As the theorist of the genre, Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics; The Reinvention of Comics) has been called the "Aristotle of comics," but as the guest editor of this year's Best American Comics, he's displaying his good-natured eclecticism. This festive 400-page gathering collects the best in graphic novels, magazines, pamphlet comics, newspapers, minicomics, and the Web. A delight to behold.
09/08/2014
Editor McCloud (Understanding Comics) highlights the diverse number and styles of comics in this occasionally frustrating but ever-essential annual. The “big names”—Los Bros. Hernandez, Charles Burns, R. and Aline Crumb—are well represented in a section dubbed, tongue-in-cheek, as “The Usual Suspects,” but a myriad of alt-comics, minicomics, and webcomics continue to make this series the widest-ranging comics collection of its kind. Transitions from one piece to the next continue to be occasionally jarring: unlike a prose anthology, there’s no visual indication that one excerpt ending until the page is turned. But the selected pieces are varied and absolutely vital: charming teen angst (Raina Telgemeier’s Drama), trippy beat-box history (Hip-Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor), romantic SF fantasy (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’s Saga) and autobiography via funny animals (Sam Sharpe’s “Mom”). McCloud’s entertaining and conversational introductions to each section educate and enlighten. As this series approaches its 10th anniversary in 2016, a single book can no longer fully capture the explosive growth, range, and variety of comics today, but this volume’s smorgasbord nevertheless offers readers the opportunity to discover new styles and a sense of the range of genres in the graphic novel world. (Oct.)
"Keeps raising the bar for comics as an art form."—USA Today "A wide-ranging journey of 35 comics and interstitial text pieces that thoroughly engage the lifetime comics reader and the uninitiated alike...One splendidly eclectic trek, with McCloud as our especially articulate Sherpa."—The Washington Post
"A gorgeous book that does right by its subject matter...With its smart format and context, 'The Best American Comics 2014' not only manages to unite clashing styles under one roof, it also makes an intimidatingly vast world of gorgeous, often challenging art accessible to a general audience."—The Denver Post
"This edition may be the best one yet...[McCloud] constructs this collection in an interesting and thoughtful way that makes these excerpts of some of the year’s best comics fit together in a cohesive manner."—Miami Herald
"If there's one thing Scott McCloud is better at than making comics, it'sexplaining comics, which makes him the best possible editor for this year's Best American Comics. McCloud's volume is surprising, delightful, diverse, brave and endlessly wonderful."—Boing, Boing
"The Best American Comics 2014 is the best edition of The Best American Comics to ever be published...The best book I've ever read in the whole Best American series. It's informative, funny, surprising, and a satisfying reading experience on its own. This should be the book that every Best American guest editor aspires to emulate in years to come."—The Stranger
"Whether you want a laugh, intrigue, romance, or just plain weird, there’s something for everyone in this hardcover book."—The Awesomer "McCloud could be the medium’s foremost deep thinker...There is much to be gained from his comprehensive embrace of the form and his nuanced, knowledgeable, and friendly essays preceding each of the themed sections...A master class in how to find the universally accessible in the intimately personal and transform images into emotions...Every page drives home the point that, if you can add only one book to your adult graphic-novel collection this year, this has got to be it."—Booklist, starred review "The latest annual roundup is more ambitious and conceptually audacious than is usual for any "Best American" series...The spirit of discovery makes this a good launching point for readers interested in the genre's variety and limitless possibility."—Kirkus "Ever-essential...the widest-ranging comics collection of its kind...selected pieces are varied and absolutely vital...McCloud’s entertaining and conversational introductions to each section educate and enlighten...offers readers the opportunity to discover new styles and a sense of the range of genres in the graphic novel world." --Publishers Weekly
2014-08-27
The latest annual roundup is more ambitious and conceptually audacious than is usual for any Best American series. As a well-regarded critical theorist as well as creator of comics, McCloud (Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels, 2006, etc.) has points to make and issues to raise with this year's selection, which represents "just…the tip of a very big, very weird iceberg." Where these collections typically follow an alphabetical (by author) sequencing and need not be read in any particular order, McCloud explains, "I've divided our stories into ten sections, offering a short introduction for each. Each section is built around a unifying theme, and it's been fun watching the stories in each group talk to each other at night, find common ground." Most of the inclusions are excerpts from larger works, and given the structural innovations of comic form, many of them are represented in a format different from the original—e.g., the wordless excerpt from Chris Ware's epochal Building Stories (2012), an achievement of which any part can only hint. In addition to Ware, what McCloud calls "The Usual Suspects" include Charles Burns, Ben Katchor, the Crumbs and the brothers Hernandez. Highlights extend from Allie Brosh's Web comic excerpt from "Depression Part Two," confessional and cathartic, to Tom Hart's memorialization of his young daughter in an excerpt from his work in progress, Rosalie Lightning, to the nightmarish surrealism of Ron Regé Jr., one of those who explores "that far outer perimeter of meaning." Some of the juxtapositions might make more thematic sense to the editor than they do to readers, and the dominance of experts suggests that the main value of this volume will be to give readers a taste of other books worth discovering. The spirit of discovery makes this a good launching point for readers interested in the genre's variety and limitless possibility.
