Students: If you plan to cheat on your book reports, take a look at Graphic Classics. As Art Spiegelman put it, “Comics are a gateway drug to literacy”; for the visually oriented, this series will open doors to literature. It’s also a stunning contrast to those dreadful 1950s Classics Illustrated comic books, with their dry, tedious plotting and bland, pedestrian art.

Ah, progress. Rather than unabridged novels, each Graphic Classic is an anthology of stories and poems, usually from 6 to 20 pages. Each tale has its own visual flair, enlivened by a diverse array of book illustrators, painters, and comics artists …

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