Category Archives: Best Comics Poll Lists

Participant Lists T-Y

Posted on by

The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

Matthew Tauber
Writer, www.matttauber.blogspot.com

The New Teen Titans, Marv Wolfman & George Pérez

______________________________________________
Ty Templeton
Cartoonist, Stig’s Inferno; illustrator, Batman Adventures

Batman, Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams

COMMENTS

I decided that the best way to sum up a top ten (in no order of preference, since that would drive me to madness) was to list the creator (or team in the case of O’Neil and Adams) as a body of work, and then pick my favorite single issue to serve as an example of that artist. I hope that helps.

– Harvey Kurtzman’s complete work, focusing on MAD and the EC war books, and if I must bring it down to one story, it’s “Corpse on the Imjin,” from Frontline Combat.

– Jack Kirby’s complete body of work – but to reduce it to one single comic book series, it’s New Gods and down to one single issue it’s New Gods #7, “The Pact!”.

– Moebius – Arzach, the collected stories.

– Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams, their complete collaborative works (including Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Batman, and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali). If I must reduce it to one issue, it’s Batman #251 “The Joker’s Five Way Revenge.”

-Wally Wood’s body of work, focusing on EC and MAD magazine, and if I must narrow it down to a single story, I’ll pick “Superduperman” from the MAD comic book by Kurtzman and Wood.

– Alan Moore’s complete body of work, but pushing into just one choice, it’s Watchmen by Moore and Dave Gibbons.

– Maus by Spiegelman.

– Will Eisner’s complete body of work, but reduced to one choice it’s his graphic novel, A Contract with God.

– Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil, Ronin, some of Sin City, and most of his work on Batman (except Spawn/Batman and DK2, which were dreadful). If I must give it just one issue as an example it’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1.

– Walt Kelly’s Pogo. From the first Albert and Pogo comics, to the syndicated strip, Pogo was perfect from inception to end. To pick just one specific page is impossible.
______________________________________________
Jason Thompson
Author, Manga: The Complete Guide; co-creator & scriptwriter, King of RPGs;

Meanwhile, Jason Shiga

COMMENTS

Here are my choices of ten great comics. They’re all series that are either extremely well-crafted, very touching to me for personal reasons, or very powerful and cohesive in expressing the artist’s persona, which is the best thing that can be said about any work of art (at least, right alongside and perpetually struggling with the other great goal of “being entertaining to the reader”).
______________________________________________
Kelly Thompson
Writer, 1979 Semi-Finalist; contributing writer, Comic Book Resources

Lint, Chris Ware

______________________________________________
Matt Thorn
Associate Professor, Faculty of Manga, Kyoto Seika University

Happy Hooligan, Frederick Opper

COMMENTS

These are not my personal favorites, but rather ten comics I think are historically important, either because of their influence on later work, or because they were groundbreaking.

1) Master Flashgold’s Splendiferous Dream (Kinkin Sensei Eiga no Yume), by Harumachi Koikawa, 1775, Japan. Possibly the world’s first true graphic novel to reach a wide audience and turn a profit for its creator and publisher. Unlike most early European sequential art, the text is in incorporated within the image. Printed using the sophisticated woodblock technology of the day, this bestseller kicked off the entire genre of single-volume “kibyôshi” (“yellow covers”) and multi-volume “gôkan” (“combined volumes”) that remained hugely popular among merchant-class Japanese until moveable type pretty much killed the woodblock print.

2) The Story of Mr. Jabot (Histoire de M. Jabot), by Rodolphe Töpffer, 1833, Switzerland. Is there any doubt that popular Western sequential art pretty much begins with Töpffer? Sure, there are earlier examples of sequential art, but nothing came close to the popular success and impact of Töpffer’s works, which are still hilarious and inspiring today.

3) Happy Hooligan, by Fred Opper, 1900-1932, U.S.A.. I think it’s fair to say that Opper was the first to bring all the major elements of modern comics together, consistently, and make them the lingua franca of the newspaper funnies and early comic books. Speech balloons? Check. No distracting narration outside the panels? Check. Lines and other devices to illustrate motion, impact, and other “invisible” elements? Check. Whether or not you think the work has aged well is a matter of taste, I suppose.

4) Little Nemo in Slumberland” by Winsor McCay, 1905-1914, U.S.A.. McCay couldn’t write a coherent line of dialogue to save his life, but, oh, Prunella, could that guy draw some wicked stuff. He expanded the visual grammar of comics exponentially. A century later, it still makes for brilliant eye candy.

5) Terry and the Pirates, by Milton Caniff, 1934-1946, U.S.A.. The funnies grow up. And an artist stands up for creator rights.

6) Little Lulu, written by John Stanley, drawn by Stanley, Irving Tripp and Charles Hedinger, 1945-1959, U.S.A.. Stanley’s Little Lulu is probably the smartest, funniest, most carefully crafted children’s comic book ever created, with the possible exception of Carl Barks’ duck books. And Lulu was probably the ideal role model for postwar American girls. Compared to Lulu, almost every other comic created for children in the history of the medium seems like greasy kids’ stuff. At least until Jill Thompson gave us the “Scary Godmother.

7) Metropolis, by Osamu Tezuka, 1949, Japan. This, along with Tezuka’s “Lost World (1948) and The World to Come (Kitaru Beki SekaiA Contract With God in 1978. They were for kids, sure, but they had genuine, complex themes. Good and evil were not cut-and-dried. Characters died. Readers were moved. When the young Tezuka showed his work to one of the most influential children’s manga artists of the day, the man was so appalled he told Tezuka, “It’s your own business if you want to make this stuff, but I hope it doesn’t catch on.”

8) “Birth!” (“Tanjô!”), by Yumiko Ôshima, 1970, Japan. This profound and moving short story about a pregnant high-school girl struggling to decide whether or not to have an abortion took “girls” comics” to a whole new plane, and had an enormous influence on other young Japanese women cartoonists. Within a few short years, Japanese girls’ comics were transformed from an object of scorn to the cutting edge of the manga world.

9) Arzach, by Jean “Moebius” Giraud, 1975, France. Gorgeous detail! Psychedelic pterosaurs! Flopping penises! The sophistication and (dare I say) miss en scène of Moebius’ sci-fi vision continues to exert mind-boggling influence on creators working in a wide range of media, all over the world.

10) Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, 1986-1987, U.S.A.. This is probably on most people’s lists, but I think it’s hard to overstate how brilliant this book is on so many levels. Too bad Warner Bros. chose the single most inappropriate director for the film. Who would look at Gibbons’ stoic, tic-tac-toe layouts and stifled characters and think, “Hey, let’s get the guy who directed 300 to do this!”? I would have gone with Wim Wenders.
______________________________________________
Tom Tirabosco
Cartoonist, L’Émissiare [The Emissary], L’Oeil de la forêt [The Eye of the Forest]

La Guerre d’Alan, Emmanuel Guibert

______________________________________________
Mark Tonra
Cartoonist, James, Top of the World

Polly and Her Pals, Cliff Sterrett

______________________________________________
Noel Tuazon
Cartoonist, Obese Obsessor; co-creator & illustrator, This Is Where I Am

Sandman Mystery Theatre, Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle, and Guy Davis

Participant Lists Sh-Sw

Posted on by

The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

Joe Sharpnack
Editorial Cartoonist, Iowa City Gazette

The Political Cartoons, Tom Toles

______________________________________________
Scott Shaw!
Co-creator, Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew; cartoonist, Simpsons Comics

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Gilbert Shelton

______________________________________________
Mahendra Singh
Cartoonist, The Adventures of Mr. Pyridine; illustrator, Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark

A Rake’s Progress, William Hogarth

______________________________________________
Ed Sizemore
Writer, An Eddy of Thought; contributing writer, Comics Worth Reading

A Drunken Dream, Moto Hagio

COMMENTS

Here is Top Ten Favorite Manga List. I’m not pretending it’s a best of this.
______________________________________________
Shannon Blake Skelton
Contributing writer, The Journal of Popular Culture

Y: The Last Man, Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra

______________________________________________
Caroline Small
Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian; Treasurer, Executive Committee Small Press Expo

Die Hure H, Katrin de Vries & Anke Feuchtenberger

COMMENTS

I know I’m missing things that would be my favorites that I just haven’t read yet. LOL, How ‘bout eight?

I don’t feel I’ve read enough comics to confidently make a list, but these are comics that made me love and value comics enough to keep reading in search of new favorites that I will love even more…
______________________________________________
Kenneth Smith
Cartoonist, Phantasmagoria; contributing writer, The Comics Journal

Buck Rogers, Frank Frazetta

COMMENTS

Here goes, in no particular priority of preference, the strips or comics or books or collections that impressed me as totally perfect in their own kind (obviously not every issue of the EC SF comics qualifies, of course: to me these works will forever breathe the living presence and free spirit of their creators, half of them alas already passed on.) If you were to have asked me two or three months down the road, I would think of perhaps another four things I should have added but damned if I know what would then have to be dropped. So, merely alphabetically–these are (a) works out of the prime of their creators, (b) things I would foist without reservation on anyone who asked me what the hell has been going in comics that is in some way great, and (c) productions that raised my own preconceptions about what the hell is really possible to do in comics.

Now I have to send this off fast while the list is still naively composed and I haven’t had time to argue with myself about way too many great talents and superb works that are trying to elbow their way in.
______________________________________________
Matthew J. Smith
Associate Professor of Communication, Wittenberg University

Palestine, Joe Sacco

______________________________________________
Michelle Smith
Contributing writer, Manga Bookshelf, Manga Recon

Hikaru no Go, Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata

______________________________________________
Shannon Smith
Cartoonist, Addicted to Distraction

Weirdo, R. Crumb

COMMENTS

-Marvel’s Star Wars. Thinking mostly of the Roy Thomas/Howard Chaykin and the Archie Goodwin/Carmine Infantino books. Roughly issues 1 through 54.

–The Invisibles. Grant Morrison and pretty much every artist that caught a check from Vertigo at that time.

–Daredevil. Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr.

–THB. Paul Pope.

-R. Crumb. In the spirit of breaking it down to specific works I’ll take his work in Weirdo.

–American Splendor. Harvey Pekar. Again, to break it down to specific comics I’d say roughly the stuff collected in that Doubleday book The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar.

–Green Arrow. Mike Grell. That would be issues 1 through 80 of that version plus the annuals, The Wonder Year and The Longbow Hunters. (Eddie Fryers was a great supporting character.)

–The Maxx. Sam Kieth and Bill Messner-Loebs.

–Marshal Law. Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill.

–Louis Riel. Chester Brown.

And can I get an 11th? I want to throw Peanuts in there but, really, isn’t that just a given? Shouldn’t Peanuts just be assumed in any best of anything comics related?
______________________________________________
Nick Sousanis
Instructor, Teachers College, Columbia University; writer, Spin, Weave, and Cut

Paul Auster’s City of Glass, Paul Karasik & David Mazzucchelli

______________________________________________
Ryan Standfest
Editor, Rotland Press

Breakdowns, Art Spiegelman

______________________________________________
Rob Steen
Illustrator, Flanimals, Elephantmen

Conan the Barbarian, Roy Thomas & Barry Windsor-Smith

______________________________________________
Matteo Stefanelli
Research Fellow, Media Studies, Università Cattolica di Milano; writer, Fumettologicamente

Quadratino, Antonio Rubino

______________________________________________
Joshua Ray Stephens
Cartoonist, The Moth or the Flame

The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Kim Deitch & Simon Deitch

COMMENTS

This is a very difficult query, if taken seriously, which is my wont. I would like to write a little caveat:

First of all the reasons and criteria for judging the best anything quickly become manifold once one begins rooting around in the domain of those that inhabit the realm of “The Best.” So, that is already a major factor to consider.

Secondly, I am very well read in comics from their beginnings to now, in our country and internationally. However, I by no means consider myself an encompassing authority on the medium. I am aware of large gaps in my knowledge. And there are certain areas I have little to no interest in.

Thirdly, there are a number of works not on my list that I personally consider to be just as worthy, but I chose the final ten based on variety and potential controversy.

That being said, this is not merely a favorites list. I would call this “the best ten comics opuses out of what I have read.” These do tend to be my favorites, because I make a habit of seeking out and befriending work that I consider to be excellent and not which merely appeals to my ego. My main criteria for judging, in a field which, let’s face it, still has a long way to go before attaining the loftiest heights of art or literature, but which also has the potential to synthesize both, are these: 1) Is the work fertile? Does it activate the imagination? Does it challenge the reader? Does it grow beyond what is merely explicitly there? 2) Does the work have lasting value? Does it endure? Does it merit and reward multiple readings? 3) Does the work achieve formal excellence? In art and/or writing? Does it challenge the medium in one way or another?

Finally, I would like to point out that there are three works missing from my list which should be mentioned. The big three: Krazy Kat, Peanuts, and Pogo. I have no doubt that these are great examples of comics mastery. But first of all they are always mentioned and anyone in the field knows that they are worth seeking out. I presume one of the main points in asking for a list like this is to get a sense of what should be being read, but with it limited to ten I see no point in wasting three on works that are so universally lauded. And to be perfectly honest I don’t really consider myself on intimate enough terms with any of these three works to feel justified in ranking them in my top ten. I have read a mere smattering of all of them and have a long way to go before I know them fully.

P.S. I consider Moebius to be perhaps the greatest true artist in the comics field to date, but, based on the rules that I can’t choose an artist’s entire body of work, I can’t pick a single work of his that I honestly think is one of the best examples of comics. I just felt that had to be said, because Moebius is truly amazing.
______________________________________________
Mick Stevens
Cartoonist, The New Yorker

The Politics of Fear, Barry Blitt

COMMENTS

I’m not into comics that much, though I do like them in general. As far as people in my little corner of the cartoon universe, magazine cartoons, I do have many favorites, and way more than ten. Here’s a stab at narrowing the list to ten, though: Jack Ziegler, David Sipress, Victoria Roberts, Roz Chast, Barbara Smaller, Charles Barsotti, Drew Dernovich, Matt Diffee, P.C. Vey… That’s nine, and apologies to all my other faves not listed. I also really like Barry Blitt. He’s not, strictly speaking, a cartoonist, but he does do great ones in the form of his New Yorker cover art, in addition to being a terrific illustrator and watercolorist, in my estimation, so I’d like to make him my number ten.
______________________________________________
Tom Stiglich
Editorial Cartoonist

