The Twelve Best Comics of All Time

This is a thoroughly narcissistic post, spawned by my recent re-reading of a number of semi-serious attempts at comics canonization. These other lists, including that of  The Comics Journal and The Hooded Utilitarian, are attempts at projecting the intersubjective consensus of a given demography of comic book consumers, be it a very narrow selection of competent and knowledgable comics intellectuals (for lack of a better term), or a slightly broader swath of (still competent) comics critics and polemics. In either case, the notion seems to be that the aggregation of the lists of multiple people will reveal some sort of insight that is, inherently, more informed and more relevant than the necessarily subjective choices of any one individual.

To that, I say screw you – this is my blog and my opinion is the only one that matters! Well, not exactly. Not at all, actually. But I do find it an interesting intellectual exercise to come up with a dozen titles that somehow seem more important and more worthwhile to read (it might be either/or) than any of the countless other works of comics art out there. Even if this is only the case in the universe in which my mind is the sole inhabitant. So read on, take everything with an ounce of salt, and please tell me why I’m wrong.

Little Nemo in Slumberland, by Winsor McCay (1905-1914)

Krazy Kat, by George Herriman (1913-1944)

GeGeGe no Kitarō, by Shigeru Mizuki (1959-1969)

Tintin au Tibet, by Hergé (1960)

The Garo stories of Yoshiharu Tsuge (1965-1970)

Hi no Tori, by Osamu Tezuka (1967-1988)

Binky Brown meets the Holy Virgin Mary, by Justin Green (1972)

Le Garage hermétique, by Jean “Moebius” Giraud (1976-1980)

AKIRA, by Katsuhiro Otomo (1982-1990)

Blood of Palomar, by Gilbert Hernandez (1989)

The Acme Novelty Library, by Chris Ware (1994-)

L’Ascension du haut-mal, by David B. (1996-2003)

Review: Copra Compendium

I know that I have been very quiet on here for the past several weeks. Mostly this is because I’ve been busy with other writing projects (both some dry academic stuff and a bit of comics criticism for the Danish magazine Nummer 9), but that is of course no excuse. So here is finally another update, this time a review of Michel Fiffe’s stunning Copra Compendium, which I picked up at MoCCA this weekend and tore through over the past couple of days.

I admit, there was a pang of fear at first. It only lasted a second. Then it was a straight up panic attack. Walls caving in, shortness of breath, hard to ride out.

Then I realized how much freedom there is in being so screwed.

- Sonia Stone

Michel Fiffe‘s self-published series Copra has been coming out on a regular basis since the first issue hit stands in November of last year, and it has received quite a bit of buzz in the comics blogosphere (if that’s a real thing, and not just something crazy people on the internet like to refer to). This new volume, the first Copra Compendium, is a collection of the initial three single issues and also happens to be the first title published by newly minted Bergen Street Comics Press. The book itself is a sweet 72-page package, printed on nice paper stock and displaying sharp colors and a refreshingly small amount of wasted pages (that is to say, none). The art style is familiar to anyone who’s read Fiffe’s other work, and the plot and story structure is quite similar to his previously published Suicide Squad homage Deathzone! 

The story, then, is not surprisingly reminiscent of the old Suicide Squad tales, but it goes well beyond that, drawing on a myriad of different genre comics for inspiration. It revolves around a small band of misfit mercenaries finding themselves far past the point of no return, as a seemingly routine pick-up-and-transport-an-occult-extradimensional-space-shard-lodged-in-a-decapitated-head assignment quickly turns sour with the arrival of an unmistakable villainous band of fellas. And this is all before we meet Dy Dy the Neophyte Crime Empress (literally a brain on legs), to say nothing of the dimensional portals or the chaos golem.

Whereas the first issue is a fairly straightforward set-up piece, albeit with the twist of introducing a number of characters only to gleefully kill off half of them before the end of the 24 pages, the next two take a decidedly weirder turn. The tempo is fast-paced throughout, and Fiffe’s art really excels in conveying the feel of kinetic energy so necessary for an action-packed piece like Copra to succeed. Furthermore, he instills enough imagination and vibrancy into even minor characters to bring them alive on the page, providing the sort of playful thrill that is needed to create a strong bond between reader and story, even when the latter gleefully spins out of the bounds of anything that might ressemble a space of plausible realism.

In short, this is the most fun and excitement I’ve gotten out of a comic book in a long time. If this was the kind of stuff your average superhero or action comic was made up of, I can’t help but think that the industry would be in a slightly better state than it is. If you don’t own the first three Copra issues, then please don’t hesitate to pick up a copy of this delectable edition!

MoCCA Loot

This year’s MoCCA festival was quite a bit of fun. I came home with a bunch of books and a few pictures. I might put some thoughts together and publish them here over the next few days.

2013 Releases to Keep an Eye on, part II

Good morning and happy new year. In 1013, which is to say one thousand years ago, the Danes invaded England and Sveinn Tjúguskegg became the first Danish king of England. So, in case my plan comes to fruition and I’m declared King of the United States of America within the next 12 months, don’t tell me that there wasn’t any historical precedent. Regardless, the holiday madness now well over it seems timely to once again turn to some of the interesting releases coming out in the next few months. Here, then, is another batch of 2013 releases to keep an eye on.

Charles Forsman, The End of the Fucking World (Fantagraphics)

It was exciting news when Fantagraphics, back in June 2012, announced that they had snatched up the rights to some of Charles Forsman’s work and planned to publish it over the course of 2013. Here, then, is the first of these books, a collected edition of Forsman’s previously published (via Oily Comics) 12-issue minicomic The End of the Fucking World, set to come out in August. The story centers around American teens James and Alyssa, he a budding sociopath and she an earnest girl made ignorant by love. The comic is a great roadtrip in the tradition of classic American film and literature, and Forsman is a talented artist with a clear narrative voice of his own. Go look at his website here, and pick up the book when it hits stores. I predict that this one will land on many best-of lists come December.

Tom Gauld, You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack (Drawn & Quarterly)

Are there any cartoonists currently writing for a major news publication as funny as Tom Gauld? I doubt it. His dark humor and sharp wit is hard to match, and this collection of strips originally appearing in The Guardian promises an abundance of both. Replete with funny (and sometimes disturbed) animals, literary commentary, and geeky references, all of Gauld’s books belong on the shelves of any self-respecting comics aficionado. This one is set to come out in late January or early February. Check out a preview of the book here, Gauld’s blog here, and his tumblr here.

Steve Moore and Alan Moore, The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic (Top Shelf)

Set to be released sometime in 2013, this 320-page hardcover tome is the work of comics luminaries Steve and Alan Moore, who also happen to be co-founders of the magic-performance-art-collective The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels. This is not so much a comic book as a collection of tongue-in-cheek instructional essays and rainy-day activities by the two authors, no doubt lavishly illustrated by a number of Moore’s frequent artistic collaborators, including Colthart, Gebbie, and O’Neill. The promotional material promises that the book will “transform your lives, your reality, and any spare lead that you happen to have laying around into the purest and most radiant gold.” It looks like a lot of fun, and is frankly a more interesting release than February’s Nemo: Heart of Ice, the newest LoEG title, which you will no doubt all acquire in any case.

Dash Shaw, New School (Fantagraphics)

One of two new Dash Shaw titles to come out from Fantagraphics this year (the other being 3 New Stories), New School is a 300+ page original graphic novel with a release date in May. The book is the story of 20-something Danny who goes looking for his older brother Luke at the theme park ClockWorld, a place seemingly inspired by Jurassic Park, which is located on an isolated island and built around the recreation of historical events. In a brief interview on the Fantagraphics blog, Shaw stated that the work “is my most personal book. It’s all true (sort of). I dramatized and changed things to make everything closer to how it felt. The book took years of difficult work to make. Now I can’t wait to hold it in my hands!” Shaw’s work is usually hit-or-miss with me, but this one sounds intriguing.

Craig Thompson, Doot Doot (Top Shelf)

Initially slated for a 2012 release but now pushed into 2013, this book is a collection of various bits and pieces (and “comics poems”) created by the productive and talented Craig Thompson. It includes his previous minicomics Doot Doot Garden and Bible Doodles, as well as a host of other published and unpublished material. While Thompson is probably better known for his long-form graphic novels, namely Blankets and Habibi, his shorter work is a nice departure from these complex narratives and usually offer a healthy dose of clever wit to boot. I expect this book to be a sure hit with existing fans. Read a short preview of the book here, and check out Thompson’s blog here.

