Tag Archives: Best Comics Poll

Participant Lists T-Y

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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

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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.
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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”).
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Kelly Thompson
Writer, 1979 Semi-Finalist; contributing writer, Comic Book Resources

Lint, Chris Ware

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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.
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Tom Tirabosco
Cartoonist, L’Émissiare [The Emissary], L’Oeil de la forêt [The Eye of the Forest]

La Guerre d’Alan, Emmanuel Guibert

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Mark Tonra
Cartoonist, James, Top of the World

Polly and Her Pals, Cliff Sterrett

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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

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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

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

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Gilbert Shelton

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

A Rake’s Progress, William Hogarth

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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.
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Shannon Blake Skelton
Contributing writer, The Journal of Popular Culture

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

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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…
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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.
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Matthew J. Smith
Associate Professor of Communication, Wittenberg University

Palestine, Joe Sacco

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Michelle Smith
Contributing writer, Manga Bookshelf, Manga Recon

Hikaru no Go, Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata

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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?
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Nick Sousanis
Instructor, Teachers College, Columbia University; writer, Spin, Weave, and Cut

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

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Ryan Standfest
Editor, Rotland Press

Breakdowns, Art Spiegelman

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Rob Steen
Illustrator, Flanimals, Elephantmen

Conan the Barbarian, Roy Thomas & Barry Windsor-Smith

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

Quadratino, Antonio Rubino

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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.
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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.
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Tom Stiglich
Editorial Cartoonist

Mutts, Patrick McDonnell

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

Domu, Katsuhiro Otomo

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

The Desert Peach, Donna Barr

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Jeff Swenson
Cartoonist, Swenson Funnies

Skippy, Percy Crosby

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Best Comics Poll Lists

Best Comics Poll Index

Participant Lists Q-Se

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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

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

Ghost World, Daniel Clowes

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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.
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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.
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Charles Reece
Contributing writer, Amoeblog

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

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Hans Rickheit
Cartoonist, The Squirrel Machine, Ectopiary

Moonshadow, J. M. DeMatteis & Jon J Muth

Participant Lists Me-P

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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.
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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

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Gary Spencer Millidge
Cartoonist, Strangehaven

La Femme du magicien, Jerome Charyn & François Boucq

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Evan Minto
Editor-in-Chief, Ani-Gamers

Buddha, Osamu Tezuka

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Wolfen Moondaughter
Contributing writer, Sequential Tart

Paradise Kiss, Ai Yazawa

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Pat Moriarity
Cartoonist, Big Mouth

Frank, Jim Woodring

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Pedro Moura
Writer, Ler BD

Le Portrait, Edmond Baudoin

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

American Splendor, Harvey Pekar, et al.

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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.
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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].
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    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

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    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

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    Best Comics Poll Lists

    Best Comics Poll Index

    Some Closing Thoughts on the Poll

    Posted on by

    We’re going to be taking it easy at The Hooded Utilitarian this week. Apart from this post, we’re just going to be publishing the remainder of the lists. We’ll be back with more to engage, enlighten, and outrage next Monday.

    My original goal with this post was to discuss the poll results and the comics canon. However, it seems a rather odd undertaking, largely because the notion that the results are indicative of the canon is a conceit. The top ten and Top 115 lists we compiled are indicative of nothing more than the consensus views of the 211 people who submitted lists, and even that is somewhat filtered (i.e., skewed) at points through the perspective of the poll’s editor (myself). Another thing to remember is that those who submitted lists prepared them with different motives. The question they responded to is, “What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant?” A list of “the best” is different than “the most significant,” and both are distinct from “favorites.” Perhaps the best way to proceed is to acknowledge that most of what follows is presumptuous, and if readers want to reject it on that basis, my feeling is they are right to do so. However, I hope they consider the thoughts put forth at least worth considering to a degree.

    A few observations about our list:

    This project is in some ways a continuation of, and in others a response to, The Comics Journal’s ranked 1999 list of the 100 Best Comics. The Journal list was restricted to English-language material, and relied on opinions from the magazine’s editors and columnists (eight people altogether) rather than on a broader poll. You can see the Journal list here, and a discussion of the thinking behind it here. I’ll talk about some differences between the Journal’s list and ours in the points that follow.