Mutts, Patrick McDonnell

______________________________________________
Tucker Stone
Writer, The Factual Opinion; contributing writer, comiXology, The Comics Journal

Domu, Katsuhiro Otomo

______________________________________________
Betsey Swardlick
Cartoonist, Dilbert Stress Toy, Poor, Poor Angsty Hungarian

The Desert Peach, Donna Barr

______________________________________________
Jeff Swenson
Cartoonist, Swenson Funnies

Skippy, Percy Crosby

__________

Best Comics Poll Lists

Best Comics Poll Index

Participant Lists Q-Se

Posted on by

The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

Andrea Queirolo

Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Editor, Conversazioni sul fumetto

______________________________________________
Casey Rae-Hunter
Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian; Deputy Director, Future of Music Coalition

Ghost World, Daniel Clowes

______________________________________________
Ted Rall
Pulitzer-nominated editorial cartoonist; author, To Afghanistan and Back, 2024, Silk Road to Ruin

The Lascaux Cave Drawings

COMMENTS

The cave cartoons at Lascaux, France, because cartoons invented Art.

The obscene political cartoons about Roman officials found on walls at Pompeii, the oldest known editorial cartoons and bawdier than anything a newspaper would run today.

The postwar editorial cartoons of Bill Mauldin, roughly 1945-1955 (many are collected in the book Back Home), which are constructed using modern tropes and bravely call out American cultural hypocrisy.

Peanuts by Charles Schulz, the first truly modern comic strip, and consistently entertaining and philosophical.

The Far Side by Gary Larson, often forgotten today but still the most consistently funny comic I’ve read.

Jules Feiffer’s cartoons from 1955 to 1975-ish, which established the genre of alternative newspaper comics.

Life in Hell by Matt Groening, particularly the 1980s era that opened the field to new artistic approaches.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, the first graphic novel to fulfill the form’s potential as literature.

Weird War Tales comics of the 1970s not because they’re objectively great. I just love them. So trashy, so fun. I wish there was a reissue.

Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling, the best syndicated cartoon in the U.S.

Honorable Mentions: Stephanie McMillan’s experimental environmental comics, Matt Bors’ editorial cartoons and graphic novel(s), Tom Tomorrow, Ward Sutton’s Onion satires.
______________________________________________
Martin Rebas
Cartoonist, Sömnlös [Sleepless], Ledsen

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller

COMMENTS

I went for a list of “coup de coeur” favorites; comics that I love, rather than trying for an objective list of best or most significant works (which would have looked very different). I wasn’t sure if the last vote should go to the Donald Duck comics of Carl Barks, or Krigstein’s “Master Race,” so instead, I threw Mark Millar’s Ultimates 2 in there, because I think it’s better than it gets credit for, and I had a hunch that Millar wouldn’t get many votes.

As someone who reads comics largely for the artwork and visual storytelling, there were lots of artists I wish I could have mentioned in the list — e.g. Dave McKean, Blutch, Mike Mignola, Moebius, Man Arenas — but none of their stories (that I have read) have really grabbed me. And while I actually prefer non-genre fiction and slice-of-life stories, I haven’t been able to find much of that in comics. Works like Asterios Polyp, From Hell, Cages, Blankets, Cinq mille kilomètres par seconde [5000 Kilometers Per Second], and Heute ist der letzte Tag vom Rest deines Lebens [Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life] get pretty close to what I’m looking for, but there’s something missing.

So far, Locas is the best I’ve found. I also had to include Yotsuba&! on my list — while its slice-of-life stories tend to the cute and innocent side, you have to respect a comic that spends a chapter showing a child trying to make pancakes, and makes it riveting.
______________________________________________
Charles Reece
Contributing writer, Amoeblog

Ici même [You Are There], Jean-Claude Forest & Jacques Tardi

______________________________________________
Hans Rickheit
Cartoonist, The Squirrel Machine, Ectopiary

Moonshadow, J. M. DeMatteis & Jon J Muth

Participant Lists Me-P

Posted on by

The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

Ray Mescallado
Writer, Pleasure Principled; erstwhile columnist, The Comics Journal

Feiffer, Jules Feiffer

COMMENTS

My list hasn’t changed all that much from my TCJ Top 100 list many years ago. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
______________________________________________
Jason Michelitch
Contributing Writer, Comics Alliance, The Hooded Utilitarian

Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

COMMENTS

ON PICKING TEN: You’re bastards, the lot of you. Ten comics? I could pick ten movies. I could pick ten albums. I could even pick ten people to kill, somewhere in the world, just by pressing a button in this here box, and in return I’ll receive ten million dollars and a subscription to The New Yorker, and I’ll magically be imbued with the ability to find the cartoons funny. I could do all that. But ten comics? You might as well ask me to pick ten fingers and cut off the rest.

I don’t know what it is about comics—that they’re such a strangely personal and direct form of popular narrative entertainment, that the medium has developed in the most scattershot and confounding ways, that there’s such a diverse array of expression that I find it maddening to try and compare an issue of Batman to a Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strip to Evan Dorkin’s “Merv Griffin” single-pager to Frank Santoro’s Incanto mini-comic to Kyle Baker’s Why I Hate Saturn. Maybe it’s because, of all the art forms I love, I understand comics the least (which only makes me love them more).

Whatever it is, picking ten comics has been awfully hard. I think I botched the job. I ended up with what looks like an awfully safe, middlebrow list. But what am I to do? It feels right. It’s the closest I can get the weird alchemical mixture of personal enjoyment, historical importance, and artistic significance (all filtered through my own subjective point of view, of course). I had to kill a lot of darlings. I really, really wanted to include at least one totally stupid pick, ideally the 1992 64-page DC self-mocking Ambush Bug Nothing Special by Giffen, Fleming, and Gordon, which is full of nothing but deliberately dumb jokes about ’90s comics. But I just couldn’t fit it in. I also would have really liked to have a more diverse list—more women, more creators of color, some European comics, some manga—but apparently I’m a sexist, racist, nationalist thug when it comes to taste in comics. Who knew? But I feel okay enough about my list. I can at least come up with a decent defense of each entry.

Krazy Kat—An ur-text for so much of what makes comics great. Simple iconography against lavish backdrops, slammed together over and over in deranged conflict, at once completely personal and effortlessly universal.

Amazing Spider-Man—The best super-hero character, a neurotic adolescent dumped unceremoniously into a science-fiction adulthood, in which he has to learn how to balance his family, his passions, his job, and his conscience. Sweaty, twisted, frustrated muscles and awkward, terrified, bugged-out eyes. It stayed good after Ditko left, but what it gained in Romita’s ability to draw pretty girls, it lost in Ditko’s pure feverish tension.

