No “for your consideration” ads. No campaigning and shilling. No wooing of voters. No live TV coverage of the nominations. No betting or office pools. No red carpet. No Joan Rivers. No lavish, multimillion-dollar broadcast. No ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY covers. Movies and music and television get all that and more when their annual award shows celebrate the cream of the crop.
But when it comes to graphic storytelling, all it gets is an anthology in the venerable BEST AMERICAN SERIES. And for now, that’s enough — it can all be a secret among us cool kids. This year, Lynda Barry edits THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2008, and she does a surprisingly great job pickin’ ‘em.
Unlike the previous editions edited by Harvey Pekar and Chris Ware, Barry illustrates her introduction — how novel! — in which she recalls her childhood fascination with comics, starting with Bil Keane’s The Family Circus and the horrors of seeing the grandmother with floppy breasts in the silly strips of PLAYBOY. I’ve always admired Barry’s style — if not exactly sought it out — from my days growing up, watching her dry, late-night appearances on David Letterman.
Like the previous editions, this one’s arranged alphabetically by author. However, I’d like to think it would’ve started off with Graham Annable’s “Burden,” no matter what. This piece, about a man tying up his deceased brother’s loose ends — which includes making amends — is an absolute stunner. When I reached the end, I was floored.
Martin Cendreda’s “Hopscotch” is a charming, wordless adventure had by two big-city homeless kids who crawl out of a Dumpster in the dead of night to turn a bunch of cardboard boxes into their own playground. The artist known as Derf provides five pages of his The City strip, full of bizarro characters — some based on real people — and the strange things they say and do.
A section of Rick Geary’s true-crime comic THE SAGA OF THE BLOODY BENDERS appears, as do a handful of Matt Groening’s Life in Hell strips, all focused on the youthful rabbits Abe and Will. On one hand, it’s good to see that Life in Hell hasn’t changed much over the decades; on the other hand, it feels like it’s telling the same jokes it did 20 years ago.
“Mammology” is Eric Haven’s surreal dream sequence spanning 65 million years, involving dinosaurs, hot sauce, a couch potato, a monster, a superhero called The Mongoose and, yes, Sleestaks. Kaz earns one of the collection’s biggest laughs with a one-pager called “Home Schooling,” in which a boy counts the dead guys in his house, and then his sword-brandishing father says, “Now I’ll teach you about fractions.”
From the pages of LOVE AND ROCKETS comes Jaime Hernandez’s “Gold Diggers of 1969,” a bittersweet tale of a somewhat unwanted — or at least emotionally neglected — little girl, her pregnant mom and her absentee father. As is typical of his work, there’s as many smiles as there are sobs.
Michael Kupperman takes a pictures-only approach in “Cousin Granpa,” depicting a battle between a werewolf and a flower, in his usual non-sequitur style. In Evan Larson’s “Cupid’s Day Off,” Cupid’s assistant Shelly goes nuts with her employer’s bow and arrow on his vacation day, resulting in much fornication. It’s funny and cute, and to think it’s the same guy who warps my kids’ brains in their NICKELODEON magazine.
Speaking of kids, in “The Forbidden Zone,” Kevin Pyle cleverly juxtaposes children’s outdoor war games with scenes from the real deal. Befitting, neither end happily. Chris Ware is represented by four startlingly good covers from THE NEW YORKER, and finally, Gene Luen Yang succeeds in conveying the lonely life of being the new Chinese boy in a school of whites.
Other entries — Alison Bechdel and Seth are among the more recognizable names included — tackle such varying subjects as the war in Iraq, wacko artists, barflies, rock ‘n’ roll turtles, teenagers in love and the ever-fragile relationship between monkeys and crabs.
Past editions have been criticized for not including anything by the big boys at Marvel and DC. That’s a valid point, only this time, Barry wanted to. In fact, she wanted to present an excerpt from Paul Pope’s rightfully acclaimed BATMAN: YEAR 100 … and DC wouldn’t let her. Barry calls it “a stone cold drag”; I call it an absolutely boneheaded business decision, for several reasons:
• It would have been just an excerpt, guys, not the whole thing, thereby whetting the appetite and thus, selling more copies.
• Its inclusion would have attracted eyes not used to indie and alt-comics, who would then see the wealth of other material that awaits them, thereby increasing the exposure of everyone involved.
• It just makes DC look petty, more about commerce than creativity.
And this book is full of creativity. You owe it to yourself to support it. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2006 edited by Harvey Pekar
• THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2007 edited by Chris Ware
Related posts:
- The Best American Comics 2007
- The Best American Comics 2006
- Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form
- Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics
- Year’s Best Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga
