Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen was the only graphic novel to make Time Magazine's Online Edition's list of the '100 Best Novels.'  Time critics Richard Lacayo and Lev Grossman picked what they believe are the 100 best novels written in English since Time Magazine began publishing back in 1923.  Not only was Watchmen the only graphic novel chosen, it was the first of 10 works singled out for special attention in an accompanying article.  Time's Grossman wrote that Watchmen, which has remained a consistent bestseller in both the bookstore and direct markets for 15 years, was 'A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium.  It would be a masterpiece in any.'

In addition to the lone graphic novel Time's list contains a number of 'genre' novels including hardboiled detective novels by Dashiell Hammett (Red Harvest) and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep), fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis (The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe) and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), science fiction classics by Philip K. Dick (Ubik) and George Orwell (1984) as well as a couple of more recent 'cyberpunk' novels, Neuromancer by William Gibson and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.