The Fourth World Saga—For a certain type of reader, and I confess I’m one of them, you can’t have comics without Kirby. And this is Kirby’s apex: His most successful, uninhibited exploration of his relationship to heroics, gods, myths, and war. One of the attendants at the sprawling, awkward birth of super-hero comics three decades previous, Kirby in 1970 delivers the ultimate expression of the original super-hero form. Historical artistic markers almost never line up perfectly with actual chronology, and Kirby is no exception, but The Fourth World is in many ways the last burst of original creation in a genre already dedicating itself to nostalgia, self-reference, and self-reverence. Stan Lee may have been a smoother crafter of dialogue, but Kirby reveals himself to be the better writer, in that his dedication is to exploring ideas and feelings, rather than cleverly re-packaging adventure tropes. The haphazard and unfinished production of the saga serves as much to its benefit as its detriment—Kirby’s concerns were not with conclusions or structure, but rather with firing off his idea-cannons with frenetic speed, and exorcising his deep passion and rage in crackling, frighteningly powerful lines. The best range of Kirby’s art is on display here—the first parts inked by Vince Colletta, who, though he unforgivably deletes portions of Kirby’s layouts, provides a smooth, humanizing touch to faces and a fine, feathery line reminiscent of antiquity to those drawings he deemed worthy of inking; the second parts inked by Mike Royer, providing what most would say is the rawest, most “pure” embellishment of Kirby’s pencils ever printed. Kirby is a seismic psychological event, and the ripples of his impact can be seen throughout the history and geography of comics. The Fourth World is the epicenter.

A Contract with God—I’m a sucker for ambition, and for shots fired across the bow. Will Eisner consciously forced Western comics to change the way they look at themselves. I’m also a sucker for the drowning sumptuousness of Will Eisner’s rain, one page of which alone would be worth a spot on this list.

Maus—Maybe the biggest target of cries of “overrated,” I keep returning to Maus. Its core creative choice, the central visual metaphor, is deceptively simple, often slandered as “easy,” but the effects it achieves are monumental—the cartoon animals are instantly empathetic, but the non-human anonymity drains the work of the melodrama that chokes most other holocaust-based narratives, and the self-referential “comic bookiness” creates a dialogue among the reader, the work, and the medium, as well as a self-interrogating dialogue between the artist and the qualities of realism, honesty, and iconography that permeate the book.

Love and Rockets—Hands down, the best modern American comic. Innovative, energetic, beautiful, influential, complex, human, funny, moving—all the adjectives you normally throw at stuff nowhere near as transcendent as the work of Los Bros.

Alec—A relentless thinker about the form trying just as consciously as Eisner to muscle comics into new territory, wielding sketchy, “unfinished” panels in a dense and super-functional 9-panel grid, mining the raw viscera of his own life for romantic, half-drunk, observational fiction. Comics’ own On the Road, except the rambling hero eventually matures, settles, and becomes more bemused than besotted. I don’t love anyone’s comics more than I love Eddie Campbell’s.

Bone—I don’t know where Bone currently stands with critics—not sure if this is a safe pick or an odd one. But is there anything more perfect than the first chapter of Jeff Smith’s all-ages fantasy adventure? From the first panel of the three Bones lost in the desert, the rhythm never misses a beat. The pinging dialogue, the falling layer of snow, and of course, the stupid, stupid rat creatures. Maybe this is a sentimental choice, but it’s also the very first book I thought to put on this list, and I never even considered taking it off.

From Hell—Coming at comics, as I do, from the background of your typical American comics fan, Alan Moore is tremendously important to me. I think that his talent holds up when looking from outside that particular community, but there’s no way for me to be sure. So I trudge on, wowed by his genius, of which From Hell is the most focused, sustained, and successful example. Eddie Campbell often wished he was working on Moore’s other great graphic novel at the time, Big Numbers (still and likely forever unfinished), but his sooty, ink-stained touch is so perfectly suited for the setting and subject matter, and his realistic, homely characters so necessarily defusing of titillating spectacle, that I can’t imagine anyone imagining the book existing any other way.

Hark! A Vagrant—One important aspect of comics is the varied and scattered ways in which different audiences interact with them. Mini-comics traded at convention booths, newspaper comics, spot illustrations in magazines, Jack Chick tracts left in bathrooms, webcomics posted to someone’s LiveJournal…comics to me are so often not discrete works of art to approach one at a time, but a sea of snippets and glances of pages and panels. A single daily dose of a great comic strip can be as deeply rewarding as a thousand-page graphic novel. A photocopied handmade mini-comic can run circles around a professionally printed, digitally colored commercial comic book. Comics are everywhere, comics are huge, but comics are still very small and personal when they need to be. They’re an incredibly direct delivery system of individual expression. This entry could have been any one of a number of different comics that I have primarily interacted with in short and infrequent doses through non-traditional means, but I chose the one I did because no one makes me laugh harder than Kate Beaton.
______________________________________________
Eden Miller
Writer, Comicsgirl, Ignatz Awards coordinator, Small Press Expo

Why I Hate Saturn, Kyle Baker

______________________________________________
Gary Spencer Millidge
Cartoonist, Strangehaven

La Femme du magicien, Jerome Charyn & François Boucq

______________________________________________
Evan Minto
Editor-in-Chief, Ani-Gamers

Buddha, Osamu Tezuka

______________________________________________
Wolfen Moondaughter
Contributing writer, Sequential Tart

Paradise Kiss, Ai Yazawa

______________________________________________
Pat Moriarity
Cartoonist, Big Mouth

Frank, Jim Woodring

______________________________________________
Pedro Moura
Writer, Ler BD

Le Portrait, Edmond Baudoin

______________________________________________
Todd Munson
Associate Professor of Asian Studies, Randolph-Macon College

American Splendor, Harvey Pekar, et al.

______________________________________________
Rachel Nabors
Cartoonist, Rachel the Great

Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi

COMMENTS

Sky Doll, Barbucci.

W.I.T.C.H, also Barbucci, but through Disney. This series showed that you can successfully sell graphic novels to girls. They are quite popular in Europe and all over the world. Why? Because Disney knows how to sell to this demographic, preteens without credit cards but with $5 allowances.

Rachel the Great, because I made it and I still get heartwarming “your comics changed my life” emails.

Bizengast, by M. Alice LeGrow, because I enjoyed reading it.

Bleach, by Tite Kubo, because he’s so damn good at drawing hot guys. Rawr. If only there were more Ulquiorra!

Gen 13, the parts done by J. Scott Campbell. The series went meh when he moved on, but it was my favorite comic as a pre-teen. My favorite character was Fairchild, the Amazonian redhead with smarts. (I wonder why?)

Catwoman, any incarnation. She’s just rawr no matter how you look at her or who is drawing her. She’s an anti-hero, and I loved every minute of her escapades growing up.

Sailor Moon, by Naoko Takeuchi introduced myself and a whole generation of girls to the idea that women could be heroines and that there were comics out there, in Japan, where women were as prolific authors and artists as men. Changed the face of comics.

The Boondocks.
______________________________________________
Mark Newgarden
Cartoonist, We All Die Alone; co-creator, Garbage Pail Kids

Hey, Look!, Harvey Kurtzman

  • Dauntless Durham of the U.S.A., Harry Hershfeld
  • Dick Tracy, Chester Gould
  • Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, Winsor McCay
  • He Done Her Wrong, Milt Gross
  • Hey, Look!, Harvey Kurtzman
  • Krazy Kat, George Herriman
  • The Little Man with the Eyes, Crockett Johnson
  • Nancy, Ernie Bushmiller
  • Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz
  • Thimble Theatre, starring Popeye, E. C. Segar

    • ______________________________________________
    Eugenio Nittolo
    Writer, La Carotte

    Astérix the Gaul, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo

    COMMENTS

    Your idea—it’s very funny.

