Overview
This newest edition to the Best American Series—"A genuine salute to comics" (Houston Chronicle)—returns with a set of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Lynda Barry and and brand new series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden—acclaimed cartoonists in their own right—have sought out the best stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web to create this cutting-edge collection "perfect for newbies as well as fans"—The San Diego Union Tribune. This newest volume features luminaries like Chris Ware, Seth, and Alison Bechdel alongside Paul Pope's "Batman" and beloved daily cartoonists like Matt Groening.
Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist whose comic strip, “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” celebrates its 30th year in print in 2007. She is a recipient of the Washington State Governor's Award for her novel, The Good Times are Killing Me, which she adapted into a long-running off-broadway play. The New York Times called her second novel, Cruddy, “A work of terrible beauty”. She received the 2003 William Eisner award for Best Graphic Album and an American Library Association Alex award for her book, One! Hundred! Demons!. She lives and works in southern Wisconsin.
Jessica Abel is the author of the graphic novel La Perdida, as well as two collections of stories and drawings from her comic zine Artbabe. Matt Madden is a cartoonist and author of 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. Their textbook about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, is forthcoming.
Synopsis
This newest edition to the Best American Series—"A genuine salute to comics" (Houston Chronicle)—returns with a set of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Lynda Barry and and brand new series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden—acclaimed cartoonists in their own right—have sought out the best stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web to create this cutting-edge collection "perfect for newbies as well as fans"—The San Diego Union Tribune. This newest volume features luminaries like Chris Ware, Seth, and Alison Bechdel alongside Paul Pope's "Batman" and beloved daily cartoonists like Matt Groening.
Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist whose comic strip, “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” celebrates its 30th year in print in 2007. She is a recipient of the Washington State Governor's Award for her novel, The Good Times are Killing Me, which she adapted into a long-running off-broadway play. The New York Times called her second novel, Cruddy, “A work of terrible beauty”. She received the 2003 William Eisner award for Best Graphic Album and an American Library Association Alex award for her book, One! Hundred! Demons!. She lives and works in southern Wisconsin.
Jessica Abel is the author of the graphic novel La Perdida, as well as two collections of stories and drawings from her comic zine Artbabe. Matt Madden is a cartoonist and author of 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. Their textbook about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, is forthcoming.
The New York Times - Douglas Wolk
Most of Barry's selections are somehow unsettling; she leans toward stories that draw on the playful look of kids' entertainment to convey something much sadder. Not everything here is polished or elegantly drawn, but virtually every piece has some sort of image that can get under its reader's skin, and you can't ask much more of comics than that.
Editorials
Douglas Wolk
Most of Barry's selections are somehow unsettling; she leans toward stories that draw on the playful look of kids' entertainment to convey something much sadder. Not everything here is polished or elegantly drawn, but virtually every piece has some sort of image that can get under its reader's skin, and you can't ask much more of comics than that.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
The focus of this collection is not on any particular genre or style, but on stylistic and storytelling variety. There are slice-of-life stories, historical drama, humor, political satire, absurdist fables, serious autobiography and lighthearted ramblings. The art styles range from the tight, realistic precision of Jason Lute's Berlin to the raw style of John Mejia's vignettes of life as a public school art teacher. With each story the reader is drawn into a different world or presented with another perspective of the same world. Yet despite the variety of the stories, they join as a display of the power of comics as a means of storytelling that can concisely present some aspect of human nature so the reader can digest it, contemplate it and, perhaps, understand it, as Barry, this edition's editor, suggests in her introduction. The variety conveys the continued growth of comics as a means of storytelling, growth brought about by a plethora of promising new creators and continued great work by established creators such as Jaime Hernandez, Matt Groening and Chris Ware. The book offers a strong sampling of the diversity available today and hints at more innovation and progression to come. (Oct.)
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