Naoki Urasawa, 21st Century Boys vols. 1 and 2 (Viz Media)

If you thought Naoki Urasawa’s seinen epic (originally serialized in Big Comic Spirits) ended with last year’s volume 22, you would be …. well, I guess you would technically be right. But the storyline properly wraps up in this sequel, its two volumes set to be released in January and March respectively. I have yet to hear any word on a potential English release of the 2009 one-shot “Aozora Chu-Ihō,” credited to the in-universe pseudonym of Ujiko-Ujio, but it might be contained in the latter of the two volumes here. Regardless, those who made it through the previous 22 volumes of Urasawa’s brilliant (if at times overly protracted) series will no doubt want to pick up this epilogue.

The Manara Library vol. 4: The Adventures of Giuseppe Bergman and The Manara Library vol. 5: More Adventures of Giuseppe Bergman (Dark Horse)

Dark Horse continue their publication of these nice hardcover collections of Manara comics in 2013, with volume 4 coming out at the end of February and volume 5 scheduled for May. I’m quite ambivalent about Manara in general, and readily confess to disliking most of his self-authored stuff (Jog’s scorched earth-style take on Manara’s erotic work here articulates my own feelings better than I ever could). Even his oft-praised depiction of the female form puts me off somewhat – why is it that women of all ethnicities, when created by Manara’s pencil, always end up looking like Italians with different skin tones? The two Manara comics that I do hold quite dear are The Ape (written by Silverio Piso and included in volume 3 of the library editions, the best so far) and the Giuseppe Bergman titles. Most of the latter stories seem to be collected in volumes 4 and 5, spanning chronologically from 1978′s HP e Giuseppe Bergman (featuring a loving caricature of Hugo Pratt) to 2004′s L’odissea di Bergman. The Bergman stories start out as clever deconstructions of the comics adventure genre, riffing on classic tropes and character archetypes, but in latter installments they increasingly take the form of trite euro-sleaze, as only Manara can produce it. The first of these two volumes, at least, should deserve a flip-through.

Review: Holy Motors

Trois! Douze! Merde! 

The above quote is from the film Holy Motors, specifically from the film’s intermission - essentially a short music video (inspired by OK Go’s now-classic This Too Shall Pass), in which the protagonist, Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), performs a cover of R. L. Burnside’s Let my Baby Ride on accordion while walking through a medieval church with an ever-expanding ragtag orchestra following behind him. In many ways this short scene is characteristic of the film as a whole, presenting as it does a number of different cultural influences filtered through the distinct lens of director Léos Carax, set in a very Parisian setting, and with the extremely charismatic Lavant as the ever-present guiding light, his unmistakable yet ever-changing face squarely in the center of the picture. And, of course, someone loudly yells “merde” in the middle of the scene.

What follows is a review of the film, if it is even possible to write an actual review of this crazy, beautiful, and incomprehensible piece of cinema. It is very hard to talk about Carax’ work without potentially spoiling parts of the experience, so really my main recommendation is this: Don’t read another word about Holy Motors. Don’t watch any trailers, teasers, or compilations. Just find a place that is showing it, and go watch it on the big screen. Then come back and read and talk about it all you want. Or maybe just ignore the chatter, and go watch the thing a second time instead. It is that good.

With the exception of a brief opening scene, involving an unnamed man waking up and walking into a movie theater in which an audience is watching the silent movie The Crowd, the film follows a single day in the life of the mysterious M. Oscar. He travels the streets of Paris in a white stretch limousine, with the chauffeur Céline (Édith Scob, of the 1960 French horror classic Les yeux sans visage) keeping him company and providing him with ongoing assignments from the Agency – ostensibly the organization behind all the charades, which is, of course, never explained fully or even partially. These assignments involves taking on the role of various characters and engaging in a wide range of activities, all centered around specific genres with their own tropes and narrative devices. Thus we see M. Oscar take the guise of a gangster, a female beggar, an elderly man on his deathbed, a down-on-his-luck dad, and even the bizzarre, subterranean creature of Merde (originally appearing in Carax’ segment of the anthology film Tokyo!). All of these different scenes (representing Oscar’s nine assignments) are seemingly independent from each other, tied together only by the presence of our protagonist. They are laced with cultural and cinematic references, subtly and not-so-subtly commenting on everything from the spectacle, beauty, and shallowness of the film industry to the nature of loneliness, identity, and life in modernity.

