[ILComics - but everyone who wants to join in is welcome] What's yer fave comix of 2006?

(Seth Fisher, btw. Cdn Cartoonist Seth still lives)

(also paul hornschmier, anders nilsen, and kramers ergot 6)

Oh, and Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, c'mon! Best comic of the year, one of my favorite comics of all time.

Sloth (Gilbert Hernandez), plus a lot of good nu-Love & Rockets
Daredevil
Seven Soldiers
Age of Bronze

Plus the already mentioned Action Philosphers, ASS, FF Big in Japan, and the taken-for-granted good stuff like Fables, Runaways, She-Hulk, etc.

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY

The best Graphic Novel I read in 2006 was Get a Life by Dupuy and Berberian, from Drawn and Quarterly. I also bought and enjoyed the Essential Swamp Thing collection from Marvel, the latest Acme hardcover from Chris Ware, the first Fantagraphics Popeye volume, the impressive TCJ special on Kurtzman, the Art Out of Time anthology edited by Dan Nadel, and Paul Gravett's groundbreaking history of British Comics.

Worst comic I read in 2006: Infinite Crisis

(i also really dont get the love of scott pilgrim, i mean its well paced, and the drawing is that americanised hipster manga that seems in right now, and the jokes are sweet, but its sort of blah)

i wonder if fun home is impt to chris and i, because we are hyperliterate fags, but then i am reminded how deeply i love the art, and how tightly contained/pretty it is.

kramers ergot 6 is masterful, not nearly as much excellent storytelling as 4, but radically expolsive in what comics can do visually, what it means to tell a story w, both abstraction and narrative--often it is garish and ugly, but i love its willingness to fail, thats impt to me.

(why paul hornschimer's let us/be perfectly clear is so impt, vital, is that it takes that radically exprimental visual tendency, adn grounds it, with both a history of what comics did, and why narrative is impt--some of the stories, by their absences and gaps are genuinely frightening or exurbantly joyful, or all and everything in b/w--and have that radical shift in tone, be able to make sense as a physical object, is masterful)

i also enjoyed batman confidental but i have no idea why, mostly b/c i think visually (i didnt read it, just looked at the pictures), reminded me of the old doc savage shiny machine cult, and i am enormously fond of that.

(nicholas roebel draws excellent robots, and darion scotts wyldestyle remixes of pervert suits were the best visual jolt i got all year)

Books of Doom - I played scrabble at Xmas and kept saying stuff like "You are but a gnat to me!"
Fantastic Four and Iron Man: Big in Japan
She Hulk: Time Trials
The X-Men where Apocalypse came back and messed up Gambit
The Decimation series - especially "the 198", and the one where Quicksilver steals some stuff from the Inhumans, and Blackbolt gets pissed off.
The Sentry - haha, what if Superman was a mentalist?
New Avengers - can't bring myself to read the one where Alpha Flight get killed. Bandis what have you done?

At present I'm reading Inferno (yawn) and the Champions Classic.

I didn't really read Indie stuff this year. I liked Superfuckers by James Kochalka though.

Oh, I liked X-Factor too.

I'm so lo-brow.

Apparently I just wasn't reading closely enough, because I always assumed this was either a made-up title or was something pure spandex with an unlikely name. Actually I kinda wish it was somewhere between spandex and what it is? Maybe? Well, anyway, I should go back to the site and read more.

I thought Paul Hornschemeier's Let Us Be Perfectly Clear was really interesting, but not even remotely consistent -- I like his design work, but it often seems like a melange of lots of big name indie stars with only baby steps toward establishing his own voice. He's still pretty young, not even 30 if I recall, so I think he'll do something really great later on so long as he doesn't fall into the horrible, horrible trap that plagues nearly everyone in that scene, ie: over-reliance on autobiography, relentless sadsackery, wanky obsessions with writing stuff ABOUT comics, and a slow-drip output that retards growth as a writer. Look at Chris Ware -- that guy is a totally brilliant designer, but I think he's too far gone to write anything worthwhile again in his career. I'm really suspicious of indie comics cheerleaders at the moment -- there's simply not enough good stuff coming out to justify it, all the big names are either AWOL because they put out one 20 page comic every other year, or we're getting stuck with books collecting entire chunks of someone's life's work that really doesn't amount to much more than pretty pictures illustrating stories that would get laughed out of most any college writing workshop.

