YOUR Best of 2007! Options

[Charlito]

Here are some that came in with great descriptions:

Cameron Chesney

Quality was so very high this year. Here's my Five:


5.) E.C. Segar's Popeye Volume 2 "Well Blow Me Down"
There will never be a comic reading experience for me that comes close to reading all of Segar's Popeye.
It is a beautifully designed book too. I just couldn't not put it in my five.


4.) Need More Love by Aline Kominsky Crumb
Aline gets an undeserved bad rap a lot of the time (as does Sophie) This book excited me about comics and living a life in comics,
like hardly any other I have ever read. Lots of great strips, photos and general inspirations.
Jennifer LOVES it too!


3.) I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets by Fletcher Hanks (edited by Paul Karasik)
I remember posting about this book on the ISR Forum listing it as part of my "haul" from a weekend trip to Seattle. It had just come out.
I think I'm most amazed that these stories even exist. I had No idea.... I still flip through this book all the time. Anybody who has interest in comics
should look at these strips.


2.) Sundays With Walt and Skeezix by Frank King
The closest I have ever come to crying from just opening a book. I get misty thinking about it...


1.) The Acme Novelty Library #18 by Chris Ware


Bruce Stewart

1.Robot Dreams - Sara Varon / 1st Second – my daughter’s first “read.”

Postcards: True Stories that never Happened Anthology -

A little thing called The Awesome Anthology – what an achievement and what great contributions.

SuperSpy by Matt Kindt – transports you in time.

The Babysitter's club - Mary Anne Saves The Day - Raina Telgemeier – I *LOVE* her brush/line work and her “cartooning” truly an art – delineating a character’s personality and emotion at *every* given moment in the panels.


Alex Robinson


THE SALON by Nick Bertozzi. A clever story set in 1907 Paris, where a collection of real life artists and writers (Picasso, Stein, Mattisse, etc) try to solve a string of supernatural murders. Fun and educational!

THE SAGA OF THE BLOODY BENDERS by Rick Geary. Speaking of fun and educational, Geary's latest "Treasury of Victorian Murder" tells a true story of murder on the plains.

SHORTCOMINGS by Adrian Tomine. Frustrating depiction of the bitter end of a relationship.

MISERY LOVES COMEDY by Ivan Brunetti collects his early classic issues of SCHIZO which are the funniest, most bitter comics produced by human kind. It's like getting punched in the face fifty-six times in a row!

STOP FORGETTING TO REMEMBER by Peter Kuper. An anthology of his autobio strips, remastered into a longer, cohesive narrative in which he deals with the idea of growing up and becoming a father.


Renee French

there is one book from 07 that i carry around with me everywhere. it's in my bag since i picked it up in san diego from the picturebox table. it's called UTILITY SKETCHBOOK, and it's genius.

http://www.pictureboxinc.com/product/id/20/

Spring 07
Softcover
64 pages, b&w
3" x 4"
$6.57

+ CART
This anonymous book is the product of a lone late 1990's genius from Providence RI, and it channels all that scene's energy into comedy gold. 64 pages of hilarious cartoons about dogs, people, money, and fashion. This is like Bloom County for peace punks. Not to be underestimated.

dogs, providence, paper rodeo

2. I'm way queer for Warren Craghead and he's got a book out called HOW TO BE EVERYWHERE and i know it's limited edition and i think you've gotta go to his site to get it or his gallery but it's worth it. at least check out his website wcraghead.com and look at his blog and his other stuff.

3. dylan williams's REPORTER #6 from Sparkplug!!! i looove the whole series and there's nothing else like it.

4. HOUSE by little Joshy Simmons.

5. INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS by jeffy brown. yeah, i know it's on other people's lists too but so?

there were so many good things out in 07 though so this sucks.

Jon Adams

Okay, here are my top books of 2007. This may seem a little incestuous (ooh la la!), but these are the only new books I read last year. (At least as far as I can remember – if I were at home I could take a look and see if I'm forgetting something.)

1. Truth Serum: The Lonely Parade
If you make it your #1 I'll hire a drifter to give you a reach-around.

2. Awesome: The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology
And not just because I was involved in it, either. It was seriously a great anthology – something that many anthologies fail at. You guys should submit it to the Eisners. Or Ryan should, or whoever.

