Best American Kvetching 2010

The Best American Comics 2010 edited by Neil Gaiman just came out a week or so ago. Here’s the table of contents:

My review of the book is here but I wondered…what do people think should have been included that wasn’t? And (since this blog abjures excessive positivity as bad for the soul) what do people think shouldn’t have been included that was? (Remember despite the title releases should actually be from 2009.)

I’ll kick it off — I think the worst piece in the book is probably Peter Kuper’s insipid anti-Bush boilerplate, “Ceci N’est Pas Une Comic. After that…um…Dave Lapp’s Flytrap with its mix of oleaginous condescension and crappy art is really bad…and the maudlin it-must-be-profound-because-it’s-about-9/11 excerpt from Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s The Alcoholic.

As for what I’d include: I definitely would have put in an excerpt from Johnny Ryan’s first issue of Prison Pit (which I reviewed here. ) I’d also have included an excerpt from one of Mo Willems children’s books, which are some of the most skillful comics around in whatever format (probably I’d have chosen something from the great Elephants Can’t Dance.) I’d definitely have chosen something from Kate Beaton too…and quite possibly from Garfield Minus Garfield.

The one piece in the book I agreed with down to my socks was the inclusion of an excerpt from Lilli Carre’s Lagoon, easily one of my favorite comics from last year. (I reviewed it here.)

So..use the comments to have at it. Feel free to include links to reviews of your own, too, if you’d like.

26 thoughts on “Best American Kvetching 2010

  1. They should have included me! (I did get a notable mention or some such in the back. I haven’t seen the book yet).

    I’m surprised at how many of the included pieces I haven’t seen… and how many I know enough about to not care.

    I made a best of 2009 list here: http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/my-best-comics-of-2009

    Not sure I agree with it all anymore, and a lot of the selections are reprint volumes.

    But I think they could have reached more to minis and webcomics. Jason Overby ( http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/exploding-head-man-by-jason-overby ) and Aidan Koch ( http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/warmer-and-little-flashes-by-aidan-koch or http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/yes-and-hypnotizing-by-aidan-koch ) from my list both had excellent works.

    I’d include Kevin Huizenga on any list. Though I’m not sure how that worked on from their schedule which I think covers a weird oct-oct year (I know the deadline is early October).

  2. These books always seem like nothing more than stuff the editor happened to read. Why not a book collecting the worst of 2009 to show that this isn’t an accidental list?

  3. Great to see Derf in there! I have the previous volume (which I thought was excellent, by the way) but won’t be buying this because I have most of the stuff in there.

  4. Oh and if they can include Theo Ellsworth (who’s work I admire but don’t really like) then surely they should have put a selection from Elijah Brubaker’s “Reich” in there? Or “Monsters” by Ken Dahl (I think it got an “honourable mention” in the last one but it could easily supplant, like, a third of the selections in the 2010 volume!)? That was a particularly excellent book, certainly in my top three last year.

  5. Second on Prison Pit. Footnotes in Gaza and Pim and Francie also came out in 2009, but presumably after what Derik says is the October deadline. They’d better be in the next volume. Masterpiece Comics and Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu were also from 2009, but I’m not sure that they count, given that they’re mostly reprinting earlier works.

    I’d also include some: Cockbone, Low Moon, Maakies and Hark a Vagrant.

    Really, anyone over James Kochalka.

  6. Pelu is Japanese, so I think it was disqualified…and now that I think about it I bet Hark a Vagrant was too Canadian.

    Derik, you are harsh. Some of Sikoryak’s stuff is really funny. I pledge my love to that Schulz/Kafka mash-up — that’s brilliant.

  7. Hm. I can see how it might get old over the course of a whole book. I think the Schulz/Kafka one is a very astute take on both Schulz and Kafka, getting the absurdist existential angst in Schulz as well as the (often missed) humor in Kafka. It makes sense that all the juxtapositions might not work that well, though….

  8. I think this bt of ‘writing’ could be edited down to

    ‘in book x I enjoyed y but didn’t enjoy z’

    I think BAC’s bizarre aesthetic, stubbornly held to in the face of a true landslide of strong work, is worth a serious look.

  9. The EC Comics/Wuthering Heights is pretty funny. In general, I enjoyed the whole book…but the Schulz/Kafka thing is definitely the best part–It’s been around for years though. It was in that first Brunetti-edited Anthology several years ago.

  10. -All those entries from the Bookforum issue. Those are all strong cartoonists that they picked pieces from…but it’s this thing that BAC always does: heavy reliance on one or two anthologies featuring cartoonists that have published much more personal/essential work elsewhere.

