Occasionally, I get the heartfelt plea, “Don’t you even like comics?”, in response to which I usually refer people to the FAQ, or the fact that I clearly, y’know, read them. I consider reading things I don’t like the province of work or school. Maybe some people read things they don’t like in their free time. I don’t want to make hasty judgements, but those people are sick and weird.
I love reading comics. I love thinking about comics. I love writing about what I think about those comics I read. That is why I am so utterly delighted that from July 2007 the University of Melbourne will be paying me to read comics for three years. Filled with that joy, I thus present to you:
Ten of the Best Single Comics Karen Loved in 2006.
10) Penny Arcade. "John Gabriel, Dentista". Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins.
Oh, how to choose? This one neatly summarises my own views on the false distinction between “porn” and “Japanese comic porn”. This one, is pitch-perfect in its grandiose verbosity. This one has personal resonance, since it’s one of the few strips where I am actually familiar with the source material.
But John Gabriel, Dentista was the clear winner. Violence, absurdity, character interplay, perfect timing, strong, clean art, fanatical devotion to gaming and the ability to sneer at the needs of continuity – these are the things that make Penny Arcade great, and this strip has them all.
9) CardCaptor Sakura Vol #1. CLAMP, trans. Maria Simpson.
I told you I didn’t hate manga.
In a just-read-it-this-week bid for the list, CardCaptor Sakura and its adorable, gutsy 10 year-old heroine stole my heart. I am a sucker for strong family relationships, magical adventures, strange costumes and lovely art, and, it appears, Japanese elementary schools as a setting.
I could do without the totally creepy background detail of Sakura’s mother getting married at the age of sixteen, but I’m letting it slide for now. Release!
The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy’s Big Idea. Ann M. Martin and Reina Telgemeier.
Remember the BSC? Sure you do! This wonderful graphic novel version takes Martin’s plodding plots and clunky delivery and turns them into a cute, believeable story about four girls working to solve problems in their friendships, their job, their families and themselves.
Telgemeier’s adept adaptation is only surpassed by her gorgeous line-art. If you’re into light teen drama, get this book. It’s totally dibble.
7) Dr. Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
This comic came with my Doctor Strange action figure, which I bought primarily because it has fantastic eyebrows. The comic collects four classic Strange stories packed with magic and mayhem and with more grandiose exposition per page than Brian Michael Bendis would put in an entire issue. Check this out:
“Mordo, you overconfident fool! Did you not expect that I would prepare for your cowardly attack? It is not my will you have sapped! It is merely the will of this, my mental image! Only he could travel to England so fast… My real self just arrived by jet plane!”
That’s one panel, on a nine-panel grid page. Awesome.
The stories are absurd, the dialogue’s ridiculous and the single female character is a damsel in distress. And yet, I love it deeply.
Must be the eyebrows.
6) New Avengers #25. Brian Michael Bendis and Jim Cheung.
And speaking of Bendis, this issue is the Civil War story I’ve been waiting for. Because this is when Maria Hill, current head of S.H.I.E.L.D., really comes into her own.
Maria demonstrates that she’s smart enough to know her current job is a set-up, right after demonstrating that she is born for the job she actually does. She breaks into a sealed building, shoots a terrorist, prevents an anti-matter generator from going off and protects the life of a man she sort of despises. Then she starts a political coup. And she still has time to spot the innate hideousness of her anti-grav boots and call her team on their institutional sexism!
Maria Hill, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, was a person trying her best to do the worst job in the world and aware she wasn't able to do it. Maria Hill: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is smart, capable and kicks ass. More, please.
5) Castle Waiting. Linda Medley.
Oh, this was lovely. Filled with reverence and respect for folk and fairy tales, but gently questioning some of the assumptions behind them, Castle Waiting goes from funny to poignant to thoughtful and then wraps them all up together. The art is beautiful, the characters are finely crafted and the multiple stories and stories-within-stories are compelling and complex without ever falling into preachiness.
4) Polly and the Pirates Ted Naifeh.
Betty: "Would you like to read a comic about a proper little girl with weirdly drawn feet joining a band of pirates and outsmarting her headmistress, her nemeses and the longarm of the law?"
Karen: "Only if the multiple accents are so perfect that one is compelled to read the script out loud while admiring the gorgeous black and white art and extraordinary world-building. And if the French pirate was named "Pamplemousse"."
Betty: "Well, aren’t you having a fortunate day?"
3) Superman/Batman Annual #1. Joe Kelly, Ed McGuinness, Ryan Ottley, Sean Murphy and Carolo Barberi.
Pre-slashed for your convenience, Superman/Batman’s first annual was a non-stop romp with perfect comic timing, snappy dialogue and heaping helpings of insanity. You don’t have to have read any of the series itself to enjoy this comic. I know, because I hadn’t and I laughed so hard I gave myself a stitch.
Notwithstanding the glory of alternate universe versions of our heroes, the cameo appearance by Definitely Not Deadpool and the poise and class demonstrated by everyone’s favourite female reporter, in how many comics can you see Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne sharing a single bed? In at least one!
It’s glorious. Buy it.
2) Runaways #19. Brian K. Vaughan and Mike Norton.
On the cover of #18 were the words In this issue, one of these Runaways will die.
Yes. And it was gut-wrenchingly awful, in a series that has never shied from the awful.
But it was the issue set after the death that broke my heart, as Vaughan and Norton deliver a story that begins dealing with the survivors’ grief, without making the mistake of piling on artificial angst. Molly trying on Gert’s glasses and yelling at the Leapfrog, Karolina’s attempt to explain human bereavement to her betrothed, and Chase’s first steps on a very dark path are all excellently observed moments of real anguish.
Sure, the kids still manage to make jokes about Starbucks and begin facing down a monster demon, but it’s the raw, realistic grief that got this issue on the list, and not just that of the characters. The first time I read Runaways #19, I started sobbing at Nico’s tribute to Gertrude Yorkes as a girl who “hid all my My Little Ponies in the woods because she said they didn’t belong in captivity”, and didn’t stop until the pages blurred.
1) Nextwave #9. Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen.
Warren Ellis’ sordid, relentless, hysterically hilarious tale of five people beating up things to save America is my favourite title of the year. This is not least because it satirises the gratuitous violence and absurd hypermasculinity of some modern superhero books, while also being absurd and gratuitously violent in a fun way. It laughs at the conceits of such books and then offhandedly does what they do better.
Immonen’s extraordinary art is also equally fabulous both in its own right and in its effortless superiority. That’s what stylised looks like, Liefeld. That’s what facial expressions look like, Land.
It’s all so good, it would have been hard to pick a best issue.
Except that in this issue, where Millar-esque manufactured superhero teams flood the skies, Elsa Bloodstone is attacked by a parody of Ultimate Captain America. As she lies in the street, he taunts her: “Just lay there. Get used to it. I’m the predator, and you’re nothing but my victim.”
“Victim? Victim?” Elsa responds, shooting the asshole and then pointing at her European Union T-shirt. “Do you think this letter on my chest stands for America?”
Issue 9 it is. Well played, Internet Jesus. Well played.
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