Over the past 12 months, I’ve been reading a bunch of comics in an attempt to better understand a medium that I’ve always had a peripheral interest in but never really jumped into. I tried to stay away from “mainstream” superhero comics, since I knew that was a rabbit-hole I had no intention of falling down, and instead opted for shorter, independent series.

As it turns out, they’re not hard to find (Vertigo’s the publisher to look at), and almost all of the ones I decided to read were really, really good (save Fables and Saga). And so, I figured I’d make a list of the best comic series I’ve read so far, regardless of when they were originally published, as a way to curate content for any readers who have an interest in the medium but don’t quite know where to start. As a note, these are full, 24-page comics, not newspaper strips (I had to remove Calvin and Hobbes for this distinction, and wasn’t happy doing so).

As an honorable mention, I’m going to name drop Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga series Akira, which was also adapted as an anime film, simply because, even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the execution, the idea is so insanely great that I felt it deserved mention. I’m also generally averse to manga/anime, so if you are the opposite, I’d say chances are you’ll dig Akira.

11. Maus

Maus is a rough read. Written and drawn by Art Spiegelman, Maus tells the story of Art’s father Vladek and his experience as a Jewish man during the Holocaust. However, instead of opting for a realistic style, as that may complement the incredibly dark material too strongly, each nationality/ethnicity in the story is represented by a different animal, with Vladek and the other Jews being drawn as mice and the Nazis drawn as cats. Maus is a dark, sad, deeply personal story that is important not only because it’s still good, but because it was one of the first examples of artists using the comic medium to do something more than deliver monthly superhero stories.

10. The Walking Dead

If I were only judging Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead (the comic, of course, not the game or the show) on the strength of its first major arc (Rick’s escape from the hospital to the end of the prison), it would undoubtedly be higher up on this list. However, much of the material after that (basically everything from the group’s arrival at Alexandria to just before Negan and the Saviors arrive) is pretty weak.

That said, for a decent portion of its run so far, The Walking Dead has been an excellent horror series with great characters (far better than their television counterparts) and a constant sense of unease. When The Walking Dead works, it’s because it makes you feel like these characters are unsafe, and not solely because of the hordes of walkers clambering around them.

9. Preacher

If I had to say one thing about Preacher, I’d say that it would almost certainly be higher on this list if I had read more than the first volume of it (which I plan to do as soon as possible). It details the quest of one Texas preacher named Jesse Custer, who has, under strange circumstances, absorbed the essence of a child of angel and demon and now has power comparable to that of God. The thing is, God left Heaven because he was afraid of what power that angel-demon child might have. So Jesse, his ex-girlfriend Tulip, and a hard-drinking Irish vampire named Cassidy set off to get answers from the big man himself. Things are a tad more complicated and interesting than that, but I wouldn’t want to spoil this sacrilegious romp through the heart of America.

The fact that that single volume, and the potential it has, was able to make enough of an impression on me to get me to put the series on this list is pretty staggering. Preacher is hilarious, surprisingly action-packed, and the characters and dialogue are incredible.

8. The Dark Knight Returns

And now we get some superhero stuff. Who would’ve guessed that The World’s Greatest Detective would’ve been the first to show up? The Dark Knight Returns, one of the clearer influences on last year’s The Dark Knight Rises, isn’t my favorite Batman story, but it’s way up there. An aging, physically incapable Dark Knight comes out of retirement to deal with a mutant problem in Gotham, but the public is more wary about his presence and ability than ever. In addition to that, he also has to deal with a Joker freshly exiting his catatonic state after losing his counterpart, and near the end of the story, Frank Miller manages to make Superman an interesting character. The art is iconic, the writing is sharp, and the story introduces interesting shades to Bruce Wayne and Batman as characters.

7. V for Vendetta

Here begins my love for Alan Moore’s work. He’s on this list more than any other author, and for good reason: he writes the best stuff the most consistently. While I’m not on the side that considers V for Vendetta his greatest achievement, I do recognize that it’s a monumental work that has aged exceedingly well. It details the exploits of revolutionary V, who hides behind a Guy Fawkes mask throughout the book, as he recites anarchist quotes and does his best to topple England’s totalitarian government, with the help of Evey, and young girl he rescues early in the book. V for Vendetta is one of those rare stories where the answers to its mysteries are just as satisfying as your own, and it has one of the best endings of any comic I’ve read.