    -A ‘catch all’ mentality, meaning ‘hey we have Scott Pilgrim AND R Crumb.’ I admire that at first…

    But that flush of ‘catch all’ gives way to the reality that there are no comic strips (cul de sacshould be in there), editorial cartooning, mini-comics*, etc. in the book.

    When the idea of broad taste isn’t given its due, you begin to wonder: ‘if basic things like comic strips aren’t included, why try to be ‘catch-all’ to begin with? Why not opt for a strong/personal editorial voice?’

    BAC negates itself between the two extremes. It sways somehwere between ‘lets show a wide view of diferent facets of cartooning’ and ‘lets show what we, as editors, personally like’ but somehow both efforts seem obscure.

    *mini comics were, as I recall, were included in the first BAC.

  11. Yeah, I think that’s a legitimate beef. I think the “let’s be eclectic” move is actually okay, especially when the editor is as open as Gaiman is about the final selections being hugely debatable (and the long list of honorary mentions in the back doesn’t hurt.) At the same time…it would be cool and probably overall more aesthetically interesting and exciting to see someone with a very strong editorial vision come in and say (for example) “any trifling with genre is crap — it’s all going to be high art, damn it!” (Or, vice versa, insist that anything that isn’t entertainment is no good…or that only mini-comics are worthwhile…or what have you.)

    It’s clear that that isn’t what the series editors want, though. So I wouldn’t expect to see anything like that until Jessica Abel and Matt Madden decide to step down, which doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.

  12. Oops, I forgot the “American” part of “Best American Comics”, which obviously disqualifies Jason as well. (Then again; maybe not. That western story appeared for the first time in the New York Times, so you could argue that it qualifies)

    Derik, even if Sikoryak’s stuff is thematically shallow, I don’t see how it follows that it can’t be among the best American comics of the year. Depth is fine; but technical virtuosity and mere (?) funniness can be intrinsically valuable, too.

  13. “But that flush of ‘catch all’ gives way to the reality that there are no comic strips (cul de sac should be in there), editorial cartooning…”

    Isn’t it possible that Gaiman didn’t like any current comic strips or editorial cartoons? I’m sure Noah would have absolutely “loved” the idea of more editorial cartoons seeing his reaction to that Kuper piece. And how much say do Abel and Madden have in the selection process? Don’t they just supply the guest editor with all the requisite reading material (i.e. the long list) and highlight possibilities?

  14. Yeah, Gaiman choosing more editorial cartoons probably would have not been so great. But on the other hand, there has to be some decent editorial cartoon or other out there, doesn’t there?

    I’d assume that Abel and Madden help choose the guest editor — which would seem like the point where you’d get eclecticism or something else. Though they probably get the biggest name they can, really, so maybe it’s just random? I didn’t actually see the ones edited by Harvey Pekar and Chris Ware, surely they had a less compromising editorial hand?

  15. My feeling is that the real problem with the Best American Comics series is the fact it actually has a guest editor each year picking pieces. Abel and Madden should just choose the pieces directly. They are probably better read (as far as comics are concerned) than most of the guest editors so far. And if they start failing on a consistent basis, we would know soon enough. The famous guest editor is important in selling more books but is a stumbling block when it comes to quality and risk taking. Then again, the poor (or at best ho-hum) quality of the latest Best American Comics may simply reflect the dire straits of American comics.

    I have read both the Pekar and Ware books but only have an impression of the Ware one. I think the word that springs to mind is “predictable”. That is, you could predict most of the choices just by looking at a list of possible entries. Could be that retrospective anthologies like this are doomed to be dull from the point of view of those who read a reasonable amount of comics each year.

  16. “Then again, the poor (or at best ho-hum) quality of the latest Best American Comics may simply reflect the dire straits of American comics.”

    I think American comics are as strong as they ever have been, artistically.

    I think the problem is that there is so much good work these days in so many tiny little sections that it’s hard to get a full grasp on it.

  17. My understanding is that Madden and Abel pass on the long list to the guest editor who makes the list. They do make an effort to get minicomics and accept webcomics as files, so they are reaching to a broader aesthetic/format. Personally, like Suat, I’d also prefer to just see their compilation rather than the guest’s.

    Jones: I don’t mean to discount technically skill or humor, I think the vast praise Sikyorak got rubbed me the wrong way. Either way, those pieces were all reprints so not eligible for this volume anyway.

Comments are closed.