As soon as the term "graphic novel" became preferable to "comic book," it was clear something new and exciting was happening to literature. Cartoons taken seriously? Those ink-and-pen panels with the word bubbles coming out of people's mouths? It's true. The post-Maus decade has seen a shift in the way people think about comic books. Respect is growing for a genre that combines literature and art like no other medium.

Maybe you're a pop-culture fan who hasn't given graphic novels a chance yet. Maybe you're a literary despiser of the genre who doesn't believe the hype. Or maybe you're just afraid that walking into a comic book store is less than six degrees away from watching Star Trek reruns in your parent's basement. Here are a handful of graphic novels-including some good old-fashioned "comics"-that might make you change your mind.

1. Maus, by Art Spiegelman
Spiegelman's Maus is, without a doubt, the pioneer of the modern-day "graphic novel." Told through the eyes of the author's father, Vladek, it's a true account of one person's experience during and after the Holocaust. Through Spiegelman's vivid imagination, the horrors of history are recast entirely with allegorical animals in the style of George Orwell's Animal Farm. One clever example: a Jewish man at work (all Jews in this story are portrayed as mice) "passing" as a Polish gentile by wearing a pig mask in the years of persecution before the Holocaust. Rather than being gimmicky or tasteless, this style works perfectly to confront the reader's expectations and demands new, unique attention to the subject.

2. Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Speaking of giving new attention to a subject, Persepolis is hands-down one of the best novels, graphic or otherwise, to bring insight, humor and understanding to the situation of women in Iran. Satrapi's autobiographical cartoon is drawn in a deceptively simple style to match her precocious, immensely likable narrator. As a child of liberal parents, she comes of age in the years after the Islamic revolution. While the nation suffers political strife and morality crackdown, she discovers boys and punk rock parties. It's easy for people to reduce Iranians to stereotypes: fundamentalist villains or helpless victims. Satrapi's crude, heartfelt drawings bring a human face to history-even if many of her characters have no noses.

3. City of Glass, by Paul Auster, adaptation by Paul Karasik
Some artists take up the experiment of adapting classic and current pieces of fiction into graphic-novel form. Using Auster's dark, postmodern 1980s novel City of Glass as his map, Karasik navigates the story of a writer embarking on a private-investigation adventure after a case of mistaken identity. Using recurring images and even font style rather than description through words, the main character's ultimate fate emerges in haunting artwork that traces his mental breakdown. By the last pages, even the panels themselves fall away.

4. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee!, by Jhonen Vasquez
On a sillier note, doesn't everyone have a friend who has tried to popularize JtHM and its various spin-offs, or was that just my town? This is the pitch-black hilarious story of a chatty "hero" who occasionally snaps like a day-old breadstick and murders people to paint his walls with blood. Oddly enough, Vasquez went on to create the equally bizarre children's cartoon Invader Zim. While this story is much less innocent, his unique art and character style is obvious in creations like Squee, a wide-eyed and perpetually endangered child, and Filler Bunny, a pathetically adorable doodle being tortured by scientists. All this disturbing subject matter is countered by gleefully zany antics and a great sense of irony. If you're the kind of person who has watched animated shorts like "Salad Fingers" or "Happy Tree Friends" on the Internet, and found yourself chuckling like a madman to the horror of your roommate, then this is a perfect comic for you.

5. My New York Diary, by Julie Doucet
Graphic-novel writers who lay themselves bare in autobiographies are fascinating. If a picture is worth a thousand words, you really would need a giant-sized textbook to capture the physical, visual world of this novel in mere words. As if Doucet's pen never stops moving, no page is complete without the tiniest of details: mice on the floor, CD covers scattered through a room, meticulous pock marks on each character's face. Readers expecting dreamy and navel-gazing nostalgia should look away. The book is precise, gritty, and often ugly, and episodes like the portrayal of her first sexual experience are both cringe-worthy and hilarious.

6. Ghost World and Ice Haven, by Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes is an icon of the graphic-novel world with good reason. Ghost World, despite its deceptive title, is a realistic character study of a disaffected teenage girl, later adapted by Clowes into a motion picture starring Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi. It's interesting to compare the movie with the original comic, which is less story-driven and focuses on protagonist Enid's dwindling relationship with her best friend. Clowes' latest creation, Ice Haven, is a more experimental and especially suited for the Creative Writing crowd. Fans of Dave Eggers or "metafiction" will like his self-referential style; he makes a self-mocking cameo in Ghost World and devotes several pages in Ice Haven to an elitist comic book fan who wants to analyze the book you're holding to death. With an ensemble including a pretty, self-publishing poet who lives with her grandmother and a middle-aged loser obsessed with "The Honeymooners," Clowes portrays humanity in a way that is equally funny, unsettling and profoundly sad.

7. Fray, by Joss Whedon, art by Karl Moline and Andy Owens
If crime-fighting superheroes are more your speed, it just wouldn't be in character for me to leave out Joss Whedon. Fray is a creative spin-off set in the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" universe Whedon created, combined with the author's futuristic vision: "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there are flying cars." The title character, Melaka Fray, is a nose-ringed, purple-haired 20-year-old whose already-hectic lifestyle as a thief-for-hire is complicated when she finds out she's the world's latest vampire slayer. Fray ran as an eight-issue serial in 2003, and is now available as a graphic-novel. While the heroine battles against an army of villains led by her undead twin brother, the action sequences take a backseat to likable characters, plenty of funny banter and genuinely shocking plot twists.

8. Runaways, by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Adrian Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa
Another traditional adventure story that's smarter and more entertaining than it sounds. It stars six teenagers and pre-teens who band together when they discover their parents are supervillains. First on the run from their ruthless families, and later seeking out their own adventures, the kids develop their individual powers while making constant self-aware jokes and pop-culture references. The series draws humor and-believe it or not-realism from a world where superheroes are commonplace and even the butt of sarcastic jokes from the younger generation. The series is now in its second "year" (an 18-month run) with a new issue out each month. The first story arc was also released in a hardcover collection.

9. Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami, art by Masayuki Taguchi, English translation by Keith Giffen
For newcomers to "manga" (Japanese serial comics), it may be hard to get used to the right-to-left dialogue, and even harder to deal with the gore-and-panties fetish that sometimes veers close to misogyny. But if you can let that slide, this is a seriously addictive, R-rated serial (based on a little-known film of the same name) where a select lottery of 9th-graders is forced to compete in a kill-or-be-killed contest until only one student is alive. As the limbs start flying, heroes emerge in the students who refuse to play and find alternate routes of escape: a computer-savvy anarchist, a violence-resistant martial-artist, an idealistic orphan and his tiny, huge-eyed love interest. Meanwhile, lovers reunite, friends turn on each other and some kids just go stark raving mad. Like the hit show "Lost," each "episode" includes flashbacks to the characters' lives before the game, revealing twists about their pasts while they try to stay alive in the present.

10. Sandman by Neil Gaiman
If your interest in graphic novels isn't sated yet, this 10-volume series should keep you busy for a while. I haven't caught up with the Gaiman saga yet, but by all accounts from fans and critics, it's nothing less than brilliant. Centered on a somber character called Dream, it's a mystical trip through life and the universe that also features his family tree of very literal purposes: Death, Desire, Despair and Delirium. Each sibling brings a unique voice and a complex mythology with them, and the visuals that accompany the story are as beautiful as oil paintings or impressionist art. This is a long, long way from heroes in capes and wacky word bubbles.