    For Ralf König, I don’t know the English edition but I very much love Wie die Karnickel [Like Rabbits].
    ______________________________________________
    Rick Norwood
    Editor, Comics Revue

    V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd

    COMMENTS
    It is hard, really hard, to limit my list to 10.

    How are you going to count the votes? For example, suppose you have one vote for Watchmen and one vote for “comic books written by Alan Moore.” If you combine them, you give prolific creators an advantage. If you don’t, then prolific creators have an extreme disadvantage, because their vote is split among so many different titles. It might be best to list the ten best comic creators of all time instead of the top ten comics.

    Another way to go would be this. Combine the votes of each creator to get a list of the top 100 creators, then next to each creator list just the title that got the most votes, and have a second round of voting.
    ______________________________________________
    José-Luis Olivares
    Cartoonist, End of Eros, The Cannibal

    Uzumaki, Junji Ito

    ______________________________________________
    Tim O’Neil
    Writer, The Hurting; contributing writer, PopMatters, The Comics Journal

    Louis Riel, Chester Brown

    ______________________________________________
    Jim Ottaviani
    Scriptwriter, Feynman, T-Minus: Race to the Moon

    Spider-Man, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

    ______________________________________________
    Jason Overby
    Cartoonist, Jessica, Exploding Head Man

    Supermonster #7, Kevin Huizenga

    COMMENTS

    [About Supermonster #7] This was such a big one for me. It hit me pretty strongly at a time when I was really disillusioned with comics (what else is new). It was probably my introduction to mini-comics, crummy on the surface but secretly amazing. It’s a perfect Zen monologue where a guy is just walking around his neighborhood, taking in the random bits of data with all his senses. I bought the original art for the first page from Kevin years ago, and it’s the only piece of original art I own.
    ______________________________________________
    Joshua Paddison
    Assistant Professor of American Studies, Indiana University

    L’Ascension du haut-mal [Epileptic], David B.

    ______________________________________________
    Nick Patten
    Cartoonist, Unreachable Beasts

    Hellboy, Mike Mignola

    ______________________________________________
    Marco Pellitteri
    Author, The Dragon and the Dazzle; contributing writer, The Comics Journal

    El Eternauta, Héctor Germán Oesterheld & Francisco Solano López

    COMMENTS

    Here are my titles. I focused on general works (series, etc.) or specific books, not specific story arcs or particular stories of long series. I have followed these criteria: 1) content relevance; 2) aesthetic relevance; 3) linguistic relevance; 4) historical relevance; 5) popularity relevance; 6) geographical distribution—and tried to ponder over in my mind.
    ______________________________________________
    Michael Pemberton
    Professor of Writing and Linguistics, Georgia Southern University

    The Fantastic Four, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

    COMMENTS

    Thanks for the opportunity to participate in your survey (I think). You have caused me to do some teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling, and head-banging in trying to limit my selections to a mere 10. I’ve managed to narrow down my list by deciding to include comics work that I felt was (a) brilliantly written, (b) skillfully drawn, and (c) either culturally significant or that had a dramatic impact on the comics field.
    ______________________________________________
    Kai Pfeiffer
    Instructor, Kassel Art Academy; cartoonist, Realm; editor, Plaque

    From Hell, Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell

    COMMENTS

    This “canon” is an almost arbitrary choice from a much larger list of books that hit me just as hard (Krazy Kat, Jimmy Corrigan, Black Hole, The Fate of the Artist, Ici même [You Are There], Le Royaume [The Kingdom], Georges et Louis Romanciers [George and Louis, Novelists], Yume no q-saku…)

    Greetings from Berlin—love your blog, expressly for the highly opinionated content.
    ______________________________________________
    Stephanie Piro
    Cartoonist, Fair Game, Six Chix

    Brenda Starr, Dale Messick

    COMMENTS

    I also used to love Rivets by George Sixta, and Dondi by Irwin Hasen in the papers as a kid. Just putting in a plug for two sort-of-forgotten strips.
    ______________________________________________
    John Porcellino
    Cartoonist, King-Cat Comics and Stories, Perfect Example

    OMAC, Jack Kirby, with Mike Royer

    __________

    Best Comics Poll Lists

    Best Comics Poll Index

    Participant Lists L-Mc

    Posted on by

    The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

    In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

    Terry LaBan
    Cartoonist, Edge City, Cud

    The Editorial Cartoons, Pat Oliphant

    ______________________________________________
    Nicolas Labarre
    Writer, A grands traits

    Gaston LaGaffe, André Franquin

    ______________________________________________
    Blaise Larmee
    Cartoonist, Young Lions

    Young Lions, Blaise Larmee

    ______________________________________________
    Carol Lay
    Cartoonist, Way Lay

    Alias the Cat, Kim Deitch

    COMMENTS

    Here are some faves, not necessarily in order of preference…just a list.
    ______________________________________________
    Jeff Lemire
    Cartoonist, Essex County

    Swamp Thing, Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, and John Totleben

    COMMENTS

    Honorable Mentions: Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli; Black Hole, Charles Burns; Clumsy and Unlikely, Jeffrey Brown; A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories, Will Eisner; DC: The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke; Scalped, Jason Aaron & R. M. Guéra; Skim, Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki; 3 Story, Matt Kindt; Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
    ______________________________________________
    Sonny Liew
    Illustrator, My Faith in Frankie; cartoonist, Malinky Robot

    Yotsuba&!, Kiyohiko Azuma

    ______________________________________________
    Alec Longstreth
    Cartoonist, Phase 7

    Mickey Mouse, Floyd Gottfredson

    ______________________________________________
    Jay Lynch
    Cartoonist, Bijou Funnies

    Humbug, Harvey Kurtzman, et al.

    ______________________________________________
    John MacLeod
    Cartoonist, Dishman

    Rip Kirby, Alex Raymond

    ______________________________________________
    Matt Madden
    Cartoonist, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style; co-editor, The Best American Comics series; instructor, School of Visual Arts

    From the works of Saul Steinberg

    ______________________________________________
    Larry Marder
    Cartoonist, Beanworld; erstwhile Executive Director, Image Comics

    “Grieving Lincoln,” Bill Mauldin

    COMMENTS

    This is my list today.

    It might have been a different list if I compiled it yesterday or tomorrow.

    Do I think this is the list of the best comics ever?

    Not really.

    But this is the list of some of the things that stuck with me, influenced me, and made me whatever sort of cartoonist I am today.