What little plot there is to be found in Holy Motors is more like a thin red thread, tying together the disparate scenes by way of M. Oscar’s itinerary. We do get glimpses into the world of the performer and the agency that employs him (including a visit from one of its shadowy producers and a run-in with a fellow actor, played by Kylie Minogue), but anyone looking for an actual coherent narrative in the film will be sorely disappointed. Rather, what is offered is a visual and theatrical spectacle; a sly commentary, which relies heavily on the interpretation of its audience; and, perhaps above all, a powerful performance by Lavant that is not soon to be forgotten.

Carax is a clever and talented director. His last outing was the 1999 shocker Pola X (based in part on Melville’s novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities), one of the pioneers of what has since become known as the New French Extremism, but Holy Motors is an altogether more realized and artistic film. It recalls some of the sadness and beauty of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (also starring Lavant), but leaves behind a lot of the painfully obvious influences of French New Wave, and of Goddard in particular, so visible in Cravax’ earlier work, replacing these with a much more direct and playful riffing on cinematic history, making this film in some ways the most mature piece from the filmmaker yet. In a 2009 interview with IndieWire’s Eric Hynes, Carax said that he was at once not a real filmmaker and the only filmmaker in the world:  ”I feel that cinema is my country. But it’s not my business. I haven’t worked enough, and I don’t get along with people enough to make it my business.” That cinema is his country and film his native language is absolutely clear when watching Holy Motors. Here is hoping that we will not have to wait another decade or more for his next feature-length work.

2013 Releases to Keep an Eye on, part I

I will return to reviewing new comics after the weekend, but for now here is an annotated list of releases slated for the first half of 2013, some of which might be of interest to you. I thought it would dovetail nicely with the best of 2012 post, and possibly function as a mild antidote to the general theme of incredibly stupid lists of random names that seem to dominate the world of, ahem, comics journalism this week. As the title indicates, this list is a work-in-progress.

David B., Black Paths (SelfMadeHero)

This book by David B. has been out for a while in Europe, including in an English language edition published in the UK. In March SelfMadeHero will publish it on US shores, giving readers here a chance to read the great and weird story of the Austro-Hungarian port city of Fiume, declared an independent free state in 1919 by dadaist, poet, and self-declared pirate king Gabriele d’Annunzio. The Free State of Fiume was an actual historical place, born out of the chaos and tumultuous political landscape of the end of the Great War, but filtered through the imaginative pen of David B. it turns into a surreal world of decadence and fantasy, becoming the scene of both horror and romance. Check out some brief samples here.

Guy Delisle, A User’s Guide to Neglectful Parenting (Drawn & Quarterly)

Set to be released in late June, this new title by the autobiographical comics journalist and travel writer Guy Delisle changes gears somewhat from his earlier writings, seemingly letting the exotic locales of most of his previous work take a backseat to the true task of a cartoon-drawing travel-along husband – neglectful parenting. There is sparse information available about the title, and I am not even sure if it has been published in a French edition yet, but it seems that the go-to translator of Delisle’s work (and that of number of other Francophile comics creators), Helge Dascher, will also tackle this one.

Jess Fink, We Can Fix It! (Top Shelf)

Jess Fink made a splash with the publication of her humorous and erotic webcomic Chester 5000 XYV last year. Now Top Shelf is putting out her second book, which looks to be a semi-autobiographical tale of time travel, regrets, and, I’m guessing, various sexy hijinks along the way. Fink is a talented and funny cartoonist, so this one should be well worth checking out. The release date is still unknown, but have a look at some samples at her site. And make sure to read Chester 5000, if you haven’t done so already. It is a hilarious piece of work, but beware – it contains several drawings of naked robots and humans engaged in coitus.

