Graphic novels are exploding off bookstore shelves and into movies, college courses and the New York Times Book Review, and onto the coffee tables of the cognoscenti. What's fueling this explosion? Where did all the excitement come from? Stephen Weiner, a comics historian and children's literature specialist, provides the answers in this groundbreaking book -- the first history of graphic novels. From the agonizing Holocaust vision of Art Spiegelman's Maus to the teenage angst of Dan Clowes's Ghost World, this book takes you into the heart of the graphic novel revolution. The author of 101 Best Graphic Novels now tells the whole history of this new medium -- from the first modern urban autobiographical graphic novel, Will Eisner's A Contract with God, to the hip indy comics of the Hernandez Bros.' Love and Rockets, the dark mysteries of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and the postmodern superheroics of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight. It's all here -- the must-reads, the newest, hottest creators, and what to look for in the future of this exciting new medium.