In Dylan Horrocks's 1998 graphic novel Hicksville one of the central conceits is a library full of unknown comics.

Horrocks imagines a place where you can read work by cartoonists such as Wally Wood and Harvey Kurtzman unrestrained by commercial limitations and, more than that, where you can read comic strips created by what the non-comic reading world would call proper artists; among them Picasso and Federico Garcia Lorca.

I've been thinking of Hicksville's imaginary library of comics a lot while flicking through Martin Salisbury's handsome new book 100 Great Children's Picture Books. Now and again I've been imagining it as a kind of shadow history of comics. Salisbury's selection is the answer to the following question: What could comics be if they had been given the means, the legitimacy and the ambition to be found in the books on display here?

Before we think about that let me just note that this is a lovely book, full of gorgeous imagery and Salisbury's well-researched yet concise editorial comments. It's a potent reminder of the power of the combination of picture and text and, vitally, how accessible that combination is for children (which the comic strip - with such honourable exceptions as Phoenix - has maybe been in danger of forgetting in recent years).

Of course picture books have always been part of the mainstream publishing industry and so have had access to the concomitant resources that allowed in terms of production values. That's a huge bonus. But that association also gave the books a cultural value that meant 1) they never struggled with the inferiority complex that comics did for so long and 2) meant they could attract writers and artists ranging from Graham Greene and Ted Hughes to Edward Bawden and John Minton to work in the field. Not quite Picasso perhaps but even so.

What is striking is the range and variety of styles and influences on display in Salisbury's choices - from the remarkable Pro dva kvadrata (About Two Squares) Russian Suprematist El Lissitzky's 1922 children's book displaying, as Salisbury suggests, "the triumph of the red square of modernity over the black square of conservative decadence" - a work that's all hard lines and perfect circles - to the translucent, wispy, watercolour washes of Chihiro Iwasaki's Momoko and the Pretty Bird (1972).

(An aside. The Lissitzky picture book got me thinking about whether there were any Soviet comic books and what they might have looked like. Anyone know?)

What the picture book and the comic strip share of course is a commitment to the fusion of word and image. And there are overlaps in the grammar of both forms. If you look at the work of picture book creator Sara Fanelli or newcomer Becky Palmer it's difficult to argue that their work doesn't qualify as comic strips given the use of the grid panel by the former and the quote balloons by the latter. (Salisbury also points out that Ezra Jack Keats, creator of the pioneering 1969 picture book about African-American childhood, Goggles! Started off drawing backgrounds for Captain Marvel strips. These parallel worlds sometimes overlap.)

This remains the case. The other book on my desk this week is Tuff Ladies, a new book by Berlin-based cartoonist Till Lukat which tells the stories of 24 women who made their mark on history. As well as a portrait and a prose description of the women in question (think Frida Kahlo, Rosa Parks, Grace Slick), there's also a four or five-panel comic strip for each that illustrates one of the events of their lives in comic fashion. My favourite may be the pirate Ann Boney fighting off the navy while her husband got drunk. "No offence Ann, but your husband is a total wuss," Ann's friend and fellow female pirate Mary Read complains.

Likat's book isn't really suited to children but it's a good example of how the demarcation lines between picture book and comic strip are fuzzy at the edges.

In which case Salisbury's book should be seen as a call to arms. Because what you take away from it is the ambition of the artists and writers it highlights. The way they never patronise their audience, the way they are as happy with pursuing visual complexity as visual simplicity (and how either approach can result in something worthwhile), and their readiness to see the combination of words and images as a vehicle for poetry as often as narrative.

And perhaps they suggest a road not travelled. Or not - with possibly the exception of the work of Chris Ware - travelled very often. Look at Beatrice Alemagna's 2002 picture book Gisele de verre (Glass Gisele) with its use of transparent velum paper to tell the story of a transparent girl or even Salisbury's very first choice, from 1910, Peter Newell's The Slant Book, which is rhomboid in shape.

It's a reminder that the form itself can be a place of play.

100 Great Children's Picture Books, by Martin Salisbury, Laurence King, £24.95

Tuff Ladies, Till Lukat, Centrala, £10