Shigeru Mizuki, Kitaro (Drawn & Quarterly)

As I alluded to in my list of the best comics of 2012, revered mangaka Shigeru Mizuki’s classic GeGeGe no Kitaro is at long last coming out in an English language release in early February. Originally begun in the early 1960s, Kitaro is the ongoing story of a young, one-eyed yōkai boy and his adventures with the supernatural and the mundane alike. A pioneer of the now-classic shōnen style of manga, this lighthearted adventure title has been greatly influential in Japan, spawning numerous adaptations, including both animated and live action movies (the latest one from 2007), and hopefully this 432-page volume will be but the first in a series of books about the lovely little monster.

Jacques Tardi, The Astonishing Exploits of Lucien Brindavoine (Fantagraphics)

There are quite a few Tardi books slated for 2013, but this June release is the one that has me the most excited. The first work entirely written and created by Tardi, Lucien Brindavoine is set in the same fantastical and trope-filled universe as Adèle Blanc-Sec, leading to an eventual crossover of sorts in the next Adèle volume, planned for 2014. This book is perhaps a slightly less mature piece than some of Tardi’s later self-authored work, but it is filled with a vibrancy and a dark humor that makes it a thing not to be missed, especially so for those who enjoy his amusing riffs on traditional genre pastiches, with a nice dose of violence and sarcasm thrown in. Besides the main treat, a story of the titular protagonist finding himself in the middle of geopolitical and financial power struggles in Istanbul, this book also offers the first chapter of a never-to-be-finished series, featuring Lucien fighting as a soldier in the trenches of the First World War.

Jacques Tardi and Jean-Pierre Verney, Goddamn This War! (Fantagraphics)

Most of you will probably be aware of this April release from Fantagraphics, following up as it does on the wildly successful It Was the War of the Trenches, released in English in 2010. I have been reading Tardi since I was a kid, mostly in Danish translations, but I am not familiar with this particular book, published in France only a few years ago. It looks very promising, and seems to be more of a single narrative spanning the entirety of the war, rather than the looser vignette-style format of the earlier book. Fantagraphics also promises to include an extensive section on the history of the war, including reproductions of photographs and historical documents, curated and written by historian and frequent Tardi-collaborator Jean-Pierre Verney.

Various, Ax vol. 2 (Top Shelf)

Ax, the great anthology of alternative manga that came out in 2010 from Top Shelf, finally gets a second volume. The release date is not yet publicized, but it seems likely to be sometime early in the year. The editors are once again Sean Michael Williams and Mitsuhiro Asakawa, both very talented editors who will no doubt present another thrilling collection of icky and enticing manga from the Japanese underground. In a US manga market that seems dominated by extremely long running shōnen action titles, the brevity, creativity, and vit of the pieces in anthologies such as this are much welcome, both as art and entertainment in their own right, and as a reminder that the Japanese comics scene is every bit as diverse as our own.

Various, Eros Gone Wild (Humanoids)

As far as raunchy European pseudo-pornographic comics go, this January release from Humanoids is going to be hard to beat. It is a large hardcover collection of the Fripons anthology of erotic comics, originally published as five volumes in French between 1990 and 1992. The contributors span wide, and include such luminaries as Annie Goetzinger, Enki Bilal, Philippe Druillet, Paul Gillon, and, of course, covers by Fred Beltran. Most of the strips seem to be short, humorous pieces with varying degrees of sleaze and craft. I can’t speak to the quality of the work, but for those who want samples, such can be had at the always informative Bedetheque website.

Wishful thinking addition:

Tom Spurgeon, Comics as Art: We Told You So (Fantagraphics)

Okay, so I don’t actually have any idea when this book, a comprehensive history of Fantagraphics, will be coming out, if ever. It’s been scheduled for release since 2006, and is now listed with a “release date TBA” on the publisher’s website. Regardless, since I really want to read the whole thing, and going by Karl Rove’s surprisingly postmodern thesis that “when we act, we create our own reality,” I’m going to include it on this list of 2013 releases. While you wait for Godot, you can go and read the first three chapters of the book here.

