Heidi would know more about this than me but it seems that the mainstream press only covers the superhero genre when a major character dies or gets married or something, and with good reason; those characters are cultural icons while the stories they inhabit are niche and fan-focused.

So I don’t think the great books are drowning in a sea of superhero press but I would posit that the great superhero books go unnoticed in the sea of literary press. I would also posit that some of the truly great non-genre works like those I listed above go unnoticed regardless of what Marvel and DC do that year, and that critics should seek them out before they declare the year a creative wash.

One might think that, yeah, Marvel and DC are publishing loads of garbage, but it’s a free market, and they’re essential to the industry, and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway — but the situation is getting worse. “Secret Invasion” was a disaster in terms of the plotting in the main miniseries, in the editorial coordination of the tie-ins — I can’t think of a single good thing to say about it. But there Marvel is, basing yet another event on SI, when SI should never have been published. Perhaps there isn’t anything one person can do about the overall situation, but ignoring it won’t do any good.

As Grant noted, there are good comics being published, but they could be considered jewels buried in a mass of (expletive deleted).

SRS

Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw (wildly praised, for good reason)
Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki (widely praised)
Me and the Devil Blues by Akira Hiramoto (widely overlooked)

and for good measure I’ll throw in Alan’s War The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emanuel Guilbert and Breakdowns by Art Speigelman. And I could list many more titles.

Obviously best of lists don’t tell the whole story but its hard to say that 2008 was just as good a year as any recent year for good comics.

I was looking at my bookshelf to jog my memory of the best comics of the year and realized I can’t comment because there’s so many I haven’t read yet! Which got me thinking, how can anyone say that no good art was released when there’s no way you could have read the entire output of art that was released? Making such a grand statement is ridiculous. Would we ever get away with saying, “Only two good CDs were released this year”? Of course not because you didn’t listen to all the self-produced music, the online-only music, the major-label-yet-somehow-overlooked music.

I finally had time this weekend to go through my haul of mini-comics from MoCCA. Have any of these best-of-list writers seen Michel Gondry’s comic? Or the latest installment of Mark McMurray’s awesome “Dumb Jersey White Boy”? Or any of the 2008 comics from Will Dinski, Robert Goodin, Dave Roman, or Matt Kindt? I’m not saying Grant should like those or even that he should read them, but that the fact of his not seeing them (and everything else that came out this year) invalidates his statement.

And I still think he and the other naysayers are suffering from genre blindness. Comics are awesome.

I’m officially shutting up now.

I did not know that!

Nice trivia.

Instead, producer-director Robert Aldrich wrote Lopez character Jiminez out of the climax by having the character died off screen with a broken neck during the parachute jump, went back and added an insert scene during the rope climbing sequence which foreshadowed the possibility someone might get killed during the jump, then cut Lopez out of the rest of the picture as much as possible.

As Tina Turner said in an entirely different picture: “Break a deal, take a spin on the wheel.”

Shouldn’t it be called Luminal Affective Disorder then? It apparently has nothing to do with the seasons (even though I know the relation of sunlight to winter time. The disorder itself isn’t dependent upon what season it is.)

“can a person get Seasonal Affective Disorder when they live in Vegas?”

Yes. SAD is a result of a lack of ultraviolet light reaching the retina. People who spend too much time indoors, or who work the midnight shift, can suffer from the effects of SAD at any time of the year.

The ultraviolet light strikes the retina, is transferred to the Pineal Gland, which then stimulates the body’s metabolism, thus making people more energetic and in a better mood.

And Jeet Heer’s reviews are at the level of my favorite long pieces in the NY Review of Books or the NYT Book Review.

If you only look at casual blogger reviews that are rushed and often not edited then yes, you’ll see a dearth of quality criticism, but if you look at the reviewers who take the art form of criticism seriously you’ll see comics criticism has a lot to offer.

Also, on the subject of the lack of good books this year, I wonder if the “Ten Best” list writers are suffering from genre blindness. If you’re only thinking over the literary darling books and none of them appealed to you then you’re right to feel dreary. But the major genre publishers (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc.) put out such a huge volume of work each year and a percentage of it is always of high literary quality. I feel that books like “Runaways” and “Cairo” and “DMZ” and the odd superhero one-shot or story arc are often unfairly overlooked in this kind of critical overview.

To disagree with this mildly:

1. A minor point — The Dresden Files is not mystery, but urban fantasy. And the next one probably won’t do as well, since it’ll be an adaptation of an existing novel, not a new comics-only work in a bestselling franchise.