3. Robert Goodin's Mini Comics - Cuz he has nice facial hair and draws better than anyone else, ever. (ok Charlitohttp://www.thecomicforums.com/forum2//index.php?showtopic=123571&pid=720264&st=30&#
Complete Edit wrote that last part cuz I'm in China and can't get on the forums, so I asked him to add Robert Goodin. )

I also read a Chris ware book (but it was nothing exceptional, by his standards), and I read Previews every month, but that probably doesn't count.

This post has been edited by ghost-lito: Jan 8 2008, 01:51 AM

[dbm]

Here are some off the top of my head:

King City - I think this was 2007; just awesome.

Multiple Warheads - Another Brandon Graham comic, just as good as King City (maybe better, time will tell)

Wasteland - I really got into this one.

Borrowed Time - Ditto, can't wait to see where this one is going.

Nocturnals HC - just cuz it's so pretty

[Chris Schweizer]

My winners for this year are...

1. The Art of Bone. This series is probably more of an influence to the current burgeoning crop of cartoonists than any other comics out there, and it's no surprise. This book is as good a companion as one could hope, including early sketches, etc. I've grown fond of Steve's coloring; I was rabidly anti-colorized Bone because I thought that the first couple of chapters of the first book were poorly done (and still think that) because of the obvious computer effects - blurring the mountain in the background of the first panel, using a fuzz brush to add snowflakes to the second chapter, etc... I just thought that it really detracted from the superb art. Anyway, the first few pages were, naturally, the first pages I saw, and thus I wrote off the color version almost immediately. The art of Bone showcases how good Steve's colors are in conjunction with Jeff's art. I still hope that if the books are ever reissued again (maybe as a three book big box set, the size of the "art of" book... here's hoping!) that those heavily computerized effects will be toned down/eliminated - coloring the linework of the back mountain would be just as effective in designating it to a background plane without being nearly as distracting - etc. zAnyway, i loved this book, and it finally sold me on the coloring.

2. Superspy. Matt Kindt is an extremely personable guy, but I tried to read Pistolwhip and just didn't like the aesthetic at all. It wasn't until I heard the interview on ISR (one of the reasons why I think that you guys should always stay heavy on the interviews - it's the main reason that I listen, and it does a great job of tweaking my interest in new stuff) that I thought I'd give his new stuff a try. I picked up Two Sisters and Superspy the same day, and while I thought that Two Sisters was very good, Superspy was on a whole different level from anything I'd seen from kindt previously. Not to say the earlier stuff isn't good (I've since gone back and reread/read the Pistolwhip stuff), it was just a little harder to get into. But I jumped into Superspy headfirst, and it was one of the best comics I've read in a long time (and I've read a LOT lately). It felt like something between the old EC war comics and really good twist-ending short stories (I found myself remembering old Roald Dahl stories, the ones that probably ended up as episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents). Really, really good, especially if you like spies, which of course I do.

3. The Salon. Nick Bertozzi is a genius, and his Picasso is one of my favorite characters ever. He is beyond hilarious.



I'm gonna include two others later... many of my favorite books from this year (Mourning Star, Tiempos Finales, etc) came out before it ever started, I was just late in getting to them. Remember, I'm new to the scene -- SPX '06 was the first show I ever went to, and it's where I discovered a lot of the comics that I now love -- so many comics that are new to me are old news to other folk.



This post has been edited by Chris Schweizer: Jan 8 2008, 05:26 AM

[Rickey]

Okay, also not 100 percent sure what I read came from what year... But of what I know:
THE AVIARY is just a gorgeous book. It's that combination of funny and heartbreaking and just done so simply and masterfully.
SHORTCOMINGS, don't know if this counts since it was a collection of earlier Optic Nerves, but the story is just about one of my favorites period. It was nice to see a book that dealt one hundred percent in people's lives without dipping into the fantastic or absurd or even remotely extreme, just real solidly weak people living their lives.
And then there's PHASE 7 #011 because it's the Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets of comics, it makes you want to be a better cartoonist.
Oh yeah, and don't forget about Victims at the End of the World... Um... Yeah... FANTASTIC book...
(okay, I had to say that... the guy who made it gives me hand-jobs)

This post has been edited by Rickey: Jan 8 2008, 07:41 AM

[Bryan Deemer]

Here are mine:

The Killer (ASP)
Tales From the Farm (Top Shelf)
Professor's Daughter (First Second)
Nightly News (Image)
Super Spy (Top Shelf)

Bry

[CayceParkaboy]

Archaia Press's The Killer by Matz & Luc Jacamon. I'm not sure if this counts because it is being reprinted in the US for the first time this year after originally being published in France.

the Tiki

Thanks for the shout out to The Killer. Translating that (and going over Matz's own translations) has taught me a bunch about keeping dialogue terse and concise or, rather, keepin' it in the balloon!

