Later this month we'll be revealing our top ten graphic novels of the year (I say "our", but, really, the choice is all mine to be honest).

But as an aperitif this week I'm going to mention some graphic novels you may have overlooked this year that are worthy of your attention. We'll also discuss feminism and the new Wonder Woman biography and mention a new Kickstarter campaign from one of Graphic Content's contributors.

Did You Miss?

Captain Rugged

Keziah Jones and Native Maqari, Damiani, £29.90.

"The reason we decided to do this graphic novel was initially simply because of a deep desire to see our home city and our home country represented in graphic novel form," the creators of Captain Rugged write in the introduction to this intriguing, flawed but fascinating book. "We believe Lagos to be as visually arresting as London, Paris or New York ..."

The truth of that is self-evident in Nastive Maqari's art here. The Nigerian city is presented to us as an abstract tangle of shanty shacks and high-rises, traffic jams and electricity lines.

The script by writer and musician Keziah Jones is a little messy and unfocused but it has a great ear for Lagos dialects, a depressing vision of corruption and a dark hint of moral ambiguity. Captain Rugged himself is something of a cipher but even so this is a fresh take on the superhero genre and Maqari's art is full of flavour.

Flowering Harbour

Seiichi Hayashi, Breakdown Press, £9.99

Along with Avery Hill Publishing, Breakdown Press is one of the most promising British graphic novel micropublishers who've been popping up of late. Breakdown in particular has a real eye for design. They have certainly produced some of the most handsome books of the year. Some of the most adventurous too. Flowering Harbour is a perfect example. Seiichi Hayashi created his alternative manga Flowering Harbour back in 1969. It is the story of heartbroken hostess. I say story but, really, it's a mood piece, an atmosphere; all rain and melancholy, wrapped up in 40 pages. The result is the graphic equivalent of a Shangri-Las single.

C'est La Vie! The Wonderful World of Sempe

Phaidon, £29.95

To continue the music analogy this is something of a greatest hits album. The French cartoonist Sempe - best known for his work in Paris Match and The New Yorker - is a master of the single panel cartoon and many of his finest are on display here. This collection certainly gives a sense of his range of his skills; from scratchy simplicity to dense urban cityscapes that revel in the killing detail. "He is, par excellence, the master of the panoramic cartoon," John Lichfield once said. "Typically, he draws from a high or distant viewpoint, showing rolling landscapes or elaborate townscapes in which tiny human figures struggle with petty tragedies or undeserved victories."

What's striking is how much character he can give the people in his drawings in so few lines. There's a lovely cartoon set in Central Park which shows nearly 40 different pairs of joggers running around while one couple walkg along the sidewalk. A police car has pulled up alongside them and the cop is asking; "Is something wrong?"

What makes it work is the energy Sempe imparts to all those runners. He also imparts a personality to be every jogger. They are black, white, fat, thin, upright, slouchy, arms raised, arms dropped. Just look at all the different running styles on show.

You could argue that Sempe is a man of his time. He's now in his eighties and his work feels post-war rather than post-20th century. But the world he creates is funny and sharp and beautifully drawn. And any man who loves bicycles as much as he does is worth your time.

Wonder Women

In yesterday's Sunday Herald I wrote a piece on the paucity of female role models for girls prompted by the publication of Jill Lepore's biography of Wonder Woman's creator William Moulton Marston, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. You can read it here.

One interesting sidebar that emerges in the book is the fact that the character has a long history of female contributors. Much longer than has been credited. When Gail Simone was announced as the new Wonder Woman writer in 2007 some claimed she was the first woman to write the script. Which must have been news to Trina Robbins. And in fact, as Lepore points out, in the 1940s Marston hired Joyce Hummel to work in his studio. She was soon writing scripts. DC's first woman editor Dorothy Roubicek - who is reputed to have invented kryptonite for the Superman strip - also worked on the title.

Lepore also uncovers the story of Alice Marble, one of the world's top women tennis players. She was hired by Marston to write a regular feature entitled Wonder Women of History. She could have featured in the slot herself. In 1944, five months' pregnant she was hit by a drunk driver and lost the baby. She then heard her army husband was killed in a plane crash in Germany. She tried and failed to kill herself on learning the news. So instead in 1945 she became a US spy in Switzerland.

Now what was that about the paucity of female role models?

Morningside Mornings

Scottish manga writer Sean Michael Wilson, the man who kicked off the Graphic Content blog with his 10 Reasons Comics are Better than Films has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of his autobiographical project Once Upon a Time in Morningside which will be drawn by Swedish artist Hannah Stromberg. The painted cover is particularly lovely. You can learn more about the project here.

What Do You Want for Christmas?

One final thought before we go. What graphic novel are you putting on your list to Santa? I've my eye on the new Taschen edition of Windsor McCay's classic strip Little Nemo, the first complete reproduction of all 549 episodes. But weighing in at 708 pages (and with a price tag of £150) Santa might need to bring a bigger sleigh.