Best Comics of 2012

This is a list of, in no particular order, my personal picks of the best comic books coming out in 2012. The selection only reflect those titles that have not been released in English prior to this year, limiting the amount of reprinted material somewhat.* I realize that the internet is already flooded by lists such as this, and I harbor no pretensions of significance in my own selection. I do invite readers to comment as they see fit – I have not read even a fraction of the many titles hitting the shelves this past year, and I am sure that there are gems I have missed, overlooked, or otherwise wrongfully left out. 2012 was in my opinion a very strong year for comics, and we can only hope that the seemingly newfound creativity amongst independent creators continues to flourish, and that the efforts at translating and publishing foreign works, classic as well as contemporary, continues.

Chris Ware, Building Stories

Ware’s new project has been commented on all across both the comics and literary news circuit recently, and with good reason. Building Stories is an impressive exploration of the boundaries of the medium, with extreme care paid to everything from the interchangeable order of reading to the physical board game-like box itself. But formalistic experimentation alone does not a good comic make. Luckily the story told by Ware does not let the reader down, and while some parts of this quilted patchwork narrative veers close to feeling like excuses for toying with print and presentation, others are more thoroughly satisfying, and even provide something that is very rare indeed in a Chris Ware book – small glimpses of hope.

Glyn Dillon, The Nao of Brown

I reviewed Dillon’s first full-length graphic novel last week, and hence will not go into too much detail with it this time around. From the complexity and utterly charming personality of the titular character to the beautiful illustrations and colorful writing making up the story-within-a-story, this is a work that is bold, skillfully crafter, and has broad appeal. It deftly showcases the great skill of its creator, and is without a doubt a piece of visual storytelling that fully deserves the attention of a wider reading audience interested in literary fiction of any kind. Between this and other releases in the last year, UK publisher SelfMadeHero has thoroughly established itself as an important voice on the international comics scene.

Ryan Cecil Smith, SF #2

Ryan Cecil Smith is quite simply one of the most talented and exciting creators of self-published comic books today. His latest work, the sequel to last year’s SF #1, is no exception. It is the shortest book on the list, but is no less satisfying because of its brevity. This issue continues the tale of our hero Hupa Dupa, adopted by the Space Fleet Scientific Foundation Special Forces following the death of his parents at the hands of evil Space Pirates. The story is thrilling and fun, the art is perfectly in sync with the narrative, and there is nothing you want more after finishing an issue than get your hands on the next one. Or, even better, one of the magnificent sets of Supplementary Files.

Brandon Graham et al, Prophet volume 1: Remission

Another work of daring science-fiction, this ongoing title published by Image comics and written by Brandon Graham with a rotating cast of talented artists is a refreshing dose of honest-to-god craziness in the otherwise stale and repetitive world of mainstream serialized comics. It springs from a prior work created by Rob Liefeld, but the similarity between the two prophets is in name only. Graham’s is a thorough re-imagination, setting up a world and a character that allows for all sorts of fantastical and playful storytelling, fully utilizing the wide array of talents provided by artists such as Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Giannis Milogiannis. In this world of vicious space-critters and gentle cannibalism it is perfectly normal to mate with a vagina-faced alien before receiving one’s mission from it – just another day in the hectic life of John Prophet, seemingly a direct descendant of Conan the Cimmerian.

Charles Burns, The Hive

It might be a little unfair to include this book on the list, since it is so clearly the middle part of a longer volume – the second work in a planned trilogy published in the traditional European album format. But screw that, Burns’ work here is so electric, his line so bold, and his story so out there that it deserves a spot in any best-of list, or at least this one. The Hive sees the narrative move in still stranger directions visually, with the surreal and discomforting Burroughs-esque realm of Nitnit taking up more space, while at the same time the ties between reality and fantasy more clearly manifest themselves. Read it, but make sure to read X’ed Out first.

Chris Wright, Blacklung

As others have pointed out, Wright’s debut is a graphic novel in every sense of the word. It delivers the type of narrative that only sequential art can, with a clear understanding of when to write and when to let the expressive black-and-white illustrations speak for themselves. The style is at once charming and vicious, depicting the visceral violence in a way that feels almost unrelenting. It is, however, not a work of splatter punk or mindless gore, but rather an engaging, breathless, and humorous tale of the dregs of the sea, including a colorful assortment of pirates and madmen, quite clearly drawing inspiration from both Melville, Stevenson and Peckinpah.