    The major newspaper strips are still seen as the most important comics works. We’re supposedly in the graphic-novel era. However, the top three vote getters–Peanuts, Krazy Kat, and Calvin and Hobbes–outpaced the number-four work (and by extension, the rest of the list) by the quite large margin of 14 votes. As far as the poll participants appear concerned, these three strips are the crown jewels of the comics medium. The importance of the great newspaper strips was further reinforced by Little Nemo in Slumberland’s sixth-place ranking, as well as by Pogo coming in eighth. When half the top ten is from a particular mode of comics, I think it’s safe to say the field considers that mode where the most important work has been done.

    The two most highly regarded graphic novels are Watchmen and Maus. I haven’t come across anyone questioning Maus’s placement yet, but I’m incredulous that some would be surprised—even shocked—at Watchmen’s high ranking in the poll. When it comes to graphic novels, these two works have by far the largest readership constituency outside of the comics community. Maus has sold at least in the high hundred thousands, andWatchmen has sold in the millions. There is no reason for readers to feel they are slumming with Watchmen; the book’s inclusion in Time’s 100 Best Novels and Entertainment Weekly‘s 100 Best Reads lists are reasonable signs that it enjoys the broader culture’s respect. If the larger world holds the book in high regard, it makes sense that this view would be reflected in the comics world as well. Those taken aback by its placement generally strike me as those who have a prejudice against superhero material, or at least the work done in the genre over the last 40 years. I suppose they are like those who turn their noses up at Ian McEwan’s Atonement because of its similarities to category romance fiction, or at Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go because it is a science-fiction novel. Saying a certain work or genre isn’t to one’s taste is one thing; we all do it, and we’re all entitled to that opinion. Treating a work as inherently inferior because it comes from a particular genre is quite another. Watchmen is not just one of the most important graphic novels; it’s one of the most important contemporary novels, period. To act as though the situation is otherwise is at best myopic. I’m not for a moment saying anyone has to like Watchmen, but it should be acknowledged that the book is far bigger than any one person or group’s opinion of it.

    The Fourth World will soon eclipse the reputation of Jack Kirby’s Marvel work, at least in comics circles. This is more of a prediction than an observation, but it has its foundation in the poll results. The Fantastic Four’s better showing in the poll was due to all of one-third of a vote. If just one more participant had voted for The Fourth World, it would have been the Kirby work that made the top ten. The Fourth World’s reputation has been increasing over the years, and I doubt it has peaked now. No slight intended against Andrew Farago, but posting The Fantastic Four piece so soon after the Kirby family’s loss in their lawsuit against Marvel was painful. A list in which The Fourth World outranked The Fantastic Four might have been a consolation of sorts. Well, maybe next time.

    R. Crumb’s counterculture material is his most important contribution to comics. Noah Berlatsky has wondered if Crumb’s star is falling given the placements of his work in the poll. Noah has pointed to the fact that while Crumb’s Weirdo work made the top ten in The Comics Journal’s Best 100 a dozen years ago, nothing by him made the top ten this time out. I don’t agree with Noah’s speculation. When the Journal’s editors put together the magazine’s Best 100, it apparently didn’t occur to them to create a counterculture-era umbrella entry to cover his works of that period. If they had, I think it would have made their top ten. (And given the material’s ubiquity in the six of the eight contributor lists that were published, it should have.) Judging from those contributor lists and the Journal’s traditional idolatry of Crumb, the Weirdo material’s high placement didn’t reflect the work’s consensus status so much as it did the desire to get something—anything—by Crumb into the top ten. When it comes to Crumb, our poll results likely reflect two things. The first is that the consensus view of Crumb, while one of high esteem, is more measured than the Journal’s. The second is that we did a much better job of giving the counterculture material its due when interpreting the votes. The counterculture work is where Crumb had by far his biggest impact and influence, and I believe this poll’s rankings reflect that it is asserting its proper place in estimations of his career.