TOTALLY top of my head, and in no order:

Sundays, the CCS anthology (CCS)
Tom Kaczynski's Cartoon Dialectics (self mini)
Gipi's Notes for a War Story (:01)
Nicholas Gurewitch's The Trial of Colonel Sweeto (DH)
Cathy Malkasian's Percy Gloom (Fanta)

the stuff I saw at SPX from Eleanor Davis and Drew Weing, but especially Eleanor Davis, though I can't remember which stuff actually came out this year
Jury's still out on whether Ellis delivers in Sleepless...

and Awesome (of course). GB, you rock.
as long as I'm plugging, I rather liked these two short pieces--one an excerpt and one complete--I translated for Words Without Borders, for any lovers of Eurocomics out there:

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?lab=Thepharoahs
http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?lab=Abombinthefamily

The first is by Ruppert and Mulot, the crazy Belgians Bart Beaty has amply covered, and the second is by David B., for any Epileptic fans out there
And as long as I'm on magazines, I always love Ben Katchor's back pagers for Metropolis.

apologies to everyone I've offended by, well, not digging deeper than the top of my head.

This post has been edited by CayceParkaboy: Jan 8 2008, 03:02 PM

[Chris Schweizer]

A surprise for me this year was the Journal Comics of Kevin Burkhalkter. There are very few Journal comics that I really like/read - Lucy Knisely, Drew Weing, and the first big book's worth of Kochalkas', before he started putting them online - but I sure do like Kevin's. They're touching and funny and insightful, and he captures likenesses better than just about anybody, with a real simplicity.

Other minis that rocked my world:

The Fluke anthology. Man, oh, man. My favorite pieces in it were Joe Lambert's "have to poop" story, Drew's "Aesthetic detective," Chris Wright's amazing mythology tale... was Matt Bernier's Scuba archeologist in Fluke or Awesome?

Sarah O's Ivy. Wow!

Jeremy Tinder's mini stuff from top shelf.

[Adam McGovern]

1. Ian Harker’s “Oslo 2” minicomic: Discussing its own pretensions is indie culture’s last taboo, and with his hilariously insufferable self-declared celebrity (and art-comics alter-ego) “Mr. Asshole,” Harker crosses the line.

2. Steve Price’s “Karmikaze, Princess of Payback” minicomics: Ten groaning, glorious puns and one symmetrical slapstick plot contrivance per page -- not just smartass, brilliantass.

3. Geoff Grogan’s “Nice Work, Part One” GN: The prehistory of our celebrity dystopia is unearthed in this Rat Pack period piece about an apocryphal Sinatra stand-in, in which the star’s presence is felt in everything but his actual personality scarcely shows up. With enough real-life mob/CIA/Hollywood glamour and intrigue to fill an endless movie the book’s doomed wannabes can’t get out of.

4. Warren Ellis and Ivan Rodriguez’s “Doktor Sleepless” series from Avatar: A siren-symphony of cybereality. Only to read it is to maybe describe it.

5. Lilli Carre’s “The Thing About Madeline” minicomic: First spotted at SPX 2007, which may have been the year it came out; in any case she’s no doubt advancing comics to a new evolutionary stage as we speak. This one was an eloquent second opinion on the “Shatterday”-like modern fable of meeting yourself in a dark alley or overlit garden and what you could and couldn’t say to you, even given the chance.

Lining up for next year-end’s list: Grogan’s Xeric-winning “Look Out! Monsters”; Ape’s “Fablewood” anthology (if you missed Joe Infurnari’s small-printrun “Mandala” collected therein, don’t miss it again); Evil Twin’s “Comic Book Comics” and “Action Presidents”; anything by Eleanor Davis; Image’s “Next Issue Project” if there’s ever a first one.

