AJ

TOP TEN COMICS OF 2019

Panel border that always works (?): twisty telephone cord

Edward Hannigan / John Beatty / Richard Lewis from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight No.1 (1989)

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

My review of Graham Chaffee’s “To Have and To Hold” is up on the Comics Journal today: http://www.tcj.com/reviews/to-have-to-hold/

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

Al Williamson / Carlos Garzone, colors by Glynis Wein from “Star Wars #39” (1980)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi from “Black Blizzard” (1956)

John Stanley from “Nancy and Oona Goosepimple’s Fireplace” (1959)

Milo Manara from “The Snowman” (1978)

Matt Smith, colors by Nathan Fairbarn from “Lake of Fire” #5 (2016)

Liam Cobb from “Slow Drift” (2017)

Junji Ito from “Frankenstein” (1994)

Top: Moebius, July 1978 issue of Heavy Metal

The Comics Journal published my top 5 comics of 2018 with all their other contributers: http://www.tcj.com/the-best-comics-of-2018/

1. Grip by Lale Westvind (Acceptable Press)

The easiest choice for best comic of the year I can remember ever making. I read it so many times it's already looking beat up.  It's so beautiful and fun and immediate that I experience it more like listening to music I love than a comic I love.

2. The Weaver Festival Phenomenon by Ron Rege (self-published)

This was a revelation in that the various techniques and ideas and Rege has been building up over the years as part of his personal, idiosyncratic lexicon are deployed here in a way where it all seems to comes together for the purpose of telling this story. As if he had been training for this big event.

3. Shit Is Real by Aisha Franz (Drawn & Quarterly)

Franz is great at communicating emotional state through dream sequences and hallucinations which allows for big emotions and maximum creative cartooning and allows her to avoid depending on dialog too much, but it still stays focused and feels tightly crafted. And the indignities of the near future depicted here are funny and spot-on, like a laundromat that requires a membership number that you don't have.

4. Prison Pit #6 by Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics)

The series wraps up by narrowing its focus and doing just a few things over and over repeatedly with near endless variation.  This is peak narrow-band creativity in the same way that Gucci Mane was in the late 00's where he was wasn't rapping about more than three or four things across hundreds of songs, but was getting more out of those three of four things than you would ever think possible.

5. Lost in The Fun Zone by Leif Goldberg (2dcloud)

Panel that always works: silhouette in a snowstorm

Al Williamson / Carlos Garzone, colors by Glynis Wein from “Star Wars #39” (1980)

Yoshihiro Tatsumi from “Black Blizzard” (1956)

John Stanley from “Nancy and Oona Goosepimple’s Fireplace” (1959)

Milo Manara from “The Snowman” (1978)

Matt Smith, colors by Nathan Fairbarn from “Lake of Fire” #5 (2016)

Liam Cobb from “Slow Drift” (2017)

Top: “High Sierra” (1941)

“The Weaver Festival Phenomenon” by Ron Rege

TOP 5 COMICS OF 2017

Graham Chafee - To Have and To Hold Great story, great character driven plot, sad sack heist gone wrong with tropes all inverted but not in a lame we’re-messing-with-your expectations type of way, more that these characters are actually real living breathing people not plot devices.  It’s so much better than any other crime comic published elsewhere.

Los Bros - L&R #4 Teenage maggie & hoppey ride again!  God is great!  Maggie's facial expressions in any given panel in this comic are better than the total of what most other good artists accomplish in their entire careers.

Jacque Tardi - Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge There was a gap there between Tardi books that was a little too long for comfort, but the wait was worth it.  Really great to compare this to his Manchete adaptations.  The scene where they go to movies was one of three great going-to-the-movies scenes this year along with Crickets #6 and Anti-Gone.

Deforge - Placeholders This was political in a way that was not didactic or superficial.  And the silk screen format complimented the inky goopy parts of his drawing. This is a perfect example of a comic which other artists can try and borrow style from, but there is so much more depth then just the style of the drawings.

Yuichi Yokoyama - Iceland The loudest comic I've ever read.

“Architecture of an Atom” by Juliacks (2017)

1. Rob Clough described Juliacks’ style of comics as the “immersive school” with fellow practitioners Austin English, Theo Ellsworth, Dunja Jankovic, and Olga Volozova.  Of that group Austin English is the closest to what Juliacks is doing where traditional narrative is deprioritized over various compositional elements that are more common to gallery art than print publications.  I find that I like Juliack’s work more than Austin English’s, but why is that?  Is there something about the ideas in their art, the way they use narrative, or just the formal aspects of their compositions?  Is it a superficial if it’s just because I find the pages more attractive?  

2.There are several two page spreads that have text that spans the two pages and gets lost in the binding gutter.  This reads as an indication that a bound comic was not the first format some of the art was created for - which we know to be true.  Does this say more about the priority of the narrative or the priority of exhibition vs publication?

3. “Architecture of an Atom” scans like an exhibition catalog, which isn’t surprising based on the construction and context.  The all white and all black pages in the final third of the book enforce this similarity.  How does this sense of the book impact the narrative?