Favourite self contained graphic novels?

[osakafanz]

Read reviews saying Avengers: Standoff by Nick Spencer is a good standalone title.

Any other recommendations?

Doesn't matter which publisher.

[Dark-Flux]

From Hell
V for Vendetta
Watchmen
Brubaker & Phillips material
DC: The New Frontier
All Star Superman
Enigma
Daytripper
Pride of Baghdad
We3
Dark Knight Returns
Terry Moores stuff
Luna Bros stuff

Off the top of my head

[zaboraviti]

if we're not talking about longer series like Terry Moore's stuff, or Locke & Key, Planetary, Chew, Rising Stars, Bone, Gotham Central, DMZ, Queen & Country, Fear Agent, then those i reread are

Essex County
The Sculptor
Fury My War Gone By
Inhumans
Midnight Nation
RASL
Daytripper
Local

[Enigma]

Oink: Heaven's Butcher
Legend
Revelations

[Judge Dredd]

Good suggestions already got to second Essex County just a simple well done story. Everything Dark-Flux mentioned are all awesome reads especially New Frontier, V, and All-Star Superman.

[RBerman]

Will Eisner: Dropsie Avenue (1995) is an amazing work in which the main character is a New York City neighborhood which goes from farmland to mansions to multi-unit housing to tenements to condemned buildings and vacant lots and beyond over the course of a hundred years.
Dropsie Avenue 3.jpg

[zevious zoquis]

I'll add My Friend Dahmer

[GhostPirate]

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills
The Death of Captain Marvel
Avengers: Emperor Doom
Dr. Doom/Dr. Strange: Triumph and Torment
Batman: Year One
Daredevil: Born Again
Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (better if you've read the Fables series, but makes a good entry point for the series as well I've been told).

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Daytripper
Brooklyn Dreams
Moonshadow
Watchmen
Superman: Secret Identity
All Star Superman
The Sculptor
Fortune and Glory
Tellos Colossal
I Kill Giants
Seconds
V For Vendetta
Kingdom Come
JLA: Year One
Batman The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: Year One
DC: New Frontier
Understanding Comics
The Comic Book History of Comics
A Contract With God
Dardevil: Born Again
Local
Habibi
Blankets
The Fifth Beatle
Flex Mentallo
My Faith in Frankie
Dark Knight: A True Batman Story

[Hellboydce]

If you are after one book as opposed to a mini series collected in one book, I’d probably go with The Killing Joke

[lalalei2001]

Avengers: Under Siege
Zombies Christmas Carol
The Last Days of the Justice Society
Batman: Noel

[lvizzz]

I know I sound like old record but I love this book: Scud.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Avengers: Under Siege
Zombies Christmas Carol
The Last Days of the Justice Society
Batman: Noel

Ooh yeah, good one. Worth it for the art alone but it's a very good retelling of a Christmas Carol in general.

[CaptCleghorn]

Bryan Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat

[MRP]

Keeping to stuff that was published as an OGN rather than a collected series in trade...

any of the Eisner stuff-Contract with God, Dropsie Avenue, Last Days of Vietnam, etc.
Joe Sacco's Palestine or Safe Area Gorazde
Joe Kubert's Fax from Sarajevo & Yossel, April 19, 1943
Barbarian Lord by Matt Smith
Robert Crumb's Genesis
Augustyn & Mignola's Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
Scott McCloud's The Sculptor
Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew's Shadow Hero
Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell's Murder Mysteries
Warren Ellis' Crecy
Warren Ellis & Colleen Doran's Orbiter
Eric Shanower's Oz graphic novels-Enchanted Apples of Oz, Secret Island of Oz, Ice King of Oz, etc.
The Raven Banner (a Marvel Graphic Novel) by Alan Zelentz and Charles Vess
Doctor Doom & Doctor Strange: Triumph & Torment
Doctor Strange into Shamballa by J. M. DeMatteis & Dan Green
Starlammers by Walt Simonson
Amazing SPider-Man: Hooky by Susan K. Putney and Bernie Wrightson
Frankenstein by Bernie Wrightson
Selina's Big Score by Darwyn Cooke
any of the Parker adaptations by Darwyn Cooke
Horns of Elfland by Charles Vess
The Private Eye by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin

or some serialized and then collected standalone stories
The Incal by Jodorowsky & Moebius
The Six Voyages of Lone Sloane by Philippe Druillet
Bone by Jeff Smith
Rose by Jeff Smith and Charles Vess
47 Ronin by Stan Sakai and Mike Richardson
300 by Frank Miller
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot
Alien adaptation by Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson
DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman and others
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser by Howard Chaykin & Mike Mignola
Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks
Manhunter Special Edition by Archie Goodwin & Walter Simonson
Arzach by Moebius
Nightworld: Midnight Sonata by Adam McGovern 7 Paolo Leandri
Twenty-Seven by Charles Soule

-M