6. The Killing Joke

It’s probably no coincidence that the first real Batman story I read became my favorite. The Killing Joke (another Alan Moore comic) is a twisted tale of Batman and Joker’s relationship, and it delivers a lot of back story in interesting ways (including how The Joker became The Joker and how Barbara Gordon became Oracle). In it, The Joker kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and takes him to a hellish theme park staffed with a bunch of creepy baby-creatures, and to rescue him, Batman must go through a trial of his sanity. It’s a short, satisfying story about one of the best traditional superheroes out there.

5. The Sandman

I’m getting extremely close to finishing The Sandman (in fact, I’ll probably be done by the time this hits the site) and it hasn’t all clicked yet, but it’s building up to something pretty profoundly great. It’s a post-modern story about stories, starring the Lord of Dreams Morpheus as he escapes from decades of captivity and attempts to rebuild the Dreaming. Writer Neil Gaiman and a constantly rotating set of artists craft a story of incredible magnitude that pulls elements, characters, and themes from just about every myth or classic story possible. Rereads are practically necessary, since minor details you miss or ignore in the early issues become major plot points in the finale. Some volumes are less engaging than others (usually because too many stories in a row are standalone and only related to each other in very minor ways), but the great ones are great enough to warrant a reading.

4. Y: The Last Man

Y: The Last Man, which concerns itself with the aftermath of a mysterious plague that wipes out every living thing with a Y chromosome except 20-something Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand, is one of most well-paced and plotted comics I’ve ever read, and it goes from being emotionally powerful to utterly hilarious at the drop of the hat. Along with Yorick and Amp, it has some great characters like secret agent 355 and Doctor Allison Mann, who has research and equipment possibly capable of understanding the plague. Yorick and company’s journey is an entertaining, engaging, and often heartbreaking one, and the last few issues of Y deliver one brutal, tear-jerking moment after another.

3. Scott Pilgrim

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is decidedly less serious than anything else on this list (I tend towards some messed up stuff if you haven’t noticed yet). It’s a goofy, referential story about the eponymous Scott Pilgrim who, to earn the love of Ramona Flowers, must fight her seven evil ex-boyfriends. It may actually be even weirder than it actually sounds.

Similar to last year’s Wreck-It Ralph, Scott Pilgrim works best when you have a fairly deep knowledge of video games and popular culture, where its references become apparent and help reinforce the absurdity, but it still works well without that kind of experience. The art is distinctive and sleek, it’s one of the funnier stories I’ve read, and the battles with the evil exes are simply awesome.

2. Watchmen

Now we get to talk about Alan Moore’s true magnum opus: Watchmen. I won’t pass judgment on Zack Snyder’s filmic adaptation here, but I will say that if that’s all you’ve experienced of Watchmen, you are really missing out. Watchmen is a story about superheroes in an alternate version of the 1980’s. One of these superheroes is murdered in his apartment, and another begins to conduct investigations into the other heroes. The thing is, Watchmen so rapidly becomes something more than that, and it’s all executed flawlessly. The characters are damaged, believable, and utterly engaging throughout. Everything crescendos to a basically perfect ending with some of the best dialogue in the entire story, and that’s really saying something. All in all, Watchmen is an absolute must-read if you are considering getting into comics.

1. Locke and Key

Let’s start with an overview before I start gushing. Locke and Key is about the Locke family, which suffers a home invasion that kills the father Rendell Locke, after they move to Lovecraft, Massachusetts (which is probably the first horrible idea they made). Once they arrive at their new home, named Keyhouse, the youngest member of the family, Bode, starts stumbling across keys with magical properties (such as turning the user into a ghost or allowing someone to look inside their own mind). However, dark powers are at work trying to destroy the Locke family, the keys they hold, and ultimately, the entire world.

Execution is everything in Locke and Key, but so is pretty much everything else. It feels like every element of the story and the comic itself, from the art to the writing, from the story’s structure to its detailed and intricate world and mythos, was given just as much focus as every other part, and nothing was sacrificed. The way that Locke and Key builds off of its initial concept and eventually crafts one of the most intriguing horror stories I’ve ever experienced is unmatched in comics, and in most other mediums. The series is in the final stretch right now (the last main issue will be out at some point this summer), and while I don’t know how well it ends, I know well enough to trust completely that writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez know exactly where to take this incredible story.