Have a nice 366 days,
Adam
www.indieinkstudios.com

[Charlito]

Wow! Everyone this is great!
And our email box is flooded with a TON of more best of's.

Exciting to see what makes top 10.

[BillDoughty]

I emailed my picks, but I'll copy 'em here, too, just in case:

1. The Professor's Daughter - There may have been books that were technically better in 2007, but for the sheer enjoyment this brought to me, nothing topped this in my eyes. A screwball comedy/romance featuring a mummy, a proper Victorian lady, and page after page of hilarious accidental deaths? Sign me up.

2. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together - Possibly my favorite volume of the series so far... all the hallmarks we've come to expect, but mixed in with some actual character development and - gasp! - emotional growth on Scott's part. Plus, more Kim Pine. Kim Pine is awesome, and gave me my favorite comic book quote of last year - "Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face."

3. I Will Destroy All Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks - Hanks was a madman, and somehow found a way to break all the rules before there were even any rules to break. Plus, he invented lumberjack comics. How did that genre never take off?

4. Johnny Hiro - I'm not sure how you can pull off "heartwarming" in stories that also involve giant monsters and Jeffrey Steingarten, but the man did it here.

5. Adrian Tomine's Misanthropic Bastard Funnies, A.K.A. Shortcomings - Though it took him three friggin' years to complete the story, it was probably worth the wait in the end. Remember, kids, just because he's the protagonist doesn't mean he can't also be completely loathsome!

[Jeff Chapman]

Kim Pine is awesome, and gave me my favorite comic book quote of last year - "Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face."

Seriously! That is classic, classic Scott Pilgrim. I have such a man-crush on O'Malley. Canadians=brilliant.

jeff

[fred chao]

5. Lilli Carre’s “The Thing About Madeline” minicomic: First spotted at SPX 2007, which may have been the year it came out; in any case she’s no doubt advancing comics to a new evolutionary stage as we speak. This one was an eloquent second opinion on the “Shatterday”-like modern fable of meeting yourself in a dark alley or overlit garden and what you could and couldn’t say to you, even given the chance.

Dude! I didn't know this existed! Lilli Carre's little gem of a book, Tales of Woodsman Pete, is one of my favorite little comics ever. It's got so much wonderful charm. Can't wait to see this new one!

[BillDoughty]

You know what I can't believe I forgot to list? Sugarshock. Gorgeous artwork by Fabio Moon, the funniest story Joss Whedon has written to date, and it was cheap as free thanks to our beloved information superhighway system of tubes. It was kind of perfect, really.

[neenjah]

Well, besides the fact that I'm totally biased I'd have to say that Utopiates is definately on my list.

-Kat

Like Kat I'm a bit biased and would vote for BT just because it fianally got distributed, met some great new friends, we had some successful convention trips in '07, and the creative team are just good folks.

But, if I'm going to pick 5 things, here goes-

Best ongoing series- Buffy:Season 8

Best Comeback- Nexus

Best Art Book- Steve Rude: Artist In Motion hardback

Best Collected/Trade- Mousegaurd hardback

Best Anthology- AWESOME!

[AzizBawany]

Top Five

1. Scott Pilgrim Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together- While not the most hilarious, Scott Pilgrim vol 4 carries the most emotion and weight of the series. The characters have much more weight added to them and Bryan Lee O'Malley really captures the transition from immaturity to adulthood well in the character of Scott Pilgrim. (oni press)

2. Bookhunter- This was a real surprise. The book blends day to day library procedure with the likes of John Woo's hardboiled for a rather hilarious outcome. As a former library employee I got such a kick out of reading this story and if you're a fan of detective stories or action, you'll definitely enjoy Bookhunter. (Sparkplug comics)

3. The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and other stories- This collection of comic strips stood out to me because of it's candy land-like cover and affordable price. I didn't know what I was getting into and was relatively surprised and disturb at the hilarious comics. Definitely a great buy for the price and content (Dark Horse Comics)

4. Midnight Sun- Another comic whose cover stood out. It's a rather simple story that is loosely based on an historical event. The art is clean and the story is tense. I only wish it succeeded in the direct market because the disappearing like it did probably hurt the collected editions release. (Slave Labor Graphics)

5. Zombies Calling- My number 5 was hard to choose, but it's a great story none the less. The idea of consciously using Zombie movie conventions to combat zombies is hilarious and while I'm not a fan of many horror films, I thought this book did a great job balancing humour and action. (Slave Labor Graphics)

This was way too hard to choose.

