Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack

I have long been interested in the works of Osamu Tezuka, and actually own several volumes of his works Black Jack and Dororo at home. In particular, I've always been drawn to Black Jack, partially because I grew up with a doctor father myself, and partially because it's such a multifaceted series. Several of the stories draw heavily from Tezuka's own medical background, leading to a delightful amount of accuracy in the presentation of procedures and real-world ailments.
Which isn't to say that he's afraid to let his imagination take things off the rails, as some stories rely on supernatural, or just plain insane illnesses and treatments. For instance Pinoko, Black Jack's partner and single most recurring side character in the series, looks like a normal little girl, but is actually an 18-year old psychic teratoma inhabiting an artificial body Black Jack constructed. Which certainly sounds crazy out of context, but through Tezuka's presentation, seems weirdly plausible.
Osamu Tezuka isn't afraid to play fast and loose with story tone in general, leading to life-threatening situations contrasting heavily with often absurd visual gags, and even off-hand arguing between characters and Tezuka himself. In some of his more serious stories, he backs off a bit, but even then he'll occasionally sneak in a gag here and there. The very fact that he gave up the chance of guaranteed financial security as a doctor just to work on his comics is proof enough of his dedication to the craft, and it's not hard to see the ways in which he inspired the next generation of authors and helped build up an entire industry.

Battle Angel Alita

I started reading Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita: Last Order on the course website, and found myself so completely engrossed right away, that I had to read the original series before I got too far into it. I ended up reading the entire thing within three days, so I think it's pretty safe to say I was enjoying myself.
I've actually long had an interest in transhumanist fiction, and Kishiro pushes the concept to ridiculous and creative lengths. Roughly 99% of the cast is a cyborg in some way (including a few characters who don't even realize it) and as such, there is dismemberment of fake limbs and smashing of parts on a regular basis. As bleak and gory as the manga gets, the humor involved almost never really goes away, and the level of research that went into it really shows. There's even several author notes in the margin explicitly explaining the mechanics and science behind certain concepts presented.
What really got me about this series though, is how likable most of the cast is, and the very morally grey territory they all touch upon. Alita/Gally herself is cute as a button with her big eyes and perpetually pouty lips, but she's also a honed killing machine, both figuratively and literally, with a shockingly dark past, and she makes her living brutally killing bounties and turning in their heads. And Professor Desty Nova, the "antagonist," so to speak, is an eccentric man who performs horrible experiments, but at the same time, his antics are so ridiculous and entertaining, and he's so clever in his plans, that it becomes very hard not to like him.
I would definitely recommend Battle Angel Alita to anyone who has an interest in sci-fi and speculative fiction, or anyone who enjoys action sequences and black comedy.

Maus

Maus is one of the most well-known graphic novels in the history of comics, and it has that distinction for a very good reason. It is a sometimes light-hearted, sometimes starkly serious examination of the Holocaust as experienced by the father of the author, Art Spiegelman. It employs an extended series of clever visual metaphor, in which different racial and national stereotypes are represented with animal heads, most notably mice for Jews and cats for Nazis. This metaphor is played and even mocked in several places, including a humorous conversation between Art and his wife (a Jew through conversion) on whether she should be represented for her Jewish status or her French heritage.
It's notable that this is just as much Art's story as it is his fathers, with the screentime split between the past events in Auschwitz, and the present of Art's emotional conflicts dealing with his father both during his final years and after his death. The fourth wall is frequently ignored and even taunted, with characters admitting that some things are altered for clarity ("You never would have let me talk for this long in real life") and Art's frequent struggles on the difficulty of presenting the Holocaust in an accurate and respectful manner. There is an especially powerful moment at the very end where we are suddenly given a real photo of Vladek Spiegelman, as if reaffirming the reality of the story we've just been told. Art's portrayal of his father is especially notable, as he simultaneously shows respect and resentment toward him, and does little to censor his less admirable features, such as pettiness, racism, and a long history of guilt-tripping.
Through the presentation of his father, we are also granted insight into Art's nature, as he lies in the very first chapter, promising not to publish the story he had just finished relaying to us. Snippets of things such as an early, emotionally charged comic of his, regarding his relationship with his mother, and Art reflecting on the portrait of his dead older brother, reveal a lifetime of self-loathing and resentment. This is brought to an extremely fourth-wall shattering moment when Art addresses the reader on the aftermath of the first volume's publication, visually shifting back and forth from a child to adult as his sense of self-worth weakens amongst the growing media documentation surrounding his story.