Pretty much none of that makes any sense to me. To justify what? AWOL from what? Isn't it better to have more people create less work than to have -- well, any of the other alternatives? And while it's great to have a well-wrought story with well-integrated artwork, just having a feeble story to draw the reader along to the next pretty picture also seems like an acceptable and indeed terrific way of doing business. I'm only interested in the "story" (or anything else) so much as it gets me to the next bonbon, whether it's a pretty picture, a startling idea, or, sure, a gripping plotline.

Also, anything that meets with approval in a college writing workshop can hang out at the bottom of a litterbox for all it's worth.

It turns out I mistakenly just bought half of it, the 2nd half. I'm kind of irritated that they didn't collect it into one volume.

I won't be buying the first half. The plot was a million times too convoluted, requiring too much dialogue and interior monologue. That wouldn't be so bad in itself, but the dialogue and monologue were all pretty poor. The rise of Image is one of the main things that chased me away from comics, but I don't think I'm just being a hater when I say that Jim Lee draws pretty pictures but doesn't really tell a visual story.

The more I think about it, the more I hate it, really. An excuse to trot out all of Batman's villains one after the other, just to stretch an incomprehensible plot and suck cash out of pockets. I think I'm having a bad allergic reaction to it because I read it right after reading that Gotham Central collection -- that was good stuff.

An excuse to trot out all of Batman's villains one after the other, just to stretch an incomprehensible plot and suck cash out of pockets.

sure sounds like the one I read, but I'm pretty sure Jim Lee didn't draw it - I think it was Tim Sale.

How is Chris Ware "too far gone to write anything worthwhile again in his career"? far gone from WHAT? And how did you get this gift of foresight, that you can PREDICT the value/trajectory of an artist's FUTURE career? the last two Acme vols have been amongst the best things Ware has ever written, perhaps you were too busy jizzing yrself over the latest Mutant fodder to notice/care

also, NAME some of these "indie comics cheerleaders", NAME these "books collecting entire chunks of someone's life's work that really doesn't amount to much more than pretty pictures illustrating stories that would get laughed out of most any college writing workshop"

The ones that actually have realistic plotlines, or at least believeable ones, are still in Japan. I'd guess it's in part because they're still being published. Well, my top candidates are, anyway.
They are:
Hourou Musuko(Transiant Son)
and
Family Compo(aka F Compo)

I don't think Hornschemeier is in the same place, and never said that he was -- I just hope that he continues to follow his voice rather than falling into the patterns of his (seemingly obvious) influences. I think that dude has a LOT of potential, and a lot of Perfectly Clear is already at a very high level of quality.

And yeah, I think things could be a lot better if people in the indie portion of the comics world were anywhere near as prolific as the writers and artists for Marvel, DC, Vertigo, etc. (Or even the Frank Quitelys of the world!) Sometimes that schedule cuts into quality, but I think a lot of people also improve at a greater pace when they are producing more, especially the writers. I totally understand why the productivity levels are where they are, and that it's a slooooow process if you're working solo, and that some folks are very perfectionist, and that's their right. It's a personal wish, not a command. But there's a very real possibility that better work could come from working at a faster clip.

And....oh yeah, Mike Allred's SOLO did come out this year, and it ruled. I really liked Brendan McCarthy's SOLO as well.

I also just read 'Men of Tomorrow', finally, and want to get my hands on Neal Adams/Denny O'Neill Batman stuff, but it only seems to be available in 3 silly-price hardcovers which, given the number of actual issues, is a rip-off. I was hoping that Showcase Batman would have them, but that seems the be the campy 1960s stuff - or am I wrong?

Also loved this year: LOST GIRLS, all Kevin Huizenga, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, all the SEVEN SOLDIERS books, LOVE & ROCKETS as bizarre as the most recent issue was, FINDER: FIVE CRAZY WOMEN, SCOTT PILGRIM, Max's BARDÍN THE SUPERREALIST... I think this makes me an indie-comics cheerleader.

And of course there's my love/hate-but-generally-affectionate relationship with 52.

Some very good indie people really are hyperprolific--Gilbert Hernandez, in particular, did three or four solid book-type-books' worth of work this year. (It's Jaime who's the relatively slow one.) SCOTT PILGRIM is like 200 pages long and Bryan Lee O'Malley does one of those every year... Carla Speed McNeil works at a frankly incredible clip--the last 38-page chunk of FIVE CRAZY WOMEN was apparently done soup-to-nuts in a single month... Joann Sfar, anyone?