    Dave Sim is indeed one of the best cartoonists North America has produced. I’m not a fan, and his gender and religious blarney sets my teeth on edge, but there’s no denying his achievements in Cerebus. He is one of the most technically accomplished cartoonists to ever work in the field, and few have managed, much less surpassed, his expansions of the form’s language. Sim did not make the Journal’s Best 100 list. This was despite the fact he and selections from Cerebus were mentioned on at least three and possibly four of the eight voters’ lists. It is hard not to see Sim’s exclusion from the final one as a deliberate snub. I’m glad to see him get a fairly high level of acknowledgement in this poll.

    Yes, good English-language adventure comics have been published since 1970. The Journal’s Top 100 list reflected publisher Gary Groth’s view that virtually all adventure comics of the last 40 years (i.e., every one published since he turned 16) are beneath notice. Watchmen, The Fourth World, and V for Vendetta were the only contemporary adventure works acknowledged, and they were kicked to the bottom of the list. (A look at Groth’s personal Top 100 shows he didn’t vote for any of them. Click here.) I’ve already discussed the first two works, and I note that V for Vendetta made our list as well. However, there’s also Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Sandman, Bone, Daredevil: Born Again, The Invisibles, and over a dozen others that received listings in our Top 115. Ignoring these efforts while lionizing similar (and to many eyes less accomplished) material from before 1970 was an injustice, and I’m happy we were able to redress it.

    The consensus view of The Hooded Utilitarian’s regular contributors both converges and diverges with the consensus of the field. Here are the top 13 vote-getters among this website’s contributing writers:

    • 1. Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz [8 votes]
    • 2. Krazy Kat, George Herriman [5 votes]
    • (tie) Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons [5 votes]
    • 4. The Alec Stories, including The Fate of the Artist, Eddie Campbell [4 votes]
    • (tie) From Hell, Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell [4 votes]
    • 6. The Locas Stories, Jaime Hernandez [3.5 votes]
    • 7. Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson [3 votes]
    • (tie) A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, Moto Hagio [3 votes]
    • (tie) The Fourth World Stories, Jack Kirby, with Mike Royer, et al. [3 votes]
    • (tie) Hi no Tori [Phoenix], Osamu Tezuka [3 votes]
    • (tie) Die Hure H [W the Whore], Katrin de Vries & Anke Feuchtenberger [3 votes]
    • (tie) Journal, Fabrice Neaud [3 votes]
    • (tie) The Sandman, Neil Gaiman, et al. [3 votes]

    On the basis of this, I’d say we agree with the rest of the field at least half the time.

    There’s a lot more to be said about this poll, and a lot more to be said about the comics canon in the future. The canon is a synopsis at a given time of a never-ending dialogue, and lists like the one produced by our poll provide an enjoyable snapshot of where that dialogue stands. They also allow us an opportunity to sit back and take stock. I think Sight and Sound magazine is right to do this just once a decade with movies. The time between polls is neither too great nor too little. It allows people to see the shifts in the consensus view without the overall picture getting too expansive or narrow. And by reserving a special time for judgments, it implicitly puts the emphasis on criticism where it belongs, which is with discussion. Criticism isn’t about being right or wrong; it’s about helping people see work in new and more insightful ways. That can and should go on forever.

    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

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    Carol Lay
    Cartoonist, Way Lay

    Alias the Cat, Kim Deitch

    COMMENTS

    Here are some faves, not necessarily in order of preference…just a list.
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    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

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    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.
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    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…?
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    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

    Comics’ Expanded Field and Other Pet Peeves

    Posted on by

    Ana Hatherly, The Writer (1975).

    Still in shock after seeing that the comics’ subculture continues as deaf and insular in its aesthetic criteria as ten years ago (since the infamous The Comics Journal’s list) not having moved one iota, I remembered Dwight Macdonald who, in Politics Vol. 2, No. 4 (Whole No. 15), April 1945, wrote:

    It would be interesting to know how many of the ten million comic books sold every month are read by adults.[…] We do know that comics are the favorite reading matter of men in the armed forces, and that movie Westerns and radio programs like “The Lone Ranger” and “Captain Midnight” are by no means only enjoyed by children. […] This merging of the child and grown-up audience means [an] infantile regression of the latter unable to cope with the complexities of modern society.

