Your mileage may vary, of course. I'd certainly recommend taking it out of the library and making your own judgment. But I did find it offputting with the meanness.

I do love proper graphic novels in the mainstream comics. Over on the DC/Vertigo side, they used to do it quite well. Hellblazer has a few and JLA: League of One remains one of my all-time favorite JLA stories, plus there are tons and tons of Batman and Superman graphic novels that are standalone stories and some of them are quite famous (The Dark Knight, etc.) and others are less famous but still excellent.