Graphic novels are so much more than the comic books you may remember from your childhood.

Memoirs, fantasy, horror, science fiction and adaptations of classic plays, novels, myths and legends now come in graphic novel format.

Below is a small sampling of the types of great graphic novels out there:

Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes [5] by Neil Gaiman
This is the first of nine books about the Endless: Death, Dream, Delirium, Destiny, Desire, Despair and Destruction. Dream is captured and must go to the depths of Hell to reclaim his sigils of power.

Blankets [6] by Craig Thompson
A tender, melancholy memoir of his growth from childhood into adulthood, and his experiences being raised in a conservative Christian family.

District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington, D.C. [7] edited by Matt Dembicki
District Comics tells the story of D.C. from its founding to the present day. A Senate speakeasy, origins of the National Medical Institute, punk in Anacostia and other unusual stories.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale [8] Art Spiegelman
Spiegelman relates his father's terrifying story of surviving the Holocaust in Poland. The Jews are depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats. 

The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye [9] by Robert Kirkman
The hit TV show The Walking Dead is based on the graphic novels. The first book in the series, Days Gone Bye [9] describes the terror, despair and destruction at the onset of the zombie apocalypse.