    I certainly don’t agree that an infantilization of grown-ups’ cultural habits means that people can’t cope with the complexities of modern society, it may simply mean that comics readers want (for a while) to escape those complexities. Hell, I suppose that they want to escape life itself, or, at least, those parts of life that can’t be depicted by kitsch… Did you notice how death and exploitation are almost completely absent from this top ten’s list (and I don’t mean death of a Daffy Duck kind; Maus and the death of Speedy are an exception)? Have you noticed how lifeless these comics are? (And I mean “lifeless” in the sense of not related to life in any way – Dwight Macdonald also helped me to realize this when he said to Pauline Kael, when they were discussing North-American films: “How did vitality get in there? I mean, crudeness I give you, but vitality? It’s possible to be crude and not vital, you know?”)

    I couldn’t agree more with David T. Bazelon, who, also writing in Politics (Vol. 1, No. 4, May 1944), wrote:

    “Superman” gives vicarious satisfaction to explicit social frustrations. It cannot be tragic or displeasing, nor can it contain that essential realism which is a quality of all good art. For it has a purpose: this is art in the service of social neuroses. And that service is the meaning of most comic strips… Pearls are produced not by serving but by opposing disease.

    Only now did I understand the true meaning of the phrase “comics are not just for kids anymore.” What it really means is that popular comics, even if they continue to be children’s comics, are also enjoyed by adults. With the above phrase and other similar ones people from inside the ghetto of the comics subculture want to sell a false image to the laymen and laywomen (it was now definitely proven to me that the above reading is the right one or they’re lying).

    Francisco de Goya, The Disasters of War (published in 1863).

    I’m not saying that The Hooded Utilitarian’s top ten list (and beyond) is completely devoid of value. As I put it last May 10 on this very blog: I have nothing against popular entertainment. I also think that a good art vs. bad art kind of black & white view of things isn’t exactly clever or productive. I enjoy a lot of pop pap (Gasoline Alley, for instance) it’s just that I don’t think that it fares well alongside Tsuge’s work or Fabrice Neaud’s work. That’s my whole point, while the pap is canonized meatier work is forgotten.

    I suppose that one could say that even meatier work (if that’s possible) is also not included, but there, the infantilization of the reading public is not the only barrier. Essentialism is frontier number two (an even more powerful one this time).

    Rosalind Krauss wrote an important essay about how perplexing the concept of sculpture had become at the end of the seventies: Sculpture in the Expanded Field (October, Vol. 8, Spring, 1979). I borrowed her concept of an extended field and applied it to comics.

    Rosalind Krauss criticized historicism in her essay. Historicism is also a problem in comics’ expanded field’s case for two reasons: (1) because my field expansion is in great part ahistorical; (2) because some critics view comics as an unchanging art (Alan Gowans) or a posthistorical art (David Carrier).

    Frans Masereel, From Black to White (1939).

    Arriving here I can only go on after an analysis of what I called, the origin’s myth and the problem of a comics definition.

    There are, at least, five cultural fields which can help to expand comics as an art form: (1) Medieval (or older art) painting and book illustration; (2) the wordless engraving cycle; (3) Modern and Post-Modern painting; (4) Concrete and Visual Poetry; (5) the cartoon. None of these fields are linked to comics on the gentiles’ heads. For a variety of reasons they all have problems to be accepted by the comics milieu as well. Let’s briefly examine some of these objections:

    1. Medieval comics (let’s call them that way) weren’t produced for the enjoyment of the people: they weren’t reproduced, they were highly expensive items, they were owned by aristocrats. Since the beginning of fandom comics have been viewed as popular art: a child of the Industrial Revolution and modern visual mass communications (hence: comics were born in America with the publication of a Yellow Kid page in the New York Journal: “The Yellow Kid and His New Phonograph,” October 25, 1896; this is a position that American scholar Bill Blackbeard always defended). Besides this sociological criterion we must add two formal ones in this particular case: the existence of juxtaposed panels and the existence of speech balloons. Denying the latter some European scholars (Thierry Groensteen and Benoît Peeters, for instance) argued that comics started with Rodolphe Töpffer’s first “Histoires en estampes” (Histoire de M. Vieux Bois was drawn in 1827 – Histoire de M. Jabot was published in 1833; Töpfferians who are also print fundamentalists must say that Jabot was the first comic, other Töpfferians will say that Vieux Bois is the real McCoy). In his book The Early Comic Strip (1973) historian David Kunzle argued that the first comics were created shortly after the invention of the mechanical printing press by Johann Gutenberg (Hans Holbein’s Les Simulacres et historiées faces de la mort is among the first books that he cites, but his most famous example is Francis Barlow’s A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot, c. 1682). David Kunzle later converted to Töpfferism (More recently he published a book titled Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer (2007). Barlow’s two pages fulfill Bill Blackbeard’s criteria, by the way: they were printed, they have a grid, they even have speech balloons or something similar (Robert S. Petersen called them “emanata scrolls”).

