Andrew Brown of The Guardian interviews novelist Marilynne Robinson about her fascination with Calvin:
“One of the things that has really struck me, reading Calvin,” she said then, “is what a strong sense he has that the aesthetic is the signature of the divine. If someone in some sense lives a life that we can perceive as beautiful in its own way, that is something that suggests grace, even if by a strict moral standard … they might seem to fail.”
Carissa Turner Smith is a compulsive reader, writer, and Irish dancer. She earned her Ph.D. in English at Penn State and currently teaches writing and American literature at Charleston Southern University. At age three, she announced that all she wanted to do was “sit at a desk and read and write,” and she has been trying to make good on that promise ever since. Fortunately, she is occasionally distracted from this mission by her husband Stephen and their cheese-obsessed cat. A loyal native of Arkansas, she has always loved the fact that Jesus dwelt in an underappreciated corner of Galilee (see John 1:46). 
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Craig Thompson intimates similarly in his work Blankets. Not that he is still a believer by the time he wrote the book, but he definitely imputes a certain sacredness to the aesthetic.
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty
I remember being blown away by Blankets partially because of that theme. Such a great book.
Btw, I’m itching for another really good graphic novel. Recommend something, The Dane!
What are you in the mood for? Sprawling epic adventure? Something personally reflective like Blankets? Something that evaluates society? Something darkly humourous and heartfelt? Historical fiction? Drama? Crime thriller? Comedy? Whimsy? Magical realism and humanistic world-building?
There are always good books out there but it helps to have some direction. By the way, your public library system in Louisville is AWESOME for borrowing comics, so anything I’ll recommend pretty much is available there so you won’t have to spend $15–50 just to read a single story.
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty
“By the way, your public library system in Louisville is AWESOME for borrowing comics…”
How the heck do you know these things?
I loved blankets and could go with more. Not crazy about talking animals. Anything that’s thoughtful and/or heartfelt is good. I used to love American Splendor but then it just felt sort of like overly simplistic “this happened to me once” type stuff. Epic personal tales like Blanket are really great.
“How the heck do you know these things?”
I live with the internet at my fingertips. (I just looked up their catalog online.)
So for you, I’d recommend:
• Jimmy Corrigan (by Chris Ware) – it’s less autobiography than Blankets (though that wasn’t strict autobiography either) and a little more ambitious. Jimmy corrigan is probably in my Top 5 comics (at the least in the Top 10). It’s by the guy who animated these two This American Life shorts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbVeN13wGFc
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf9W7cxi48g
• Fun Home (by Allison Bechdel) – actual autobio. This won a bunch of awards in, what, 2007 when it came out. It was also (along with Blankets) the subject of a library in Missouri (for lesbian content). It’s honestly not my favourite work, but it’s one of those quote-unquote important ones. And it’s certainly Good. And literate and occasionally funny. Sometimes though, I felt as if it were trying a little too hard to be literate.
• Y: The Last Man (by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra) – This doesn’t so much fit the style you mentioned save for that it’s an epic tale about one man’s journey of self-discovery. It’s ten volumes (where the library comes in) and I praised it here. If you don’t read the review here’s a synopsis: All the males (human and animal) on earth die instantly of a worldwide plague except for Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand. He’s trying to not get killed while he looks for his girlfriend who was last seen in the Australian Outback. It’s a five year journey and it’s ridiculously good.
What the heck. Here’s one more that’s not at all what you asked for just because I think you’ll like it:
• Scott Pilgrim (by Bryan lee O’Malley) – This is a six-volume series, though only the first five have been released (Precious Little Life is Book I). It’s about a 23-year-old singer/guitarist in a not-super-popular rock band in Canada called Sex Bob-omb. And his quest for love and growing up. The series is littered with gaming references and tropes. It begins by mostly just being funnier than snot but slowly begins to become about something more intrinsic to the human condition. And stuff. Oh, and there’s going to be a movie next year.
The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty