Reference 04
The complete guide to Dave McKean graphic novels and his best books
Among the Dave McKean books, the graphic novels hold one undisputed monument, a clutch of celebrated collaborations and several strange, personal volumes critics keep rediscovering. The Dave McKean graphic novels list runs from 1987 to 2021 and fits in one table.
A complete list of the graphic novels
Ten books make up the Dave McKean graphic novels canon proper, and the complete list is short enough to know by heart. Four are collaborations with Neil Gaiman, one is the Grant Morrison Batman, and five are entirely his own, written and drawn solo. The table runs in publication order, which happens to be the sensible reading order too.
| Title | Year | Credits | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent Cases | 1987 | with Neil Gaiman | A child's unreliable memory of Al Capone's osteopath; the debut that announced both careers |
| Black Orchid | 1988 | with Neil Gaiman | Painted three-part reinvention of a minor DC heroine, unusually gentle for its era |
| Signal to Noise | 1989–1992 | with Neil Gaiman | A dying film director plans an unmakeable film; serialised in The Face, collected in 1992 |
| Batman: Arkham Asylum | 1989 | with Grant Morrison | The best-selling original graphic novel of its day; McKean's asylum is all texture and fever |
| Cages | 1990–1996 | written and drawn by McKean | His 500-page masterwork: a musician, a painter and a writer in one London street |
| The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch | 1994 | with Neil Gaiman | Seaside puppetry and family secrets; arguably the collaboration's darkest hour |
| Pictures That Tick | 2000 / 2014 | written and drawn by McKean | Two volumes of short comics; volume one took the V&A Illustrated Book of the Year Award |
| Celluloid | 2011 | written and drawn by McKean | A wordless erotic fable for adults, published by Fantagraphics |
| Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash | 2016 | written and drawn by McKean | Commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the Imperial War Museum; a war painter's biography in dreams |
| Raptor: A Sokol Graphic Novel | 2021 | written and drawn by McKean | A grieving Welsh writer and a shapeshifting hunter; his most painterly recent work |
Cages, the best of the Dave McKean graphic novels
Everything else on this page orbits Cages. Begun in 1990 and finished in 1996, it follows a jazz musician, a painter and a novelist around one London street, pausing for creation myths, cats and ten-page conversations that would sink a lesser book. The drawing is looser and warmer than the cover work that made him famous, mostly line and wash, with the collage reserved for chapter breaks.
The awards followed: the Harvey, the Ignatz, the International Alph-Art and Italy's La Pantera. More telling is how often working cartoonists name it when asked for the medium's overlooked peaks. Its reputation grew by hand-to-hand recommendation, never by marketing.
The Gaiman collaborations, from Violent Cases to Mr. Punch
Violent Cases arrived in 1987, a slim book about a small boy, an osteopath, and the gravitational pull of Al Capone. Black Orchid followed at DC in 1988, then Signal to Noise, serialised in The Face before its 1992 collection, and finally The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch in 1994. Read in sequence, the four books show two collaborators learning to trust silence: each says less and implies more than the one before.
A digression worth having: Signal to Noise began as magazine serialisation, and its pages still carry that rhythm, designed to detonate in three-page instalments. Nobody planned it as a book. It became one anyway, which is roughly how this whole shelf works.
The solo books: Pictures That Tick, Celluloid, Black Dog and Raptor
The graphic novels by Dave McKean that he writes himself run more private than the collaborations. Pictures That Tick collects short comics, and its first volume won the Victoria and Albert Museum Illustrated Book of the Year Award. Celluloid, from 2011, is a wordless erotic fable and easily the most divisive thing he has published. Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, commissioned by 14-18 NOW with the Imperial War Museum in 2016, stands with Cages as his most complete work, and Raptor followed in 2021 with the painting doing most of the storytelling.
Best editions and a buying guide
Cages exists in several editions; the Dark Horse hardcover is the one to own, reproducing the art larger and cleaner than the 1998 Kitchen Sink printing. Arkham Asylum's 15th and 25th anniversary editions add Morrison's full script, worth it for the marginalia alone. The rest of the Dave McKean books stay mostly in print through Dark Horse and Bloomsbury, and the guide rule for secondhand hunting is simple: first printings matter for Violent Cases, and barely at all for anything after 2000.
The one genuine rarity is the original 1987 Violent Cases, printed small by Escape Books before anyone involved was famous. Copies surface at conventions with prices that assume you know what you are holding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best Dave McKean graphic novels to start with?
Cages for the full-length statement, Violent Cases for the compact one. Readers who arrive from Batman usually take Arkham Asylum first, and it remains the best-selling doorway into the rest of the Dave McKean books.
Did Dave McKean write his own graphic novels?
Several, yes. Cages, Pictures That Tick, Celluloid, Black Dog and Raptor are all written and drawn by McKean alone. The collaborations, mostly with Neil Gaiman plus Arkham Asylum with Grant Morrison, bookend the solo work.
What awards did Cages win?
The Harvey Award, the Ignatz Award, the International Alph-Art Award and Italy's La Pantera Award. It took six years to complete, from 1990 to 1996, and runs roughly 500 pages.
Is Batman: Arkham Asylum a Dave McKean book?
The art is his; the script is Grant Morrison's. Published in 1989, A Serious House on Serious Earth became one of the best-selling original graphic novels ever, and its painted, collaged look owes as much to McKean's studio as to Gotham.
What is Cages actually about?
A jazz musician, a painter and a novelist sharing a London street, and the ways making things saves or fails them. It is long, talky, formally playful and almost entirely free of plot in the thriller sense, which is why it rewards slow reading.
What is the most recent Dave McKean graphic novel?
Raptor, published by Dark Horse in 2021, is the most recent of the full-length graphic novels by Dave McKean, following Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash in 2016. Shorter comics keep appearing in anthologies and exhibition catalogues.
Are Dave McKean graphic novels suitable for younger readers?
The picture books made with Neil Gaiman are; the Dave McKean graphic novels mostly are not. Celluloid is explicitly adults-only, and Cages, Black Dog and Mr. Punch deal in adult themes even where nothing graphic happens on the page.
In what order should I read the Gaiman and McKean books?
As a reading guide, publication order works: Violent Cases, Black Orchid, Signal to Noise, then Mr. Punch. The four books trace the collaboration maturing from memory-play to full-blown tragedy, and each stands alone.