2. The real point — I think we’re going to get as many Posy Simmonds books as Simmonds manages to produce, given her available time, interest and inspiration. Even if TAMARA DREWE had kicked WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE’s sales ass up and down the charts, I doubt it would make Simmonds produce any faster than she does. And her books seem to do well enough to keep her doing them as long as she wants. That’s not dreary, no matter how much other stuff there is out there.

But on that note — when is some enterprising publisher of finer graphic entertainment going to do a comprehensive reprinting of Simmonds’ longrunning 1980s strip from The Guardian? I have one of the collections, and it’s great stuff, but the reprint is incomplete and choppy. We need the whole thing! Fantagraphics, D & Q, I’m looking at you…!

kdb

how many more watchmen books do i need? well, I need a few more, but thats it!

lol…there are really so many wonderful books out there and part of the fun is the search and recommendations of the people here.

I write them down and search them out…even Heidi’s recommendations once in a while as well !!!

I think Mr. Grant’s point was that in an effort to come up with a “best of” list for 2008, he didn’t get very far, and that was a disappointing realization for him. If you’re doing a top ten list, and you know with absolute certainty what the top 2 or 3 would be then those are really the “best of” and the rest of the list is just filling up space through #10, and I gathered that sort of thing just doesn’t interest Mr. Grant.

Plus, Mr. Grant isn’t a comics reviewer/critic. He’s an op-ed comlumnist with a day job. Let’s not be so harsh.

In order for there to be a comics equivalent to Roger Ebert, that person would need free and unlimited access to every comic or graphic novel published, the time with which to read them all, and the ability to solely live off of or independently of comics criticism. I don’t see that happening.

It’s natural for a comics writer or artist to want to do series, to maximize his earnings potential and to earn money regularly, but he’ll be choosing economics over art, unless he somehow manages to produce works that are diverse enough and sell well enough that publishers won’t want to pigeonhole him.

I’ve been wishing that comics were published as original novels ever since I began reading them regularly, because endless serialization will inevitably ruin any character; my favorites, Dr. Strange and the Vision & Scarlet Witch duo, were essentially thrown away by Marvel Editorial because neither they nor the writers they used were willing to use, or thought of using, the heroes as fantasy genre characters instead of as superhero characters.

Dreariness wasn’t nearly as much a focus of Grant’s piece as was the belief that no one, least of all the reader, is served well by monthly serialized fiction.

SRS

Maybe next he’ll discover that they also have pages. Whatta putz.

I can’t afford to dedicate myself to a monthly comic book other than a handful of Jonah Hexes or the new monthly Spirit because I’m practically guaranteed a complete done in one story.

I get more excited plunking down $16.00 or so for a DC Showcase or Marvel Essential trade, knowing that $16.00 is stretched across 24 issues or so in collected reprints.

Most money I get to spend on comics these days are on the ones I churn out. The only reviews I’m interested in reading are those of my own.

~

Coat

For what it’s worth, I’d have no objection to anyone writing there were only two superlative works in 2008 and wrote just that — or one. Or zero, for that matter. I know plenty of people that will likely think that.

I agree with Grant’s argument that certain aspects of book publishing in particular are calcifying in a way that isn’t healthy, which is why I didn’t rebut those points, and I’ve been writing about that for about two years now.

Jim, I do make an effort read everything, but I can’t write as well as any of those people you mention. I spend 15 hours a week on CR — maybe up to 18 if a major cartoonist dies — and I don’t get to rewrite as much as I should. It’s shameful, and I’m frequently embarrassed by my efforts, and I’ll make a better attempt at writing more effectively in the year ahead.

I agree with what seems to be your sentiment about critics not trying to read as much as they can. I don’t understand how anyone can put out a best-of list without having tried to read everything they can, and I don’t understand how anyone can have the time to do this until, I don’t know, February or so. One of the reasons I responded to Steven is that I thought he hadn’t read nearly enough material to make a sweeping statement like he did.

Me, I’d rather read Jog’s reviews than Kael’s reviews, Heers essays over Christgau’s, and I’d rather read the parts of Groth, Scholz, Levin and Khosla that fulfill or have fulfilled the Bangs role than Bangs. But I know that’s just me.

As much as comics values critical discourse over empty-headed boosterism and self-affirmation and the fulfillment of marketing initiatives we should get down on our knees every night and thank god someone as smart and funny and insightful as Jog writes for us for basically free. Viva la Jog!