[alisterblake]

My home internet connection has been out since Christmas, and I only have sporadic access right now, so I'm posting fast and dirty like a drive by:

5. Alias the Cat by Kim Deitch
4. House by Josh Simmons
3. The Aviary by Jamie Tanner
2. Super Spy by Matt Kindt

and

1. Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds - this is an amazing piece of work, subtle, funny and poignant. Simmonds has an amazing ear for realistic yet interesting dialogue, and she may just be the best cartoonist currently working in the English-speaking market. Absolutely brilliant.

[SuenteusPo]

Hey Everyone,

I know I said there was a deadline, but we had to cancel recording the show, cuz The Phranques father got very sick. He's doing ok now, but it was a very rough weekend for him. So we rescheduled.

WHICH MEANS!!

Time for more Best ofs! keep'em coming. I've gotten a TON of nominations.

Narrowing it down is tough.. but ok. And I know my tastes run mainstream, so don't laugh

#1 The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson
#2 The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
#3 The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
#4 Doktor Sleepless by Warren Ellis and Ivan Rodriguez
#5 Last Blood by Bobby Crosby and Owen Gieni

This is just based on pure enjoyment factor, and that the only limitation is "no Marvel or DC" -- but part of me thinks The Boys and Walking Dead shouldn't even be counted because they're so mainstream.

The others on my list that could just as easily have made the list depending on my mood:

Mouseguard: Winter 1152 by David Petersen
Bad Planet by Thomas Jane, Steve Niles, Lewis Larosa and Tim Bradstreet
The Chronicles Of Wormwood by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows
The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá
Lackluster World by Eric Adams
Under The Midnight Sun by Dusty Neal and Christopher Studabaker
Walk-In by Dave Stewart, Jeff Parker and Ashish Padlekar


This post has been edited by SuenteusPo: Jan 10 2008, 11:43 PM

[Z. Bill]

I'm late! But I'll add my top five, not in order:

1)Lost Colony, Book Two: The Red Menace by Grady Klein (First Second)

2)Silverfish by David Lapham (DC)
-It happens to be published by DC, but Lapham's been pretty indy over the years

3)The Aviary by Jamie Tanner (Adhouse)

4)Gutsville by Simon Spurrier and Frazer Irving (Image)
-This one is two issues in and completely blowing me away. It's about a city in the belly of a fish.

5)Sock Monkey: The Inches Incident by Tony Millionaire (Dark Horse)


2007 was also the year I got back in touch with my childhood, namely through Dark Horse's Conan run, and DC's Jack Kirby's Fourth World reprints (I went back to the source, the King). It's weird, I find myself looking through the Big Two's section of the store now, where I used to avoid it like the plague.

This post has been edited by Z. Bill: Jan 13 2008, 08:17 PM

[Jeff Chapman]

You know what I can't believe I forgot to list? Sugarshock. Gorgeous artwork by Fabio Moon, the funniest story Joss Whedon has written to date, and it was cheap as free thanks to our beloved information superhighway system of tubes. It was kind of perfect, really.

Library Boy, I went and checked out Sugarshock, on your recommendation. Pretty cool. Fun dialogue. Great art. Man are Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba good! It reminds me of all that I like in Becky Cloonan (without the unfollowable (IMO) plot of American Virgin). Thanks!

On the recommendation of many, I finally got around to reading Laika. I thought it was good, but I wouldn't have considered it a really great or important book. I really like how it situates its fiction at a significant historical moment and asks us to question at what cost we progress. But. It just fell short of the pull that I wanted it to have. I'm totally into comics that strive to be significant literature, but this doesn't quite get there. Perhaps it's trying to hard to move us in a certain direction? I like the subtlety of the final moment, say, in Gipi's Notes From a War Story, when the headless vision is explicated.

Still, I did enjoy Laika a lot. Like most First Second books, it was an excellent work.

cheers,

jeff

[Rickey]

I'm really happy to see The Aviary making so many lists.
It's just a very cool book.
Can't wait for this episode!!!