At seventeen and getting bored with conventional comics, I grasped for anything new and different. Thankfully, this was 1986, often considered a pivotal year in comics publishing. The groundbreaking superhero works Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, the beginnings of the influential anthology Dark Horse Presents, and the first collection of Maus all appeared that year.

Art Spiegelman's Maus, cribbed from his father's remembrances, understandably caught my interest. My grandmother used to regale me with tales of our Jewish family. I could (and did) listen to her for hours on end. Cleverly using the unique properties of the comics format, Speigelman relates his father's experience in a Nazi concentration camp by representing each nationality as a cartoon animal: mice for Jews, cats to represent Germans, pigs for the Poles, dogs as Americans, etc. This deeply serious portrayal exposed the powerful potential of the medium, eventually winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 after the debut of the second volume.

Published as collection for the first time in 1990, Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe appealed to my dual interests of history and comics. Primarily focused on western civilization, the cartoonish and at times humorous renditions created one of the most intelligent, accessible, and popular nonfiction comics. Gonick's ongoing series now encompasses six massive volumes (the latter two renamed The Modern History of the World) and inspired a cottage industry of similar books, including several by Gonick himself.

Perhaps the greatest historian to work primarily in the graphic narrative format, Texan Jack Jackson began his artistic career under the nom de plume "Jaxon" as one of the first underground cartoonists with the self-published God Nose (1965). Several years later after moving to San Francisco, he co-founded the first independent publisher of underground comics (or comix as they are more popularly known), Rip Off Press in 1969.

Inspired by the Texas History Movies strips of his youth, Jackson created his best and most powerful works when he returned to Texas and turned his attentions to the state's rich history. In graphic novels such as Comanche Moon (1979), Los Tejanos (1982), The Secret of San Saba (1989), Lost Cause: John Wesley Hardin, the Taylor-Sutton Feud, and Reconstruction Texas (1998), and Indian Lover: Sam Houston & the Cherokees (1999), his realistic portrayals and clear vision garnered critical acclaim and generated controversy especially regarding his unflinching depiction of the treatment of Indians and his interpretations of African-Americans. Jackson also penned several prose books on similar subjects for scholarly presses. Before his death in 2006, Jackson completed the first volume of his dream project, The New Texas History Movies.

In the early nineties, my own approach to writing changed when I discovered Harvey Pekar, who first started working on comics with his good friend, the legendary artist Robert Crumb. Their tales comprised the initial issues of Pekar's autobiographical comic American Splendor. Within, the curmudgeonly author examines the minutiae of his rather mundane life in an entertaining and insightful manner. The cynical, everyman Pekar opened my eyes to the infinite subject possibilities and styles that can constitute a quality comic book story. Since then, Pekar has written several historical comics, earned acclaim as jazz critic, and wrote the libretto for and performed in the jazz opera "Leave Me Alone." Pekar's chronicles formed the basis for the critically-acclaimed 2004 film American Splendor.

As part of their imprint Paradox Press, DC began publishing a series of "factoid books" headlined by The Big Book of... anthologies in 1994. For each volume, several writers and artists contributed dozens of short graphic pieces focused on a single theme. The first, The Big Book of Urban Legends, won the prestigious Eisner Award and sold extremely well. Over the next six years, The Big Book of... series grew with 16 more titles on subjects such as death, conspiracies, hoaxes, and vice before culminating with The Big Book of the 70's.

Informed by our love of Western lore and comics, Mojo Press publisher Ben Ostrander and I developed the initial concept for The Big Book of The Weird Wild West. Published in 1998, we co-wrote seven of the volume's 64 stories. Though the book sold poorly and eventually fell out of print, I count two of the stories ("The Head of Joaquin Murieta" and "Fight of the Century") among my finest.

Nonfiction comics have become commonplace. Bookstores and comic shops feature graphic novels on a wide variety of subjects and ideas. Most publishers produce a steady stream of nonfiction comics for all age groups. Creators such as Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Harvey Pekar, and Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, "Press release for Google Chrome") receive coverage from all types of media and continue to push comics further from their adolescent fantasy-driven past.