to the Israelites: "Choose a man. Let him come to me that we may fight. If he be able to kill me then we shall be your servants. But if I kill him, then you shall be our servants." Day after day he reluctantly repeats his speech, and the isolation of this duty gives him the chance to banter with his shield-bearer and reflect on the beauty of his surroundings. Goliath's battle is simultaneously tragic and bleakly funny, as bureaucracy pervades even this most mythic of figures." - Publisher