    Anon., Canticles of Saint Mary by Alfonso X the Sage (c. 1270).

    2. Engraving cycles, from Jacques Callot to Eric Drooker, aren’t as difficult to accept (in the comics corpus) by the comics milieu as Medieval illustrations. This happens because they were born from an idea that art should be more democratic: engravings are cheaper than paintings and sculptures. Even so the high / low divide may be a serious objection here. Even if Frans Masereel had a leftist sensibility and his cycles were (are) published in book form, he was a serious painter, he was in the wrong side of this sociological fence. If I defend Picasso as a comics artist the comics milieu calls me a snob and an elitist (doing their usual mind reading they say that I want to include highly regarded gallery artists in the comics canon just to elevate comics’ status). Formal features are a problem also: engraving cycles have no speech balloons or page grids.

    Jacques Callot, The Miseries and Misfortunes of War (1633).

    3. To the comics milieu paintings and poems (visual or otherwise) are not comics, period. Original comic art has been exposed in galleries, museums, and comics conventions (a strong tradition in Europe’s comics conventions gives original art an important role as an attraction factor), but I don’t mean that. What I mean is comic art meant to be exposed as unique objects on gallery walls. Most people would call these objects paintings inspired by comics. Don’t take my word for it though, the artists themselves call “gallery comics” to what they’re doing. Sorry to indulge in name-dropping, but I mean: Christian Hill, Mark Staff Brandl, Howie Shia. Andrei Molotiu could also be part of this list, I suppose; ditto Paper Rad: they all have strong links with the comics milieu. As for Brazilian painter Rivane Neuenschwander, American painter Laylah Ali and Swiss painter Niklaus Rüegg, I have no idea, but both Ali and Rüegg are interesting examples because, not only did they paint, their paintings were also original art (in the comics sense) for the publication of comic books (by the MOMA and Fink Editions, respectively).

    Niklaus Rüegg, Spuk (2004); a Carl Barks comic without the characters.

    4. During the fifties Brazil was at the avant garde of poetry. Inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s Coup de dés, Guillaume Apollinaire’s calligrammes, Dadaism, Ezra Pound’s Imagism, Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, Decio Pignatari, Pedro Xisto and others created Concrete poetry. In a Concrete poem typography and the pages’ space is as important as words. Sounds are more important than meaning (or new meanings are born when words are reorganized on the space of the page and reinvented). Concrete and visual poetry viewed as comics may prove that comics without images may exist in the same way as comics without words.

    Álvaro de Sá,  Process-Poem (c. 1967).

    If we consider stained glass windows as comics (something that is not as far-fetched as it seems) Medieval comics were also meant to be viewed by “the masses” even if they weren’t printed (David Kunzle opines differently though: “A mass medium is mobile; it travels to man, and does not require man to travel to it.”) As for grids and speech balloons it’s possible to find said features in Medieval comics, believe it or not. Here’s what Thierry Groensteen wrote on the Platinum List (Jan 18, 2000):

    Danielle Alexandre-Bidon, a specialist of the Middle-Age, has given a lot of evidence of the fact that comics existed in the medieval manuscripts, during the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. Hundreds, if not thousands of pages, with speed lines, word balloons, sound effects, etc. The language of comics had already been invented, but these books were not printed. After Gutenberg, text and image were not so intimately linked anymore, and one could say that the secret of comics was lost, until Töpffer rediscovered it.

    This is revealing: even the most fervent defender of Töpffer as the “father of the comic strip” says here that he “rediscovered it.” This is something like saying that Columbus rediscovered America (he couldn’t discover it simply because he found people already living there when he arrived).