Li Kunwu and Philippe Ôtié, A Chinese Life

Li’s autobiographical work, co-written with the French author and diplomat Philippe Ôtié, is sure to de a divisive work. It tells the story of a boy growing up during one of the most eventul and tragic periods of Chinese history, from his birth in 1955, a few years before the famines of the Great Leap Forward, through the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, and into the era of restructuring and reform following the death of Mao in 1976. Li is very much an insider of the political apparatus of Communist China, and he is unapologetic about his own participation in activities that might well come off as unappealing and unsettling to the readers, including the production and distribution of propaganda (he worked as a state artist for the Party for much of his career). This self-censored look inside the mind of professional propagandist is certainly part of the appeal of the book, which over its 700 pages paints a portrait of a complicated character and an important period of modern history. As Li puts it at the end of the book: “So yes, of course we are proud of what we’ve made, even if it’s not perfect yet.”

Shigeru Mizuki, Nonnonba

The publication of emminent mangaka Shigeru Mizuki’s work in English, begun with last year’s release of Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, continues with this book, a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in the Japanese countryside of the 1930s. The story is patient and subtle, weaving a funny and moving tapestry of childhood tragedies and folkloric myths, as Shige, our young protagonist, spends many of his days in the company of the titular grandma of the story, listening to her many tales of yōkai‬ and ‪yūrei‬, fantastic creatures who often impose themselves directly into the visual narrative of the comic. Shige begins to see the world around him the way NonNon does, even befriending a disheveled yōkai‬ at one point in the story, and in this way NoNonBa is the perfect bridge between Mizuki’s more realistic books and his more widely popular works of supernatural fiction, such as the great Kitaro (scheduled for a release in the US by Drawn & Quarterly in early 2013).

Joe Daly, Dungeon Quest book 3

The weird voyage of Millenium Boy, Steve, Lash, and Nerdgirl continues in the third volume of Daly’s magnificent stoner adventure. The riffing on classic roleplaying tropes is often hilarious, but the true comedic brilliance of the series lies in the way Daly writes the often drawn out pages of dialogue between the main characters. He manages to capture the way people talk in real life perfectly – especially after the consumption of copious amounts of weed and mushrooms. This book is twice the length of the previous volumes, delving into the history of the world through the clever use of hieroglyphic exposition and a book-within-the-book (Millenium Boy’s newest esoteric book, The Romish Book of the Dead), and introducing the new character of Lou. And of course, the homoerotic awkwardness and the uncomfortably realistic violence we have come to expect continues unabashedly.

Study Group Comics

Last but not least on the list is the new digital incarnation of Study Group – a great publisher of comic book anthologies and mini-comics, and an outlet for experimental sequential art and thoughtful criticism alike. The website is both a webcomic portal and a blog, with work on display by a large number of talented creators, including Zack Soto, Jennifer Parks, Farel Dalrymple, Kazimir Strzepek, and Aidan Koch. It presents a combination of ongoing titles, typically updated on a weekly or biweekly basis, and shorter one-offs, such as Tom Neely’s Doppelganger and Julia Gfrörer’s Black is the Color. As with any anthology project the quality of contributions varies  and the breadth of style and genre is so wide that not all of the content will appeal to all readers. Despite this multitude of perspectives the project retains a clear sense of cohesion, and comes off more as a carefully curated exhibition than a collection of randomly selected works.  With the notable dip in quality of the last volume of Kramers Ergot and the possible decline of print publications in general, a project like the Study Group website is even more exciting, and the open-ended creative space it offers readers and creators is a wonderful addition to and a shinning light for the future of comics.

* Some of the notable titles left out due to this criteria include Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind box set (Viz Media); Kevin Huizenga’s Gloriana (Drawn & Quaterly); Brandon Graham’s King City (Image); Jodorowsky and Janjetov’s Before the Incal (Humanoids); Brendan Leach’s The Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City (Top Shelf); Van Lente and Dunlavey’s The Comic Book History of Comics (IDW); and Gary Panter’s Dal Tokyo (Fantagraphics).