    Thanks for asking.
    ______________________________________________
    MariNaomi
    Cartoonist, Kiss & Tell

    Slutburger, Mary Fleener

    COMMENTS

    Here are the top-ten comics that blew me away… This was really, really difficult, and does not include mini comics. Nor does it include any of my friends, many of whom produce amazing comics, but because I know them I feel like I’m biased.
    ______________________________________________
    Vom Marlowe
    Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian

    Junjo Romantica, Shungiku Nakamura

    COMMENTS

    This is a mix of my favorites, what consider most significant, and what I think are the best. A bit of all of them, really.
    ______________________________________________
    Benjamin Marra
    Cartoonist, The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd

    American Flagg!, Howard Chaykin

    ______________________________________________
    Scott Marshall
    Cartoonist, The DIY Comic, Dregs

    Lone Wolf and Cub, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima

    COMMENTS

    God, so many more I could name; hopefully somebody else will do so…?
    ______________________________________________
    Robert Stanley Martin
    Writer, Pol Culture; contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian

    Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Katsushika Hokusai

    ______________________________________________
    Chris Mautner
    Contributing Writer, Robot 6, The Comics Journal

    Quimby the Mouse, Chris Ware

    COMMENTS

    In no particular order and with the understanding that this list fluctuates on an almost daily basis, here’s my personal top ten.
    ______________________________________________
    Joe McCulloch (Jog Mack)
    Writer, Jog the Blog; contributing writer, The Savage Critics, comiXology, The Comics Journal

    Screw Style, Yoshiharu Tsuge

    COMMENTS
    Please delete all other entries you have received, as these are the correct selections.
    ______________________________________________
    Sheena McNeil
    Contributing Writer, Sequential Tart

    Garfield, Jim Davis

    __________

    Best Comics Poll Lists

    Best Comics Poll Index

    Participant Lists H-K

    Posted on by

    The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

    In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

    Flint Hasbudak
    Cartoonist, Totuk

    Ken Parker, Giancarlo Berardi & Ivo Milazzo

    COMMENTS

    Tough question! But to put a few in mind, I’ve always admired these.

    A list can be very long. And obviously there are many I haven’t read yet.
    ______________________________________________
    Greg Hatcher
    Contributing Writer, Comic Book Resources

     

    Detective Comics, Archie Goodwin, et al.

    COMMENTS

    The best comics run of all time? If you mean just character and story, I’d go with the Archie Goodwin-Walt Simonson Manhunter. That was just brilliant. Modern creators are still going back to the stuff, there—ninjas, clones, superheroic anti-heroes that are willing to use lethal force. Not to mention an approach to the art itself that was 20 years ahead of its time. Look at the original Manhunter today, and Simonson’s layout and lettering doesn’t look dated at all.

    But really, I’d take it a step further. I’d add that the comics in which those seven Manhunter installments appeared, Detective Comics #437-443, were themselves great comics. Goodwin was writing the Batman lead feature as well, and he kept luring guys like Alex Toth and a young Howard Chaykin to illustrate them, along with stalwarts like Jim Aparo and Dick Giordano. It’s also where you found the original “Night of the Stalker” by Steve Englehart, one of the greatest Batman short stories ever.

    [On The Defenders Stories] Social commentary and satire masquerading as Marvel soap opera and amazingly successful today.

    [On The Marvelman [Miracleman] Stories] I think Miracleman is a better superhero deconstruction than Watchmen, which (heresy!) hasn’t aged well, and also I’ve gotten so sick of superhero writers cribbing from it that Watchmen is tainted for me. But this is mostly because if you have to choose between Watchmen and Miracleman, Miracleman is better.

    [On Smile] This is kind of an upstart entry, but the craft involved just knocks me out, and the entire project serves as a primer of the kind of thing mainstream comics ought to be doing and just…don’t do.
    ______________________________________________
    Charles Hatfield
    Associate Professor of English, University of California at Northridge; author, Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature; contributing writer, The Panelists, The Comics Journal

     

    Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, Justin Green

    ______________________________________________
    David Heatley
    Cartoonist, Deadpan, My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down; contributing artist, The New Yorker, The New York Times

     

    “The Hannah Story,” Carol Tyler

    COMMENTS

    I hate having to actually rank these because this kind of thing changes all the time in my head. Here’s a stab at it though.

    Runners-up: Peanuts (1950s era), Charles M. Schulz; Perfect Example, John Porcellino; The ACME Novelty Library, Chris Ware; Affiches—film posters by Albert Dubout; Wilson, Daniel Clowes; My New York Diary, Julie Doucet; Norakuro, Suiho Tagawa; Dirtbag (mini zines), Dave Kiersh; Annual Illustrated Calendars, Leif Goldberg; Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, Justin Green; It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken, Seth; “Bomb Scare”, Adrian Tomine; Schizo, Ivan Brunetti; Nowhere, Debbie Drechsler
    ______________________________________________
    Jeet Heer
    Co-editor, A Comics Studies Reader, Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium; contributing writer, Comics Comics, The Comics Journal

     

    ONE! HUNDRED! DEMONS!, Lynda Barry

    ______________________________________________
    Danny Hellman
    Contributing illustrator, The Village Voice, Guitar World

     

    Alack Sinner, José Muñoz & Carlos Sampayo

    COMMENTS
    This list is all about the art; screw the writers. [Note: Danny Hellman only included the names of the cartoonists/pencilers in his lists above and below. The editor added the names of separate scriptwriters and inkers. This was done for the sake of completeness and editorial consistency.]

    And some highly honorable mentions: Abandoned Cars, Tim Lane; The Arcade Stories, Spain Rodriguez; Batman: The Killing Joke, Alan Moore & Brian Bolland; The Captain Marvel, Jr. Stories, Mac Raboy, et al.; Cheech Wizard, Vaughn Bodé; Cochlea and Eustachia, Hans Rickheit; Coochy Cooty, Robert Williams; Ed the Happy Clown, Chester Brown; El Borbah, Charles Burns; The Howard the Duck Stories, Steve Gerber & Gene Colan, with Steve Leialoha, et al.; Idyl, Jeffrey Catherine Jones; The Incal, Alexandro Jodorowsky & Jean “Moebius” Giraud; Maakies, Tony Millionaire; The MAD Stories, Bob Clarke; The MAD Stories, Paul Coker, Jr.; The MAD Stories, Harvey Kurtzman & Will Elder; The Metamorpho Stories, Bob Haney & Ramona Fradon; The Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Stories, Jim Steranko; The Spirit, Will Eisner; Snappy Sammy Snoot, Skip Williamson; Trashman, Spain Rodriguez; Trots and Bonnie, Shary Flenniken
    ______________________________________________
    Sam Henderson
    Cartoonist, Magic Whistle

    MAD, Harvey Kurtzman, et al.

    ______________________________________________
    Alex Hoffman
    Cartoonist, Libertarian Rabbits from Outer Space; Editorial cartoonist, When Falls the Coliseum

    Life in Hell, Matt Groening

    ______________________________________________
    Ben Horak
    Cartoonist, Grump Toast

    The Arrival, Shaun Tan

    ______________________________________________
    Kenneth Huey
    Contributing cartoonist, Commies from Mars; Illustrator; “Humanoid,” Church of the Subgenius

    Head Comix, R. Crumb

    COMMENTS

    Any “best of” list naturally invites a vigorous “sez who?” After all, who among us is truly qualified to judge the comparative importance of, say Lyonel Feininger’s The Kin-der-Kids vs. John Byrne’s run on The Fantastic Four? So, I’ll do something a bit more modest. Off the top of my head, these are ten features that have meant a lot to me over the years.
    ______________________________________________
    Jelle Hugaerts
    Contributing writer, Forbidden Planet International

    Conte démoniaque, Aristophane

    ______________________________________________
    Mike Hunter
    Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian

    “Here,” Richard McGuire

    ______________________________________________
    “Illogical Volume”
    Contributing writer, Mindless Ones

    “Lint,” Chris Ware

    ______________________________________________
    Domingos Isabelinho
    Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian

    The Cage, Martin Vaughn-James

    COMMENTS

    Here’s my top ten (restrict comics field). If my top ten included things from the expanded field it would look quite diffrent with things like: Jacques Callot (Les Misères et malheurs de la guerre [The Miseries and Misfortunes of War]); Francisco de Goya (Los Desastres de la Guerra [The Disasters of War]), Los Caprichos [The Caprices]); Katsushika Hokusai (Fugaku Sanjûrokkei [Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji], Fugaku Hyakkei [One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji]); Charlotte Salomon (Leben? oder Theater? [Life? Or Theater?]); Francis Bacon (Triptych May-June 1973); William Hogarth (A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress); Pablo Picasso (Songe et mensonge de Franco [Dream and Lie of Franco]).
    ______________________________________________
    Cole Johnson
    Cartoonist, Sleepover Comics

     

    Tricky Cad, Jess

    ______________________________________________
    “Jones, One of the Jones Boys”
    Writer, Let’s You and Him Fight

     

    Thor, Jack Kirby & Stan Lee

    COMMENTS

    MASSIVE DISCLAIMER: You’ve asked for “the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant,” and this is a list of my favourite comics as of 29 June 2011. It sure as hell isn’t the ten “best” comics!
    ______________________________________________
    Bill Kartalopoulos
    Instructor, Parsons The New School for Design; programming coordinator, Small Press Expo; contributing editor, Print magazine

     

    Histoire d’Albert, Rodolphe Töpffer

    ______________________________________________
    Megan Kelso
    Cartoonist, Artichoke Tales, Queen of the Black Black

    Goodbye, Chunky Rice, Craig Thompson

    ______________________________________________
    Abhay Khosla
    Contributing writer, The Savage Critics

     

    “Master Race,” Bernard Krigstein & Al Feldstein

    COMMENTS

    I don’t want to overthink this because otherwise this’ll turn into a thing with me… Also: I question that lists like these are a good idea. But whatever, who cares. Thanks for asking. Oh: if I have to pick just one, for The Fourth World, let’s go with The New Gods. But that would be the incorrect way of looking at that work, and not how I understand they’re being published currently, so I’m going with The Fourth World.
    ______________________________________________
    Molly Kiely
    Cartoonist, Tecopa Jane, Saucy Tart

     

    La Perdida, Jessica Abel

    ______________________________________________
    Kinukitty
    Contributing writer, The Hooded Utilitarian

     

    Seiyô Kottô Yôgashiten, Fumi Yoshinaga

    ______________________________________________
    T. J. Kirsch
    Co-creator & illustrator, Uncle Slam Fights Back; illustrator, She Died in Terrebonne

     

    David Boring, Daniel Clowes

    ______________________________________________
    Sean Kleefeld
    Writer, Kleefeld on Comics

     

    Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

    __________

    Best Comics Poll Lists

    Best Comics Poll Index

    Participant Lists F-G

    Posted on by

    The following lists were submitted in response to the question, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” All lists have been edited for consistency, clarity, and to fix minor copy errors. Unranked lists are alphabetized by title. In instances where the vote varies somewhat with the Top 115 entry the vote was counted towards, an explanation of how the vote was counted appears below it.

    In the case of divided votes, only works fitting the description that received multiple votes on their own received the benefit. For example, in Jessica Abel’s list, she voted for The Post-Superhero comics of David Mazzucchelli. That vote was divided evenly between Asterios Polyp and Paul Auster’s City of Glass because they fit that description and received multiple votes on their own. It was not in any way applied to the The Rubber Blanket Stories because that material did not receive multiple votes from other participants.

    Duncan Falconer
    Contributing writer, Mindless Ones

    Rogan Gosh, Peter Milligan & Brendan McCarthy

    ______________________________________________
    Andrew Farago
    Curator, Comic Art Museum; co-author, The Looney Tunes Treasury

    Thimble Theatre, starring Popeye, E. C. Segar

    COMMENTS

    Given twenty spots, I think I’d veer farther away from the classics, but this is my take on it as of right this minute.
    ______________________________________________
    Matt Feazell
    Cartoonist, The Amazing Cynicalman

    Conan the Barbarian, Roy Thomas & Barry Windsor-Smith

    ______________________________________________
    Larry Feign
    Cartoonist, The World of Lily Wong

    Nancy, Ernie Bushmiller

    COMMENTS

    Some comics I would consider “great,” but not my favorites, such as Peanuts. I have confined my list to my favorites and greatest influences.
    ______________________________________________
    Bob Fingerman
    Cartoonist, Beg the Question, From the Ashes

    Le Garage hermétique, Jean “Moebius” Giraud

    ______________________________________________
    Craig Fischer
    Associate Professor of English, Appalachian State University; contributing writer, The Panelists, The International Journal of Cartoon Art, The Comics Journal

    Blueberry, Jean-Michel Charlier & Jean “Moebius” Giraud

    COMMENTS

    This was a real horror to put together, and I’m sure that tomorrow my choices would be 90-percent different. But c’est la vie!

    Below is a list of favorites, without any claims to being an “objective” canon…

    The ACME Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Rainy Day Saturday Afternoon Fun Book, Chris Ware (Pantheon, 2005). I prefer this big red book to Jimmy Corrigan and Ware’s other extended continuities. I find Shareholders more mordantly funny and more stylishly designed, and I’m nuts for Ware’s microscopic, hilarious prose and faux advertising. Comics as sublime, heartfelt graphic design.

    After the Snooter, Eddie Campbell (Eddie Campbell Comics, 2002). My favorite autobiographical comic, in a field of formidable achievements (Binky Brown, American Splendor, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Fun Home, etc.). I love the way Campbell’s Snooter vignettes build a network of motifs and themes that playfully capture the rhythms of domestic life. Snooter works pretty well as part of the Alec: The Years Have Pants omnibus, too.

    Ballad for a Coffin, Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean “Moebius” Giraud (Dargaud, 1972). Moebius was lukewarm about this Blueberry volume, but the trajectory of the plot—from Leone-style hijinks to chilling scenes of dead, water-logged corpses to a dead-end for Mike Blueberry—feels as barren, absurd, and frightening as a Beckett play. And you can see the avant-garde Moebius style sluicing under the “Gir” visuals.

    The Fantastic Four #62, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott (Marvel, May 1967). This comic includes much of what I value about Silver-Age Marvel: melodramatic, passionate overwriting (thanks, Stan!), densely detailed panel backgrounds, and a double-page collage of Reed Richards careening through the Negative Zone that remains one of the coolest images I’ve ever seen. (Thanks, Jack!)

    Forty Years with Mr. Oswald, Russell Johnson (Self-published, 1968). Johnson wrote and drew the Mr. Oswald strip for over 60 years (!), and gradually built a self-contained world out of bigfoot characters, the details of hardware retailing, and middle-class anxieties over bankruptcy and crumbling social status. Can we really call our era the Golden Age of Comic Strip Reprints as long as Forty Years remains out of print?

    Hey, Wait, Jason (Fantagraphics, 2001). When we’re kids, the world seems full of endless possibilities, but Hey, Wait artfully depicts how a tragic event can bring that optimism to an end. Jason’s elegant minimalism is deceptively simple—-I’ve used Hey, Wait as the central text in a graphic novel class for six weeks without exhausting its depths—and there’s no comics artist alive who modulates pace better.