    The comics origin’s myth is essentialist: it’s an arbitrary choice that’s based on an equally arbitrary definition (the latter precedes the former). (And I’m sure that I’m not the first one to say this, elsewhere or around here.) The two more common (or so it seems to me) kinds of definitions are based on social (comics must be reproduced and distributed to the masses) and formal premises (essential characteristics of comics are sequentiality, word and image relations, the word balloons, the juxtaposition of the panels, etc…). Social definitions of comics have two problems: (1) The sorites paradox applied to the concept of “masses.” If one grain of wheat doesn’t make a heap two grains of wheat do not; […] if three thousand grains of wheat don’t make a heap three thousand and one grains of wheat do not; etc… When do we stop not having a heap to finally have one? This paradox can be applied to print runs. (2) Social definitions of comics are usually used to deny that Medieval comics are comics (they aren’t reproduced). What I say is that they must have been reproduced at some point because I’ve seen them and I have never seen any original drawings. There’s a third point: how come an original comics page is not a comic, but an exact repro is? Leonardo de Sá cleverly argued this point saying: the original art is not a comic the same way as the repro of a painting is not a painting. Not bad, I would say… but… using Nelson Goodman’s theories about fakeable and not fakeable arts, painting is one-stage autographic while comics are n-stage (my theory) autographic. That’s why a repro of a painting is not a painting while the original art of a comics page is a comic. Formal definitions of comics have problems also; I’ll mention two: (1) Any formal definition arbitrarily chooses some features and forgets others. This means that, if I chose to say something like “the speech balloon is essential to comics” (oops, there goes Prince Valiant) or “word and image relations define comics” (oops there go “mute” comics out the window) no comics exist at all. Why? Because all comics have panels without speech balloons, without words, etc… A comics reading experience would be something like this: now it’s a comic, oops, now it isn’t, etc… (2) All art is based on experiment. More inventive artists are always pushing the limits of their art forms. Comics are no exception, but if we put a formal corset around them what happens is that: (1) we lose some very important artistic achievements (some who defend comics exactly because they’re mass art couldn’t care less, obviously, but I, for one, do) and (2) we seriously limit the creativity of the artists who chose to create comics. Another problem is that we can’t look back to, let’s say, Charlotte Salomon, and view her work as comics (again: some who defend comics…). It seems that all comics have sequentiality, but even this point was argued by Eddie Campbell in a discussion with yours truly many moons ago: he included one panel cartoons in the comics concept. Me?, I have no definition of comics whatsoever. I prefer to say with Saint Augustine: If no one asks me, I know what they are; If I wish to explain them to him who asks, I do not know.

    Charlotte Salomon, Life? or Theater, CD-Rom (2002 [1940 – 42]).

    So, denying essentialism we can look back or look around and find great comics. I have no solution for the ahistoricity of the expansion in time or social space. Picasso didn’t view himself as a comics artist (even if he liked comics) and the art world around him didn’t either. However… if older art historians say that Picasso’s Songe et mensonge de Franco (Dream and Lie of Franco) are engravings (which they are, of course) more recent ones (Juan Antonio Ramirez, for one) say that it is a comic. This means that we (even if part of this “we” doesn’t belong to the comics milieu) may look in unexpected places and notice multiple instances that can be considered comics (Frans Masereel is a no brainer by now, for instance; I’m sure that Paleolithic painters didn’t call “painting” in the modern sense to what they were doing). As for comics as an unchanging or posthistorical art it may be true (I have my doubts) if we consider it as low mass art, but aren’t we excluding heaps of alternative artists, then? I’m trying to be reasonable, but, to talk frankly, I’m tempted to say that this is utter nonsense.

    I didn’t vote for any artists and work on the expanded field (maybe Martin Vaughn-James’ The Cage counts as part of it; Robert tells me that there were indeed some votes in said field: Cy Twombly, Max Ernst, and a few others), but if I did almost all my ten choices would be in that category, I’m afraid… Who, in the comics’ restrict field can rival Callot, Goya, Hokusai, Picasso? No one, I’m sure… Not even George Herriman and Charles Schulz.

    Pablo Picasso, Dream and Lie of Franco (1937).

    Note: huge chunks of the above text were previously posted on my blog The Crib Sheet.

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