Reddit mentions of Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

Logicomix is a sort-of biography of Bertrand Russell, focusing on his attempts to establish the fundamentals of logic, with scenes of the authors, illustrators, and whatnot producing the book and debating their artistic choices while wandering through Athens. I think the art enhances the story- there's this beautiful splash page where a character sees a bomb go off that would be very difficult to convey textually. The format also allows them to be a little less of a timeline of events, and focus more on the story as a story, because comics aren't expected to be dry lists of events.

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is a beautiful story about dysfunction, family, sexuality, and literature. I think Bechdel's writing is good enough that the story could have worked in another format, but Bechdel is a comic artist and uses her illustrations to powerful effect. There's a tenderness to her illustrations that I can't really explain. I know the last few pages say something important, but I can never remember it because all I can ever focus on is the way she's captured the image of a father pulling a daughter through a pool. There's so much care taken for each illustration that it feels almost invasive to look at. The obvious care taken also ads a certain depth to the chapters dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder. She's got a new book out, a sort of sequel called Are You My Mother but I haven't read it yet.

Alan Moore's Promethea is the one comic on this list that I don't think could work in any other format. One of the things it deals with is the nature of comics as a means of communication. There are rarely straight-up classical panels, and there's a lot of experimental stuff. I actually think it's one of the best 'first' for people who are hesitant about comics, because so much of it's about how comics differ from other art forms.

For narrative/creative non-fiction, I would recommend the memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. It also has a very well-received sequel that I haven't had the chance to read yet called Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama.