Overview
The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Neil Gaiman—one of the top writers in modern comics and the award-winning author of novels and children’s books—has culled the best stories from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Internet to create this cutting-edge collection. With entries from luminaries such as Tim Hensley, Michael Kupperman, and Dash Shaw, “it’s hard to flip through this book without finding a lot worth reading (and rereading)” (The Onion, A.V. Club).
Synopsis
The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Neil Gaiman—one of the top writers in modern comics and the award-winning author of novels and children’s books—has culled the best stories from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Internet to create this cutting-edge collection. With entries from luminaries such as Tim Hensley, Michael Kupperman, and Dash Shaw, “it’s hard to flip through this book without finding a lot worth reading (and rereading)” (The Onion, A.V. Club).
Publishers Weekly
This yearly anthology is always something to look forward to, with its impressive editors, juicy forewords, and superabundance of comics genius between its two covers. Series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden start off with a brief history of the burst in comics' popularity and readership over the past decade; luckily for us, they include an extensive list of "Notable Comics" that didn't make the final cut. Gaiman, in turn, agonizes entertainingly over the accuracy of the title Best American Comics and finally suggests that the volume instead be called A Sampler: Some Really Good Comics, Including Extracts from Longer Stories We Thought Could Stand on Their Own. It's a wealth of fine storytelling: extracts from Lagoon, the gorgeously strange fairy tale by Lili Carré; Carol Tyler's great You'll Never Know; Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe; and Fred Chao's Johnny Hiro. Some stand-alone gems include Todd Brower and Steve MacIsaac's "Ex Communication," in which two bearish men meet for a drink and chat uncomfortably about what they've been up to since their split; Peter Kuper's two-page takedown of the Bush legacy in "Ceci n'est pas un comic"; and Gabrielle Bell's "Mixed Up Files." A thrilling and varied journey from start to finish. (Oct.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
This yearly anthology is always something to look forward to, with its impressive editors, juicy forewords, and superabundance of comics genius between its two covers. Series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden start off with a brief history of the burst in comics' popularity and readership over the past decade; luckily for us, they include an extensive list of "Notable Comics" that didn't make the final cut. Gaiman, in turn, agonizes entertainingly over the accuracy of the title Best American Comics and finally suggests that the volume instead be called A Sampler: Some Really Good Comics, Including Extracts from Longer Stories We Thought Could Stand on Their Own. It's a wealth of fine storytelling: extracts from Lagoon, the gorgeously strange fairy tale by Lili Carré; Carol Tyler's great You'll Never Know; Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe; and Fred Chao's Johnny Hiro. Some stand-alone gems include Todd Brower and Steve MacIsaac's "Ex Communication," in which two bearish men meet for a drink and chat uncomfortably about what they've been up to since their split; Peter Kuper's two-page takedown of the Bush legacy in "Ceci n'est pas un comic"; and Gabrielle Bell's "Mixed Up Files." A thrilling and varied journey from start to finish. (Oct.)Kirkus Reviews
Another star-studded anthology grapples with the challenge of whether comics can survive respectability.
Perhaps inevitably, with each annual edition, the balance shifts more from fresh (even raw) discoveries to luminaries already enshrined in the cultural canon. As series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden write in their foreword, "Everyone seems to be pushing to outdo themselves and to live up to comics' new status as a Medium That Matters." Thus, this year's guest editor Gaiman (renowned for his Sandman series)couldn't think of omitting at least a taste of Robert Crumb's illustrated Genesis(which Gaiman calls "the most fascinating comic of 2009"). Or a couple of excerpts from David Mazzucchelli's rapturously reviewed graphic novel debut,Asterios Polyp(2009).Or narratives from literary interlopers Jonathan Lethem and Jonathan Ames. Or the obligatory offerings from Chris Ware, whose entry "Fiction versus Nonfiction" serves as a sort of afterword (and opens with a quotation from John Cheever). Yet the range of possibility under the comic umbrella continues to astonish, with "The Bank" by Derf underscoring the connection between graphic narrative and punk rock, selections from Peter Kuper and Peter Bagge employing the comic strip as a political broadside, Josh Neufeld using the form for journalism (in the wake of Katrina) and Michael Cho for history (of the development of the atomic bomb). There are love stories as well as robots and superheroes, dream journals and family memoirs as well as fantasies. If there's a problem with the pieces, it is, as Gaiman addresses, "Any extract from a longer work, no matter how well-chosen, is simply that: an extract from a longer work, and the real art is the longer work, with a beginning and a middle and an end, often in that order." Yet readers who don't follow the field as closely as the series editors do will discover new favorites and will probably be inspired to buy a few books.
Every year seems to raise the bar.