    Jean qui rit et Jean qui pleure, François Ayroles (L’Association, 1995). A 24-page mini-comig big enough to capture a profound theme (the unfairness of life), Jean is also a study in the uniqueness of the comics medium: it’s dependent on the proximity of two panels in a single space to achieve its effects. Viva L’Asso, a mighty current in contemporary comics!

    The Land of Nod #2, Jay Stephens (Black Eye, July 1966). The premise of this comic is simple: a nameless character, little more than a stick figure, tumbles into an escalating series of mishaps, and cries out for a superhero named “Captain Rightful” to save him. This is maybe the funniest comic I’ve ever read, the cartoon equivalent of an improvisation by a prodigiously gifted stand-up comedian.

    Pluto, Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (Viz, 2009-10). My favorite comic of the 21st century so far is unabashedly sentimental—more characters weep in its eight volumes than in twice as many pages of any other comic—but it’s also a postmodern essay on originality, copying, and the elastic definition of what it means to be “human.” (That latter theme is, of course, borrowed from Tezuka the trailblazer.)

    Terry and the Pirates 7/9/39 Sunday page, Milton Caniff (1939). Sure, there are more famous Terry Sundays (Flip Corkin’s patriotic speech, Caniff’s “Ring out the Old” farewell), but in the 7/9/39 strip Caniff wrings an entire page’s worth of drama out of Pat Ryan just talking on the phone. The relentless shifts in framing and angles mount an implicit argument for the connections between comics and cinema.
    ______________________________________________
    Anja Flower
    Illustrator

    Une Semaine de bonté, Max Ernst

    ______________________________________________
    Erica Friedman
    Writer, Okazu; president, Yuricon & ALC Publishing

    Kirihito Sanka, Osamu Tezuka

    COMMENTS

    The Mighty Thor – Stan Lee/Larry Lieber/Jack Kirby
    Some of the finest classic Marvel work I’ve ever read. Not bound by laws of physics or sense, but fun stories—this is what got me into comics in the first place.

    Wonder Woman – George Pérez/Len Wein/Greg Potter
    Towards my last few years of collecting American comics, this series kept me going. The reboot was handled just as I would have hoped—art and story flowed beautifully. Powerful stuff every issue. When Pérez left this title, I left American comics.

    A Drunken Dream and Other Stories – Moto Hagio
    There are no words to describe this book. These are “classic” stories in every way. Even when we’re reading something that has been done a dozen times before or since, there is an emotional commitment in these renderings that drags you in whole. Art and stories combine for one-two sucker punches to your own weak points.

    Ode to Kirihito – Osamu Tezuka
    This is quite possibly the most horrible book I have ever enjoyed. By the time I finished it, I realized I was in the presence of genius.

    Thermae Romae – Mari Yamazaki
    It would be very easy to dismiss this as a silly story, but aside from the amount of research that goes into it, and how ultimately goofy it is,     Thermae Romae is a tale about humanity…and about how some things never change, nor should they.

    Fun Home – Alison Bechdel?
    Another moment with genius. This autobiographical tale is neither raw, nor emotional. It’s coldly executed, with intellectual honesty, and then more intellect heaped up over it to re-clothe the pain in creative finery. This book hooked me over and over as I read it.

    Gunjo – Ching Nakamura.
    One more “genius” title. This is the raw emotion and brutality we will never see from Bechdel. Because it is so brutal, those moments of tenderness that leak through the cracks are profound and painfully gentle.

    Yokohama Shopping Log – Hitoshi Ashinano
    Nothing happens in this series. Humanity dies away quietly and gently in the world’s twilight, and we watch it through the eyes of an android who celebrates the lives and rituals and hobbies and small happinesses of human life day after day.

    Birds of Prey – Gail Simone/Ed Benes
    I’m not sure what to say about this except that, if this series had been running when I was collecting American comics, I might have stuck with it.

    One Piece – Eiichiro Oda
    Can 62 million people be wrong? Not in this case. I’ve been reading     One Piece for a really long time now, and I’m still reading it. I could be reading it 10 years from now. That thought makes me kind of happy. It’s a story about a rubber pirate. What’s not to like?
    ______________________________________________
    Shaenon Garrity
    Cartoonist, Narbonic; contributing writer, Comixology.com, Otaku USA

    Ernie Pook’s Comeek, Lynda Barry

    COMMENTS

    If there was an eleventh slot, I’d go with Sheldon Mayer’s Scribbly.
    ______________________________________________
    Richard Gehr
    Contributing writer, The Village Voice, The Comics Journal

    Doonesbury, Garry B. Trudeau

    ______________________________________________
    Larry Gonick
    Cartoonist, The Cartoon History of the Universe

    Uncle $crooge, Carl Barks

    COMMENTS

    Man, this was hard! There were so many others that just missed the list…
    ______________________________________________
    Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz
    Cartoonist, Too Negative

    Krazy Kat, George Herriman

    ______________________________________________
    Diana Green
    Cartoonist, Tranny Towers

    Promethea, Alan Moore & J. H. Williams III

    ______________________________________________
    Jason Green
    Comics Editor, PLAYBACK: stl; contributing writer, Shots in the Dark

    Blankets, Craig Thompson

    COMMENTS

    I tried to not overthink this too much, so I put it together based solely on what came to mind right away, which means I surely missed something. If you asked me tomorrow, this list would probably be quite different. I tried to concentrate on books that were “significant” in the way they made me think about how comics work, and what comics are capable of.

    And a quick list of honorable mentions that came to mind but I decided didn’t quite make my top 10:

    Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore; I Kill Giants, Joe Kelly & J. M. Ken Niimura; Cerebus, Dave Sim & Gerhard; Howard the Duck, Steve Gerber & Gene Colan, et al.; Moon Knight, Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz; Scud: The Disposable Assassin, Rob Schrab; The Fantastic Four, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, with Joe Sinnott, et al.; Superman: The Man of Steel, John Byrne, with Dick Giordano; Sin City, Frank Miller; V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird; Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi; Dominion C1 Konfurikuto [Dominion Conflict 1: No More Noise], Masamune Shirow; Gansumisu Kyattsu [Gunsmith Cats], Kenichi Sonoda; Astro City, Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson, with Alex Ross, et al.; Hellboy, Mike Mignola
    ______________________________________________
    Steve Greenberg
    Editorial cartoonist, Ventura County Reporter, L.A. Observed, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

    “The Supremos,” from MAD, Mort Drucker

    COMMENTS

    Other favorites:

    9 Chickweed Lane, Brooke McEldowney; Bizarro, Dan Piraro; The Editorial Cartoons, Tony Auth; The Editorial Cartoons, Clay Bennett; The MAD Stories, Sergio Aragonés
    ______________________________________________
    Geoff Grogan
    Cartoonist, Fandancer, Look Out!! Monsters

    Prince Valiant, Hal Foster

    COMMENTS

    And there are many, many more.

    These lists are always a fun—if a bit silly. The best stuff is the stuff you keep returning to year after year across a lifetime—and for an artist, the stuff you keep learning from.
    ______________________________________________
    Patrick Grzanka
    Honors Faculty Fellow, Barrett, The Honors College, Arizona State University

    Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi

    ______________________________________________
    Paul Gulacy
    Illustrator, Master of Kung Fu; co-creator & illustrator, Sabre

    Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz

    __________

    Best Comics Poll Lists

    Best Comics Poll Index